Wow you realize you make no sense here. In fact, you just posted an impossible contradiction. Because in first part you say Developer Goals won't change (say 35-40 min) And in 2nd part you go onto say I think it's clear that everyone wants pet tanking to remain a viable, reasonable, but balanced option. Those are not the same thing. For the second to be true, Developers have to be open to completely revising thier stated goal amounts. Literally absolutely have to have the stated goal amounts open to revamping. Let me give you a recent example. Developers said they wanted to make Endurance an "Manageable Resource" and as such they put Rest as OOC only change on test. They quickly realized in the testing process that thier goal was incompatable with play level and balance for game. I think this Poster Get's it far more than you. Right now, even after a first raising of AC of Pets. Data is still showing the pets are not handling tanking duties they should in a viable way. I also caution developers to look carefully for agendas. I do believe many posters are posting biased data to look for a big class breaking nerf of pets. I do also have a question for Developers. What is your overwhelming goal. 1) To fit Pets into a set of numbers you think they should be at? 2) To fits Pets into a set role/power level you think they should be at, and find #s that place them there? Thats a very very important distinction.
No matter how many times the anti-pet tanking non-mage crowd posts that pets continue to passively mitigate better than tanks, they simply do not. Period. End of story. Pets are broken as viable tanks.
The word balanced is the whole thing. Player idea for balanced appears very different from the Devs. The Devs are the arbiters. Its their game.
This is grossly misinformed and just plain wrong. There are at least 2 and probably a third mage in my guild who can molo Argin Hiz named. I'm geared to the teeth as an SK and I can tank those nameds no problem, but can I molo them? Not even a remote chance. Every other class in the game is either a viable tank OR viable DPS, and none of them can molo current tier nameds (maybe necros, but that's the same issue). Even with the pet changes, mages are still perfectly capable of being both alone. The current mage "Woe is me, it's really hard to molo in PoWar now I HATE YOU SONY" battlecry falls on deaf ears to everyone else because NOBODY else has the absurd combination of a valid tank plus valid DPS built into a single character.
But it's not. If it was, then Rest wouldn't work in Combat. I know people threaten to quit all the time, and 99% of time its BS. But sometimes it's not and if you over fix something to the point of breaking whole classes, you are in a pretty big danger zone. There's a reason the Rest not working if you didnt have an OOC timer change didn't go live. It wasn't good for the game. Even if originally Devs thought it was.
Does the Mage pull as well you? Is the mage able to form a group as a tank when DPS is a rogue, berserker? Can the Mage heal himself from AE on a raid and survive if thier group healer is dead via tapping? Can the Mage survive a mispull and bring out a cleric merc to rez the group? What makes you think classes are meant to be 100% the same? Anyway, your completely missing the context of the posts 1) Pets on live got a slight nerf 2) Pets on Test got a Huge Nerf, then revised slightly upwards to still be a huge nerf. People are talking about current pets on test, being overly nerfed, not saying the current live minor nerf was enough. Theres a lot of room yet between those 2 data points.
Talk about grossly misinformed and just plain wrong. I have read nearly every word on the three (or more?) threads currently debating this topic, and I dare say not a single one has mentioned moloing in Plane of War. To clarify the issue--I'm talking about my pet dying while tanking two dark blue trash mobs in a Bixie HA with two healer mercs active and an enchanter casting slow. It happened four times in the time span of 10 minutes. Let me repeat--my pet cannot tank two dark blues that have been slowed while two healer mercs (one on reactive, one on balanced) try to keep him alive. Whomever talked about their guildmate moloing named in Argin Hiz, they are a better mage than me. I wouldn't dream of trying to molo Roon at the moment, much less a T2 named.
