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

I have total control with what I do with my money and after playing for 15 yrs, I think I'm really done this time. They will not change pets back to anything useful. I'm just sooo sick of the constant nerfs. All the time I put in and I swear all the toons I play are weaker than they were last year.

I'm not seeing a difference from round 1. Went back & did the same dark blue mobs in Tower of Rot. Pet went splat when I tried whites or yellows, and when I got 2 blues. EM 15 bst pet, no gear, bst buffs only, Withering Bite proc on.

Underdog - vs - Combined: An archaic trilobite
Attempts 1318 100%
Missed 100 7.59%
Dodged 37 2.81%
Parried 31 2.35%
Blocked 85 6.45%
Riposted 50 3.79%
Absorbed 149 11.31%
1665 1 0.08%
2665 237 17.98%
3250 34 2.58%
3251 1 0.08%
3836 37 2.81%
4422 35 2.66%
5008 38 2.88%
5593 42 3.19%
5594 1 0.08%
6179 28 2.12%
6180 2 0.15%
6765 23 1.75%
7350 35 2.66%
7936 41 3.11%
7937 1 0.08%
8522 36 2.73%
8523 1 0.08%
9107 27 2.05%
9109 2 0.15%
9693 32 2.43%
9694 3 0.23%
10279 19 1.44%
10280 2 0.15%
10865 29 2.2%
11450 23 1.75%
12036 23 1.75%
12622 25 1.9%
13207 18 1.37%
13209 1 0.08%
13793 67 5.08%
13795 2 0.15%

Was this stage 2 change only to "focusable swarm pets" besides normal "focusable pets"?

Shaman swarm pets are still obliterated in 1 round.

near as i can tell, pet enrage is still broken, and has been for just over a month now.

'your pet has become enraged' emote goes off, but once it does pet's damage intake does not change (ie in this case, stop) nor does its damage output, leading to the conclusion that despite the emote going off the 100% riposte rate is not kicking in.
either it's not kicking in at all, or something was recently changed in how strikethough works on pets which is making NPCs hit through it.

this is making a rather significant change in the use of swam pets as tanks/damage absorbers, and in recovering from sudden spikes in their damage.

Same as Feiddan but is working on my laptop?

Roon vs 97 Warrior necro pet with EM20 and max pet AA

Used every thing I could think of to buff pet with necro, bard, and cleric merc wise and everything I also ould think of to debuff the Roon. Roon took pet to bellow 10% multiple times with me casting block spells and two cleric mercs. Roon could have easily gotten lucky and killed pet. I do not consider this parse to be consistently repeatable are indicative of what the average necro will be able to achieve.

NPC DPS 11864

Roon in 725s, 8419k @11613dps I memblurred Roon at 4% to let others have a shot at him.

Tanking summary for: Siddar (Soulhate) --- Total damage: 7450379 --- Avg hit: 10464 --- Swings: 1032 --- Defended: 247 (23.9%) --- Hit: 712 (69%) --- Missed: 73 (7.1%) --- Accuracy: 90.7% --- Dodged: 27 (2.9%) --- Parried: 31 (3.2%) --- Blocked: 49 (4.7%) --- Riposted: 23 (2.4%) --- Absorbed: 117 (11.3%)

Siddar (Soulhate) - vs - Roon
Attempts 967 100%
Missed 67 6.93%
Dodged 25 2.59%
Parried 28 2.9%
Blocked 43 4.45%
Riposted 21 2.17%
Absorbed 109 11.27%
2005 1 0.1%
3482 1 0.1%
3531 21 2.17%
3858 1 0.1%
3924 7 0.72%
3968 1 0.1%
4282 5 0.52%
4359 143 14.79%
4758 2 0.21%
5033 1 0.1%
5286 22 2.28%
5592 1 0.1%
5711 1 0.1%
5712 1 0.1%
5784 5 0.52%
6213 24 2.48%
6262 1 0.1%
6535 1 0.1%
6914 1 0.1%
7140 19 1.96%
7261 1 0.1%
7285 6 0.62%
7564 1 0.1%
7841 2 0.21%
8036 1 0.1%
8067 29 3%
8094 3 0.31%
8217 1 0.1%
8787 1 0.1%
8993 18 1.86%
9537 6 0.62%
9763 1 0.1%
9920 17 1.76%
10288 3 0.31%
10597 2 0.21%
10660 1 0.1%
10847 23 2.38%
11039 5 0.52%
11431 3 0.31%
11774 20 2.07%
11790 3 0.31%
12266 1 0.1%
12541 1 0.1%
12701 18 1.86%
13100 2 0.21%
13292 2 0.21%
13628 22 2.28%
13934 2 0.21%
14043 2 0.21%
14555 25 2.59%
14793 2 0.21%
15482 25 2.59%
15544 3 0.31%
15603 1 0.1%
16294 2 0.21%
16409 25 2.59%
16436 1 0.1%
17045 1 0.1%
17336 20 2.07%
17796 5 0.52%
18262 12 1.24%
18939 1 0.1%
19189 16 1.65%
19773 5 0.52%
20116 11 1.14%
21043 11 1.14%
21470 1 0.1%
21970 51 5.27%

