Test Update 8/08/2014 - Pet Changes Round 3

We're currently updating the Test server with new pet data. Please check it out and report your findings here.

In brief, here are the changes over the previous permutation on Test:

• Just about all pets will have increased HP.
• All pets (aside from the suicide-type ones) have increased AC.
• Focusable swarm pets gained more AC than most, since they were sitting the lowest.

I'll open this thread for results once the servers are back up.

I just wanted to add your quote from other thread here. Because knowing that the Goal to get Pets to a level of playability vs getting pets to a goal of a certain number of DI spread hits is a BIG difference.

Very preliminary parse, EM 20 Earth Pet with Burnout Rk 3/Cert Rk 2 vs a blue con ember trooper in Argin.

Tanking summary for: Jabartik (Sancus) --- Total damage: 4426960 --- Avg hit: 4891 --- Swings: 1180 --- Defended: 188 (15.9%) --- Hit: 905 (76.7%) --- Missed: 87 (7.4%) --- Accuracy: 91.2% --- Dodged: 19 (1.9%) --- Parried: 45 (4.1%) --- Blocked: 84 (7.1%) --- Riposted: 40 (3.8%) --- Absorbed: 0 (0%)

Jabartik (Sancus) - vs - An ember trooper
Attempts 530 100%
Missed 30 5.66%
Dodged 11 2.08%
Parried 19 3.58%
Blocked 31 5.85%
Riposted 22 4.15%
Absorbed 0 0%
2453 186 35.09%
3061 14 2.64%
3670 15 2.83%
4278 10 1.89%
4886 21 3.96%
5494 21 3.96%
6102 16 3.02%
6711 13 2.45%
7319 19 3.58%
7927 21 3.96%
8535 11 2.08%
9143 9 1.7%
9752 15 2.83%
10360 12 2.26%
10968 11 2.08%
11576 5 0.94%
12184 3 0.57%
12793 5 0.94%
13401 5 0.94%
14009 5 0.94%

I'm still wary of multiple mobs (will test that more later), but this is a much bigger increase than the last one (which seemed very small).

Edit:
Will try to parse it some time later, but RS pets are better but are still dying too quickly to recast them. They need another 3-5 seconds of life or so (completely disregarding the DPS hit).

One thing the devs haven't said is what they want to get that sweet spot for, which makes it very difficult to provide them parses( data ) they may need.

For example, should we be parsing vs trash mobs only? Or nameds? Are they supposed to be able to solo nameds with some effort? Or is their solo ability only projected towards trash mobs ? Current expansion or the previous?

You guys want a bunch of data from us, but you aren't being specific with what type of data.

Also, I've seen a lot of people talk about the RS servant pet that mages get..You need to understand that the reason most Mages cast this spell is for damage ( along with tanking but mostly for damage) . If the pet dies before the full damage is dealt then it was not only a waste of a cast ( 4k mana ) but also lowers the DPS of the Magician.

I thought you guys said before even the july 16th pet stealth nerf that Magicians were at where they should be in DPS..This nerf has hurt Mages in other ways that I don't think you anticipated for.

I think everyone also needs to understand that as the Magician grows in levels so does the power of their pet. When you first make a Magician, you wouldn't dream of soloing/moloing nameds. At level 100, I think molo wise it would be possible. After all, it's still a Warrior, yes a pet, but still a Warrior.

I'm not saying that pets don't need to be tuned. I just think you guys went really heavy handed with the numbers, giving them an almost 40% nerf. If the numbers were lowered so it was around a 10%-15% change I think you would get a better reaction out of pet classes along with other classes.

Last but not least, RS pets need to be given full 100% health upon summoning if you even want to think about nerfing them. As they are they only get a little over 50% health on summon..( You can always code in a trigger to make them full heal as they are summoned, so don't even act like you don't know how to fix the problem, you haven't even tried - As far as the RS pet is concerned )

I'll be banned I'm sure, but I wanted to get my thoughts and opinion out there.

To the community, you guys need to calm down and chill out. The devs are going to do what they want, regardless of what Warriors want or what pet classes want. Attacking each other and making it personal just gives them more to read. I rather them only be reading data rather then wasting time reading how it's not fair that a Mage which is categorized as a solo class is able to solo.

Love you guys,


Ammeren- Lv100 Magician/Ranger/Warrior.

