Test Update 8/01/2014 - Pet Changes

There's nothing wrong with his parse. Number of healers won't affect the damage curve. The problem is giving feedback based on ignoring the main chunk of the nerf & a boxed mage that isn't the group tank.

And after referring to the parses above, here's a quote from developer announcing the pet changes:

They are being hit more often, and no longer mitigating on a per-hit basis better, even when a raid pet is compared to a group-geared tank. They are overnerfed

The amount of healers eliminates the risk tho, which was the point I was making. During my parsing on Test when I ran oom my pet died around 15 seconds later on average. That is because mercs lack the ability, at least on Roon, to solo heal an EM 20 Earth pet.

Like I said, the parse is fine. Accurately displaying the 'feel' of the situation it does not accomplish. Pretty sure 3 healers will keep me up against Roon, so any player probably will not die in that situation so the spikes do not matter or will not be as visually noticeable because heals are inc 24/7.

The amount of healers plays a crucial role in this more then anything else. Is an Earth pet fine with 1 merc? 2 mercs? 3 mercs? 1 player healer? 2 player healers? Are questions that need to get answered which is why any parsing should include group make-up along with debuffs present.

As of right now it is very hard to parse tanking on test with a merc, would love to have a JT buff placed on pets for test so that we can actually have some significant time parsing things out w/o worrying about our mana bars going down. As of right now every parse indicates a lot of min hits with almost double to triple the amount of max hits landing on the pets then were before. W/o any more details to go off of, we are going to keep seeing the same results heh.

No they want parsing from every situation possible, not just limited situation. Please do not try and discourage people from posting everything they possibly can to help the development crew with that they need from us.

No, they asked for opinions as well.

Aristo specifically stated let us know if pets tank too well or not well enough. Meaning opinions were asked for. If you are using X amount of healers vs someone using 1 merc healer your opinion on the nerf is impacted.

No where did I discourage the PARSE. I said twice the parse was fine, I said his 'feeling' does no justification based on the data that they posted. Taking 3 times more of a max hit is noticeable, if you don't notice you should be paying more attention to the situation or merely keep your 'feeling' comments to the side.

Your trying to discourage me and others the same way your accusing me of doing. I have every right to call BS on something like this, it also helps in the process for the developers. Parses are fine (altho I am pretty sure we have enough because we are seeing the same data in every one of them), but if you do not know about the class fully saying something is fine when data proves otherwise like it did in this instance it discredits things. Muddying the water is a good term used above.

The data is still helpful Piemastaj, and if the parser claims everything is "fine", a reasonable person will look at the conditions, such as having multiple healers and take that into account. I consider myself a reasonable person and when he said it was 'pretty much the same', right away I thought to myself actually that's like 50% more damage taken. People will make their own inferences.

It's not voiding the data though

I said even in the post above the parse is fine lmao.

The things that aren't fine are the amount of healers and the lack of class knowledge. Which I asked politely to be put into the parses to allow for a more clear view of whats going on. You can't guess how many healers were there, but if someone does not notice that increase in DMG one would say maybe 7 to 8 healers?

If you would read my posts it would help out greatly.

White con spider in Argin-Hiz. EM19 Nec War, used 70% slow, 1 merc with pet haste Rk II and Certitude Rk. II. Pet died once while doing this.

Pet died once while doing this.

/GU Combined: A murkweb spider in 1556s

/GU Tanking summary for: Shennron --- Total damage: 15884849 --- Avg hit: 7958 --- Swings: 2569 --- Defended: 446 (17.4%) --- Hit: 1996 (77.7%) --- Missed: 127 (4.9%) --- Accuracy: 94% --- Dodged: 65 (2.9%) --- Parried: 80 (3.3%) --- Blocked: 149 (5.8%) --- Riposted: 93 (4%) --- Absorbed: 59 (2.3%)

NPC DPS = 10,209 with a 70% slow on the White con Spider

Notice again the U shaped graph. What gives?

One of the issues with pets is their defensives decline on the 2nd, 3rd and subsequent mobs that come into camp very quickly. It’s notable that everything presented to date is a parse of a single mob encounter. Roughly half the pet defensive abilities rely on runes that don’t do anything on the 2nd, 3rd or 4th mob.