1) In nearly every circumstance, yes, if the mage is decent...pulling hasn't been an issue in a long time. 2) No, but they don't need a group to do 98% of content, so moot point 3) No, but mages have vast options of their own to keep their pet alive in emergencies, so lifetaps are a moot point, too 4) Yes, every class gets a fade now. Context - I play on Test. TEST Mages are still moloing top end nameds. It may not be as easy anymore, but it's still fully possible because I see my guild mages doing it, again, ON TEST. ^^^ If you can't molo Roon or trash HA mobs now, that's your issue, not the class. I've seen Ranndome and Colorby both handle him fine post-nerf repeatedly.
I think you and your elitist brethren fail to understand the VAST majority of the people playing the class don't have max AAs and all the best in class gear. The changes must allow the majority the ability to continue to play the game. Because the upper 1% can do it philosophy just doesn't cut it.
Have a parse you can link supporting your claims that on Test server mages can molo Argin-Hiz named? I would of believed that before the pet changes, but on test with the newest batch of changes your claiming they can still do it? Proof please...
Oh add me to that list too, I'd like to see it. But you know as well as I do it was bluster and fluff with no substance. 100% contrived.
I've stopped going back and forth for a lot of this since they have their next set of numbers from both players and their own testing. This particular snippet was hilarious though. Please, re-direct yourself to your own post: Ahhhh rats. I can't find the one where you said that a class being OP is fine, and to live with it. It probably was taken down. But can you see how you're doing the same things you're trying to call out? Most of the people you're trying to call out are doing their best and honestly representing data. You're just trying to find some way to break that data down. You don't think that after a base sample of data on a PC tank, a dev can go, okay... So a war took this many hits at X amount, if they activate Final Stand, cut all of those by 45%. The graph will now read this way? Are they too stupid to realize a DI 20 graph, with only 20 hits, is not using any activated ability at all? Because every mob has ONLY 20 values it can hit ANY PC or NPC or Pet or tree-in-the-woods-not-making-a-sound. If there are only 20 values, any person who understands parsing, knows that no mitigation was used. (Part of the initial problem too, was that a lot of times on pets, only 16 or 17 values were showing up-- they had too much AC to even see the highest DI rolls) As many, many, many people have tried to state... from a baseline graph, it is very easy to then take activated abilities into account. After all, why do you think the abilities are limited to where they are? Because someone took the time to rate it against current content, and say okay, this ability used in conjunction with every other ability on another timer offers -this- much bonus and we find that acceptable. Quit the claims of devs having wool over their eyes, devs being tricked, devs being mislead, etc etc... Especially people who can't even put anything into any kind of data, or even meaningful response. Put something truly useful together and weigh in on your classes future.
See this is exactly what I mean about contextually twisting points to make your arguement. 2) 98% really. Missions, camps that need breaking, camps with wanderers. Sigh total exaggeration 3) I said keep the Mage alive. The MAGE isn't going to live vs AEs with no healers the SK is. 4) Fades arent FD. Mobs/Seeinvises can immediately reagro and the timers are hugly. It's a case where the Ability Class SK has is a survival tool far in excess of a Mage Survival Fade. Yet, a pet can never tank better. Ah wait, your pro sameness. SO mobs should be able to Agro a FD person, and all fades need standardizing at 5 minutes. Right? Let me say I don't take you at your word, on "I've seen such and such" because you strike me as far too biased to listen to 2nd hand accounts.
Do you understand the point that No mathematical difference between Not Seeing 20 on the d20 roll and having an ability like Shield-Specialist which is up and cut all results by 25% If "20" roll minus 25% gone = same value as 16 roll. Then the net effect of a Warrior running Shield Specialist is that the warrior doesnt see those higher values either? There is really no excuse for any warrior posting a post without Shield Specialist on. None. Let along more complicated, ie real world game play, which includes Paladin Self Heals/Stuns + SK Taps + all the activated abilities along the way. The problem is you seem to believe seeing the unactivated, is the best way to compare. I don't. I believe it hides the power of PC activatables.
