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

Sorry one more thought, if you want the Air and Earth pet tpo tank as well as a player could the water pet at least do 1/2 the damage of a rogue, or the fire pet do more than 16k nukes? cause mages do have about 20 different AA categories devoted to pet stuff. If you dont want the pet to tank as well, at least give the mage some damage. There is a rogue oin my server that goes off about her 120k backstabs and her 750k assassinates. Look overall I liked what you did with Assassinate, decap and headshot you took them from power leveling farming only to group usable. Could ya give the mage something, they get out summoned be a necro. My mains are 100th level Mage clueless, and 100 th level Necro on bertox. -thanks. my necro solos just fine without the pet so the skeleton i could take it or leave it.

If you want the dps pets to do more damage, you have to take a stepwise approach to dropping Mage personal dps. The total balance of output is balanced if imagine right now. This would probably be unpopular with pet classes because they then take on more of a pet steward role. Pets ability or lack thereof to survive rampage and aoes then also becomes a problem. Losing the pet then cripples the pet owners output on burns.

It would, however make balancing the pets easier as simply pulling out a non dps pet would make the pet owner give up a large portion of their damage potential - checks and balances.

But like I said, such a shift would likely be very unpopular.

I wouldn't mind for half my DPS to be transferred to pet DPS, for most events. Just need to ensure we have the tools that allow pet to live vs raid events... LIKE FIXING COMPANIONS BLESSING for gosh sakes, already!

I think it would tremendously help the magicians that struggle with DPSing to get to the higher end of the spectrum, if all they had to do for half their group/raid DPS was summon, equip, and buff a water pet with a couple buffs.

But I think such a shift would be VERY unpopular with other classes...

Magician pets sustaining 45k, burning for 80k... yep, I like the idea... Make even the worst magicians pretty good, long as they sic their pets...

That would be a huge nerf, considering Magicians are currently burning in excess of 175k.

Taking a stepwise approach produces several mathematical quandaries, because it is not as if you're taking corner cases and pronouncing it "good" or "the answer." That only works when there are first order variables, you run all the corner cases, and can then define an established solution space. The solution space can be easily demarcated by simple 2 dimensional graphs showing extrema.

When you work with 2nd and 3rd order effects, the situation becomes much more complicated, because then the idea of corner cases is imaginary, and the results essentially end up being dominated (in many cases) as functions of 2nd and 3rd order effects with what you would THINK to be first order effects taking a back seat. The solution space is then not 2-dimensional but becomes a 3-dimensional SURFACE with complex deviations and non-intuitive valleys and crests. This has been why the 2-dimensional DI analyses have been so mis-leading. (Among other things.)

This is precisely why the devs' graphs of AC took a marked exponential increase when it seemed to be simply using 2 stepwise variables and running incremental calculations.

It's true that stepwise information (Like all this DI hoo-hah) is important, but it is equally important to find through experimentation and and subsequent analysis just what the stepped effects are actually producing.

This is what has led to the Mage near-consensus that:

- The Pet against 1 mob is performing OK
- The Pet against 2 mobs is under-performing.
- The RS pet needs to be reverted to its former operation, and runes need to be rethought in terms of restoring some of their functionality from former years.
- A standard needs to be defined so that expectations can be managed.

Baramos Brinstar

No class is allowed to be bad on raids. You can argue solo versus group but when you have classes like SK that are good at both group and solo it makes it very hard to argue that other solo classes should be bad in groups. Non solo classes being bad at soloing has always been part of EQ design. There are classes that can solo and classes that can't and there has never been compensation for the non solo classes because of there lack of ability to solo and besides giving non solo classes mercs there likely wont ever be.

As of a few months ago all melee dps (rangers, rogues, zerks) with the exception of maybe monks were comparatively bad in groups. Necros have always their own set of challenges and I feel strongly that they need lots of love. Wizards? Mages? Incredible burstained dps. Mops the floor with melee on single, multiples, chain pulls, and especially named.

So yes, some classes have been kept in "less than ideal" balance for a long time.

You probably don't want rangers invited into this discussion. Compared to tanks an pets they can't tank their way out of a wet paper bag. If they work at it perfectly they can manage reasonable dps but will get stomped by group geared fireball slingers. I know I know - not their archetype etc - but sucks to be out solo'd, out molo'd, out tanked, and out dps'd all by a fellow dps archetype.

Especially when historically you were considered the stand in 'light tank'.

