Test Update 08/12/2014 - Pet Changes Round 4

Most people weren't bickering.
Yes, there were those on "both sides" advocating a "parse methodology" that best served their particular (or perceived) agenda. This was not bickering, but rather "transparant (and expected) gamesmanship" at most.
-R

I think one of the sadder parts of this nerf is the fact they made a raid focus basically a group focus. EM 15 and EM20 are no different. I tried moloing in EK and experienced the same thing to the same degree, the EM20 wasn't even noticeably better by a little bit.

If you want to make EM in a raid focus form they really need to improve the effect of it more than just 2%-3%, when you can't even tell the difference between the two, that's just plain sad.

I also feel really bad for groupers, my mana pool allows me to do things they couldn't. I doubt you'll be seeing many mages running about molo killing anymore. Will all be boxes and such unless they've got raid gear.

Except NTTB and vie style disciplines last a lot longer than the 20-30 seconds the RS pet is able to keep aggro off of an earth pet, and scales with multiple mobs...

And when you use your pet DPS buffs in a burn fight, which you do whenever you're faced with a tough mob/pull? RS keeps aggro off for less than 5 seconds. Have fun contrasting that with NTTB and vies.

Smart observers who understand the benefits and drawbacks of RS pets enough to know Daegun's parses are, again, tailor made to fool. A mage pet tanking two WITH the mage casting support takes over 10k DPS after the RS pet stops taking aggro; all the while warriors are prancing around <6k DPS vs. the same pull due to their ridiculous DI mitigation now that they have perma-defensive running. The difference is massive and you'd be a fool not to make a warrior in today's EQ.

Course, what goes up has to come down eventually, that's been a constant in EQ.

Look forward to those warrior nerfs when the devs see what's going on.

Hi, let me introduce you to the warrior class. It's the best tank in EQ, hands down for raw mitigation, and activated mitigation. It's not your pet. You can't summon it from your spell bar. I know you want to, but, really?

It's an argument over whether or not the merc has to divert time healing from your main tank. Period.

So... are chanters casting Rune on a player causing damage that needs healed? Or the crazy amount of damage on your primary pet that gets absorbed by various vies, does that need to be healed? Last I checked, it's just thrown out, and labeled under "blocked" because there's nothing to account for.

If you let two players ping pong a mob back and forth for X amount of time and do not heal the second.... Will the primary tank live, and the secondary player eventually die? Yes. Does this now discontinue their ability to aid in the encounter? Will this occur with the RS pet? No. Obviously not. You'll cast 2 more, 8 more, 13 more, etc to take its place over and over. You're comparing ridiculous things to try to prove your point, exactly what you're accusing others of doing.

Necros used to do nearly nothing but dump mana to clerics on raids. Game changes. I used to kill semi-current content zones at a time before my epic was changed. Game changes. Clerics used to only be able to get out of the game in a bad situation when they used sanctuary or a longer lasting DA to camp out very quickly when things went south... Game changes.

If someone wanted to, they could spend more time thinking on this to provide more elaborate comparisons that throw "I have been able to do ________________________________" since time began out the window. Great. No longer.

Druids used to permanently charm relevant creatures and have a great DPS tool with zero risk of it turning on them.


Necros used to fear kite mobs where they would turn around and stand in place and the rogue pet would backstab and the necro would dot and melee with no worries.

Whoa now. We're not trying to skew data and make it look favorable in one way now are we? Is it really 3k? Or more like 2k with all the preservation effects, on top of often being 1 point of mana from GoM? If we're looking at how long a mana pool can last through attrition, shouldn't this be relevant?

And to talk about grasping for straws...

"For all we know there are 100 clerics healing your pet"

"I'm not saying you did, but, you could have loaded up your pet with 40 trash buffs, got your pet raid buffed, and then clicked off all of the buffs to make your pet LOOK unbuffed"

I"m not saying you did, but you show these combined parses of 2v1, or 3v1, and we don't know what mobs they were. You could have pulled a rose viper, and then went and tanked 2 more weak cons to skew your results"

There were more I am sure, these just stuck out as the most hilarious to me.

I feel like we can all go back and forth all night every night for the rest of our lives, but without a little more clear view from the devs we'll get nowhere.

I wish more of you guys would have just parsed data instead of your mouth. Obviously, we can only provide data, and then the devs use that in conjunction with their own data to come to where the game is going to be, and there would have been less pithy remarks and personal attacks on character.

If you didn't like the way the information was presented, present it your own way. All you have to do is say how you did it. We always did.

Mag pet em 20 is very weak now it can hardly tank one A Hendin Reaver in POW , Merc is chain healing pet and that also with me healing and place runes on my pet ,and lets not forget pet class are not allowed too kill any named in POW , I feel getting too the tower now will be impossible since there is never anyone lfg for POW and my pet is now far to weak to get any quests done in POW.

