There was a fun way to get massive exp with ranger pets back then, too. It's just more people knew about shaker paging.
I am going to say this for final time. Daybroken didn't open pandora's box for single purpose giving pet class more group options. Generally speaking, people who play pet classes don't care about grouping to start with. You have created a product that the majority doesn't want and now you are trying to create a reason for buying it. Now, go serve yourself a giant spoonful of the sludge you are serving.
I've known a lot of pet class players over the years, and I have to disagree with this. The vast majority like having the option of soloing, but are happy to group with others. While not as common as "omg class x op plz nerf" threads, I've definitely seen the pet/melee grouping issue brought up on the forums multiple times.
Can you provide proof of a pattern of the bold portion? The AA's don't seem to be functioning as they should. I quoted your post to point out that the changes were not made solely because of pet walling. It's as if reading comprehension was thrown out the window when you signed into these forums. So to be clear. I don't disagree with you that they have messed up with mage class. I do disagree that it was done because of pet walling. Which was what your initial argument was. If you can't understand that then I don't know what to tell you.
I appreciated the change that allowed pets to tank for melee, for the most part. I play a Rogue outside of raids when I can get away with it, and I noticed a pattern: if I'm not playing the tank, it's really hard to find one. Having the ability for pets to tank made groups more flexible and my Rogue could contribute more and feel more useful than /autofire. I don't like how ridiculously easy it was for pets to build aggro before at a pretty steep rate when I have to work for it and evaluate cool downs versus pulling, but it didn't used to matter. I could taunt off the pet to maintain aggro above other players with ease, use Warlord's Grasp to reposition the mob as necessary, and use Phantom Aggressor in conjunction with other abilities to put in the effort if I so desired. Thus, pet high aggro was irrelevant. Then Warlord's Grasp got nerfed publicly and Phantom Aggressor nerfed quietly, along with the pet change. Difficulty in dealing with pets increased dramatically if the pet owner was slow, stubborn, unskilled, (or a jerk). Pet control suddenly mattered a lot more for people who were probably not used to it, and my tools to compensate for that no longer work the way they were supposed to. This would be why recent pet hate threads cropped up. I don't mind pets having tanking capability, but I do mind if I'm supposed to be the tank and actively trying to do so. If you insist on not controlling your pet, since my tools don't function anymore, I'm just going to switch to my 2hander (same DPS as a wiz merc on burn, but smarter and you've got a backup tank ready in a pinch, it's not so bad really, just annoying). Then comes the patch that reduced pet base aggro and supposedly compensated with Provocative Demeanor. It doesn't seem to be working right, or is yet another nerf that seems counterintuitive to the patch that allowed pet tanking. I don't like the usual Mage or SK attitudes of wanting to be able to do it all and ask for more, but I also don't agree with the removal of engaging strategic utility or class defining capabilities. I don't play TLP (if I want that kind of toxicity, I play League of Legends), so I don't know if the patch for Provocative Demeanor was a TLP necessity, but I don't think it was needed for live servers after the introduction of Calm Demeanor. The pet tanking code needs fixed to allow Primary Pets (the more permanent kind like elementals and warders) to do the tanking while allowing temporary pets (servants, swarms, and phantoms) to do their job without taking aggro unless they are the only available targets. Warrior pets are dying early and therefor not building enough aggro, Rogue pets are dying early and therefor not dumping enough aggro. Before the Calm Demeanor patch, servants were drying early and not contributing expected DPS, but after the patch they no longer serve their offtanking function, and so are broken both ways. A second (or third or fourth) pass at pet tanking ought to be looked at.
The idea that DB changed pet mechanics for group viability sound great in theory, but in reality it doesn't work. It boils down to group adherence. Just because a pet can tank for melee that the pet owner actually wants to group. No matter how hard you try, you cannot force someone to group. I claim that the majority of pet classes (outside raids and progression) don't care about groups. The proof is in the putting. Go out and play the game. Step outside your social sphere and start a PuG for experience. See how many pet classes you can get on a regular basis to group with. From a research perspective, I think you will come to the same conclusion I did.
I group with beastlords , mages, and even necros all the time. Maybe not on a daily basis but even at the high end unless you want to do gribbles everyday then a lot of people go and do their own thing most of the time and get together for the harder content. That is 16 years of grouping and alt building which turned into boxes that makes that happen though not really people that hate grouping. And also I am a warrior, a bard ,and a magician for any group that needs any of those 3 and my mage has existed since velious and excels when in a group compared to solo / molo. No one uses lfg anymore and very few use /general lfg. People trying to do pick up groups is a very select crowd everyone else talks to each other via tells or guild chat and gets together that way . So your research is very limited if you tried the normal methods. From the research of going out and playing the game since kunark most people like to group the only thing that has changed is the way people form those groups.
I call BS. I see pet classes LFG all the time in general on Luclin AND Povar. I'll join a random pugroup and see at least 1 other pet class within that group..The change was to enable pet classes to have more aggro management, it was just poorly implemented. You're original point was that the change is DB's way of curbing pet walling, this is something only a TLP person would think. Again, if that were the case they wouldn't have changed the live servers pet code..On live NO ONE pet walls and if you say they do then you are either lying or you know some terribad Mages, period.
I am done with this is thread. I have had a better conversation talkig to a wall. You obviously don't play outside your social sphere if you play at all. This isn't everquest it's MoloQuest. I have stopped pretending it's anything else.
I play all the Pet classes ,two at very high level of raiding Mage/Bst , I am only an average or some would say crappy Necromancer . But I love play pet class , the change to pet tanking for melle was very good for my Bst ,she could now dps with her warder on very hard hit mob, I could invite any one to come with me on missions ,and I did help so many people get past many tough mission , but now my poor little Warder cant keep agro ,and people keep dying this very sad .... This holds true for my Mage as well ... Be for when they started to fix pet class we had 37 raiding guild on EQ, I said this two years ago and it is coming so true sad to say , many will stop play this game for newer ones where they listen to paying customers the sad fact is we now have 10 raiding guilds at this time of posting ....keep fixing the pet class , you doing a great job Raiding guild to me is any guild that beats the expac only 10 have so far Pet can tank was a win win for everyone that played EQ , pet that cant agro was a lose lose for everyone that played EQ ... Yi Min
they should've linked the aggro controls to the pet taunt button to toggle it on and off instead of creating aa for it. As for the rest, I haven't logged in until this gets finalized
If Mage is truly master of the elementals why can't we slow them or charm them ? And I mean past lvl 65 for charm , Druid can charm animal , Necro can slow and charm mez un-dead and Enc all .... And if what people say is true and Mage is best pet class , why Mage can only suspend one pet ? Mage should be able suspend 4 one fire one water one earth one air ... Yi Min
I'd be more thankful for the option to switch the currently active pet with the one currently packed up (even if only in OOC regen mode). Having to destroy a perfectly fine and buffed-up DPS pet because our tank needs a longer AFK is not funny :-( Or vice versa, when the tank comes back ...
Looks like they will be fixing pet agro issue in an up coming patch ,this is very good news for pet owners . Yi Min
With the advice of the pet class Mage/Bst/Necro , this will work good , we will have a pet that will taunt and tank for us ,and dps pets the will do dmg for us ,and not taunt when we want them too.. Yi Min
