Test Update 8/01/2014 - Pet Changes

This is a difference in understanding between the tank community and the pet community. Let me explain.

To a tank, AC > HP precisely because DI spread is the only thing that matters as long as you have enough HP to avoid being rounded. Despite average incoming DPS, a more favorable DI spread directly related to fewer spikes and an easier time being healed (also, your healers waste less mana). No tank in their right mind ever wanted big random fluctuations - predictability is great because it allows healers to play without being frightened. Incoming DPS isn't really that important - on a raid, it just means more healers are needed if the rounds are more often, or (in the old days) a tighter CH rot was needed.

Here's a very old parse from The Steel Warrior:


And that above is the effect of AC, which is what tanks crave.

Pet users, on the other hand, haven't had to ever worry about DI distribution - even in 2014, when a tank's graph looks significantly different from the above, pet mitigation hasn't changed with the times. Pets have an incredible amount of HP (well, the mage earth pet does, and the beastlord warder is probably in a good spot, but necromancers might have an axe to grind), so they've done a great job of soaking up the few big rounds that do come their way but for the most part, damage has been low and predictable - it's safe and efficient for even a merc to heal under these circumstances. Once a pet's DI distribution begins to look more like the one Brogett posted above, spikes aren't occasional, they are the norm (that's what us non-tank, DPS classes deal with on a daily basis, of which pet classes are exempt). The required playstyle (and accompanied healing) is a big shift in direction, which pet users will have to accommodate for and learn; pets however still receive the most favorable DI distribution available to all players, raid-geared warrior or group-geared magician.

Pets will still get hit more often than players. The shift isn't a total 180 degree turn here. Partially because of this, I suspect, the devs are keeping pets most predictable at soaking up damage. Ask any raid tank if they could choose a more favorable DI distribution, akin to the ones pets have (even after this update), or more avoidance and lower incoming DPS (perhaps what a tank does these days), I'd suspect a large number of them would prefer the safer and more predictable choice in the former over the more gambling, twitch-heavy, and waiting-to-get-rounded (hopefully avoiding!) of the latter.

Of course both matter, and there's a point where neither can be enshrined as the correct choice. DI distribution matters, and so does the incoming DPS; the tanking community throughout its history has favored the former when forced to choose. The big question is how will this affect pet users, and I suspect there will be some learning in order about how to tank, rotate discs, and best utilize cooldowns that were never issues before; magicians and beastlords might experience some turbulence that they aren't used to, and necromancers are getting bit the hardest (again, who's surprised?) as their pets are going back to the vision of a glorified DoT.

At the end of the day, player tanks are still dealing with more spikes and thus are in more danger of death. I'll borrow from Denial's parses at the other thread (https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/...ation-parse-thread.212579/page-7#post-3110614):





Pets, on paper, looking at the DI distribution, maintain a massive edge over player tanks. Sorry if we get jealous, but that's the sort of thing that a lot of us miss in this game.

A number of customers who play a main in one of the three primary pet classes are now forced to play catch up on the information side. For that reason and to give more of the impacted crowd a shot at participation I’m providing a brief walk-through below. The walk through is representative only as it varies player to player and pet to pet to a degree. At the same time though it illustrates how some of this stuff works / has worked. It also outlines some of the flaws in the logic used to support the case for further pet reductions like we are now seeing on test.

For a player; A mob swings, let’s say 1,000 times. The mob is not accurate 200 times, it misses. And of the remaining 800 swings could cause damage if the player doesn’t defend. Of those 800 possible issues it’s not uncommon to see 50% defended by the player. Thus the player takes 400 hits of some amount.

For the pet; A mob swings the same 1,000 times. The attacking mob will be much more accurate against a pet. 900 of those swings resulted in damage if the pet doesn’t defend. The pet defends much less than a player and only 20% of that of the 900 are defended. Thus the pet takes 720 hits of some amount.

Next, along comes game parser, which is good program. While it’s good it is the beginning of analysis and not the end. There’s a bit more to analysis than downloading a free program and pushing a button. In the case of a players DI values as compared to a pet it is not set up to allow that type of review.