When I was running my long parses on a group geared ranger with shield, 3 cleric mercs with 2 reactive one balanced had a hard time simply keeping the ranger alive without slows or debuffs.

Look I enjoy playing a mage, if I wanted to sit back and nuke I would have been a wizard, currently the mage has 4 pets, air eart, fire and water, now if they even out the hit points, earth and air would become obsolete, fire and water have about half the hit points of earth and air, my favorite spells are the servant spells, thing cons yellow to me i get a kick out of it, it can off tank for me as a mage. I dont need weak fire dd spells saying man i wish i made a wizard. and nobody mentions mages as a top end DD class.

The price you pay for being pretty good at splitting those mobs up and bringing them to the mage, safely, to kill. "Out-pulled"...doesn't have quite the same ring

I'm pretty sure rangers can do more with raid gear than mages. Esp considering most of mage's mana-effecient dps is rains, which don't benefit from worn focus

I'm pretty sure the necromancer is ever so much the capable puller as ranger. A talented mage can also ... easily split mobs. So they pay a steep price in doing worse dps and not being able to tank their way out of a wet paper back for what exactly?

Cool looking chainmail armor?
Sweet concept ranged dps that's inferior to regular melee and your class in general?

I'm pretty sure they can't. When you really look at the total scope of power each class brings to the table, I'd bet dollars to doughnuts you don't have data to back up your claim there. Why do you think group geared tanks are such a rare sight these days? Why do you think mages are so popular? It certainly isn't beaming anymore - thankfully that's dead as a doornail for overpowered and zone disruptive powerleveling.

But I'm likewise pretty sure that you don't want to invite rangers into this discussion. EM15 pets even with the worst of the nerfs (v 1.0 on test, and pets have improved since then) mitigated damage better than raid geared warriors and spiked similarly to raid geared knights. Now they are again spiking at a lower threshold than raid geared warriors not factoring in disciplines. Raid geared rangers? They mitigate worse than those raid geared knights and have at best 2/3 the hit points of a group focused earth pet (EM15 earth is 185k hp with just certitude - not a fact to be quickly forgotten). Outside of the almighty weaponshield, raid geared rangers are literally light years behind a group focus pet. Even with shield use and subsequently gutting their own personal dps, your pet will run circles around them without support.

And what do they get in return?

Necromonious, you should stop why you're only marginally behind. I don't think you want to invite all the monks and rangers in here to explain the gross imbalances at every level of game play.

For 175k DPS as a magician, you need particular circumstances and a good amount of support.

I'd trade 15k off the top end, if we could hit 160 vs any mob at any time...

Would guess most magicians would.

Daegun, you're crazy if you believe Test 1.0 pets tanked better than warriors.

Once again, DI values do not tell the whole story.

Take in account activateables, total incoming damage, total avoided hits, etc.

A pet takes two to three times the incoming DPS as a war, when both under their max discs, multiplied by the total number of mobs they are tanking. So, at 3 mobs, the pet is taking 6 to 9 times the incoming DPS as a warrior (if both using their max tanking abilities).

Nylrem I said "mitigated" better than warriors. Did they mitigate better? Yes they did and have plenty of data to back that up. Do not put words in my mouth. Anyone who has followed this conversation should know the definitions of mitigation and avoidance along with knowing that other player-chosen interventions simply modify those baselines.

As it relates to rangers ... they don't have a lot of options. They've got weaponshield and some long cooldown aas that are somewhat useful - but don't hold a candle to the raw passive tanking statistics of pets, the raw hit points of pets, the raw passive tanking statistics of player tanks, the at will abilities of pet owners, or the at will abilities of player tanks.

I do hate comparing pets to players, I think they should be compared to what they can do versus mobs.

However, you keep comparing them to warriors though, so...

So, just make a pet's AVOIDANCE as whatever percentage of a warrior the developers feel it should be then. Then do the same for their mitigation.

Right now, pets under fortify companion mitigate at about 110% of a warrior under Last Stand? (I personally doubt it's that high, but maybe) But warriors AVOID about 200% more than pets PER EACH MOB beating on the warrior.

Let's say the max raid focus EM pet should AVOID and MITIGATE at 75% what a max raid geared warrior can? The same when a warrior pops all their avoidance and mitigation stuff, the pet can still be 75% of what a max'd warrior is, if it's maxed on defensives, right?

I think pet owners would be perfectly happy with that.

I'm not sure it's able to be done easily with code, but maybe...