To illustrate: In the first case I pulled 1 trash mob at the Argin zone line. An Ember Temper (white con). In the 2nd case I added in a second Ember Temper (one blue con). Note the 2nd mob is a lower con than the first. Look at the difference in damage against an EM 15 Earth pet. It went up by 130% with the addition of a blue con. Or 18,322 points of damage per second fighting 2 trash mobs.

Data

One mob (EM 15 Earth certitude, Iceflame Guard, Burnout 9)
An ember trooper on 8/3/2014 in 905sec
--- DMG to PC: 7236974 @8050dps

Two mobs (EM 15 Earth certitude, Iceflame Guard, Burnout 9)
[B]An ember trooper on 8/3/2014 in 596sec[/B]
--- DMG to PC: 10919692 @18322dps

Molo Roon on Test --EM18.

/GU Roon in 143s, 7183k @50229sdps --- Akilon + pets 5930k @41469sdps --- Akirage 1253k @8760sdps



/GU Tanking summary for: Akirage --- Total damage: 1324188 --- Avg hit: 8380 --- Swings: 278 --- Defended: 91 (32.7%) --- Hit: 158 (56.8%) --- Missed: 29 (10.4%) --- Accuracy: 84.5% --- Dodged: 7 (2.8%) --- Parried: 9 (3.4%) --- Blocked: 14 (5%) --- Riposted: 9 (3.5%) --- Absorbed: 52 (18.7%)

I didn't even use the Many line, or the 5 DPS clickies I would if I was being a tryhard. 3 healers are not required, even on Test, to kill a named. 1 merc on reactive works just fine.

Never said it was. However your parse was 1100 seconds lower.

Meaning that is 1100 less seconds that spike DMG killed your solo tanking pet. You also used a garg pet to mitigate the DMG on top of probably full tank discs.

Jumping into a thread to try and prove the wrong point is funny. You did not run the same situation molo, ty for the data I guess.

/double sigh. Of course I noticed the bump at the higher end. The reason it doesn't much matter to me is because it never crossed my mind to molo names in current content with a group geared player be it a mage or warrior and a merc healer. It doesn't even make much sense for such a thing to be possible. So as someone who boxes and who has absolutely no intentions of trying current content names with nothing but one merc healer on my mage this change doesn't really mean a thing. I bet it also doesn't really mean a thing to all the other mages out there that group with real players are either healers or who have access to healer mercs.

Now if you can show me where group geared mage pets are dying in an appropriate group setup to current names then there would definitely be a problem.

I didn't miss anything. I am still not clear why anyone would think that a group geared mage with a healer merc should be able to kill a named. This just seems a case of difference expectations for classes. Hell, I would be worried if there were any group geared "insert class here" out there moloing names.

This right here needs to be put into your data.

W/o that, you look blind imho lol. The issue is more then mages molo nameds. More then merely DPS classes molo nameds also. Which is why I was saying more then just parse data and a feeling is necessary, considering Aristo was asking for players opinions on top of the data.

Apparently on the other thread someone's wife is getting rocked with her pet tanking named with merc and shaman heals. Think that would apply if its true.

If pets take 90% DI 1 hits then NPC DPS is in fact the primary measure of tanking. Even with 40% DI 1 rate NPC DPS will much more important measure to Pets then players Classes. Pets also have much lower avoidance then players that again makes damage pets receive much less erratic they take more hits but the damage is much less spikey.

Note this is why adding a second cleric merc is having such a huge impact on what named pets are able to kill on test right now.

When were talking about pets its simply a case of the tanks being wrong because they haven't adjusted there understanding to the basic differences between Pets tanks and Player tanks.

I do not have a parser, but I can say these changes are way more than they should be. I am already having enough trouble in live moloing let alone on test. These changes on test are not even reasonable, the amount of damage a necro tank pet is taking is unrealistic. At the end of the day devs, players need to be able to play the game they pay to play.

Faid

I surely hope these changes do not go through, otherwise there is nothing for me to do in this game anymore.

I believe pets are overnerfed now because of that old "fix" you guys did about a year ago to the Enhanced Minion focus where you nerfed the AC gain across the board. You knew pets were overpowered then, and you figured it was the Enhanced Minion focus and you nerfed it.

Now you realize it's Sturdy Companion and base AC, so you've adjusted that, but you've forgotten your old attempt at a "fix" is still there, leaving pets over-nerfed currently

More pet changes? I would love to wait and see how this really plays out, but it sounds like the worst idea ever.

