Is any mages using Dissident Companion?

Discussion in 'Casters' started by IblisTheMage, Apr 4, 2019.

  1. IblisTheMage Augur

    Sorry if this comes out biased... mages have not had a good history with the dicho line...

    10k mana, 0.5 casting time, is it worth the mana and GCD in solo, molo, group, or raid?


    Smurf, “are”.... sorry, not native speaker.
  2. Petalonyx Augur

    I'm ashamed to say i have it loaded, Rank 4. As far as I can tell, looking at my pet health and trash mob health, it does nothing at all.

    The only bar that moves is my mana bar, and it goes in rhe wrong direction!
    IblisTheMage likes this.
  3. Nylrem Augur

    You have to parse it yourself, given circumstances you think you'll be in.

    For me, if FBO isn't running, decent buffs on pet, but no ADPS whatsoever, if pet has FBO, it adds nothing, nada, zero DPS.

    Same circumstances, without FBO, Dissident Companion 5 improves pet's DPS by about 70%.

    Depending how long the pet's gonna be on the mob, depends on how much damage per cast you'll get.

    IMO, at best, it's about the same as an average untwincast Spear most the time... for almost twice the mana cost. However, can pre-buff pet with it, before mob is in camp, to try and get most bang for your buck, if mana is not a concern...
    Yendar and IblisTheMage like this.
  4. Ibadan Kun'Tirel Augur

    Very situationally... When I don't want to load a pet heal, and need pet dps but don't want to add much agro... Almost never
    IblisTheMage likes this.
  5. Tucoh Augur

    The usage I've seen that makes some sense is if you're tanking a mob and want to offload some of the incoming damage onto your swarm pets, the de-aggro from dissident companion is useful. Otherwise I'm pretty sure getting off half a cast of your second-rate spear does better damage.
  6. Cicelee Augur

    I feel one fix that would cause magicians to use it more is to increase the duration to 30 seconds instead of 18 seconds. That would allow for more procs, more heals, and justify the amount of damage with the mana cost associated with casting it...
  7. Sancus Augur

    It currently lasts 24 to 29 seconds (26.5 average) depending on server tic. 3.5 seconds will likely not change its usefulness significantly.
  8. Nylrem Augur

    It's a decent idea, IMO, but FAR underpowered.

    Because of the casting cost, it would have to do significantly more damage than spear, in a very short timeframe.

    Because it's not focusable, not twincastable, doesn't stack with FBO, it NEEDS to do SIGNIFICANTLY more damage than spear.

    Because once a mob's dead, it's completely useless, it NEEDS to do this amount of damage in a VERY short timeframe OR buff be VERY MUCH extended.

    If it was 30s base duration it would last approximately what? 48s?

    If it was changed to 40s duration (base), to be able to be up close to 100%, AND if the procs were set to higher mod, so that all of them would actually proc in less than a minute, then it would probably be used.

    With it's current mana cost, it's just not viable, unless it becomes capable of doing twice as much damage as a twincasted spear.
  9. Sancus Augur

    We have 100% duration extension; a 30s base would last 60 seconds (100% uptime). The proc doesn't have any counters; the ability is limited to 100 outgoing hits. That would need to be increased to benefit from any change in duration.

    I don't think this is a spell line worth salvaging in its current form, though. Pets lag too much in raids for pet procs/hit damage modifiers to be a reliable source of damage.
  10. Tucoh Augur

    I know this is dumb, but one idea I've always thought would be cool is to change the dissident to give control of the pet directly to the mage, Eye of Zomm style, and buff the pet with ridiculous strength to make it on par with a top-end warrior and/or berserker.

    I don't think there's much of that in EQ (beyond bind sight), but one of the things that was a delight in WoW was Mind Controlling things as a Priest and running them around to destroy fools (or run them off cliffs).

    Timing it for a mage where they'd expend their normal cooldowns, pop their dissident and be out of the game (and somewhat defenseless against enemy abilities that required movement) for ~26 seconds while they smashed the mob would make for some interesting gameplay decisions from the mages.
  11. Pirlo Augur

    not to sound like a broken record.....

    but it's very hard for me to comprehend how some other classes have incredibly useful and adequate dissident abilities......

    and yet this mage one is borderline in the realm of "omg , how did we get stuck with such a bad spell"
  12. Mintalie Augur

    It pains my very soul to read once again that we shouldn't be using this on raids. What about in a group setting?
  13. Sheex Goodnight, Springton. There will be no encores.

    Not everyone decides about usefulness solely based on raiding. Sheet-mages are people too, you elitist monster!

    At this point I’m surprised a certain guild leader has not gone on a FQ Crusade to nerf the SK one.
  14. Brohg Augur

    In groups the damage addition is somewhat more reliable / respectable, but the deagro attached to the procs is "real af" as the kids say, so using it on a tanking pet is super questionable - and if the pet isn't tanking, then the healing portion is pretty likely to be superfluous which in turn makes the spell overall quite inefficient, since the mana cost reflects the package deal that includes magician-scale costs to healing.

    One can sort've see what the developer was going for overall, but the idea didn't go from mind to game cleanly. Just a limitation of the game engine. A whole new concept needs to be applied, sadly.

    Ooh, just had another new idea (not that the forums is short of them) - summon a big golden Servant pet & reflect a proc buff on the mage to summon a lesser Servant on subsequent nuke casts. That'd be worth some mana, and secondarily make Volley cooler in groups.
    Ibadan Kun'Tirel likes this.
  15. IblisTheMage Augur

    I don’t understand why there has been so little feed-back driven change on this spell.

    Maybe Aristo/Prathun disagree with us on its useful(les)ness?

    Maybe it is supposed to be a “filler” spell, so that we have the experience of having a selection between good and bad spells? This just doesn’t make any sence wrt the dissident being a “large” spell from an effort point of view, it seems like a lot of work for a filler.

    Maybe there is something we missed?
  16. Vizier Augur

    Again, asking for Mage buffs is just... ill advised ok? If you can't figure out why by yourself, then at least take the hint from everyone else.
  17. IblisTheMage Augur

    You still grumpy? :-D
  18. Vizier Augur

    You so troll bro!