How is mage pet tanking now? I heard it had gotten a boost. Is it still vastly superior to have a real tank in the group? Will probably have an enchanter to handle adds.
It depends on your context. Are you a TLP or regular server player? When you say now, do you mean compared to a few months ago or 4 years ago? It has been changed several times over the last 3 years. It was nerfed twice on all servers, then nerfed even more on TLP the last round, then increased on all servers within the last month (with TLP seeing a minimal change). It is probably worth noting that on regular servers during TDS, after the 2 nerfs, I was still able to mage pet tank every piece of group content in TDS, including all missions and named, with a setup of mage/dru/enc and mercs of clr/clr/wiz or clr/wiz/wiz. I did have to start using Earth instead of Water though.
A real tank is vastly superior to a mage pet tank. This does not mean that you should not use a mage pet as tank, it is just quite a lot more challenging and risky, and you will need CC, crowd control, and think about pulling. With buttons, a tank can stand with up to 10 mobs safely, and keep aggro, thus making other forms of CC and pulling unnecesay. Tanks are basically the best CC currently. A mage pet can tank 1, maybe 2 mobs, but it can only generate aggro on a single mob at a time. I personally prefer the playstyle playing without a tank, but it is very inferior power-wise. It is however closer to the "classic" EQ experience, where pulling singles and having CC was a necesity, the collaboration and skill needed in this approach appeals to me.
Not safely at all, even with pushing buttons. And requires massive DPS to kill them fast, so a full group with DPS boxed or not. Because a tank won't survive with 10 mobs on him for 2 min. To the OP, tanks are the most gear dependant and require lot of mitigation AA too to do the survival job, but you have also others areas to work like aggro. A pet will tank better than a lower geared lower AA tank. A pet will require less work overall than getting a tank up to date starting from scratch.
I agree, I think calling it safely over-estimates the ability for a tank to tank 10+ EoK mobs. I described my strat to tank 10 mobs here: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...e-warriors-opinion.239797/page-3#post-3527602 and won't clutter this thread by repeating it, but suffice to say a group geared tank can tank 10+ mobs unsafely, and only if they have good healing (real healer or 2 healer mercs), every cooldown available to them including some really long ones like Furious Discipline and the group has enough DPS to kill a lot of the mobs before their fairly short cooldowns run out.
on my cleric, i dump little trains on group geared tanks to watch them squirm, then after we live, i tell them what a hero they are~>
to me it depends on if your boxing or grouping with friends or guild. When I box I rather use casters or ranger/bard as they don't need to be moved round as much to stay on the mob. So I rather have the mage pet to tank as merc tanks suck. If I am group with real people I take a tank over the pet as long as 3 things are met 1st. the person playing the tank knows what they are doing and plays right. 2nd. the tank has the right gear for the area. 3rd. the tank has the right aa's for the area. I don't like grouping with real tanks who are way under geared or aa for the area who think they can still tank the stuff, or tanks who don't use their disc/aa/skills to do their job. I have had warriors in eok use nothing but taunt to hold agro and won't use any def disc/aa. When asked they say its not their job to out do the rest of the group in agro its our job to make sure we don't out agro them.(works both ways to be a good group). and that if a healer can't keep them up with out them having to use def stuff then the healer sucks.
A magician pet, with the proper pet focus/AA/healing, can handle one mob in the current expansion. Depending on your pet focus, a magician themselves​ can handle two EOK mobs at once regardless of zone. It is more challenging, but achievable. A tank, with proper gear/AA/healing/DPS, can handle anywhere from 1-10 EOK mobs. Obviously the more mobs the more challenge, but still achievable. If you are doing content such as COTF or lower at lvl 105, then it doesn't matter really what you choose. A 105 raid magician pet can go to VOA Valley, for example, and handle eight mobs at once. Obviously needs healing and discs, and the magician to maybe take some hits too. But point is, it is achievable...
I set my shadowknight pet to taunt the last 1-3 mobs before running off to pull more (if i am pulling to a static camp), if 2-3, i use an AA disc on him. I imagine mage pets would put little drogbone to shame.
Pets can handle all content ... Except that which specifically requires a player tank. You won't know what they are until you see them, but when you do see them, you will certainly regret your decision to not build a player tank. My advice to anyone trying to play Everquest today is to start with a pet class, so that they can get equipment, money, etc. Then switch to an actual tank.
Last time I played, a player within range would take aggro over a pet every time, regardless of how much aggro said pet had. Has that changed?
Treiln, it was changed last year, pet can now tank even while players are within range. Summon aggro weapons for pet and let it tank. A fantastic change I may add. Again, the problem arises if you get more than 1 mob in camp with no CC. The swarm pet doesnt have as good as aggro as regular pet with aggro weapons.