Go ahead and add DI 0 (all AVOIDED hits) to your comparison charts, from now on. THAT would give a clearer picture about true tanking ability.

The first comment is laughable - if you got a ranger and a magician in a group, who do you really think is going to be splitting and pulling mobs? "OK group I will split these with Companion of Necessity, but we will have to wait for my AA to refresh before we can split another. Oops got 2, well no problem I will just use my servant pet to keep the second one locked up ... no wait, it's died already. Sorry about ..." LOADING PLEASE WAIT Yeah I'm being cynical - I don't type fast enough to get that whole message typed to group before I die. Mages have terrible tools for pulling.

The second comment I highlight speaks of "I want to be able to fight without using my abilities." Are you a useless lump of meat on a raid or in a group too? Are pets expected to take huge spikes in damage without giving us the tools to have them survive it? Do pets have the AC and tools to reduce the damage like real tanks? nope. Do they have the HP of a real tank to let them survive the bigger hits? nope. That's why just bringing pet mitigation down hurts pet survivability so much.

There are a lot of different variables, with different, complex interactions for players vs. pets vs. merc. Not to mention a 15 year old code base that probably doesn't have anyone left that know some of that code.

What exactly is this "sweet spot" the devs want to reach? What do the devs really want a pet to be able to do? As far as I can tell after reading every post I can find no one but the devs know. Or do they really know? It's like we're trying to hit the pinata blindfolded - just keep swinging your stick until you hit it. I'm glad we players are given an opportunity to help reach this goal, I just wish I knew what the goal was.

It's next on the docket right? Are you moving in on the melee dps after pets Daegun? I'd like to know what class to roll, ie, a class that is not in your cross hairs. I am not comfortable progressing on any character since who knows what class you will lobby to nerf next.

This is actually a good topic for another thread, but to sum up:

1) Tanking is a high-stress role that requires more investment in your character than any other class to perform, and which comes with a high amount of blame if the group fails.
2) Raiding guilds recruit fewer tanks and have higher standards for their tanks than, say, a random DPS class, so if you want to see the endgame it's better to play anything BUT a tank.
3) There's been an arms race going on between the number crunchers on TSW and EGN and the developers since, oh, SoF. Basically, very smart tanks figure out how to minimize personal risk by loading up on AC or switching to S&B or what have you, and the next expansion is tuned to kill those very smart tanks, which means that slightly dumber tanks who were still struggling in the last expansion get splattered. A random DPS class wearing two-expansion-old-gear with some random hotzone augments is not going to be performing to potential, but they're also not going to being spatulaed off the pavement a dozen times a night either.
4) Tanking can't be parsed, so no bragging rights. I put this at 4) because I want to maintain some faith in humanity, else it would be at 1).

Or to sum up further: Tanking in EQ has evolved into a really terrible job that nobody realizes you're doing well while you're doing it well but everyone notices when you fail.

None of that is the fault of pet classes but it would make for an excellent side topic.

Eye on the prize people, those of you who can post data, please do. Arguing amongst each other will not help us (eq players) at all.

Thank you,
Sostenes

I think a HUGE issue here is the use of mercs. For some reason, people are starting to consider them part of the class. They use the term MOLO, which is way to similar to solo. A merc is the equivalent of a group geared player in your group. People are considering mage pets afk tanking, when there is a healer merc dumping crazy heals on it. Since day one in EQ, if I have a dedicated healer in the group, they are there so I can concentrate on doing dps, tanking etc. and not have to be concerned with taking time to heal myself or pet somehow.

Mages should not have to worry about healing a pet with a healer merc or two, that is like saying a warrior should worry about healing with a healer in the group. The whole point of me adding a healer or healer merc, is so my mage can focus on DPS and not worry about healing my pet. I am sacrificing 400pp an hour and half my exp for the luxury of being able to get an instant healer to join my group.

If I am solo and my pet does not need me to focus my attention on healing it against current exp mobs, then that's a problem. I can assure you that is not only not the case, but impossible to keep up against many exp mobs. Totally impossible against named mobs.

I realize that healer mercs benefit mages/necros/BL more than other classes, but some classes, like clerics/shamans/druids benefit much more from tank mercs. Some classes are so specific or one dimensional(do one thing the best), that a merc might not allow them to kill exp mobs very well. I have 10 level 100 characters, each one has some area that they shine in. If I want to log on quick and kill things, I don't log my rogue on. If I want to group and kill mobs fast, that's where my rogue shines and is a blast to play.