Oh and someone on test, can you find out how well an EM15 earth pet tanks in The Fall of Lord Bayle with these changes? I'm still stuck on this dang mission and want to know if I need to hurry up and figure it out, since the greatest progress I made was with Earth pets at the moment, ty .

Some observations on shaman pets after the update; this is at lvl 100 with all AA and all rank 2 spells EXCEPT that it is a rank 3 "main" pet and fighting dark blue to even con mobs (Gribble missions).

Main pet - fully buffed (but no "lion maw" proc buff) with shaman buffs and merc cleric buffs; old max hit was 707, new max hit is 811 (14.7 %, about what was stated). Overall, DPS seems to have increased maybe 100 DPS (up from 700-900 DPS to 800-1000 DPS).

Before the update, the pet could not tank at all unless it had Fortify Companion on. With Fortify Companion it could tank fairly well, and took consistent and what I would consider "low" damage. Without Fortify companion, it would lose 30% - 50% of its health each round. This indicates to me that the entire "tanking" abilty was wrapped up in Fortify Companion making the pet take very little damage. Without Fortify Companion, its extremely low hit points pretty much negated any benefit from buffs/sturdy companion AA/companion's agility AA.

After the update, without Fortify Companion I am noticing many more "max" hits against the pet, and it does not appear to avoid any hits at all. The increased hit points however appear to soak up this extra damage and it loses 15%-25% each round, and since the pet is no longer always on the verge of being 1 rounded, it is easier to keep healed and overall I would say it tanks slightly better than before. Fortify Companion does not appear to have as great an effect, but it is hard to tell due to the previous "all or nothing" effect the buff had on such a low hit point pet.

Overall, it seems the "pre update" pet tanked better with Fortify Companion than the "post update" pet with Fortify companion; but the "pre update" pet tanked much worse than the "post update" pet without Fortify companion.

And now swarm pets:

AA swarm pets (spirit call) - these seem to have been balanced with the "pre update" sturdy companion and companion's agility AA. Before the update these pets could survive a few rounds. After the update they are basically vaporized when the mob notices them. I don't think they recieved the hit point upgrade of the "main" pet.

"Proc" swarm pets (Pact of Kriegas) - just like the AA swarm, these seem to have been balanced with the "pre update" sturdy companion and companion's agility AA. Before the update these pets could survive a few rounds, and after the update they vanish when the mob notices them. I don't think they recieved the hit point upgrade of the "main" pet, and if they did, it is not enough to overcome the loss of the pet AA effects as these pets had even lower hit points than the "main" pet. I could not determine any DPS increases for wither of the swarm pets because, as I said they did not last long enough to tell.

Also, I think it's worth pointing out that pets seem to be balanced around the buffs their users have. Main pet classes swarm pets are focused, but the secondary pet classes are not, and swarm pets don't get the benefit of buffs. I hope that is kept in mind when tuning and not simply a comparison to a fully buffed pet.

And speaking of pet buffs, shaman recently got a pet buff "spirit bolstering". This buff adds a 5% damage mod, strength, 60% haste, and AC. Here's the problem; shaman "main" pets are the only ones that will ever get this buff, and they will always already have mammoths strength (9%-11%) damage mod which does not stack, and talisman of celerity (60% haste). If the damage mod cannot be made to stack, why not set it 14%-16% so that it supersedes mammoths strength? The same for the haste effect, why not make it 70% of have some other effect? As it is these will never have any effect. If the original intent was to make this a "one and done" pet buff, then it needs to have the effects of "unity" buffs also (focus+mammoths+foresight) because the pet is already balanced around having those (I mean, really, it only does 700-1000 dps WITH those buffs).

And a final note; the shaman pet is a warrior. It cannot hold aggro at all. I use it on rooted mobs (which is why it doesn't get "lions maw" proc buffs). It is probably due to its extremely low DPS, but it should be able to hold aggro if given a chance. I have to wait until a mob is at 50% ( which takes an extremely long time when relying on the pet to do it) before starting to DPS with shaman spells in order for the pet to maintain aggro until it dies. Any sooner and the difference in pet DPS (even with lions maw in this instance, which does not add much DPS) and shaman DPS is just to great for it to hold aggro. It needs something for aggro, higher DPS, a faster taunt rate maybe, some sort of aggro modifier, something.

Nm. Don't care.