Test Update 8/5/2014 - Pet Changes Round Two

Except you were using EM 18. Drop down to EM 15 and we'll have a look.

*cough*

This is precisely true. Despite all the faux "solutions" proposed by (non-mages) using long reuse discs, runes, paper gargoyle pets, and fast fading AA's, when we are in an OMG situation with even one mob there is no more panic button left except gate.

Even if we keep the pet alive we have to devote most of our energy to do just that - keep our pet alive. The pet DPS output, despite the new "boosts" are not going to offset this problem.

Bara

Good, then I hope you understand my confusion as in your post you stated using no disciplines. You did however include grelleths, tap reflective vies , reprove, and all your non 'big 3' discs.

And compared it directly to an auto attacking pet who's owner was not utilizing aegis, groundswell stance, and all the other sustainable tools available to them as quickly as they refreshed. If you want to compare a tank with active intervention measures, compare it to a pet receiving the same attention from its owner. If you want to include your disciplines, compare it to a pet using fortify companion on top of the rest.

I was confused because your post implied you were just self buffed and otherwise doing nothing compared to a self buffed pet who was attacking and otherwise doing nothing.

In the future please be forthcoming with your methods, otherwise they aren't nearly as useful.

If your point was that a plate tank is more capable than a pet tank on the test server, that is fantastic. You should be better under all conditions. You are a dedicated tank. They are not.

With the pre-nerf pet - you wouldn't stand a chance as a group geared knight in a 1 on 1 fight with a heavy hitter. You were and will always remain capable of handling scenarios that pets can't ... But keep in mind that you play a dedicated tank who exists for no other real purpose. Pet classes? Their primary focus has never been raw tanking. It is but a small portion of what they bring to the table.

It would seem there is a general consensus in terms of the Necro pets and their capabilities in this thread be it from mains or people playing alts regardless to what side of the issues they are on. There are still some issues/balancing out there and while parses are great some ideas on how to address those issues could also be useful. So here are a few ideas that are reasonable (at least in my opinion) and revolve around the idea of compromise in regards to these changes and Necros.

1) EM Focus - While not Necro specific it has been brought up quite a bit that the difference in EM focus isn't much after the previous changes to it. The initial change was to help reel pet tanking in, the issues are better understood at this point and EM was not the culprit. Understandably the devs do not like backtracking and a large change wouldn't be ideal. But a small increase in the EM bonuses in the area of a 5% boost to the current modifiers would provide something of a more noticeable difference without getting out of hand.

2) This is probably the most logical yet radical of the ideas but pets are being changed with a new vision anyway. This one is all about compromise. For Necros why not have the 97 Warrior Pet come summoned with the pet armor/jewelry but no mask or weapons? Similarly the 100 Rogue come with the mask and weapons but no armor/jewelry. Then carry that further with future spells.
A - From a design stand point it would reinforce the idea of pet roles *out of the box.*
B - From a balance stand point it would prevent pets without gear from being too weak or pets with gear from being too strong. This is already an issue with parsing pets and trying to balance them.
C - As for taking a Mage ability, to be honest all the mages I have spoken to would prefer other pet classes have their pets come with everything so people stopped bothering them for it. But I don't know every Mage and some might still want to control that. With neither pet fully geared it is compromise.

3) The 97 Warrior Pet - This pet is supposed to be slightly behind the Air Pet but parses have shown that it is still pretty far behind and more akin to the Fire pet. With pet gear the gap is smaller but still quite noticeably. A minimal bump in HPs and Mitigation is still needed. My concern is for those with EM 15 vs EM 20. This pet should be quite reliable for a group geared Necro against single entry trash in AH. DPS wise it could also use a boost to where the Earth Pet is. In direct comparisons of the 7 pets that would make it #4 tank and tied for last DPS wise. Reasonable.

4) The 100 Rogue Pet - This pet is supposed to be slightly behind the Water Pet in terms of durability but performance wise it is by far the worst of all the Pets (Pet Class wise). It needs a HP and Mitigation boost to be anywhere near its target goal. DPS wise the lowering of the minimal hit should probably be reversed and then increased so that it is on the level of the Mage Air Pet. That would make it #6 for tanking and #4 for DPS. Reasonable.

There, was it that hard to admit that this is what it comes down to, in the end? Your class envy and dogmatic belief that player tanks ought to out-tank pets in every single situation? For all that hiding behind DI parses and 'I'm just providing data to the devs,' it's nice to know what this is all about, ultimately.

For one, it makes it a lot easier to understand why you choose to give the parses that you do. For two, it makes your biased conclusions self-explanatory.

