Can only DPS at about 40% of normal with new pet aggro changes

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Danille, Jan 29, 2016.

  1. Makavien Augur

    I agree the servants do need a dps boost they should also give mages back the sympathetic proc that casts the servants somehow always thought that was cool. Their dps has been stagnated quite a bit and so has the ability to have 4 out for at least 1/2 the duration of the 1st one cast. I always used my servants for dps and never for cc since I always had the monk or bard with me to pull less.
  2. Matari Augur

    I'd rather see DPS upgrades to direct nukes. They can delete the RS line for all I care.
  3. Piemastaj Augur

    They made a class for that, it's called a Wizard....
    Vdidar, Igniz, Zamiam and 7 others like this.
  4. Enkel Augur


    I was going to type something else, but your comment is better than mine.
    Vdidar likes this.
  5. Gnomeland Augur

    It's not back to where it was before at all.

    The only reason it feels that way is because pets can now taunt the monster off, after you take aggro from it in the first place.

    This is also why the swarm pet can't take aggro off of the main pet, despite them all receiving the aggro change and the swarm pet doing 2-3 times the DPS - because the main pet taunt the monster off of the swarm pet.

    But you can't turn off taunt, now, because then the pet has no aggro.

    It's still the same nerf. I've just stopped talking about it because I'm playing other classes.

    Player tanks are so "balance" at the moment it's ridiculous not to play one.
  6. Danille Augur

    Thanks for the comment!

    The intent of this thread has zero to do with groups or raids. This thread's single focus is on the difficulties the aggro nerf created for the solo/molo mage player!
  7. Danille Augur

    RS pets have terrible mana efficiency. They are not designed for DPS.
  8. Matari Augur

    There just a mana sink now.
  9. Cicelee Augur


    Heh. A magician is not able to solo TBM without RS. Period.

    BTW *They're
  10. Enkel Augur

    ?
  11. Cicelee Augur

    If a magician gets a three pull in Crypt of Sul and does not use RS, then I will be impressed and bow to their obvious higher level of skill and talent than what I have.

    So I apologize I should have clarified. RS is irrelevant for one mob. RS is helpful for two mobs. RS is required and necessary for 3+ mobs. In my opinion of course.
  12. Enkel Augur


    Pretty much, though you can finish off a 3 pull, solo. Isn't as easy as in the past, though.

    Edit: With RS, of course.

    Edit 2: Can be done without RS, but it's rough.
  13. Matari Augur

    That comment was sarcasm. Offensively, I don't really use RS much unless I have mana to burn. Yes, I still use it to off tank an add, but before I quit my mage, I was using cleric merc to off tank, and heal it with my druid. That cleric merc off tanks better than the merc tank.
  14. ptah Augur

    rags. just my thoughts. use was definitely a playstyle definition to each mage. pre merc.... used as a dps if mob lasted long enough as as speedup on pet as needed to rune/heal/dps/chain. Molo wise more of same plus rags became more important to control ago for multiple targets so I could rain/semi ae.

    As recasting rags became a chaining option. Rags became a pulling tool etc. IMHO I view rags as tool to dps more both directly and non direct.

    /multi bind rags 99% solo Molo group raid. sorry for typing error/swa wifi
  15. Baramos Augur

    Gnomeland consistently has his finger on the pulse of nerf effects and his analysis of "hidden effects" such as the RS aggro nerf. (He predicted this as a main component of the upcoming CHANGE to the nerf when that was announced.) And more. When he posts, pay attention. You'll usually find yourself nodding.

    When they first changed the nerf I did a cursory look and it seemed "ok." After reading this, and after a PM with him where we discussed what could be called crossover point predictions and past and present trends, I did the right thing for me and canceled. I'm not a maniac with my meager 3 accounts so the hill of beans is equally as meager. That's not to say I haven't spent a lot on this hobby. Way too much. When we were younger we'd call these kinds of nerfs a "bag-over-the-head-punch-in-the-face."

    Too many bags. Too many punches for this old pug. My nose is permanently sideways, now.

    Yes, you can have my stuff. My accounts all expire on 11/16. Unless a miracle occurs I can shake the EQ-California effect.

    This time.

    I'm pretty sure of that. Pretty sure.

    Keep swinging and let's remove the "pretty" and make a certain member of my household cheer. /chuckle

    Leave the game to the new guys who don't know any better. Maybe they'll like it like we did.
  16. Gnomeland Augur


    Sorry to hear that Baramos, but I agree with the idea that, when enough is enough, you have to vote with your feet.

    Just to expand a bit on what I discussed with Baramos, and which I didn't bring up before except in reference to Everquest becoming tank land - besides pet aggro, one of the major changes this month was them giving Defensive Proficiency to Knights. I've already discussed the balance aspects of this change countless times with respect to Warriors, but now to discuss it briefly with respect to pet classes and hybrid classes:

    Tank classes are massively ahead of pets and hybrid classes now on damage reduction.

