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

Running passive parses on v2.0 of the necro rogue pet as we speak.

As much as I would like to see the necro warrior pet boosted a bit (as stated above) this is still within the quoted "target" from Aristo of:

New Necromancer Rogue pet parses - EM15, max aa, basic summoned mage gear
Buffs: Sundered rk 2 haste buff and cleric certitude:

DI:


RBR


Avoidance


Average incoming dps: 8055 (lol 20 dps LOWER than warrior pet)
Total hits: 2090
Minimum DI hits: 781
% of hits for minimum 37.4%

Compare to necro warrior pet who took about 20 more dps and had a whopping 0.7% more minimum hits (ie microscopically better). What this tells me is that those numbers are close enough and the parses are relatively short enough (only 20-25 minutes is not enough to iron out the RNG completely), that these pets are mitigating at functionally equal levels - does not appear to be in line with what the developers intended for pet to pet balance.

I'd cite this parse as good grounds for the necro community to lobby for their warrior pet getting a mitigation boost (as well as hit point boost) to bring their "tank" more in line with the other pet "tanks" out there. Right now, the only real difference between the rogue and warrior necromancer pet are hit point pools.

Guess you have to be high to want balance in this game? The developers have already said player tanks are balanced to content, therefore for a pet tank to be balanced to tank current content, it should be able to tank like a player tank. It will never replace a player tank, because it's a pet and has no utility. The fact that player tank, especially knight, utility relevance is ignored shows that either group content is too easy to not need knight utility, or it has not kept up with the age of the game. Either way, that is tank's problem. Just like their gearing curve, again, not mage's problem

The only thing that makes pets appear stronger currently (we'll say on the live servers) is a crappy outdated archaic system of parsing that favors player tanks. Getting a player tank to "try" on his class during a parse is like pulling teeth, that alone should speak volumes. The difference in parse data from a "neutral" player tank who is effectively using his abilities, and one of the pet nerf callers is like night and day

I don't doubt necro pet needs a boost, but parsing with pet hold on removes necro pets life tap proc also? Wouldn't this affect how it will compare to mage pet in an actual tanking situation? Kinda like sk compare to war, one mitigates more and one self heals?

If this analogy were like the pet vs player debate.....we would insist on pretending self-heals do not exist, look only at the baseline afk mitigation, and demand a swift nerf to warriors

781 of 2935 is not 37.4%

781 of 2090 hits, however ... is 37.4%

There were 2090 total hits, 781 of which was for the minimum DI


Please look more closely at the picture.

The mob attempted to strike the target 2935 times
2749 of those attempts were "hits"
186 of those attempts were "bashes"

Look at the "HITS" column - then look right. There were 2090 in the "hit" vertical column and 138 in the "bash" column.

So yes, the mob "hit" the necromancer pet 2090 times, and 781 of them were for minimum damage.

If you still do not believe me, feel free to individually add up every number above the 20 DI graph (all 20 numbers) and then run the math again yourself.

Look we both know the parser told you DI1 hits were 29% and you altered that number with a calculator. Then you posted a screen capture of the parser but didn't show the area where you got the DI1 hit number from. You have never shown that table once in all your posts just like you have blatantly not disclosed why you increased that 29% DI1 in above parse % by 24.1%. The 29% DI1 rate is also on the very high side of DI1 range that seems to range from 17-29% depending on rng factor on ten minute parses from what I have observed.

If you disagree with players using the number parser gave them as the % of DI1 hits then state that fact upfront when you have seen multiple people clearly posting parses using the number given by the parser.

Don't alter data and then insert it into a discussion without explaining what you did. When you know full well people are using unaltered information provided by the parser as the basis of there comments..

You have had several days to make your objection to the way parser assigns % value to DI1 hits known so that difference could be factored into your claimed DI1 hit % and have instead chosen to post altered data without explanation.

Altered the number with a calculator? You are making zero sense.

Dude ... add them up:

DI1 781
DI2 77
DI3 93
DI4 88
DI5 82
DI6 90
DI7 89
DI8 83
DI9 80
DI10 78
DI11 68
DI12 60
DI13 70
DI14 69
DI15 55
DI16 50
DI17 36
DI18 35
DI19 32
DI20 74

Total hits 2090, 781 of which were minimum hits.