Where did I say I had class envy?

Don't put words in my mouth.

How does the concept of expecting a dedicated player tank to always function at a higher level within that field of tanking compared to the pet of a dps archetype warrant strong vernacular like 'dogma' or 'dogmatic'? Tanks are tanks. It is all they do, therefore it stands to reason that they should do it the best.

The changes on test are 100% in like with the development team's stated goals.
Parses in test showing tanks finally being the preferable option do not highlight the failure of the changes, rather that the changes are working.

My own opinion of balance issues at this point are really with the necromancer in mind. Their warrior pet should be mitigating on the earth pet level and have hp totals closer to the earth pet. Earth pet will remain ahead. Beyond that I would encourage the devs to expand aa lines for necromancy rand Mage healing capabilities to get them closer to where beast lords are.

Beastlord heal with capped aa and group focus:
1 sec cast
4 sec recast
40-45k non crits
Crit heals 80-90k

Chaining this one heal on refresh equates to over 10k healing per second and a crit heal can top off a pet at 30% health and casts in 1 second.

Pair that with a 3k hot with burst on fall and the promised line ...

Beastlord pet factoring player support runs circles around Mage and necro pet tanking. The flip side is that their ranged dps potential is way lower, so that's a balance concern.

---------
--------------

Knowing that a return to god mode mitigation is not going to happen and that test changes are in line with dev stated goals, it's happening.

A smart Mage/necro community would focus on balancing pet heals more closely between pet classes.
-faster casting
-aa lines to counterbalance the heal aa's beast lords get given their sub priest hybrid archetype.
-just like rangers and paladins, beast lords have a ton more aa to modify base heal levels and criteria rates.

Necros need to lobby for more hp on their warrior pet.


Right now, you guys are focusing on the wrong thing, an in neglecting other glaring balance issues fighting the inevitable coming mitigation balances, you're shooting yourself in the foot.

I always thought of it as:
Earth Pet - Warrior- with the best mitigation, highest HP
Air Pet -Paladin- with very good mitigation, further assisted by stuns
Necro Warrior pet - Shadowknight- with very good mitigation (like the air pet), further assisted by slightly higher the air pet AC and maybe innate life taps?)
Necro Rogue pet and water pet - Rogue- about the same, similar great dps but the survivability of an appropriate chain class.
Fire pet- High casting dps but the tanking ability of a wizard.

The Necro pet can stand there and just cast terrors for all i care. I want him to tank not dps. Its the necro's job to DPS.

So I fought one blue con ofiak spy (not rootable) in WK for 412 seconds self healing. EM 20 Earth Pet with Max AA Buffed with Burnout Rk. 3, Certitude Rk. 2, and Bastion of Vie Rk. 2 (forgot to remove that buff) Here are the results:

Tanking summary for: Xarekab (Sancus) --- Total damage: 2253241 --- Avg hit: 4684 --- Swings: 657 --- Defended: 111 (16.9%) --- Hit: 481 (73.2%) --- Missed: 65 (9.9%) --- Accuracy: 88.1% --- Dodged: 19 (3.4%) --- Parried: 26 (4.3%) --- Blocked: 50 (7.6%) --- Riposted: 16 (2.8%) --- Absorbed: 0 (0%)

Hits:
Xarekab (Sancus) - vs - An orafik spy
Attempts 611 100%
Missed 61 9.98%
Dodged 17 2.78%
Parried 25 4.09%
Blocked 49 8.02%
Riposted 13 2.13%
Absorbed 0 0%
2045 33 5.4%
2192 1 0.16%
2272 163 26.68%
2559 2 0.33%
2843 10 1.64%
3074 3 0.49%
3415 16 2.62%
3588 7 1.15%
3986 6 0.98%
4103 1 0.16%
4558 12 1.96%
4617 3 0.49%
5129 14 2.29%
5645 2 0.33%
5701 10 1.64%
6160 7 1.15%
6272 15 2.45%
6674 10 1.64%
6844 16 2.62%
7189 2 0.33%
7415 19 3.11%
7703 1 0.16%
7987 17 2.78%
8217 1 0.16%
8558 8 1.31%
8731 3 0.49%
9130 10 1.64%
9246 1 0.16%
9701 11 1.8%
9760 2 0.33%
10273 9 1.47%
10275 1 0.16%
10789 1 0.16%
10844 8 1.31%
11416 9 1.47%
11987 5 0.82%
12559 3 0.49%
13130 4 0.65%