Did I go out onto the internet and delete every documented ability for a PC? It's all available and well known, because content is balanced around tanks. Content is balanced, around tanks. Don't you think then, that they are familiar with what abilities a tank can activate? Then apply that to numbers given from a baseline, and see where it now stands? No one can "hide" activated abilities, thus "hide" the power. We all know they're there, the devs all know they're there. Keep pointing them out I guess. Here's a couple of big sites that have them all documented! http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/spelllist.html http://raidloot.com/Spells.aspx http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spelllist.html?classes=SHD&source=Live&setcookie=1 http://spells.eqresource.com/spellsearch.php I bet the devs (who create the abilities) know just as much about them as you do. They also don't change from parse to parse. Thus, you take a baseline (none of these abilities), and then add in whatever non-changing activatable abilities you like to see the "power". Trying to point out PCs is useless. Look to line 2 of this. Content, is balanced, around... Tanks. They know their power. The content you play in is based off of it.
False. The earth pet, EM15, using no active abilities, and two healer mercs can tank T1 names that have not been debuffed in anyway with no problems. The same pet can tank trash in the Tower of Rot using only one healer merc with no problem. I have not attempted any T2 names so I can't comment on that, but nobody has posted any parses that I have seen that show earth pets, EM15, and properly supported getting eaten.
It was plainly stated that pets should not be /pet attack /afk experience and killing. With this latest push to test, I experimented a little, and then decided to record a video. If you look, you can see all of my nice big CD's are up, minus VT, because I didn't want to spend the full duration watching, and no one else would want to spend that long watching either. These mobs have considerably more hps than other zones throughout the entire expansion, so exp grind places like Neriak or DH etc... are much faster, and much less risk. Granted, there wasn't much risk to this pet as long as I have a pulse. If you look at the pets buff box, you can see that the ROGUE pet is not procing prism skin either. This is on a current end zone trash mob, with no runes, no mitigation, no damage shield whatever no raid buffs, no group buffs... Just good ol' Akirage with his 100% uptime exp buffs. I was ducked and spinning to camera angle so you could see I couldn't cast, and that I couldn't be hiding 100 clerics behind rocks like I was accused of last time. Once again, this is a ROGUE pet, without the use of the innate prism skin proc, buffs, or CD by the mage, or even the mage, on an end zone trash mob. The rogue water pet was molo'ing without me
I molo'ed two yellow con soldiers in Argin Hiz the other day on live server with Earth pet and only magician/merc cleric buffs. They were the two soldiers that stand in front of the mines. Now, it was not easy. I had to throw some heals. In fact I had to adjust my group spell weave to accommodate the situation- 1. Cast gargoyle pet on second mob. 2. Cast Fickle and Spear on main mob. 3. Cast Renewal on pet. 4. Rinse/repeat until main mob died. Then I could do my normal group spell weave afterwards. I will say that it was much tougher than before. I obviously had to change the way I played in order to be successful. It took longer to do it this way than the old way. But I did it. And I only bring this up to show that it can still be done. Someone mentioned with an enchanter that they wiped to two blues. I do not know what happened; maybe it was a freaky spike, maybe it is an exaggeration, maybe it is an agenda. I just think there are some tanks with agendas, and some magicians with agendas. It is much more difficult. I would like it to be easier, for sure. Not easy like the old way, but easier in the sense that I don't want to cast a pet heal every fourth spell. I think there can be some sort of compromise that allows magicians the ability to solo, with some difficulty and risk throughout the encounter. At least, that is my hope...
You have a cleric (albeit a merc) that is healing it. That is more than /attack, /afk. It's the equivalent of two players with one actively supporting the other. That merc is also spamming heals and the pet's health dips really low quite a few times. I would hope that a pet could tank a trash mob with one dedicated healer. Your argument above has nothing to do about a mage being able to solo exp afk. It's about whether or not a merc should allow someone to afk and exp. I see plenty of people of all classes forming two person groups, popping one tank and one cleric merc and getting exp (or trying to level their tear) over night while they sleep or during the day while they work. Really no different and not limited to any classes (just might require a second account to get two mercs). AFK options exist for everyone once you include mercs.