I just got done experimenting with necro pet too.

Warrior Necro Pet EM 15 -- Fortify Companion 6/12, Sturdy Companion 14/18, Deaths Wrath 20/32 -- Everything else maxed. No mage gear or weapons, no buffs outside necro / cleric merc.

First I went hunting for spiders in Argin Hiz.

Pet Tanking:

/G Tanking summary for: Xenanab -- Total damage: 3643100 -- Avg hit: 7465 -- Swings: 810 -- Defended: 268 (33.1%) -- Hit: 488 (60.2%) -- Missed: 54 (6.7%) -- Accuracy: 90% -- Dodged: 19 (2.7%) -- Parried: 23 (3%) -- Blocked: 49 (6%) -- Riposted: 40 (5.4%) -- Absorbed: 137 (16.9%)

Pet DPS:

/G Combined: A murkweb spider in 535s, 9271k @17329sdps -- Xenanab 774k @1447sdps





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

Pretty consistent DPS really. Any actual healer could easily keep up with this. I just found out the AA slow on first rank is only 30%, but the spell is still the full 70%. Why this is, I don't know. Still have the ability to slow for 70%, why mess with the AA? Necros have a lot of work to do to be a great class. So this is with mobs 30% slowed, minus whatever was partially resisted.

I switched over to the rog pet at this point to see if it was similar to the mage pets, their rog pet is still pretty beefy. No where near so for necros!

EM15 Necro Rogue Pet DPS:

/G A murkweb spider in 120s, 2319k @19325sdps -- Kasarn 234k @1951sdps

EM15 Necro Rogue Pet Tanking:

/G Tanking summary for: Kasarn -- Total damage: 911291 -- Avg hit: 7993 -- Swings: 195 -- Defended: 63 (32.3%) -- Hit: 114 (58.5%) -- Missed: 18 (9.2%) -- Accuracy: 86.4% -- Dodged: 6 (3.3%) -- Parried: 3 (1.6%) -- Blocked: 8 (4.1%) -- Riposted: 3 (1.6%) -- Absorbed: 43 (22.1%)



Very little data to go on, but it's pretty easy to see from this alone it was not something the merc could keep up with. Very very dissimilar from the mage rogue pet, who outside of the Air Pet seemed to be tanking the best for me. I haven't checked the post-"tune" most recently pushed out to Test for Earth pet though. Will run some of that tomorrow.

I did then try to take on Roon, old faithful, on my nec with the war pet. Results are as follows:

Pet DPS:

/G Roon in 26s, -- Gebaner 22k @889dps

Pet Tanking:

/G Tanking summary for: Gebaner -- Total damage: 273527 -- Avg hit: 11892 -- Swings: 30 -- Defended: 5 (16.7%) -- Hit: 23 (76.7%) -- Missed: 2 (6.7%) -- Accuracy: 92% -- Dodged: 0 (0%) -- Parried: 1 (3.4%) -- Blocked: 1 (3.3%) -- Riposted: 1 (3.6%) -- Absorbed: 2 (6.7%)




Another small sample, but with hits like this, and no debuffs or a real healer (or multiple mercs), necro pet in current state cannot tank your average named.

WITH these types of support, or maybe even buffs like your normal PC would have (unlikely for just buffs I think though) it would be able to tank anything but the most exceptional I am highly confident.

So, question posed to the devs... Is a necro pet a trash exp tank to help break up kiting monotony? or a named / difficult content contender? If so, their warrior needs tweaked. Maybe the missing AA on my 6500 AA necro are that impactful, I never really used his pet to tank. Necro to me is a kiter.