I also play a 100 Bst with em 20 as well , I take Bst to Chapter House, pet is a lot weaker then it was the day be for this patch on pets , merc none stop healing and Bst healing on one blue mob a fallen knight , I have not taken my Necromancer out to test yet , she only has em 15 wonder how well that pet will do ..

I see at FanFair they say they want to make us happy that play EQ , I'm telling you I'm not happy about what you have done to pet class Mag Bst and Necro , and no parse in the world will show that I am


If you look on the thread you will see you have made some happy with what you have done to pet class , read there post and see there happy because you have made others unhappy ..

Yimin

I have to be honest here, my em20 earth pet is not performing as well as before, but thus far the changes have been easily managed. I've always been in a duo setup with 2 cleric mercs (which is kinda cheesy I know), but I have played thousands of hours in T1 HA's (all zones) and know exactly how my duo is supposed to function.

It functions as it has, albeit with a bit more defensives use. I don't even really need to ever use hard CC, although my 2box has more than enough that it can use. But with 2 cleric mercs and staggering pet defensives, the pet can tank anything the T1 HA's can throw at it. The duo still demolishes any T1 HA, it can tank 4 level 100+ HA mobs for breakfast (with defensives). Then again, any raid geared 2box would also demolish T1 HA's. But I cannot ethically say that pets are gimped, or even underpowered, they feel a bit worse than before, but my overall experience is not dampered

Group tanks can't tank newest content. Mercs can't tank newest content. Pets can't tank newest content. What in the &$>?* are we supposed to do?

By the way, do you devs realize how useless earth elemental strike is? It procs plenty, but there are very, very few times (nearly zero) that it provides any protection at all.

I have no idea what you are talking about? There are raidtanks prancing around the whole of Norrath, always willing to help or group outside their own guilds. It is not as if there was a shortage of good Raidtanks!

/sarcasm

A group tank can tank new content as long as the following are happen.

1st tank is properly geared(full t1 cotf gear or a mix of t1 cotf and t4 rof stuff0.
2nd. the person playing the tank knows how to play the toon. I don't mean be a master but has to know what disc/spells/aa do what and know how to use them right.
3rd. Have a proper setup group. Ie the right mix of healing/dps/support.

If these 3 things are meet a group tank can take out a named in cotf t2. But just going out without these things and its not going happen.

Strongbus

While I agree with you regarding your list either I'm really unlucky or something. Lately we've been doing Bixie Warfront or Neriak HA's with a monk tanking. The monk is great but him, my wife and I have talked about wanting to do some other stuff. The monk is able to tank what we're doing but he's said he'll get killed fast in upper level zones.

Now due to my CRS (mental condition) I have two lists written down next to my computer. The first list is full of people that I've grouped with and will happily group with again. The second list is full of people I refuse to group with, what class they are and why I won't group with them.

The second list has five tanks (among other classes) on it. Tank one has really bad gear and refuses to get better gear because he wants to spend his plat elsewhere. Tank two will only do dead hills HA's (we're sick of them). Tank three is unable to hold agro. Tank four and five claim they can do their job without using discs and aa's (they can't).

There's a large population of people in EQ that feel the world needs to accommodate them and they don't need to adapt at all. Even trying to give helpful advice to these people or pointing them in the direction of more knowledgeable people (you know, like evilgamer.net or magetower folks) usually end with being told to frag off or something like that.

So will these changes help shrink my list of "will not group with again" people? Nope, all the will not group with again people will still be on that list, tanks included.

While you're correct that a group tank can fulfill the role needed the trick is finding a capable tank that meets the criteria. A level 100 tank with just the autogrant AA's and unaugged elegant defiant armor doesn't meet that criteria.

Tank 1 is the one with the issue (not you or the game).
Tank 2 is probably hunting something so has a focus that won't change until he gets it (issue isn't you).
Tank 3 is less skilled but can be taught.
Tank 4 and 5 are less skilled and maybe can be taught with the right approach.

For Denial_Sinfae

Guilds that only had Necros mana dump back in the day were poorly lead guilds that didn't have a clue to what a Necro could do. Your also referring to a time when only one Necro could dot the mob also. Any good Necro didn't stay to long in a guild like that for the basic reason leadership had no clue what a talented Necro could do in the old days.

your parse is located?, think I missed it.

So, I would just like to know why you decided to nerf the air pets even more ? I have a level 100 mage with em15 and using the air pet to tank has almost become a joke without fortify on.... Oh joy I can run a DH mission and take down names in shards landing.... Thank the lords of norrath for creating content I can no longer enjoy because they have once again " fixed " something that was not broken!!!
The swarm pets you did actually fix, and we only had to wait a month...... but as usual you fix something that is an aid and nerf bat the crap out of the source... So, as I stated before I would just like to know why, why did the Air pets have to be nerfed once again ?

