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

Precisely!

What other player character in this game has such huge returns on such marginal, and easy to acquire upgrades and buffs.

Quoting myself below with small additions.

PS: Siddar, your numbers are still low balling the actual DI1 in that the numbers you are using include the %'s from:

misses
blocks
parries
dodges
ripstes

The actual DI1s are measurably higher than GamParse spits out.

Rather than submitting parses, that show a warrior, sk or pally standing afk getting whacked by a mob, and comparing them to a pet with it's abilities front end loaded, the parses of how both classes actually play their class should have been posted and then perform the due diligence necessary to decide if changes needed to be made.

If there is one good thing that came from all of this parsing, it is that the warriors, sk's and pallies who were complaining that pets could out tank them, now know how to run their discs and abilities correctly, and in doing so, found out there is no way a pet can out tank them. It is also making them better tanks for their guilds and grouping friends.

Danille,

I am a warrior that knows how to run my discs and abilities correctly. I am in a top tier guild and have been raiding for 10 years. We still use pets to tank some raid mobs while the warriors stand around watching.

Fix this and I am content.

ohh the reasons are clear. The tank classes can out do pets if they cycle their discs/aa. But pet classes when going 1 vs1 on trash mobs with their pets could do it before the changes with just using our fast recast pet runes(both aa and spell) and saving our big long recast aas(heals/pet fort) for names or ohh crap moments. As I posted in another thread asking him what he wanted the end results to be, on trash mobs even yellow con I let the merc do 90-95% of the healing with just throwing in the fast recast runes. He has stated that if pet class are to act as tanks then they should have to do less dps and more support of their pets while doing it. So the questions are 1. Dose he expect pet classes to have to cycle our long recast aa to have our pets tank trash mobs? and 2. What is the dps/support ratio he thinks it should be? for example on trash I do 90/10 dps/support atm with my pet. So what dose he think it should be 50/50 or 70/30 for example.

Haven't kept up with this but I'm confused.

You started this wanting to lower pets ability to tank but now you've made them even more powerful ?

Simple question: Is it your wish that Magicians must exert effort to keep their pets alive in addition to a full-time, on-the-job Cleric mercenary? If so, why?

Thank you.

For those that want to think I'm using funky techniques to calculate percentages (example below):

Please read this quote:

"In extreme circumstances pets are taking minimum melee damage 80% or more or the time"

Pets avoid > 20% of all incoming hits with maximum avoidance aa. This factors in "misses" as well as blocks, parries, ripostes, and dodges. It is mathematically impossible for a pet to ever achieve "taking minimum melee damage on 80% of incoming NPC attacks" if you want to lump those misses, blocks, parries, ripostes and dodges into the equation. In order for it to even be mathematically possible, you'd have to find an npc that managed to hit a pet more than 80% of the time and then have every single hit land for nothing but minimum DI.

I tested old pets (months ago) vs a level 36 hill giant in North Karana. That pet still took DI 1-12 (not above) ... even in that classic everquest, 60 levels below you green con standpoint. The pet avoided more vs this target than the 20% required to make Aristo's above statement null and void. Furthermore it goes against every single tank mitigation parse where the value of armor class is pitted against relative npc attack (and level).

If you want to examine the actual hit spread (DI 1-20), you filter out the avoidance and just look at the hits.

And presently?

EM15 earth pet is getting 49.2% of hits for DI1 vs yellow con cotf trash
BL warder is getting mid 48.7% of hits for DI1 vs yellow con cotf trash
Necro warrior is getting 42.6% of hits for DI vs yellow con cotf trash

Yet this was the stated goal target:

So ...

To the development team,

What are your real goals? You had your goals with the last patch. Or are your goals more of the soft goal variety where you are so easily swayed by the grumbling masses?

Yes, and ironically this has nothing to do with tanks, but they are still being compared. They have a view for pets, not a view for pets and tanks.

comparing tanks vs pets is futile atm as they want pet data, because they have tanks where they want them, according to the devs.

If you want to fill a tank role well, you need to spend time tanking well. Just like a tank.

Please read the list of Magician ARCHTYPE aa's.

Pet Tank and DPS Archtypes:
Companion's Alacrity - (Pet DPS)
Companion's Blessing - (Pet TANK)
Companion's Durability - (Pet TANK)
Companion's Fury - (Pet DPS)
Divine Companion Aura - (Pet TANK)
Fortify Companion - (Pet TANK)
Hastened Companion's Blessing - (Pet TANK)
Hastened Fortify Companion - (Pet TANK)




Mages's (NUKE) DPS Archtypes:
Destructive Fury (Nuke DPS)
Forceful Rejevination (Nuke Quick Refresh)
Fury of Magic (Nuke DPS)
Hastened Forceful Rejevination (Nuke Quick Refresh)


Now perhaps people will understand that we are intended to both tank and dps at the Archtype level
Because we are a SOLO class, it is intended that we are both. Tanks have never been intended to do both.

Danille - thank you for the parsed data which supports what Mages are beginning to talk about on all three forums.

That is, the FACT that our pets become HP punching bags with 2 mobs on them, and our efforts must mostly be directed at keeping them alive and not doing any DPS.

I've been moloing the same two (blue) spiders at the beginning of Argin Hiz with each of the last two patch revisions to determine how they do.

Patch Phase 2:

Before today's patch they were getting utterly destroyed by 2 spiders (blue), with the normal buffs, then runes, heals and fortify activated.

Against 1 of these same spiders the pet needed heavy maintenance, but survived. Unacceptable, in terms of the upkeep.