Also

I went in and checked if the necro swarm wall was still viable with NPC Enrage being broken for pets. I killed a trash mob in Argin Hiz just cycling all 4 skeleton throng spells and nothing else, enrage definitely still did not work, but the 4 cycled spells provided too many targets to out-round the pet counts in time.

Results:

Swarm DPS:

/G A rose viper in 389s, 2404k @6180sdps -- Leechye + pets 2404k @6180sdps

Swarm Tanking:

/G Tanking summary for: Leechye`s pet -- Total damage: 5524041 -- Avg hit: 10789 -- Swings: 673 -- Defended: 133 (19.8%) -- Hit: 512 (76.1%) -- Missed: 28 (4.2%) -- Accuracy: 94.8% -- Dodged: 25 (4.4%) -- Parried: 27 (4.3%) -- Blocked: 52 (7.7%) -- Riposted: 29 (4.9%) -- Absorbed: 0 (0%)





Pretty much infinitely sustainable on any mob as long as it doesn't have AE's of any sort to kill multiple pets at a time.

Missing some ranks of the Deaths Wrath for pet offensives, and only EM15, so it is kind of slow going though-- and with the lack of a 100% pet defense setup via AA they took a little more damage for sure than they could have been.

You can mix in some dots and FD off aggro during this if you're really going for it.

If Pet Enrage gets fixed, this becomes much much much more powerful while the Skeleton Swarms are still on separate timers.

As I was looking over the data I have posted already, I drew an interesting comparison between the Nec War pet, and the Mag Wiz pet (granted, there's a bit of a gap between my mage EM18 max AA, and my necro EM15 various defensive AA's missing--listed in prior post just before this**).

Looked like Mage Wiz pet was taking right about 5k incoming DPS tanking, while the Necro Warrior pet was taking around 7.5k incoming DPS (from an eyeball on the rolling DPS graph) from the same entry level mobs in Argin Hiz.

I've no idea why the rog pet is so beefy though. Aristo specifically said he was boosting the AC of all pets, but it made little sense. Tanking pets I can understand, but the dps pets should be like dps classes - fragile and not tanks! If they die to a round of ramp in a raid then that means you used the wrong pet for that encounter ;-)

On Test tonight, I parsed EM 20 Mage pets vs an avenging treesoul (level 100 CotF T1 trash mob). I also parsed a group geared SK (max AA) on live servers. All pets had Arcane Distillect Rk. II and Burnout IX Rk. III. The SK was self buffed only (gear link), used the AC tap, and did nothing but autoattack and lifetap.

The biggest issue is with RS pets (I didn't parse other types of swarm pets) -

RS pets get utterly demolished by what should be easy trash mobs. They die before they can be recast. The main issue is their severe lack of AC. As Tearsin mentioned, the pet enrage mechanic seems to not be working.

[Tue Aug 05 20:54:48 2014] Bonaiele`s pet has become ENRAGED.

[Tue Aug 05 20:54:50 2014] A twisted treespirit hits Bonaiele`s pet for 8259 points of damage.

[Tue Aug 05 20:54:50 2014] Bonaiele`s pet has been slain by a twisted treespirit!

I want to point out something that many people seem to be unaware of - pet avoidance.

The group geared SK avoids twice as many attacks as any pet. This is the problem with weighing a DI distribution too heavily. Pets have nice looking DI distributions, but they do not avoid as often as PCs. The SK takes a higher average hit than the Air and Earth pet (note these values include the Earth rune proc and Air stun), but lower incoming DPS because of his superior avoidance.

I don't have a baseline parse for mage pet DPS, but this is what they are on test:

Even a 100% increase in pet DPS wouldn't be worth the current drawbacks. This is a very bad trade for mages.

Total data table:



Detailed parse info:

Fire pet:

Water pet:

Air pet:

Earth pet:

SK:

After moloing roon with an em 20 earth pet and 1 healer merc my conclusions the parses were already sent to aristo.

Basing all these off Finalstand's parse and average hit. On a similar parse to the way his was done.