I'm not sure how to do a more in-depth healing parse, but:
-vs- An orafik spy Sancus Healed: --- Xarekab: 2043009
Counted 24 crits in my log (out of 95 heals cast).
An orafik spy on 8/7/2014 in 412sec

An orafik spy on 8/7/2014
Sancus Xarekab -vs- An orafik spy: -- DMG: 1075368 -- DPS: 2629 -- Scaled: 2610 -- Hit: 1040492 -- Bash: 22005 -- Kick: 12871 -- % dmg as normal: 54.1% -- % dmg as critical: 45.9% -- Non-crit rate: 63.4% -- crit rate: 36.6% -- Attempts: 1333 -- Hits: 759 -- Missed: 356 -- Defended: 218 -- Accuracy: 68.1% -- Avg Hit: 1416 -- Max hit: 2336 -- DMG to PC: 2253241

Sancus - 98
--- Companion of Necessity - 1
--- Force of Elements - 1
--- Perfected Invisibility - 1
--- Promised Amelioration Rk. III - 15
--- Renewal of Hererra Rk. II - 80

Produced by GamParse v1.0.5

I do agree with Daegun that Beastlord's have a significant advantage in patch healing. I'm assuming we aren't supposed to be healing all the time, so total healing ability isn't quite as important. But being able to throw out a HoT or a single target heal in 1 second is huge (our direct heals have a 2.6 second cast time with merc buffs and T2 group feet) and leads to the ability to do more DPS. On the flip side this is as much a part of that class as the strongest pets are a part of the mage class. Personally I'd be happy with a fairly long reuse (maybe 12 seconds) 1 second cast time heal for patch healing. I'd rather lobby for activated abilities to be retuned considering the increase in the damage we're taking.

Player tanks are the best at what they do - tanking as a player. Pets are not players. Pets have limitations players do not have. They also have strengths that players do not have. Ergo, it is completely obvious and logical that there are situations in which pets equal/out-tank players, in the same way that there are situations in which vice versa occurs. The value of a class - and therefore balance - is not measured at being greater in every parse in every situation. Where all else is equal, it is versatility that ought to set the player tank ahead.

Do players presently have this versatility advantage? Yes. Do pets? No. End of balance story.

Your idea of balance is absolutely horrendous. You know what we call, in game design, this type of balance scheme?

Homogenization. Turning all classes into 'archetypes' that are interchangeable and differ only in 'fluff.' Across-the-board functional equivalence that in the end sucks the life out of the class and subsequently the game because players realize how boring and mathematical it ultimately is.

No, necros should not receive pets that are the functional equivalent of mage earth pets. No, mages and necros should not receive buffs and heals that are the functional equivalent of BST buffs and heals. No, the direction of the game should not be towards archetype pigeonholing and balance through homogenization.

Do me a favor: never enter game design.

Grelleth's Skin is a 10 minute self buff with no recast time. It is extremely easy to sustain both Grelleth's Skin and the AC tap, and both should be taken into account when considering a base parse of SK tanking ability. In no way are they disciplines.

I consider the following disciplines:
Unholy Guardian
Bonebrood Mantle
Grelleth's Carapace

I did state what was done in these parses when I posted. You also commented that knights have self healing, and I wanted to showcase that, so I used lifetaps. Lifetaps, autoattack, the AC tap, and Grelleth's Skin are not disciplines - in my opinion they are the barebones activities one can expect from any SK. Not disciplines.

What I did in these parses I consider an equal playing ground. I'm sorry that you disagree.

In any case, here is a 15 minute parse of a SK rotating disciplines. The idea here was to get a "sustained" disc scenario. I started with Grelleth's Carapace (3:30), Unholy Guardian (2:00), Bonebrood Mantle (1:45), and repeated upon refreshing. The disc rotation I used looks like this:



The last 4 minutes of the parse, the SK does not use defensive disciplines as none are up (mitigation ones anyway). The rotation repeats at the 15 minute mark so I stopped there.

Damage table:

While sustaining discs over a 15 minute period, the SK maintains an 18% reduction in average hit and incoming DPS. I want to emphasize that this is not simply a "SK + discs" parse, but a simulation of what a SK is able to sustain over an extended period. The SK had discs up for 75% of this parse.

My point is to show what a group geared SK can maintain while actively tanking and playing their character, with lazy play (what was shown earlier) and while actively using disciplines.

As a matter of fact, Daegun, I am now pretty sure that you don't even know what you don't know.

For one, you act as though balance is the holy grail of MMOs. 15 years of EQ is capable of doing that to a man, which is why I encourage you to stop playing/parsing EQ for a year and broaden your horizons.

