Pet aggro nerf

What on earth have you done to pet aggro, at first I thought the new AA was awesome, means I can reduce the aggro when I have a proper tank, but today doing an adventure, sending my pet in, waiting 30 seconds, cast my DD and instantly got aggro???

Tried having the AA on/off, didn't seem to make a bit of difference, I'm left to just sitting watching my pet kill it.... even my chanter got aggro... thats NEVER happened :|

Completely ruined the game for me, literally killed what I enjoy, please tell me it's bugged?

Please revert the pet aggro to what it was Thank you, Sostenes

From the patch notes:

Companion's Provocative Demeanor can be foundin your archetype tab, just like your Calm Companion AA. Its a permanent buff so you only have to click it once on summon and sounds like it should be bringing your pet's aggro back to familiar levels.

It's really hard to tell if those complaining about the aggro are aware of and using the new aa or not. Sticking the explanation in the "Miscellaneous" section, at the bottom of a 600 page patch essay wasn't doing anyone any favors either.

Problem is that the pet aggro nerf massively reduced base aggro. For the sake of simplicity lets say it lowered it by 2/3. Base aggro was 100, now it is 33.

The new AA boosts base aggro by 40%. The problem is after the change the base aggro is now 33 and not 100. So only the new 33 base aggro is getting that 40% boost. That means the new AA isn't even close to getting back the aggro that was lost with the change. Using these numbers it is only at 41% of what it was before the change.

Then there is the matter of the new AA having no effect whatsoever on swarm type pets.

Companion's Provocative Demeanor is the "new AA" the OP is talking about.

Yes I know about the AA, as mentioned in my post...

The AA in itself is confusing, all over people say it puts the pet aggro back, but the AA description says it reduces pet aggro by 40%... which is it? either way, I tried both, and things are messed up badly, can't even use wiz mercs on balanced anymore.

for the record, it's a 40% reduction, aggro was way worse with this AA on.

Companion's Calm Demeanor
This ability, when activated, reduces the amount of hatred that your summoned companion generates with all of its actions by 40%

So, have they gone and reduced the base aggro and the AA simply reduces it further? thats how it looks to me.

Companion's Provacative Demeanor vs. Companion's Calm Demeanor
One increases base agro by 75%, the other decreases base agro by 40%.

Why have 2 AAs that adjust agro? Is there 3 scenarios that you can think of where you want your agro high, base, and low? Sounds like Devs are not thinking about this the way they should.

Anyways, the reason for the patch was to address high pet agro on progression servers. So progression servers are fixed, but now live servers are broken. GG

ok that clears things up, theres actually 2 AA's for this, only saw the first one and thought they'd done it differently to the patch notes as they only mentioned the 1 AA :| so just increased aggro 75% and all will probably be well again.

proper info next time pls DB :/

WTB 20 more ranks of silent casting.

Yeah, this new AA does not put agro back to what it was before the nerf. Using a pet with one agro sword and one fire proc sword, and my usual 4-5 dots draw agro off of him, where before I could layer the dots on and he'd maintain agro. Revert the agro back to the way it was before.

What is the reasoning behind this?

Let's nerf your pet aggro but wait we will give you pet aggro back with an aa. Even if it worked like this 100%, why would you do that? Why fix something that's not broken? This makes no logical sense.

From what I'm reading this isn't the case though. It looks like the end result was a nerf to pet aggro. It seems like this whole thing is a pathetic attempt to stealth a pet aggro nerf.

TLP.....................and it can be an issue for some raids. Regardless you don't screw up all pets everywhere all the time for the TLP or a few raids.

If you run a pet tank group such as what me and my wife are running(both had a mage/necro/bst group). You now have a chose to make.

1st. you can keep your current setup and are going have to lower your dps so you don't take agro off pets(I had the same issue as a poster above with my necro dots). As well as my mage box dps hotkey of 4 dds and the swarm pets being enough to grab aggro sometimes. Dps mecs are the same can now take aggro easy.

2nd. make some changes to mercs and your box or group make up. If people want to maintain the same amount of dps they my have to bring in a real tank or switch out a dps merc for a tank merc(ya they suck but their agro hasn't been messed with).

surely they didnt test this before pushing it out lol

When did they ever start testing stuff before pushing things live?

Yes, I know about and use Companion's Provocative Demeanor. It is useless, imho. All I get to cast now is my Remorseless Servant when my pet is tanking. One or two nukes and up up up goes my hate and the mob goes for me. You can still pet tank, sure. It is just that the fight takes forever since you can't nuke. Usually towards the end of the fight (mob at 20% or so) the mob will now go and attack the healer (real or merc) in the group. Forget about the pet crowd controlling multiple mobs 2 or 3 like they used to be able to do.

Things have been broken ever since the Dec 9, 2015 patch where they changed code that was over a decade old and:

"Adjusted how NPCs choose a melee target in relation to player pets:
- - It is now possible for a pet to be the target of an NPC's melee attacks if it has the highest aggro with other players in range.
- - This behavior can be adjusted on a per NPC basis and will currently be disabled for all current and previous raid difficulty NPCs.
- - It is additionally possible for some NPCs to ignore the hatred generated by pets and instead attribute a portion of that hatred toward the owner. This behavior will be in play on raid targets on progression servers. "

It seems to me "It is additionally possible for some NPCs to ignore the hatred generated by pets and instead attribute a portion of that hatred toward the owner." is working all the time on Live servers, not just in raids on progression servers as stated by DBG.

Companion's Provocative Demeanor is obviously DBG's way to fix, what they know is broken, and it doesn't work. The best thing they could do is remove the changes they implemented in the Dec 9th patch. Failing that, they need to double the hate generated by Companion's Provocative Demeanor from 75% to 150%....maybe that would work. *shrugs

I wish DGB listened to pet players concerns the way they listen to tanks, but sadly, we all know they don't.

You know when there is a nerf just asking for it to be reverted will get you no where ?

You need to all push for the proper solution of fixing it from everyone's point of view.

If they revert the nerf by 50% and make the demeanor spells an aura radiating from your main pet (to prevent your pets being out of range of the aura if it was on you). Then they work on fixing the other two reasons pets are forced to be put away on raids then they might be more inclined to work with you.

Just bumping the hate on the new aa will not fix your relentless servants. But giving all your pets 50% hate back plus making the new aa's both of them auras from your pet will fix all issues except the phantom aggressor issue for warriors.

This would also give you way more control of all your pets not just your main pet.

They should prolly also remove the decrease hate portion on the dichotomic companion line since with the above it will no longer be needed and just makes that spell useless when pet tanking.

Why were some mages saying it wasn't that bad on test btw just curious did it get worse when going from test to live ? Eanelder I thought you was ok with how it turned out ?

These boards are dead. There simply are not enough people left to push back against a nerf like this anymore. Look at TLP forums stats compared to Vet lounge it is only a matter of time before TLP stats overtake Vet lounge. The squeaky wheel has always gotten the grease in EQ and that is no longer the Live server players.

The only response you can make against this type of nerf is to quit.

How big is this aura going to be? There are times I have a servant controlling an add on one side of me and my main pet way on the other. There are also the times when things get ugly and my pet dies and I'm throwing servants out to save the situation. How would an aura on the main, dead pet help the servants hold off mobs while I frantically try to get them finish off the mobs? To me, your idea only works in scenarios where all the adds are clustered and the main pet never dies.