Em 20 Earth pet - 7 k Average hit
Em 20 Air pet - 7.5 k Average hit
Em 20 Necro warrior pet - 8k Average hit
Em 20 Beastlord pet - 8 k Average hit
Em 20 Necro Rogue pet -10.5 k Average hit
Em 20 Water pet -10 k Average hit (was still able to molo roon with this average)
Em20 Fire pet -12 k Average hit
Em 15 Earth pet - 9 k Average hit
Em 15 Air pet - 9.5k Average hit
Em 15 Necro Warrior pet - 10 k Average hit
Em 15 Beastlord pet -10 k Average hit
Em 15 Necro Rogue pet -12.5 k Average hit
Em 15 Water pet -12 k Average hit
Em 15 Fire pet -14 k Average hit

Rampaging servant and necro swarm pet the changes completely reverted

Some improvements now or later
-Pet heals not switching the pet classes target.
-20% hp buff that has 0 recast timer and drops if the pet gets top of the aggro list and stacks with all other buffs and can't be recast if the pet is at the top of the aggro list(for raiding dps but not tanking)


These numbers will make the pet take an average of 1 k more damage per hit then a real tank with the best gear at its highest level and then go down from there like it should.

Before the nerf the em 15 pet was mitigating just as well as the em 20 the em 20 just had other boosts.

Water pet and rogue pet should also get another 10% boost to damage.

So Pie or someone go pet tank roon for the same amount of time only using defensive stuff and there you go not over powered but still powerful.

Magik, post a parse of you out tanking an earth pet, taking less average hit. I think you're wrong in your statement that you can out tank a current earth pet vs Roon or Shoon. I think you'd die in less than 2 minutes face tanking either one, with JUST merc buffs and 2 mercs healing.

Opinions presented as facts are bad.

As Aristo said, post parses. Post facts, and back it up with verifiable information.

This is the first time I have tested these changes since the nerf was announced, so here are my observations:

RS pets are currently dying much, much too quickly, sometimes in 3 seconds. Even on live they are dying too quickly to recast (and therefore serve as an offtank).

An EM 20 Earth Pet with 1 healer merc came very close to death a number of times on a white con "an ember trooper." Considering most activated pet defensives (runes, groundswell stance, anything with a hit/damage cap) are half as effective against two mobs, I'm very concerned that this pet will be unable to handle multiples. This is combined with the nerf to the RS pet, which was what previously allowed us to control an add. With 2 healer mercs, however, the pet performed adequately on one mob.

So I compared various Foci/Pets (first 3 parses with 2 healer mercs, one on balanced and one on reactive). The first 3 are with "An ember trooper" in Argin-Hiz, the same white con (memblurred). They are detailed below:

EM 20 Earth Pet (Max AA). Burnout XI Rk. 3, Iceflame Eminence Rk. 2, Certitude Rk. 2; 611 seconds:
I had "Stop" on for the vast majority of the fight, so Iceflame was not proccing for the vast majority of the time. Spellhold is on.

Tanking summary for: Xonekab (Sancus) --- Total damage: 5465663 --- Avg hit: 5342 --- Swings: 1297 --- Defended: 182 (14%) --- Hit: 1023 (78.9%) --- Missed: 92 (7.1%) --- Accuracy: 91.7% --- Dodged: 28 (2.4%) --- Parried: 31 (2.5%) --- Blocked: 74 (5.7%) --- Riposted: 35 (2.9%) --- Absorbed: 14 (1.1%)

Xonekab (Sancus) - vs - An ember trooper
Attempts 1297 100%
Missed 92 7.09%
Dodged 28 2.16%
Parried 31 2.39%
Blocked 74 5.71%
Riposted 35 2.7%
Absorbed 14 1.08%
1846 36 2.78%
1847 8 0.62%
1850 2 0.15%
1854 1 0.08%
1857 1 0.08%
1859 2 0.15%
1868 1 0.08%
1870 2 0.15%
1873 1 0.08%
1877 1 0.08%
1884 1 0.08%
2453 381 29.38%
3062 47 3.62%
3670 39 3.01%
4278 35 2.7%
4887 45 3.47%
5495 45 3.47%
6103 40 3.08%
6711 35 2.7%
7320 34 2.62%
7928 35 2.7%
8536 38 2.93%
9145 24 1.85%
9753 27 2.08%
10361 33 2.54%
10970 13 1%
11578 22 1.7%
12186 15 1.16%
12794 23 1.77%
13403 16 1.23%
14011 20 1.54%

Feelings: Obviously much spikier than before. With one healer merc it seemed it could only heal for ~20% of the pet's HP, meaning there would be extended periods of time (30 seconds or more) where the pet was bouncing between 20 and 60% health. With two it did fairly well on one mob. Still, I think it needs a significant bump to deal with multiples, especially if the RS pet can no longer off tank.