If the aim was a fair and accurate representation of a player to pet comparison then you would include in the graph the DI zero occurrence. DI zero being when no damage occurs. Game parser doesn’t do it that way but you must in this instance, if the aim is to present an accurate picture. For this project you would have to because the spread is huge in terms of how often the player avoids all damage compared to the pet. Done correctly in that manner, showing DI zero, you would see this huge bar in the very first column of the DI chart showing the player with an extremely large advantage. It would dwarf all other bars. However, it would then be appropriate from a presentation stand point.

EM20 Water pet vs. Shoon, same buffs (all have had 2 hate proc swords as well):

/tell Nylrem Mobstopper -vs- Shoon: -- DMG: 5740428 -- DPS: 5360 -- Scaled: 5360 -- Slash: 3730417 -- DirDmg: 1173607 -- Backstab: 836404 -- Non-crit rate: 79.3% -- crit rate: 20.7% -- Attempts: 5436 -- Hits: 4218 -- Missed: 707 -- Defended: 511 -- Accuracy: 85.6% -- Avg Hit: 1360 -- Max hit: 13128 -- DMG to PC: 14933770

/7 Tanking summary for: Mobstopper (Nylrem) - Total damage: 14933770 - Avg hit: 10651 - Swings: 2098 - Defended: 543 (25.9%) - Hit: 1402 (66.8%) - Missed: 153 (7.3%) - Accuracy: 90.2% - Dodged: 52 (2.8%) - Parried: 52 (2.6%) - Blocked: 118 (5.6%) - Riposted: 72 (3.7%) - Absorbed: 249 (11.9%)

Mobstopper (Nylrem) - vs - Shoon
Attempts 2098 100%
Missed 153 7.29%
Dodged 52 2.48%
Parried 52 2.48%
Blocked 118 5.62%
Riposted 72 3.43%
Absorbed 249 11.87%
2663 2 0.1%
2682 1 0.05%
2685 1 0.05%
2958 58 2.76%
2959 5 0.24%
2961 1 0.05%
2966 2 0.1%
2972 1 0.05%
2979 1 0.05%
2981 3 0.14%
2983 1 0.05%
2986 1 0.05%
2990 1 0.05%
2992 1 0.05%
2994 1 0.05%
2997 3 0.14%
2999 4 0.19%
3001 1 0.05%
3496 7 0.33%
3884 292 13.92%
4331 1 0.05%
4811 56 2.67%
5738 42 2%
5999 3 0.14%
6665 29 1.38%
7592 63 3%
7667 3 0.14%
8501 4 0.19%
8518 49 2.34%
9335 1 0.05%
9445 58 2.76%
10170 1 0.05%
10372 71 3.38%
11004 3 0.14%
11299 60 2.86%
11838 1 0.05%
12226 53 2.53%
13153 50 2.38%
13507 3 0.14%
14080 51 2.43%
15007 44 2.1%
15175 2 0.1%
15934 54 2.57%
16843 1 0.05%
16861 42 2%
17677 2 0.1%
17787 36 1.72%
18512 1 0.05%
18714 30 1.43%
19346 2 0.1%
19641 37 1.76%
20568 36 1.72%
21495 126 6.01%

Can we get water pet's DPS bumped up about 50% please? 5360 on autoattack, with burnout rk3 and iceflame rk3 is pretty low.

A mob can sustain low inc DPS on a tank and still round them... Pet tanks should have this disadvantage as well.

If these changes go live, you have absolutely destroyed the mage class. Other casters get FDs, roots, snares, mezzes, charms to use when adds appear. Mages only have pets to protect themselves, and pets have been made nearly useless in that capacity with these changes. Main pets having a very hard time tanking more than one mob. Servant pet lasts only 2-3 attack rounds when tanking or getting rampage, so maybe 5-6 seconds. Not only do we lose the dps and tanking of the servant pet, we lose the ability to use the "of many" spell line for one of our best dps spells. It appears to me, you have broken grouping and raiding mages with this continual round of nerfs we have gotten this past year or so.

It's going to be very hard to replace all the lost DPS from all the mages, necros & beastlords that rage quit. I think it will have a large impact on raiding guilds & the over all game & of course that leads to a large impact on the bottom line. I hope you devs are seriously considering this data & not just taking emotional & jealous responses at face value.

Without DPS any raid from the last 2 expansions would take an exponentially longer amount of time if not flat out be unwinnable. Can melee DPS & wizards make up for the loss of all the angry players who over react & leave? Can the loss of that revenue (that we all know goes 75% or more to fund SOE's other games) be recovered from? I wonder if Smed approves of these changes or if he's so far removed & so hands off that he's unaware of what you devs are intending?This is a very slippery slope that you're balancing on here.