But personal recommendations aside, balance, insofar as it applies to class balance, is not and has never been an objective criteria. Do you know why? Simple: because class balance is an artifice. A construct. An illusion created mainly by players but also egged on by developers to try and explain why they are happy/not happy about the class they are playing, because without it, they have difficulty communicating one of the simplest of human emotions: envy.

To wit: why are you - a warrior, a SK, whatever - not happy that pets out-tank you in certain situations? Why does there have to be an iron rule that pets must never out-tank players? Why do you feel that what pet classes are able to do affect you at all? What fundamental law of gaming stipulates that an earth elemental summoned from the outer planes by an arch convoker should not out-mitigate a dude wearing platemail?

Answer: there is none. The reason why you - and I'm sure a lot of other people, so don't think I'm singling you out - feel that the earth elemental ought to mitigate worse than you is because you hate the fact that a mage is able to do what you can't: DPS _and_ tank. Add onto that a bit of self-righteousness regarding the mage not having to camp AC augs and voila, we have the basic envy that underlies all class balance.

Having established envy as the primary motivation behind class balance, it is easy to show that it, in fact, has less to do with game mechanics and everything to do with the mentality of the player. Fact is, not every player wants the same nugget. That's understandable - we don't necessarily share the same concept of fun. For one set of players, having the highest DPS/HPS in a raid is what's fun. For another, being able to solo the biggest, baddest mobs is what's fun. For yet another, it's having the highest amount of mitigation. In practice, players gravitate towards the classes that allow them to maximize their fun.

Knowing this, it is not a leap of logic to see that class balance - and indeed all of video game design - is simply the process of trying to give every player what he/she wants. The balancing act comes from the fact that players frequently base their own enjoyment on how well their own class performs vs. others. Had that not been the case, 'class envy' and therefore 'class balance' won't exist, because there'd be no need to engage in a balancing act between different groups of players envying what other groups have.

But what is, ultimately, the proper measure of balance? Is it a specific, game mechanical equation that, when achieved, brings forth paradise on earth? Spoken another way - is there a mathematical maxima which, when reached, brings satisfaction to all players?

The answer is, of course and unfortunately, no - because again, players don't have the same idea of fun, don't exhibit the same amount of eny, and therefore logically they don't have an universal agreement on what balance is and how to reach it. Ergo, 15+ years of arguing on forums, in-game, and endless back-and-forth swings between FOTM classes.

Bringing it back to the present discussion, all of the above is leads to a simple observation - which is that you and those who support you are trying to push YOUR vision of what class balance is and YOUR criteria for what makes the game enjoyable to you on, well, everyone else, while those who are fighting you, who are arguing against you, have their OWN vision of what class balance is their OWN criteria for what makes the game enjoyable to them. There isn't a deep, enduring objectivity here, a sort of game mechanical flaw that necessitates the triumph of your vision over the triumph of your opponents'. Instead, there is a spectrum of bias - from players, from developers, from the business hiring those developers - each struggling to figure out how best to proceed for their own interests.

There is naught that is fundamentally wrong about earth pets out-tanking players in certain situations. That's just a game mechanic. What is fundamentally wrong, for you and for those arguing against you, are the other side's understandably biased vision of what the game ought to be.

Now do the same with your SK.

,

Lol Ombek is not your typical group geared SK. Technically his gear is all from the group game sort of, but I doubt there are too many SK's out there that sport the amount of Plane of War and CoTF zone wide rares to go with I would assume 40ac in every aug slot and max AA who would be classified as your average group geared Tank.

I get why you have a bone to pick in this fight. The only people who are going to push this agenda of keeping pets, particularly mage pets, as over powered and imbalanced as they are at the moment are either those who play a mage, people who group with mages or thier clique/spouse/online fling plays a pet class. There really is no logical argument for keeping pets the way they are. Most people know this, and they know there was bound to be changes to pets at some point.

I'm not sure when mages started to think they were tanks, or why they started to think this in the first place. All of these parses and all of these discussions are about tanking. Just think about that for a few min. How about we give Boo Boo the strengths of mages pets.. It's kind of the same dealio. Mages can dps and tank and use a healer merc, Druids would be able to heal and tank and use a wizzy merc.

Either way, to the people who compare pets to real tank classes, and to the people who want pets to be able to tank as well as, or avoid or mitigate or whateveritis to be equal to the three tanks classes, I want whatever it is you're smoking. Paladins, Shadow knights and Warriors should be >>> any pet by a fair margin.

