Mage pets currently and for Agnarr

I have 2 questions about pets:

1.) It is my understanding that pets are almost back to their normal, live EQ status. There is some level of "nerf" holding them back which is supposed to be completely removed in LDoN. When this happens, a 61 air pet on Phinny should be identical to a 61 pet on a regular server, correct?

2.) Is it likely that Agnarr, once fully unlocked into LDoN, will have completely un-nerfed pets? Agnarr seems like fun but if the final form of the server maintains some type of nerfed pet, that would be a deal breaker for me.

If you plan on raiding, aggro transfer from MotM forever should be the deal breaker when considering a mage on Agnarr

1. Yes, if Agnarr works the same way the previous TLP did, according to what the devs announced about the pet power curve.

2. As a consequence, yes, if the unlock is at the same pace as it was on LJ/RF/Phinny.

3. The aggro transfer from pet to owner on raid bosses will still be there though, this has nothing to do with the pet power curve, it is related to MotM/MotOW. On raids anyhow you should avoid air pets and use fire or water when you can't use fire. They draw less aggro.

Why is all this nonsense needed? It never happened back in the day...why now?

Because over the years they have increased the power of mage pets on live servers and that is the code they are using on TLP servers. However, it trivializes the content and they don't have the resources to make a specific patch that changes the core combat ability of classes just for the TLP servers (and maintain that version). Therefore they accomplish something similar by using a permanent debuff on the mage. I wish they would do the same thing for monk fists.

You can assume if you play a mage or beast on Agnarr you will be forever limited in what you can do.

Because back in the day one guy didn't use 3rd party software to box 30+ mages to farm raid bosses.

They increased the defense of pets significantly around SoF era (the offense didn't change technically beside new tools/AA/Weapons but these are expansion related and not available before). Mitigation and avoidance got a big boost to make pets able to stand up better against mobflation, id est mobs hitting harder and harder. That patch was famous among mages and called the "Great Pet Patch".

The problem as TLP started to flourish, is that this defensive boost made pet too good tanks in classic and Kunark, that's why the devs implemented the 'power curve' (a cut on hps, AC, mitigation and avoidance which thins progressively out at LDoN). The fact people multiboxed mages for aggressive farming (or guilds using bot mages for pet walling, first Trakanon kill on Lockjaw was obtained by this method) made the devs go futher and implemented the Mark of the Old Ways debuff (further reduction of the pet power, including on the offensive side, look how hard an epic pet hits a classic/Kunark raid boss...) which becomes stronger the more pets are simultaneously engaged on a raidboss. Because this was not enough to prevent pet walling, there was a second nerf which transferred part of the aggro to the petowner on raidbosses and also made pets untargettable by raidbosses (if you send a pet on a boss, it's you who gets targetted by him, not the pet).

IF, and ONLY IF, Motm is dropped from future bosses.

Wow krono farmers are geting desperate...how about not worrying about boxing mages and just enjoy TLP's for what they are, I mean im sure you really cared about raiding in the first place playing a Mage

Anyhow, fire pet should be used when raiding (ok not in Tower of Sol Ro ), and with fire pets MotM or not MotM doesn't matter that much.

You can assume if you play a mage or necro on Agnarr you will be forever limited in what you can do.

There fixed it for you, nothing wrong with beast at all.

The boss "buffs" cause serious aggro issues which severely limit what beasts can do in a fight, at least in terms of damage, as they will constantly pull aggro due to the mechanic.

Without this Magicians would be incredibly competitive in terms of damage, and beasts at least would do damage... It's too bad DBG has chosen to keep them down for so long.

/nod

Every nuke your fire pet casts against a MotM mob is a nuke you can't cast without pulling aggro so ya it matters. Is the fire pet as bad as the epic pet at ripping aggro? no, but it is still an issue that will only get worse.

They did do the same thing with monk fists. Delay on fists are 38 always without epic on TLP. Go look up the live H2H tables, they are way better.

The fire pet is way lower aggro than air/epic, but that was not the point of what I wrote.

I pointed out that the MotOW penalty suffered from pets don't apply fully to fire pets (therefore they suffer just the Mitigation of the Mighty penalty as every player character) which makes fire pet the better choice as long the boss is not fire resistant.

I will agree with you that MotOW does not matter as much or at all for fire pets but thats not what I was responding to.

Pssshaw! What do you know about Mages pulling aggro Senji? You never pull aggro on raids. Clearly you're not a good Mage

I was actually interested in this server because I played most of my time during that Era of EQ. Screw that truebox BS though