What exactly are you agreeing with? The issue presently as it stands is with *swarm* pets. You can get away with nuking 1-2 less times at the start. You cannot get away, however, from the massive efficiency hit mages took due to swarm pets no longer being able to pull aggro from the main pet. Mages have the worst pet heals in the game. Having to cast them even against one mob instantly makes soloing/moloing a lot worse than before, because to put it simply, mage pet heals are bad and can barely keep up with a single mob's damage, so once the mage has to cast them, the fight goes bad. And my challenge to Makavien earlier was to show just how "not overpowered" pets are after the 2014 mitigation changes. Tanking two trash mobs at once, WITH a mercenary healer, is a struggle for the earth pet now. Forget the other pets; they have trouble with one mob. This would be "okay" in case we were still able to use swarm pets the way we used to be able to use them. But after the aggro changes, swarm pets produce next to no aggro. This is a huge problem for mage *exp gain* specifically because being able to take damage off from the main pet with a swarm pet was what made mage exp soloing/moloing efficient. We were already worse off than wizards, enchanters, and necros when it comes to exp gain, and now we're worse off than even certain melee classes. For a class that has traditionally had soloing/moloing as one of its advantages, that is not acceptable, especially as mage DPS and group utility is in the garbage as well. The class has been broken by two rounds of heavy nerfs, one in 2014, one in late 2015. I don't even know what it's designed to do now because it sucks in groups, it sucks in raids, and it sucks in solo/molo. I suppose the new plan is for mages to tank for groups that can't find a tank, but how is that going to work when the earth pet struggles to hold aggro against one mob and cannot hold aggro on two, I don't know.
It's funny you mention this because even the warrior who was instrumental to the mitigation nerfs in 2014 was saying that, to compensate for the nerfs, mages ought to be given new pet heals/active abilities, as his main problem was with pets' passive mitigation edge over players. Did we ever get them? Nope. Instead, we got 1) rain nerfs and 2) aggro nerfs that took away one of the last efficient abilities mages actually had to mitigate pet damage. This is why I was against the 2014 nerfs all the way. I *knew* they'd never compensate us with anything and that once the changes were through, they'd just forget that they ever did them and consider it a "bug fix," as opposed to a fundamental change to the class that requires looking at the rest of the class. The present effects of the aggro change is, in many ways, a delayed conclusion of the 2014 changes, which ought to have affected us to a larger degree, but for the fact that mages were getting around it by using swarm pets to tank for the main pet. Now that's no longer working, you see just how devastating the 2014 changes were.
...that the current state of pet aggro is out of whack and needs further adjustment? Aggro being a chore isn't fun for anyone, and RS needs to remain a viable off tanking tool for mages given that they have almost nothing else?
Okay, fine. It looks as though you were talking about the main pet because you kept talking about the new ability they gave pet classes to improve their pet's aggro. For necros and beastlords, that's indeed the biggest issue for them, though necros have it a lot easier due to the ability to drop aggro instantly. But mages have an even bigger problem. That's what mages ought to be talking about.
You know speaking about them 2014 nerfs , that's when we had 37 guild that could finsh an expac , we are now down to 10 , and that most servers look like ghost towns at certain times , hey it could all just be coincidental.... Yi Min
As much as I want to think so, they've made quite a few other mistakes since then - for example taking away people's ability to exp before CoTF to "force" them to play TDS, putting out expansions that were too small - which simply leads to having an even smaller budget for the next expansion, the disaster that is TBM, and all the issues with the progression servers.
If you noticed I did say I thought the spikes were a bit much but it's hard to say mages should be able to tank 3 yellow con mobs like a warrior while healing their pet like a cleric and dpsing like a wizard all at the same time that is a bit absurd . Look at it this way healers healing power is not as great when they are focused on dps , enchanters dps is not as great when they are focusing on cc , tanks dps is not as great when focusing on survivability . As far as tanking goes if you have never played a warrior if you are not stacking defensive stuff on 2 - 3 mob pulls or more than you are not doing your job. Also if you are not spamming your hate stuff every 22 seconds or so you are not doing your job. How can we relate that to pet classes I am not sure. If you want to try and come up with ideas I am all for reading them and letting you know when they are starting to overstep the lines. Look at the heals casted as any of the abilities that refer to what them other classes are having to do to survive . Mages should not expect to not have to replace some nukes with heals to survive a double or triple pull. Or cast aa and burns when things get rough. I also feel they need to either revert the nerf by a % and also make the demeanor spells autocast on all your pets if the aa is active. That is really all it would take to keep tanks happy and make magicians happy. Maybe if calm demeanor would of worked on all pets to begin with the pet aggro issues when tanks are dying and low endurance may have already been gone. For group missions and most named that take more than tank and spank tactics it should be pretty difficult for any class to molo.
At this point in my EQ journey I mainly molo.So I would like to put my 2 cents in. I have played a magician since 2002 so I've seen a lot of good and bad with this class over the years. I molo TBM instances and I've had no trouble with them up to this point. I can kill named, three yellows at one time and so on. I learned to adapt to the new changes after a few outings so nothing really has changed for me. With 3 yellows I send the pet, quickly send the RS pet on another, and burn them down as quick as possible. Sometimes I get beat, but more often than not I prevail. In this situation the new changes make no difference. When I get beat, it's usually not because of the aggro situation, it's because I lose control of the battle, or my pet gets clobbered by a named with special attacks. As for named I just change my tactic a little. I made my mercenary better by having some spells it casts blocked by my pet and me. I do my usual with all my offensive and defensive AA's and burn the named. Throwing in a heal or aegis when necessary. What I do differently is cast the AA Arcane Whisper when Silent Casting wears off. I forgot to do this once and got summoned when the named was at 4%. I actually survived the initial summoning, but the named was having none of that. It promptly summoned me again and I died. The pet mitigation nerf a little while back is more of a concern than the current aggro issue. The aggro issue will be dealt with this month's patch so things may improve for us, but we shall see.
You don't know who's behind these names. They prob. were forum-banned a few times. Why are you even reading caster forums?
i was not aware thats your the forum police. but sense your not me then your not allowed to read my posts. thats how that works right ??
So, since no one besides you is you, and thus not allowed to read your posts (that's how that works, right?) we can safely ignore everything you post?