Common sense people.

Continue to advocate your own personal agendas though ~ As I do find this all amusing.

I may set up a test with my warrior, doing all my Uberness that I can do and post the parses. Gimme some ideas of what zone/mobs to conduct said tests, and once I get back home I can run some parses.

I'm not sure when warriors started to think they ought to tell other classes what they ought to be capable of and not capable of.

There are plenty of logical arguments for keeping pets the way they are. To start with - because pet classes want it that way, and they're paying SoE to fulfill their desires, so...?

I can see a very good reason for SK and Pallys to be against this nerf.

Any class that can be credibly accused of soloing better then a necromancer after this change is going to be at constant risk of random nerfs.

Gnomeland you are entitled to your opinion. I am entitled to mine. A discussion on whether the changes were necessary is months to late. The jury and the opinion that matters has already and very plainly stated that the state of affairs was not within their scope of intentions.

It is being changed.

Take or leave my advice, that much is up to you. I would request, though, that you keep your posts more civil. What I won't do is recreate the wheel and rehash the debate from months ago. That ship has sailed. That argument is over.

I agree with the spirit if not the letter. U gotta try to line up the actives with pets and players as best as possible based on effectiveness and availability, lest the actives lose all meaning

9 nec with 97 nec pet (war) em 12 with 2 mercs on efficient and 1 on balanced to get a good di set. had pet haste, brells rk 3, cert rk 2, and focus (minus str and agi buffs, clicked them off so no extra dodge) buffs were for added hp only(and ac from cert, cause someone is gonna nit pick it).

A twisted revenant in 5848s (97.5 min), 97 war pet em 12 NPC DPS 9410

pet aa:
companion durability 15/21
companion agility 11/18
sturdy companion 11/18

rolling damage 97 nec pet em 12



di graph 97 nec pet em 12


97 war pet em 12 - vs - A twisted revenant
Attempts 10702 100%
Missed 656 6.13%
Dodged 267 2.49%
Parried 313 2.92%
Blocked 672 6.28%
Riposted 342 3.2%
Absorbed 10 0.09%
2448 2132 19.92%
2990 315 2.94%
3533 343 3.21%
4075 366 3.42%
4617 359 3.35%
5159 343 3.21%
5701 375 3.5%
244 380 3.55%
6786 413 3.86%
7328 373 3.49%
7870 344 3.21%
8412 324 3.03%
8955 328 3.06%
9497 276 2.58%
10039 256 2.39%
10581 244 2.28%
11123 242 2.26%
11666 197 1.84%
12208 193 1.8%
12750 639 5.97%

When the pet died it went to the pally who killed it with reposts, wasnt even trying to get these but since they are there, only 2 mercs were healing the pal, one died right after the pet. Also paladin had a 2h weap on (want supposed to tank anything)

A twisted revenant in 498s, paladin cotf t1 group and rof t1 raid mix - npc 7322

rolling damage paladin


di graph paladin



100 pal - vs - A twisted revenant

Attempts 539 100%

2448 107 19.85%
2990 26 4.82%
3533 23 4.27%
4075 24 4.45%
4617 27 5.01%
5159 17 3.15%
5701 28 5.19%
6244 31 5.75%
6786 23 4.27%
7328 26 4.82%
7870 23 4.27%
8412 20 3.71%
8955 32 5.94%
9497 19 3.53%
10039 12 2.23%
10581 12 2.23%
11123 15 2.78%
11666 16 2.97%
12208 12 2.23%
12750 46 8.53%

Level 100 Necromancer using level 97 warrior pet with EM15.
Buffs include certitude rk 2 and sigil of the sundered Rk 2.
Pet was given basic mage summoned gear only.

Target: Yellow con trash mob for 20 minutes
Mob was not debuffed, pet hold on, no buff vie/blocks etc

DI Spread:


Round by Round:


Avoidance:


These parses were just pulled off test (literally finished the fight < 3 minutes ago).

Average incomming dps: 8074
Total number of hits: 1688
Total number of minimum hits: 38.1%

Compare this to EM15 Mage earth pet receiving 44.6% minimum hits and average incoming dps of 7234 under identical conditions. Pair that with lower total hit point pools ...

My recommendation would be to increase necro mitigation a bit to the 40-42% range and total hit point difference between EM15 mage earth pet and warrior pet to be at least cut in half.

Of the 3 "tank" pets, especially considering heal capabilities and innate abilities of each pet, the necromancer is undeniably the weakest link and needs to be brought up to par with the rest.