Patch Phase 3:

At today's patch the pet can easily handle 1 blue spider very acceptably, and the new balance, while not of Live server quality, is likely fine for the Mage community.

Against BOTH SPIDERS, however, with the DI variances slamming the pet simultaneously he gets ripped to shreds. I asked another Mage to come try it today and he and the pet died. I did it several times and It is salvageable but it is touch-and-go, as I had to gate out twice, and barely managed to succeed the other times. The main problem is that we're spending so much time on support that we cannot DPS the mobs down.

The RS situation does not help this. Aristo you asked about the RS pets and aggro. Without aggro swords on my main pet the RS pet would not grab aggro as normal. When he did grab aggro he died in seconds. I ran several tests simply spamming RS pets (took a LOT of running around hehe) on these blue spiders and the average time they were up was ~8 seconds.

A Mage SHOULD be able to MOLO 2 blue mobs, when he is using a RAID FOCUS, with relative ease.

The old standard was to solo one blue mob out of the box with an earth pet and this was before mercs.
_______________________________________________

I believe the new standard should use (at this point) EM15 as a baseline and say that a Mage should be able to Molo 2 blue MOBs (with aggressive sustenance of the pet via heals and runes).

Furthermore, when said Mage has reached the peak of his powers (max Raid focus) he should be able to Molo 2 blue mobs with relative ease.
________________________________________________

I think this is a fair standard, given that we can molo 3 yellows or 5 blues on live, currently. This new standard makes us significantly weaker but allays some of this OMG OMG that has been going around (me included.)

Look, the EM is the Holy Grail for Mages because his pet is his protector and ally. The standard mentioned above impels the Mage to continue to complete more progression so he can /drool get that next EM focus. It really is a rat race, but a fun one.

Summary:

• Our pet can now tank 1 blue mob reliably. Acceptable.

• Our pet is mashed when attacked by 2 of the same blue mob. Unacceptable.

• Our RS pets now leave us without crowd control, damage, and utility because they die entirely too fast and enrage isn't working (those may be related.) Unacceptable.

• Our Aegis line, which was neutered last year, if it were increased, could be part of a multistep solution to provide survivability to our pets against 2 blue mobs. Solution may be 1 part better AC for raw pet, 1 part better Aegis, and 1 part better RS. I don't know.. you guys are the experts.

That is the qualitative data. Danille and Sancus are providing nice parse data.

I'll try and convince Vorograth and/or Danille and/or Pie to put together a round-table where we can come to some consensus which the developers may or my not accept.

Baramos

I got an add while I was fighting, I killed that too.

I made sure to /who occasionally so everyone could see who was in zone.

You can see that there were 3 other pet classes, and a bard. I don't think they were healing my pet.

Wow, Just Wow!

I'm re-rolling a Mage tomorrow!

Thats a mage with a raid focus.

You guys doing these parses and videos with a freaking raid geared mage to show a mage is OP are trolls.

You're in group content use group gear to prove your case. Of course raid geared toons are OP in group content mage or otherwise we all are.

If I show a video of a raid zerker tanking 3 group mobs in COTF does that mean zerkers tanking is OP ? lol.

EM18 is 1 groupable.

My mage only has 73,347 mana self buffed. Hardly raid geared.

Please, show me a raid geared zerker tanking those mobs.

Ya let's pretend Plane of War is a group zone lol.

Make sure in your video, you're only using 1 merc, and be sure to show without a shadow of a doubt there is no one else assisting you, or healing you.

Don't use the entry zone mobs either, use the keepers of the flame in the northern end of Argin Hiz, like I did.

Then it will be a fair comparison.

The EM18 earring drops from one of the easiest, most accessible nameds in the zone. The mob is doable with 3-4 characters and mercs. Getting to the mines is short, simple, faction-less progression and doesn't even require killing the Judicator for flags.

EM15 is moloable. EM18 is groupable.

The EM18 earring can also drop off any trash mob in the zone, albeit randomly.

Indeed.

So you're intended to be both a tank archetype and a dps archetype and you're expecting to perform competitively in both spectrums while expecting tanks to just compete at the tank level and not compete at the dps level? Was that a correct interpretation? When you're "intended to tank at the archetype level" do you also expect to simultaneously be able to "dps at the archetype level"? Two jobs in one? Or should it be two mutually exclusive jobs but that are interchangeable?

Honest question there.

...Because I don't see any shadowknights that can effectively bail on their tanking duties to dps like a monk, much less do both at once.

...Because I don't see any druids that can effectively bail on their healing duties to dps like a mage, much less do both at once.

...Because I don't see any rogues that can effectively bail on their dps duties to tank like a knight, much less do both at once.

...Because I don't see any rangers that can effectively bail on their duties to heal like a priest, much less do both at once.

I took the liberty of getting a clip from a raid geared berserker trying to accomplish the same thing.

I asked for permission to record, and post the results. The berserker in question is Rorce, from EQresource, if you want to ask him if he wasn't trying.

We used my merc so it could be seen that it was on reactive.

Feiddan, a monk who was also in zone at the time joined to watch too.

I made sure to show that no one else was in zone, again.

/G Combined: A keeper of the flame in 29s, -- Rorcex 3387k @116790dps

You can see that even under his max discs, including one that allows him to reposte all incoming frontal attacks for 3 ticks or so, he only lasted 29 seconds.

Take 18 off of that (because 100% resposting under reckless disc), and it's somewhere in the 10-15 seconds range depending the server tick.

Again, feel free to ask him if he didn't use defensives, since obviously, at 116k DPS you know he was burning with zero support.

We also didn't even train him with the third mob my pet walked through.