I do appreciate the boosts to air pets & the ideas behind the fire pet changes but earth & water don't need to be completely negated nor do necro warrior pets & all swarm pets in your attempts to appease the 25-50 warriors in the game that are at the top of the game & know all the ins & outs of their class, the raiding game & or the grouping game.

Just to clarify, I'm not threatening to cancel my accounts. I'm just stating a fact that, like it or not, a sizable percentage of the pet class mains in the player base will either let theirs lapse or cancel altogether. You know how passionate & emotional a lot of players are & how they don't always think clearly when they see nerfs for their favorite class. It's a risk you have to consider in this day & age of a relatively small subscriber base. There's more to this than just tweaking pets to get them where you want them to be.

If you're aiming for the 30% mark, it looks like you're already there on Live. I'd say just leave it the way it is now. Here's the same mob type as my previous parse, on Live:

Underdog - vs - An archaic trilobite
Attempts 146 100%
Missed 11 7.53%
Dodged 4 2.74%
Parried 3 2.05%
Blocked 15 10.27%
Riposted 3 2.05%
Absorbed 18 12.33%
2665 43 29.45%
3250 2 1.37%
3836 4 2.74%
4422 4 2.74%
5008 3 2.05%
5593 4 2.74%
6179 4 2.74%
6765 2 1.37%
7350 1 0.68%
7936 3 2.05%
8522 2 1.37%
9107 2 1.37%
9693 3 2.05%
10279 1 0.68%
10865 5 3.42%
11450 3 2.05%
12036 1 0.68%
12622 1 0.68%
13207 4 2.74%

parse from TEST

/G Tanking summary for: 97 nec pet (EM 12) --- Total damage: 37911711 --- Avg hit: 6914 --- Swings: 5483 --- Defended: 0 (0%) --- Hit: 5483 (100%) --- Missed: 0 (0%) --- Accuracy: 100% --- Dodged: 0 (0%) --- Parried: 0 (0%) --- Blocked: 0 (0%) --- Riposted: 0 (0%) --- Absorbed: 0 (0%)

buffs - cred rk 2, nec pet haste, brells rk 3, focus rk2 - no pet gear
This was with no activity from the nec, just merc healers (3 - 2 on efficient and 1 on balanced PR not blocked)

97 nec pet (EM 12) - vs - A tirun painbringer (EWK yellow to nec mob)
Attempts 5124 100%
Time 3932 sec (65.53 min) - pet died at the end

2639 1229 23.99%
3241 192 3.75%
3842 178 3.47%
4443 185 3.61%
5045 235 4.59%
5646 219 4.27%
6247 218 4.25%
6848 203 3.96%
7450 244 4.76%
8051 228 4.45%
8652 217 4.23%
9254 186 3.63%
9855 216 4.22%
10456 193 3.77%
11058 163 3.18%
11659 162 3.16%
12260 141 2.75%
12861 138 2.69%
13463 127 2.48%
14064 450 8.78%

Wanted to see what all the hoopla was about so I threw a couple of parses together on Live and Test using the same buffs against Roon.

"edit: No defensives or anything else was used by the way."

Live
Mage earth pet stuff live. EM 15, Rank II Unity, Cert, Ranger junk...Rank I Iceflame Eminence and Burnout XI. Hate swords.

1289 seconds.

/GU Tanking summary for: Defiant --- Total damage: 13433542 --- Avg hit: 8034 --- Swings: 2473 --- Defended: 560 (22.6%) --- Hit: 1672 (67.6%) --- Missed: 241 (9.7%) --- Accuracy: 87.4% --- Dodged: 63 (2.9%) --- Parried: 65 (2.8%) --- Blocked: 159 (6.4%) --- Riposted: 70 (3.1%) --- Absorbed: 203 (8.2%)



Test
Mage earth pet stuff Test. EM 15, Rank II Unity, Cert, Ranger junk...Rank I Iceflame Eminence and Burnout XI. Hate swords.