Ammeren why would u talk about being banned? I thought ur post was thoughtful and well-said and those were my exact thoughts.

The devs can't be completely specific on what they mean because the range is too large. Are we balancing around EM15 focus? Vs trash mobs in EWK? vs trash mobs in AH? Versus T1 named? versus T2 named? Vs singles? Vs multiples? and what constitutes "effort"? Prepping cooldowns before the engagement? Prepping cooldowns and spamming heals?

It's impossible to specify exactly. I hope this was a learning experience for players and developers that, while using a specific DI 1-5 hit % helps prevent manipulation, it doesn't really reflect much on tanking ability in all the various tanking situations in this game.

So I would hope that the scope gets broader. Ty to devs for listening at least and not ramming changes thru

I'll have parses up in a few minutes, but it looks like the dev team way overshot it this time in the counterbalancing act.

I suspect it will be a pendulum thing. But I wouldnt be surprised if they overshoot a little on purpose and hold back on upgrading during beta later. But atleast this round will make some vocal pet owners happy.

Em15 Mage pet vs yellow con cotf mob, same buffs/gear as always. Pet hold on

Round by Round


Breakdown


2361 Attempts to hit
Total avoidance rate: 25.67%
1755 Total hits
864 of those total hits for DI1 (49.2%)
29 of those total hits for DI16 (1.7%)
21 of those total hits for DI17 (1.2%)
23 of those total hits for DI18 (1.3%)
13 of those total hits for DI19 (0.7%)
8 of those total hits for DI20 (0.4%)

Sorry for not having the bar graph I usually put - for whatever reason gamparse is refusing to process it.

Granted this is better raw mitigation than months ago when there were zero DI 18, 19, and 20s - but they also just increased the hit points of all pets - and the pet owners also now have the new and improved pet heals that were bumped up in anticipation of downward pet balancing. You could argue that pets tanking on test 2.0 now is stronger than it was before any changes were made.

Huge pendulum swing lol

Expect pets to get brought down again in version 4.0

Running necro warrior pet tests now.

Pets are finally being hit for minimum damage 35% of the time. What Aristo said was somewhat vague, but at least where I come from disregarding 25% of the time (where the pet doesn't get hit at all) isn't logical. Now he may have intended to imply "of the hits," in which case they are beyond that stated goal, though goals most definitely can change.

Anecdotally I certainly don't believe they went too far, and I still think activated abilities and RS pets need further improvements.

Of course they did Daegun, I wouldn't expect you to say anything else. You don't know what they are shooting for, anymore than I do. Overshot what you think?? I just don't understand your crusade against pets. I hope Artisto realizes you are very biased and takes your parses and recommendations lightly. I will be testing the changes out, but honestly, if they are below the current live changes, I think it's still not enough.

The issue is going to be finding the sweet spot per Aristo's goal. The problem is that its a pretty small sweet spot such that Pets can tank for groups without being able to Molo weak named.

There just isn't a lot of difference between Trash Mobs and some of the weakest named like Roon.

Then factor in a lot of Missions require 2 tanks and if one of those tanks can't be a pet, you are slicing the group combos down. Every HOF Mission 2 groups we used a pet to tank Xaric while a Tank dragged the other mob around doing auras.

Probably by far the best way to go about balancing in stuff like this is by minor nerfage + minor stagnation rather than all at once.

Notice the 25% avoidance rate. My SK parsed at around 56%. That's a HUGE difference!! Some people are focused on DI only, because it makes pets look too powerful. The only thing that matters with pets is dps taken. We aren't overhealing pets like raid tank are, where they just need to avoid a bad round. Dps taken should be the focus.

EM15 Necro warrior pet, same methods I always use (buffs - basic pet gear)


DI


Round by Round


Avoidance/Breakdown


DPS against pet: 7818
1640 hits
700 minimum hits - DI 1 hit rate 42.6%
28 of those hits for DI 16 - 1.7%
26 of those hits for DI 17 - 1.5%
32 of those hits for DI 18 - 2%
26 of those hits for DI 19 - 1.5%
32 of those hits for DI 20 - 2%

This one appears to be a step in the right direction as the necro warrior in version 2.0 deserved have a leg up over the rogue pet and closer to earth pet but v3.0 still overshot.

