Back in late November on Test and the December 5th rollout of LS on Live the update notes indicated: Reduced pet combat lag due to spell casting and weapon procs. I haven't seen any comments whether the changes were effective. I can't tell in my own use so I continue to defeat all proc buffs and weapons on my group pets. Did anyone have a chance to try and measure the difference?
the change is worthless, like 25% reduction, wunder why not more But they should do more to reduce it
I ran a few raids with proc weps and spell proc buffs unblocked. i saw a decrease in dps. not as much as before but still less dps then no procs and proc buffs blocked. a better solution would be to follow the same path they went with bane procs. just get rid of it and replace the proc with something usable. like top tier mage pets have +BS damage or something and default proc buffs dont land on pets. what could be interesting and fun is the damage on a wep mattered! wouldnt that be a treat lol
Not only does it not affect player attacks, players affect it. This isn't only raids though. Even in a group or solo setting you do less damage with your pet if you give it weapons. Or even if you let it cast the spells it was designed to cast.
My characters happen to be itemized by me to proc many times during combat, both spellcasting (druid) and melee (monk). I do not like being part of the problem but the game is designed so that it increases their damage output by a considerable amount. I would be fine if the procs would be replaced by equivalent damage output (considering all factors) through increased spell damage and melee damage. This is another case of someone at SOE/Daybreak/Darkpaw not considering the consequences of their design decisions for the future. The day (well, it wasn't one day but...) they announced every class would get a bunch of swarm pets my mind boggled at how they must not play EQ because it was just an invitation for everyone's framerate to drop considerably (more mobile objects on screen), not even considering the server load.
1. The reason there are (so many) procs is because resist is all or none. If proc was base damage, you would either do full damage, or 0 damage. As it is now, you can still land damage even if the base damage or one of the procs is resisted. This helps smooth out the spiky damage. It also helps them design around being invulnerable to a proc without canceling out the base spell. 2. I remember it having been said that in the pipeline, pets are de-prioritized from all other sources so that everything else gets processed before pets do. I'm pretty sure this is where the backup has come from. The pipeline has become so full from event/player sources that it keeps pets from processing their output. Decreasing or getting rid of pet sources won't optimize the pipeline, because pets are already de-prioritized, its the front of the pipeline that needs to be optimized or output squashed.
I understand that proc damage is different for a number of reasons. In the end, if procs must be reduced (which seems to be the answer to these issues) then some (many) parses of damage done with and without procs should be taken and more damage added to the base so that the base damage matches (as much as possible) the damage output without procs. As an example, instead of one of my augments procing Burst of Flames V (Whispering Midnight Casting Fire) the augment could have the same stats but instead the focus would be, "Increases the base damage your spells do by 1 to 5%". or whatever the amount is to match the proc. It would act like a type 3 augmentation, only it would not be for a specific spell/disc/song. Is that the same as the proc? No. However, if we are seeking answers to a problem, sometimes they aren't perfect. As for smoothing out spiky damage, I've always felt that damage is spiky because there are so very very many variables involved in damage. If all the dice roll your way, the damage done by you (this is true for the mobs as well) will be Normal x 5. If all the dice roll against you, it might be Normal / 5. The average might be Normal, but roll enough random numbers and you can get extremes.
Just use less procs if you're worried about it. And as a druid you're definitely not getting considerable damage from that Whispering Midnight Casting Fire. Too many people go out of their way for basically nothing.
That just sounds like a 'proc' by another name, server still has to lookup the spell effect, determine if it applies, and apply it. I'm guessing that's why luminous restless ice didn't get an update.
Quite different than: Determine if proc goes off (it's not 100 percent of the time) Cast spell Determine if in spell range Determine if resisted Calculate damage more stuff So, just adding a percent to your damage is a lot less server load than casting another spell.
Oh really? Here I cast one spell, just one. The rest are procs: [Thu Dec 28 18:22:12 2023] You begin casting Summer Sunscald. [Thu Dec 28 18:22:13 2023] You hit Combat Dummy Caza for 324899 points of fire damage by Summer Sunscald. (Critical) [Thu Dec 28 18:22:13 2023] Combat Dummy Caza is struck by the burning glare of the sun. [Thu Dec 28 18:22:13 2023] You hit Combat Dummy Caza for 7408 points of cold damage by Surge of Ice II. [Thu Dec 28 18:22:13 2023] Combat Dummy Caza is struck by ice. [Thu Dec 28 18:22:13 2023] You are bathed in an alleviating burst. [Thu Dec 28 18:22:13 2023] You hit Combat Dummy Caza for 106223 points of magic damage by Arms of Holy Wrath X. (Lucky Critical) [Thu Dec 28 18:22:13 2023] Combat Dummy Caza is crushed by the Hand of the Gods. [Thu Dec 28 18:22:13 2023] You hit Combat Dummy Caza for 5161 points of magic damage by Hammer of Magic. [Thu Dec 28 18:22:13 2023] Combat Dummy Caza is struck by magic. [Thu Dec 28 18:22:13 2023] You hit Combat Dummy Caza for 29676 points of magic damage by Hammer of Magic. (Critical Twincast) [Thu Dec 28 18:22:13 2023] Combat Dummy Caza is struck by magic. It adds up.
Would removing the "haha I killed you" spam from every mob whenever anything dies cut down on lag? Just make it if that mob actually killed a PC or Merc, not every time a swarm pet dies.
Perhaps it could just be a simple "HaHa". There are tons of messages that seem like overkill. For instance, The BookOfBadPoetry that makes me wish there was a way to delete the dev. who came up with it.
It may be some of the cause is from other sources, but there is a large difference between a pet with proc weapons and spell hold off and one with no proc vendor/summoned daggers with spellhold on and the list of blockspells for all the possible procs. I believe there is still a way to improve pets stability on their end as well. Like the mage servant gargoyles coming equipped with proc weapons is one easy thing to remove.