1288 seconds

/GU Tanking summary for: Defiant --- Total damage: 16562334 --- Avg hit: 9852 --- Swings: 2524 --- Defended: 581 (23%) --- Hit: 1681 (66.6%) --- Missed: 262 (10.4%) --- Accuracy: 86.5% --- Dodged: 58 (2.6%) --- Parried: 64 (2.7%) --- Blocked: 141 (5.6%) --- Riposted: 84 (3.6%) --- Absorbed: 234 (9.3%)



Now I don't know what all that stuff means, but I tell you from lay-player's perspective there was essentially no real difference to me.

Wizard Pet:

Kathylyn's Pet(s) -vs- a plains lion
Attempts 117 100%
Missed 29 24.8%
Dodged 0 0%
Parried 0 0%
Blocked 0 0%
Riposted 0 0%
Absorbed 0 0%
476 1 0.85%
1667 1 0.85%
2065 1 0.85%
2263 1 0.85%
2462 2 1.71%
2661 4 3.42%
2859 7 5.98%
3058 4 3.42%
3257 5 4.27%
3456 1 .085%
3654 5 4.27%
4052 3 2.56%
4250 6 5.13%
4449 47 40.17%

My pet(s) died in the first round of combat 99% of the time and never survived past the second round. It never took more than one hit to kill.

@Tarvas

IF you look at the end of the bar graph, it shows you the pet took A LOT more (at least double almost triple in some cases) of the mobs hardest hits. Which is the mitigation/AC factor that people are talking about.

You go from 671 of the second lowest hit, to 429 of the second lowest hit ( 242 less hits in that area). Then you go from 29 max hits to 106 max hits ( 77 more Max hits). Then you do 21495-3884 and see that is 17.6k DMG difference and you lose 242 of those 3884 hits and gained 77 of those 21495 hits. I am unsure if you weren't paying attention but that should be clear as day lol.

/sigh. You obviously don't get it. Bottom line, from my point of view as a player, this change doesn't really seem to matter all that much. I'm a 3 boxer (ranger, mage, warrior with another player who plays a druid), so mileage may vary and I don't usually fight any mob longer than a couple of minutes. The current bump on test doesn't really represent much of anything to me.

If you want to get sad about tanking parses check this one out on my ranger.

https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/...-ranger-mitigation.209544/page-7#post-3110630

You don't get it either.

If you did not notice the change then you shouldn't be adding in any 2 cents to the conversation. The parsing is fine, but not noticing that jump in mob DMG on your pet means you were not paying attention or do not care enough to pay attention.

That DMG bump should have been clear as day, but you were using 3 healers? Now go back to test and keep that same pet up (molo w/o any help from your box crew). When you are over prepared for a situation nothing seems wrong, but go in how you could before (molo) and test it then see how you fare. It will be night and day, and you will for sure notice the differences in those max hits you are gaining on test vs the min hits your losing.

Doesn't seem like we should require 3 healers at all times to kill T1 content.....

Tarvas you aren't a mage main so your parse from your box mage in whatever gear you may have with an em 15 group item isn't as useful as a mage main like Piemastaj or myself who raid at the high end. No offense intended but it's like a plumber trying to build a space ship. Without expertise & a working knowledge of all the ins & outs of the class you're unintentionally muddying the water with excess data.

Pet DI is so messed up right now. You have very few hits in the middle range but high values at/near DI1 and DI20. It is like a U shape graph.

PC tanks have a lot more distribution in the middle. What gives?

Also using 3 merc healers, ranger heals & mage pet heals isn't the same as a molo mage parsing to get the pure numbers Aristo & Elidroth have asked for. Again, not trying to offend you but your data is just muddying the water & not useful one way or the other in the overall scheme of things regarding this particular issue.

See, this is what I mentioned I was afraid of in the other thread. Most of the nerf is already live. The difference between Live & Test now is much less than the difference between Live now & before the stealth nerf. If the mage is just a box to you, it's not surprising that you missed this.

That is a RAID geared pet being compared to a GROUP geared warrior. The warrior is avoiding 10% more damage and taking an average of 3k damage less per hit. The parser admitted that a group geared warrior when intelligently using cooldowns, is at least matching a raid-geared pet, if not outperforming. I don't want to be putting words in Denial's mouth, but that is what I asked and he confirmed.

Post the entirety of the data next time, please, or YOU are the one who looks like he has an agenda:

**GROUP GEARED WARRIOR INTELLIGENTLY USING ACTIVE COOLDOWNS**

** RAID GEARED (EM 18) EARTH PET INTELLIGENTLY USING ACTIVE COOLDOWNS **