There are 4 test pet change threads, there's a pet nerf thread in vets lounge, and a Sense Heading "How we plan to fix pet tanking" or so thread with 60 some pages.

I am sprinkled in all of them (minus test changes 4, I was out of town), including the one from 6 months ago when the formula for AC came out.

@Amor,

great, you just posted another point on how the game changes. Only one necro used to be able to dot the mob. Game changed.

Just proves another point that the passed isn't something to permanently cling to for now / future play.

You are correct it does change. You also seem to want a fair playing field right? Let's get together and show the effects of having to many Necros and how it decreases our main job of DPS. We can work together so other classes suffer the same effects. Have to many SK's and your ability to tank decreases or to many clerics and their effectiveness to heal suffers. It is afterall change that you are a proponent for equality among the classes right?

I agree that the debuff limit on a mob needs changed. We only have 3 necro mains and a "sometimes" in guild because of the class limitation.

Our best necro does like 200k dps over 3 minutes, and can put up 90k over a pretty much infinite duration with slight shifts up or down depending on disc / clicky rotation.

What does this have to do with pet changes though?

**Gah! I just re-read what I put last post. I can't edit my use of "passed" instead of "past"!!! I can never return to this thread again!

JKLOL. But it does irk me.

Fair enough, didn't mean to single you out. The mana dumping got my attention and always irked me that people viewed that as a viable strategy. So I basically got a little froggy towards you and jumped.

This pet nerf will hit smaller raiding guilds the most , not all can raid in prime time North American hours those in Europe and Asia don't have as many people to pick from ...

And not everything can be measured with a parse too let you all know , will people really be over joyed that cant do what they use too , will some leave EQ because of this ? I hope not but that will just make raiding harder for smaller guilds if they do , but like I have said be for we are use to EQ being hard we cant zerg raids with numbers , we just don't have the numbers ....

Yimin

I have been playing this game for 15 years back before there were Merc's .. When mages and Necro's were the prime solo'ers of this game (druids also) but im refering to pet classes when beastlords came out I made a vah shir bst and he was my main ever sense and solo'd prolly 90% to lvl 100 .. not because i like to solo just because of my playtime's vary and i take alot of afks and such ..

This was before mercs and those 3 classes were the best at soloing always have and always should be.. for some reason the Dev's and other players want the pet classes to have to use merc's or real players (which for grouping is not always available ) yes mercs are .. if Dev's are going to force us to use mercs then they should beef up those mercs .. us pet classes never had to use mercs before why should we now.. they (the Dev's and some players) say mercs are part of the game mechanics now and if we choose not to use them thats our problem .. well then if they are part of the game why have we not seen any Upgrades to merc's to coincide with the increasing lvl of mob dps throughout the expansions sense they were introduced .. we still can only get up to T5 Journeyman that came out with SoD ..sure mercs got some aa's last expansion and some gear , but lets face it they dont help that much..

If the devs want to cripple us (our pets) then they need to up the merc's .. mage's , necro's and Bst's have been solo'ers from day 1 .. without the need for merc's .. I dont have a 100 mage or a 100 necro , but I do have a 100 bst and we beastlords were meant to dps with our pets not pet tank and be healer for our pet while a dps wizard merc blasts away at mob .. that was not us in the begining and it should not be a req now.. without a merc id be in there with my pet dpsing alongside when i needed a heal id back up heal msyelf and pet and get right back in there .. thats how I solo'd I should not be forced to use an out dated game mechanic (ie merc's) when Sony or the Dev's refuse to update them .. if they dont like the use of merc's then get rid of them and let us go back to soloing .. if they say we can molo with mercs then the merc's need to be updated to handle current content without having to take our focus off the mob 100% of the time and on our pets .. thats my 2cp worth .

as stated by many others , I also have 5 all access accounts my 2 main accounts I sub with 3 to 6mo subs .. I have let 3 of them go to silver and my remaining 2 will expire in a month in half . not sure what im going to do .. maybe i will roll a warrior or work on my sk .. but I spend lots of money on SoE every month you can kiss that all goodbye .. if i cant find a way to enjoy this game like i used to.. that is not a threat its a promise .. companies seem to forget that customers are always right and 1 pissed off customer can lead to a business's downfall .. just by word of mouth .. what sony may not realize is they are a huge company that dabbles in more than just online games and I for one will not buy ANY more Sony Products Period .. and I hope others follow suit IF sony does not fix this ..

off topic a bit . id like it for heroic toons if im paying 35 bucks for a heroic id like the option to not get autogranted 4k+ aa's if i want .. its my money let me decide if i want them or not.. just give me a base 85 lvl toon with max skill and 0 aa's ..