^ Those are all the "hits"

Look at each bar on the graph. Each represents one of the 20 DIs. Look at the number directly on top of each respective bar - that's the number of hits for that value.

Not the Bashes ... the "hits"

Why do I exclude the "bashes"

Here is why I filter for just the hits, these are the "bashes"



Alll 136 bashes (the number at the top of the bar on the graph) were for the exact same amount of damage. Does it look to you like "bashes" can be mitigated?

Take a long hard look at the screenshots I posted and you will see quite plainly where I got the number from. Once you figure that part out, you will also see that i have in these screenshots of my parses for every single parse always disclosed what the actual number of hits were. As soon as you figure out your mistake, I'd appreciate your verbal acknowledgement that you were wrong in your accusation. The information was always there, posted cleanly as plain as day. It is not my fault if you failed to recognize it.

Sorry man, your accusation is baseless. You may not agree with my chosen methods, but my methods and those results have always posted with absolute transparency. Their relative worth may be up for debate in your opinion, but they are honest and transparent.

Here's what I'm seeing.

What is being introduced is "pet upkeep" and the proposed changes to offense aren't going to come close to that even with the pet defensives trending upward. It is clear that is what is happening, especially for the mage class. Once this goes live, there will need to be a massive rebalance to how we put out damage and how our spells work or consideration to mage pet dps needs to be given; it will no longer be "free damage."

This is a very massive undertaking and I certainly hope it's just the small step in a very, very long process. If this is a 2-3 month process, this is not going to work except to kill the mage class. Even "round two" is wholly devastating to the class and looks like a repeat of the tanking changes debacle we saw a few months ago.

Swarms should have been left off the radar for this comprehensive change. Revert them back and deal with them after the main pet because their purposes are far different between classes; or tell us the new vision for them. A swarm pet that can't stay up on it's own is rather silly and forcing the class to chain a high cost spell for moderate damage is mind boggling.

Finally, it looks like our class (mages) are having to fight to prevent a repeat of the death of pets that Baramos fortunately pushed through. This time, we are up against the masses as well as developer changes. Even those from other classes are getting a lashing from their own ranks for doing so. That is not a healthy atmosphere and a clue that something else is afoot and driving this change.

Changes will need to be frequent, our dps boosts need to go up higher (or the pet defense needs to scale higher and faster with each change) and a major directional change because this appears headed to kill any solo ability for the mage. Reading through the data quickly gives any mage the sense that is an intended side effect of these changes; one I certainly hope is not true. I certainly hope the time frame for this to be finalized is sometime after the new year.

I know what your basing your numbers on its simply not the same number the parser gave you as the % for DI1 hits.

Its right there in parser under the picture of parser you screen shotted. You just now posted numbers from that table but instead of just copy pasting it you changed it to avoid it showing the % number the parser puts by the DI numbers.

You have chosen to be deliberately misleading.

In case you need a visual representation of where the data is and how it was right in front of you the whole time:





Do you understand yet?

Now lets go over this again.
The hits.
Not bashes - but only the "hits" as they are the only part that are mitigatable.

Total "hits" against pet: 2090
Total DI 1 (minimums): 781
% Average DI1: 37.4%

No, man ... you are just failing to understand. Let me explain a little bit more.

*There were 2749 attempts to "hit" the tank
*487 of those attempts were defended
*172 of those attempts were "missed"
*2749 - 487 - 172 = 2090

Isn't that the same number you get adding up all the DI1-DI20s? It is!

2090 hits.
781 of those hits (37.4%) for DI1

*There were 186 attempts to "bash" the tank
*Every single Bash hit for 1762 damage without variability - not mitigatable and therefore not included in the DI spread. It is 1762 static damage per hit every time it is not defended.
*33 bash attempts defended
*15 bash attempts missed

I really hope that clear is it up Siddar, I really cannot break it down any further for you.

For the record, my parser (GamParse v1.0.3) does not automatically give me the percentage breakdown on the bar graph - at least I haven't bothered to figure out how it does ... if it does.

I know that a lot of people here don't like, haven't liked for some time, and will never like me or what I have done. For the most part I attempt to let everything negative naysayers say here and elsewhere roll off my back.

Like me or hate me, the one thing I have always been good at is being transparent.
-How the data was gathered
-what the controls were
-clear reporting of the raw data without tainting the numbers

And you know what? Anybody with EM15 and all pet defensive aa's can very easily replicate my numbers to verify that what was posted, under the conditions posted, is 100% accurate. That's the nice thing about being honest. When other people go to verify your data and replicate your set up, they will know very quickly that it was reported honestly.