    Remember Mr. "pets-must-be-nerfed" Daegun's parses back in 2014? I'll spare you the details of the thread and just give you the final parses from the thread after all four rounds of pet changes. Thus, it should be the state of pets today.

    Raid Mage Earth pet buffed with standard Mage pet buffs, including the rune line:

    [IMG]

    Group Shadow Knight with self-buffs, which includes abilities such as the Skin line, while casting armor line:

    [IMG]

    [IMG]

    For those who can't read, the Shadow Knight was receiving 4200-4500 incoming DPS while the Mage Earth Pet was receiving 7500 incoming DPS. But the max one-round damage for the Shadow Knight during those parses was higher than the Mage Earth pet - 50,000 against 36,000. This is why Knights were having issues - because the max one-round damage for them, even against TRASH MONSTERS, were, from time to time, as much as 50% of their health in one round. Both Warriors and Mage Earth Pets didn't have that problem.

    That problem, the same one that showed up in parses back in 2014, was what ultimately led to the changes you saw a week ago, in which Knights received the full Defensive Proficiency ability that Warriors had and an extra 5%.

    Now this problem, mathematically speaking, no longer exists. The maximum one-round damage after Defensive Proficiency ought to be 50,000*0.73=36,500. With the additional 5% and the other benefitof Defensive Proficiency, it ought to be closer to 34,000. So the max round is now lower than that of Mage earth pets.

    But what about DPS? Group Shadow Knights were already taking only 60% of the DPS of Mage Earth Pets. Now they are taking close to ~40%.

    What about Warriors? Well, Warriors didn't get changed, but according to Bashan's parses in the same thread:

    [IMG]

    [IMG]

    Warriors took ~30% of the incoming DPS of Mage Earth Pets.

    This is what Daegun actively ignored throughout all four threads, and it is the reason why Tank classes are now vastly overpowered compared to everyone else - including pets. In no era of Everquest has tank classes ever taken only 1/3rd of the damage as hybrids and pets, except for maybe when Warriors were using Last Stand. But now all three tank classes have a slightly worse version of Last Stand active all the time. Combine that with abilities such as No Time to Bleed and you have tanks who literally take about 5,000 damage hits from a monster that hits for 15,000 against other classes.

    There is simply no reason now to run pets/hybrids in your groups as tanks. Anyone doing so is literally just hurting themselves. And while the content, as it stands now, is easy enough for pets and hybrids to handle, whenever the developers decide to actually release a difficult expansion, where the tank classes are actually challenged by the physical damage they're taking, PRACTICALLY NO ONE WILL BE ABLE TO PET TANK OR HYBRID TANK THE CONTENT. The only exception to this might be Mage earth pets because they still have a health advantage over player tanks, and therefore with the state of over heals, you might be able to over heal the pet to tank the content. But Necromancers, Beastlords, Rangers, Monks, etc. - lelz have fun.

    Anyone who's not switching their group tank to a Knight/Warrior, after the changes, is asking for hurt, as the direction of Everquest currently is towards tanks being an absolute must have in any group.
    Igniz, Eanelder, Danille and 3 others like this.
  17. Gnomeland Augur

    The above also applies to the mercenary tank unless they also receive Defensive Proficiency.
  18. Matari Augur

    Pet tank vs player tank is nothing but smoke and mirrors. The latest pet nerfs has nothing to do with it.
  19. Vrinda Augur

    I'd love to see similar parses for a non-tank class. Ranger maybe? From what I see when a TBM group trash mob turns on a non-tank player due to momentary distraction/inattention of the plate class tank, I suspect the difference may be larger than what you're stating here.

    Also, it would be great to see some parses comparing the different pets (mage air, water, fire; necro warrior; beastlord pet with defensive buff) against a TBM trash mob. Saying pets can tank the current trash content isn't accurate if it turns out the only pets capable of tanking, even briefly, are mage earth pets and beastlord pets with the defensive buff active. If that's the case, there's no point in having the other three flavors of mage pet or of having a necro pet at all. Dps? It's hard to even notice the dps those pets put out over an extended parse, so we're talking about a minor long-term dot.
    I'm starting to wonder why anyone would knowingly roll anything but a plate class tank in today's EverQuest. One or two rounds from a trash mob will easily kill a silk class player before they can get a heal, and even the dps from a non-tanking warrior is better than necro group dps given the normal lifespan of a TBM trash mob.

    What would be really great is to get pet stats the way we get merc stats. The argument that "NPCs tank differently than PCs do, so you can't really compare" is hogwash. I want to be able to compare the stats from one pet to another pet. Yes, mage earth pets can do this or that. What about all the rest of the pets, including chanter and SK?