EM 15 Earth Pet (Max AA). Burnout Rk. 3, Iceflame Eminence Rk. 2, Certitude Rk. 2; 604 seconds:
Made sure to press "stop" immediately. Otherwise same parameters (spellhold on).
Tanking summary for: Karab --- Total damage: 5413709 --- Avg hit: 5529 --- Swings: 1290 --- Defended: 207 (16%) --- Hit: 979 (75.9%) --- Missed: 104 (8.1%) --- Accuracy: 90.4% --- Dodged: 18 (1.6%) --- Parried: 42 (3.5%) --- Blocked: 98 (7.6%) --- Riposted: 47 (4.1%) --- Absorbed: 2 (0.2%)

Karab - vs - An ember trooper
Attempts 1290 100%
Missed 104 8.06%
Dodged 18 1.4%
Parried 42 3.26%
Blocked 98 7.6%
Riposted 47 3.64%
Absorbed 2 0.16%
1846 42 3.26%
1847 5 0.39%
1854 2 0.16%
1857 2 0.16%
1859 1 0.08%
1861 2 0.16%
1863 1 0.08%
1866 1 0.08%
1873 1 0.08%
1889 1 0.08%
1891 1 0.08%
2453 349 27.05%
3062 43 3.33%
3670 38 2.95%
4278 37 2.87%
4887 29 2.25%
5495 46 3.57%
6103 31 2.4%
6711 35 2.71%
7320 28 2.17%
7928 42 3.26%
8536 25 1.94%
9145 27 2.09%
9753 29 2.25%
10361 36 2.79%
10970 26 2.02%
11578 29 2.25%
12186 17 1.32%
12794 14 1.09%
13403 12 0.93%
14011 27 2.09%

Feelings: Definitely a noticable difference from EM 20, but not huge. It's my understanding that pets don't scale a ton by focus, and that seems to be mostly accurate. Again, there was a notable difference in feel.

EM 20 Air Pet (Max AA). Burnout Rk. 3, Iceflame Eminence Rk. 2, Certitude Rk. 2; 678 seconds
Had spellhold on and stopped it immediately.

Tanking summary for: Loneker (Sancus) --- Total damage: 5976428 --- Avg hit: 5774 --- Swings: 1405 --- Defended: 285 (20.3%) --- Hit: 1035 (73.7%) --- Missed: 85 (6%) --- Accuracy: 92.4% --- Dodged: 45 (3.7%) --- Parried: 35 (2.7%) --- Blocked: 110 (7.8%) --- Riposted: 59 (4.7%) --- Absorbed: 36 (2.6%)

Loneker (Sancus) - vs - An ember trooper
Attempts 1405 100%
Missed 85 6.05%
Dodged 45 3.2%
Parried 35 2.49%
Blocked 110 7.83%
Riposted 59 4.2%
Absorbed 36 2.56%
1846 39 2.78%
1847 7 0.5%
1850 1 0.07%
1852 1 0.07%
1854 3 0.21%
1857 1 0.07%
1859 1 0.07%
1863 1 0.07%
1866 2 0.14%
1875 1 0.07%
1880 2 0.14%
1882 1 0.07%
1884 1 0.07%
1889 1 0.07%
2453 328 23.35%
3062 57 4.06%
3670 43 3.06%
4278 36 2.56%
4887 47 3.35%
5495 31 2.21%
6103 37 2.63%
6711 29 2.06%
7320 38 2.7%
7928 43 3.06%
8536 34 2.42%
9145 46 3.27%
9753 29 2.06%
10361 28 1.99%
10970 28 1.99%
11578 25 1.78%
12186 20 1.42%
12794 15 1.07%
13403 19 1.35%
14011 40 2.85%

Feelings: Significantly more spiky than either Earth Pet. Even trying the mob with spellhold off (stunning) didn't bring the pet up to anywhere near Earth Pet levels. I was really hoping this change would boost the Air Pet back into some tanking niche, and unfortunately I won't be using it for anything as it is because it is having difficulty handling stunnable singles. I'm pretty sure this pet is missing the 35-40% mark.

