For each pet attacking the target, the mage's nukes does x more damage. X = 100 (?), increases with future ranks. Not sure if cap on number of pets that counts is necesary. (Inspired by of Many-line.)
You want this applied to all magician spells? Goodness we would be doing triple what berserkers do on raids, which would then allow the developers to lay down a massive nerf to base damage. No thanks.
IMO before they throw more of our DPS into abilities that scale with the # of swarm pets, they need to materially improve swarm pet survivability. This is a much larger issue in raids (though not only present in raids), in which most non-RS swarm pet will be insta-killed by pretty much any sort of AE damage. Even RS pets rarely live their full duration, so it's no surprise that other swarm pets have no chance. Unless there's another mob out of range of the AE or w/e to use /pet swarm with, swarm pets can't avoid any of that AE damage, nor can they be reasonably healed when they do take that damage. In general I think many AA swarm pets probably need a revamp to be brought up to stats appropriate EoK. The obvious solution is to give them more HP, which is probably necessary to some extent, but I doubt the devs want the average AA swarm pet to be too viable at actually tanking. Something needs to be done so that they can serve their function (visual DoTs for the most part) when not tanking, though. I personally think a potential way to at least help the issue would be to allow the Enhanced Theft of Essence Effect to add some sort of spell/DoT rune or absorption (and maybe a HoT if the devs were feeling particularly generous), since that would protect at least all of the swarm pets in group. As far as the idea itself, I don't know if there's a way for a damage addition to a spell based on a mob's hatelist. If there isn't, something relatively similar-ish that I'm pretty sure would work would be via a proc buff, almost like Ancient Hedgewizard's Brew (obviously proc chance could be variable, and via an AA instead of a potion). The buff could proc a nuke similar to Storm of Many in terms of how it functions. I probably also wouldn't make it scale per pet infinitely, since that both creates an issue if it scaled too much and requires you to hound pretty much everyone in your raid to use as many swarms as possible to maximize the damage. I personally like how Storm of Many works with different ranges of pets (i.e. 1/3/6/10/15 pets). It would look something like this (purely example numbers): [#####] New Mage Proc Buff Target: Self Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes Focusable: Yes Casting: 0s Duration: 30m (300 ticks), Extendable: Yes, Dispelable: Yes 1: Cast: New Mage Proc on Spell Use (Base1=10) e.g. Cast Time 2s=2.5% 3s=3.3% 4s=5.0% 5s=6.7% 2: Limit Type: Detrimental 3: Limit Min Mana Cost: 10 4: Limit Min Level: 75 5: Limit Type: Exclude Combat Skills 6: Limit Effect: Current HP [#####] New Mage Proc Target: Single Range: 200' Resist: Fire -200 Reflectable: No Focusable: No Casting: 0s 1: Decrease Current HP by 200 (If Between 1 To 2 Pets On Hatelist) 2: Decrease Current HP by 600 (If Between 3 To 5 Pets On Hatelist) 3: Decrease Current HP by 1200 (If Between 6 To 9 Pets On Hatelist) 4: Decrease Current HP by 2000 (If Between 10 To 14 Pets On Hatelist) 5: Decrease Current HP by 3000 (If More Than 14 Pets On Hatelist) For damage I just put in # of pets required to get the line multiplied by 200 for example purposes. It is a bit different than the original idea, but I think it maintains the same-ish concept? Again, the above I'm fairly certain would work, meaning if for whatever reason an AA damage bonus won't, the above is a possible workaround for a similar-ish effect. In general I think the idea makes sense for the class in that it works in a similar way to one of our more iconic spells. It wouldn't be a huge increase in DPS (at least with the example numbers), but enough to be worth using. It also scales well for raids, which is an added benefit.
What about something not keyed to the number of pets. This makes it a raid centric spell. A solo mage, or a mage without other pets in the group doesn't gain much from this, yet mages will be balanced assuming there are many pets around.
I was not aiming at a tremendous boost in dps, on the contrary, actually. A situational effect that builds on thebasic idea of the of Many-line, namely that pets strengthen our nukes in a controllable fashion.
As I think it, this will give a moderate bonus to mages for grouping, especially if they can get the other players to use their swarm pets. It would be a synergistic effect, with the potential to reward collaboration, and it would be visible (the wiz using sword pet so that the mage can nuke a bit harder) There are other effects that do not help the solo mage, these do not detract from the mage in any way.
I really like that. Boon of Many ? A design principle that I just wanted to repeat is that it should require more AA ranks with each expansion, so that it is easily upgradable from a game development view. I would want it to be "always on", that would make the most sense in a group context.
