AC changes currently on test that are gonna hit live shortly. The best guess as to why pets are seeing like a 65% increase in dps and damage is below but has not been confirmed or acknowledged by the dev team. But if it is the reason then whomever is making this change needs to realize that pets with no softcap need no alteration to the AC levels or it is yet again another massive pet nerf to the point that silk classes now tank better than dedicated warrior pets.
That would leave our group (3 players, 6 subbed accounts) without the means to play... I really hope this is not true...
Throw pets at the mob, summoning new ones as the old ones get eaten, or start rune tanking. Or root rotting. Or whatever would be appropriate for your mage + 5 others group.
Well as far as pet changes everyone will get at least a month to try new ways to play if you pet tank because as we all know if it hits test it will go live.
' Where are you getting this? They changed the way AC and attack is displayed. Not the values of anything,
Thanks for the suggestions. I am 98% convinced that this change is unintentional, and will be fixed at some point in time. Devs know very well where pets are today, and have been giving out minor upgrades in pet tanking in EoK, as well as trying out changes in pet foci AFAIK. If current state goes live due to development cycle inertia, I think it is best to take a short break until it is fixed... but I am quite optimistic, it would be real bad business to unintentionally nerf to this extent. There is no point in having a test server, if no business decisions are based on the learnings there.
Are you even aware of the mage class? Rune ranking? rooting? root rotting? (implying dots). You are confusing mages with other classes.
No, I am not confusing anything. The person I was talking to is one of a group of three that each play two characters to make up the full group. Unless all three are playing two mages apiece, they likely have other options available to them, including the ones I mentioned. And if they ARE all playing two mages apiece, then having numerous pets on hand will still get the job done - which was my first suggestion, simply throwing a number of pets at the mob. I know of one enc who claims to be able to rune tank most of the namers in EoK, with a wizard merc, on his own, without a bot or anyone else in group. Add in more DPS by filling out the group and replacing the wiz merc with an actual character, and it would be even easier than he claims it to be now. Point being, there ARE options to merely pet tanking, especially for a full group.
It leaves few options for mages to solo/molo, I agree. That circumstance is not what I was addressing. I thought that by quoting him talking about his group I was making it clear I was talking about his group situation, not the solo or molo mage situation. Also, just because a mage lacks a full group does not mean a mage lacks a group. A small group (tack on a necro or a chanter, for example, and duo with or without mercs) has a lot more options than a solo or molo mage.
Shaman, Bard, Enchanter, Druid (levelling), Mage, Mage (levelling). Rune tanking is an option, root rotting, hey maybe even Bard tanking... (jk)
Either way, we are talking about a class that could handle tanking for a group now unable to. With the support you are discussing - that removes the need for a tank. This would be an unimaginable nerf for mages, and basically destroy them in the group game.
Guess1: They tweaked some AC/mitigation/avoidance calculations, made a mistake and now pets are terrible at tanking. Guess2: They haven't responded to it since putting it on test, so they don't know about it. With this kind of change I'd expect an "oops" by now if they knew about it. If I played a pet class and relied on it for tanking I'd be making daily threads with the title, "DEVS PETS ARE PAPER ON TEST ABORT PATCH".
Obviously the patch needs to be held back from hitting Live servers and a developer needs to comment on this problem. It's got to be unintentional.
why hasn't anyone? It seems people know about this. Page 2 of a thread about something else isn't the place to hope a dev will see it. Someone with details needs to make a new thread about this (probably in progression since those threads get lots of responses).
Most staff is probably off work today and more concerned with the new server that is scheduled to launch tomorrow, plus all of the characters that are being transferred to it.