DPS is the absolute wrong thing to focus on. The "round by round" graphs take into account both the avoidance and the mitigation of the tank. It is arguably the single best visual representation of the power of the tank because it takes both of those into consideration. Higher avoidance with a much lower level of mitigation (even in test changes 1.0 and 2.0 pets had a huge mitigation leg-up over PC tanks) results in higher spikes, and an exponentially greater frequency of spikes.

Group content vs raid content ...
Single pulls vs multiple pulls ...

It is not average dps that kills tanks - it's those spikes; the moments in time where you take a disproportionate, unexpected, and potentially lethal bad string of hits.

This is what your superior avoidance gets your shadowknight (if in group gear):



Here is the mage earth pet v3.0:


Here is the necro warrior pet v3.0:


Each horizontal line demarcates a round in scale of 10k damage intervals starting at 20k.

Which target's health is going to pingpong more? Notice that the necro warrior pet with inferior avoidance but superior mitigation has the roughly the same average incoming dps as the group geared shadowknight. The difference is that despite getting hit more frequently, the pets are taking very very few of those high DI strikes - rather they take very steady and smooth/predictable damage.

DI breakdown for the SK:



Compare that to the necro warrior pet DI spread above.

Notice the difference?

Both of these "tanks" are sporting max defensive aas and equally *best* group gears. This isn't a comparison of a raid focus pet vs a raid sk.

Daegun, explain how this is an overshot. Is it possible for you to look at anything besides DI? You avoided the huge avoidance discrepancy, no pun intended. It's about how well pets can tank, with everything included, not just about getting the DI to what you want and be done.

Parsing beastlord warder now

EM0 (yes, completely unfocused) Earth pet with spell hold, Burnout, and Iceflame. No cert, no prism skin, no weapons, no jewelry, no anything in Argin Hiz:

/G Tanking summary for: Akirage --- Total damage: 3831662 --- Avg hit: 6606 --- Swings: 741 --- Defended: 121 (16.3%) --- Hit: 580 (78.3%) --- Missed: 40 (5.4%) --- Accuracy: 93.5% --- Dodged: 29 (4.5%) --- Parried: 21 (3%) --- Blocked: 49 (6.6%) --- Riposted: 22 (3.3%) --- Absorbed: 0 (0%)

So basically you're chipping away at a re-balancing that barely went far enough? Parses in the second round showed that pet suvivablity seemed to be too high as it was. Pets are still getting hit for D1 damage the majority of the time with virtually no spikey-ness.

This is what confuses me as well. The only soft spots or problems that I could find on v2.0 were:

1) necro warrior tank disproportionately weak (the necro rogue pet was matching it toe for toe). This pet needed to be brought up.
2) swarm pets (mage and BL specifically) weren't super functional given their short duration, came out less than 100% health, and now saw the same mitigation decreases. Swarms went from a functional tool to nothing more than a dps spell. If the devs intended this line of pets for anything but dps, the spell line was crippled.

Instead, what we get in 3.0 is a massive overshot pendulum swing wherein ALL pets got a hit point boost and ALL pets got a pretty big mitigation boost. Going from 43% to 49% minimum hits may not seem like a lot to people who aren't tanks, but where did that 6% come from? It was carved right off the high end DI - you know - that part of the damage that is dangerous.

The difference between the earth mage pet 2.0 and 3.0 is several times larger than the difference way back in the day between a warrior who went nuts with hp augs vs the warrior who went nuts with armor class augments. I was a big part of that debate back then championing ac. The shadowknight community saw the exponential benefits of whittling away those high DIs and carving them into low DIs early on. The warrior community fought the logic to the bitter end, preferring to hold onto a couple extra hundred or 1-2k more total hit points in their pool. Knowing that it took 1-2 years of bitter debate and arguing amongst a then much larger warrior community before people finally realized that ac was the clear cut better option, I'm not surprised that the non-tank community now still fails to appreciate the importance of the DI spread now after just a few months.

The newer generation of player tanks likely takes this discussion for granted, because all the best tank augments these days have hit points, armor class, and defensive mod2s. They don't have to make those hard decisions anymore.

that's because Enrage is broken, and it's unfortunate there has been no dev acknowledgment of this.

That's always been the mechanic that made RS pets mini OTs, and until it gets fixed they're going to continue to be mana intensive suck muppets.