Peace

Killing solo-ability (technically molo-ability) has been part of the goal. According to the arguments I've seen for changes to pets, that's been right up on the list:

1. Solo'ing last tier's content is unfair and unbalanced

2. Player tanks gearing requirements are unfair

3. Being good at 2 of the most "fun" archtypes, dps and tanking, is overpowered. Being good at 2 of the lesser "fun" archtypes, like dps and CC (ranger/monk) , tanking + healing (paladin), or any other combo is balanced. Because none of the other archtype combinations are as fun, or flashy, or will get you as far solo

On the forums, It's all about what other people don't like you having

I know what the basis is for your number and you know full well that its not the number the parser gave you as the % for DI1 hits.

I have no problems acknowledging the different methods you used to derive your DI1 % claim but you on the otherhand refuse to admit that the parser also assigned a different DI1 % value then your using.

It shows the basic dishonesty in your position that you wont even admit that there are two different methods here being used to determine DI1 hits one being yours and the other being the parsers.

You are not making sense.

Explain it to me, maybe I am just not understanding you. Please show me where the parser assigned a different DI 1% value. I'm not being sarcastic here, I genuinely do want you to show me.

Because there were 2090 hits ... and 781 of them were for DI1 ...

This will be interesting. I have been looking at the parse pictures for over 5 min and I cant figure out what Siddar means. /popcorntime

Same here, I'm not sure where the numbers quoted below are coming from ...

Green square = number of times the target attempted to land a melee blow

Yellow square = number of attempted melee blows that were "hit" (that which you can mitigate and represent DIs 1-20)

Orange square = number of attempted melee blows that were "bash" (this can be considered more of a melee proc of sorts as it always hits for the same 1762 damage - can't mitigate)

Red square = number of 'hit' that actually ... hit the tank

Brown square = number of 'bash' that actually ... hit the tank

I'm not sure where this 29% is coming from.

Whatever changes with pets needs to be clearly thought out or if the class is no longer fun people will quit it and either play a class that is, if they have alts or time to make a new one, or quit the game. With the spells we have now, keeping a pet up may not be worth it. Will we end up chaining pets at mobs like we used to? Been a long time since I've done that, hitting reclaim energy but pets were so bad you never tried to keep them up.
Perhaps if our healing aa for summoned nukes worked on all our nukes we could keep a pet up by damaging mobs like some tanks do. Tuned right that could be fun. And wouldn't require target swaps. If this change goes through without adjusting anything else it does not look like fun to me.

You just posted a picture showing your parser shows % numbers in the bottom right corner when you claimed earlier it didn't. See it there the in bottom right Hit Count %

I'm done with listening to anything you ever say again.

I do appreciate the several tanks who took the time to show how well they can tank in a realistic fashion. What a huge difference it showed compared to what a fraction of a percent of the population pitched 100s of times for several months previously.

On the test server Bashan, playing a PC tank, posted a parse from current content. It showed he was taking less than 4K per second damage compared to a pet taking over 10K a second. That pet was a raid focused Earth pet. The parse was over 10 minutes long. Whereas, many of the impacted customers don’t have a pet anywhere near as good as that EM 20 Earth pet. In addition that was a single mob encounter. In multiple mob encounters the differential would be considerably larger. And multiple mob encounters are a routine part of this game. The spread is obviously too huge and far to pronounced for it to result in a great outcome for SOE.

I think the aim here is to retain SOE’s customers. I think customers expect to do something that resembles what they previously could do and I suspect SOE wants that too. Right now on test I’m show up with three mercs for the experience to compare to live with one merc. The DPS against is only part of the reason and it’s probably resulting from a combination of many factors including higher DPS against, the volatility of the hits and the activated abilities being reduced due to the first factor. But, ultimately from a customer retention standpoint it won’t matter why the experience changed. It matters that it did change. People will be forced to respond to such a large change. We may not like how they respond and SOE may not either. My opinion, which is essentially what we all have to offer, is what’s on test won’t fly with the bulk of the impacted customers and this project is creating an exposure where many of them may walk from this game.

The most recently listed objective was;

We’re a long way from the listed objective above.