Looking at only making these type mobs in raid content? or possibly even some group content? Would it be possible to actually invite monks, rogues, zerkers, bst, and undergeared tanks that are LFG to my molo sessions?
I honestly kind of like it the way it is. I mean the pet has such low ac and takes such huge hits that if it were tanking, it would basically sap all of the cleric's mana, and currently it keeps aggro when there are not enough people for it to not have aggro extremely well. It would be a huge pain in a group if the tank couldn't get aggro over the pets.
I don't know that I want to change the aspect of players next to the pet. I'd take it though if it was given, I bet mages would like to be able to group with rogues etc and not need a NPC tank for the rogue to get in there. My thing is this, my wife and I duo a lot. We can only use 1 merc OR we have to pull out a merc tank. If any of our friends are on, we have to pull out a merc tank, even if they are ranged dps. No other pet class has to do this and no other pet class has the risk we have with charming. Necro, beastlord, and mage could easily do a group with their pet tanking, though a beastlord is probably going to want to be in there fighting as well in most situations. We are the only ones who are penalized (and penalized because of something that happened in 2003). Our pets were nerfed even further later in the VXed/tiptdays... a nerf that would not overpower us if it was removed now.
The thing is that when you ask for a change of that magnitude (un-nerfing charms so the charmed pet is not debuffed, and instead retains the same power as it had before it was charmed) you imply that Enchanters currently are not only out of balance as a class, but are not even in the same ballpark as the other classes. What happens if they give you that change? Well, Enchanters now shoot past DPS classes in DPS, and Tank classes in tanking and aggro control. The charmed pet is no more dangerous/difficult to handle than they are currently. Thus, Enchanters are to be balanced against this power, which translates to every DPS and tank class rising up to demand balance. Now, we're not better off relatively, and we are more than ever "The Charmed Pet Class" which means in situations where we can't charm a dual-wielding meat grinder of a mob, we are relatively weak. I bring that up because you've bemoaned that before and this would make it acute. Want ADPS? Heck no, you have über charm! Want DPS? Heck no, you have über charm! Want better debuffs? Heck no, you have über charm! Want us to use fewer uncharmable/unmezzable/unrootable/unslowable flags? Heck no, you have über charm!
Just to point out Qest, I don't need the pet to tank better, or to have more AC/HP or do more dps.. I just want it to be able to hold aggro when the tank is out of range.. like other pets do. That's not game breaking in anyway.
I know turning raid content into group content doesn't break your game in any way, but I suspect a lot of raiders wouldn't be happy. Remember Mana Burn?
You are using an argument that you yourself cannot back up. You claim you can do it if we change this.. but then you claim there are no charm-able mobs in raid content that are capable of doing it. Stop trying to stagnate the class and put up some useful information. We don't get along.. that's fine. I am not concerned if you like me or not. We disagree. So be it. There is no need however for you to interject nonsense into the conversation.
silku How would you suggest dev's reduce the total HP of charmed mobs or would you just leave them at the amount of HP they show up with? Do you think that a tank with 1,000,000+ HP would be balanced? There's this stuff called code; it's actually fairly complicated and not just changing a value in a XL spreadsheet. AFAIK there is no current debuff that would bring a charmed pet total HP down to even what mage pets come summoned with. As for what other classes (say for example a mage) would like to see you're probably barking up the wrong tree. Ya see, mages (or at least me and all my mage friends) are mages because we like to dps. A pet is an extension to our dps. Although I can play pet babysitter it's far from what I want to do when playing my mage. When I feel like playing a cleric I log in my cleric or shaman and do so. Telling mages to switch roles and do nothing but provide a tank for a raid will likely be met with some rather rude remarks.....we use to be vending machines and most hated it; asking us to be pet babysitters for a raid will likely be similar.
I'm not asking mages to be changed at all. Nor am I asking for your pet mechanics to change at all. Now, as to the HP thing my pets do have a lot of hp. They also take full damage from the mob most rounds. Your pet already has roughly 200k hp, but has mitigation buffs, avoidance, and simply tanks well. I have no problem with that. My pet, with it's massive hp, still doesn't tank well. Just to keep my pet alive while moloing, I must have my cleric on reactive, and chain stun in order for her to heal my pet. Even then, with casting Dizzying Squall everytime it pops.. eventually I have to med her and let the pet heal up. He's going to run out of hp soon. As I said to Qest above, I'm not asking that my pet tank better.. I am asking that he can tank. Could you imagine the outcry if mage pets lost aggro period, as soon as 3 people got on the mobs hate list? A mage could only tank in a group with 2 other people? That is what this thread is about.
Let's assume that the tactic does exist... and I won't go into how it would work because you and I have discussed it a little. Why can't we have it to where this only works in non raid zones? That if the mob you are fighting is raid flagged... your pet doesn't exist aggro wise? Gives group enchanters a boon, without changing the raid game at all.
With all due respect to Elidroth, the patch message that Mykalla posted is more in line with my memory of the situation. Yes, there were problems with "Frozen Jesus" in Velious, but I don't recall the "Rule of Three" being implemented until PoP. With PoP, Command of Druzil became the most sought after spell because it allowed enchanters to solo farm the BoT wing named ( necro/mage/druid also got nice charms this expansion but all the elements weren't there for them to anger the community the way enchanters did ). There was a nerf in there somewhere that I forget the exact details, but it made soloing with charm pets more difficult at least against names ( maybe they didn't summon at first or regen was bad on those BoT names, been too long to remember ). The next iteration was charm groups, which was basically a paladin ( to stun the mob you were fighting on breaks ), a ranger/druid ( to snare the charm mob ), a healer ( to keep the pet up ), and, of course, the enchanter. The xp was phenomenal which of course caused outcries from any class that wasn't in the magic quadrant. The answer was the Rule of Three, which was instituted for all pets ( charm and summoned ) and I believe still has some hand in the current problem with pets on raids ( since pets are exempt from agro rules when there are three PCs on agro, code seems to let them run wild on agro ). Incidentally, the Rule of Three was used by the first few guilds that made it into Plane of Time to beat Vallon Zek ( or whichever one caused the tank to FD ). By keeping pets on VZ, he would always face the MT due to the Rule of Three and not turn around and wax all of the squishy melee types. We used lots of pets to make sure at least one pet was generally alive ( everyone was casting pets for him, including druids and enchanters ).