EM 20 Air Pet (Max AA). Burnout Rk. 3 Iceflame Eminence Rk 3, Certitude Rk 2, Circle of Flameskin Rk 2, Second Wind (Max), Host in a Shell (Max), Fortify Companion (Max), Auspice of Shadows Rk. 2, Aegis of Nefori Rk. 2, Rathe's Strength, Elemental Earth Form (Max).
The pet came buffed with above and I recast them throughout the fight as I could. After doing this fight it seems I didn’t get a tanking parse . However I was able to kill Shoon with 1 merc healer and a fair amount of self support. Killed in 213 seconds and here’s the cast log (forgive the burn AA usage, this was my second attempt):
Shoon on 8/6/2014

Sancus - 70
--- Aegis of Kildrukaun - 2
--- Aegis of Nefori Rk. II - 2
--- Auspice of Shadows Rk. II - 2
--- Bolt of Molten Magma Rk. III - 8
--- Elemental Union - 1
--- First Spire of Elements - 1
--- Force of Elements - 8
--- Forceful Rejuvenation - 1
--- Fortify Companion - 1
--- Frenzied Burnout - 1
--- Host in the Shell - 1
--- Malosinete - 2
--- Promised Amelioration Rk. III - 3
--- Rain of Blistersteel Rk. III - 11
--- Rain of Scythes Rk. III - 8
--- Relentless Servant Rk. II - 7
--- Renewal of Hererra Rk. II - 2
--- Replenish Companion - 1
--- Spear of Blistersteel Rk. II - 6
--- Twincast Rk. II - 1
--- Virulent Talon - 1

Produced by GamParse v1.0.5

This was by no means an easy fight, without Second Wind the pet would’ve died at one point. Still, on a named with no abilities the air pet held up decently. If there were adds I think it would be another story.

Suggestions:

• Bump up the RS pet significantly. Right now it’s dying much too quickly to serve a useful purpose, even as a DPS spell.
• Make it so Heals/Aegis don’t target the pet, allowing us to use them without constant target swaps
• Give some ability that is helpful against multiple mobs. With two mobs runes fade twice as fast, and Host in the Shell/Fortify Companion fade twice as fast (so does groundswell stance if you use it). Pets are somewhat maintaining strength versus one mob, but two mobs in Argin-Hiz rip up the pet without a second healer merc. The easiest way to do this is some spell/AA with %mitigation that has no damage cap, but instead a duration. Earth Elemental Strike would probably be useful, except most of current content is immune to root.
• Bump up the AC on Air/Earth pets, with Earth getting a significant increase over Air. Then give the air pet a real avoidance bonus. I’m still hoping to find its niche.

Shiny Bob:
Buffed with Certitude Rk. II, Hastening of Sviir Rk. I, and Rallied Bastion of Vie Rk. II
Companion's Durability: 9/21
Companion's Agility: 6/18
Sturdy Companion: 6/18

Shiny Bob Actually tanked relatively well. Held his own with one merc and no Runes vs 1 slowed blue con (I threw in some stuns). Unfortunately didn't get a tanking parse, but he should be able to live long enough to grab aggro and throw out a mez.

I guess my issue is:
What the term "SOLO" or even "MOLO" is to the development crew, and to the player base.

To me SOLO was something I did for a couple expansions behind current when player power was beyond what was needed for that content.

Molo was for t1 of current expansion and older expansions.

What content is supposed to be for groups?

To me t1b/t2/t2b/t3/t4 etc are for groups. If you don't have a group, don't expect to get very far or very quickly, that is why most people box, so that they can get further than t1 of the expansion if they don't want to group with other people.

It would be great with a game in its hay day. Most people would prefer to group if it didn't take over an hour to get one together. Forcing people to box or quit is not a good way to draw business. They have done nothing in the past few years to help grouping. Taking away peoples ability to solo only causes people to quit when they have no other options.

In case you weren't looking, the bulk of 'solo'/'molo' scenarios posted here are by raid-geared players. EM 20 is strictly a raid focus, while EM 18 is also a raid focus but obtainable in PoWar, a two groups zone for group geared players. Nobody has been moloing rares in T2 COTF in group gear.

But of course, this brings up another observation - which is that your ability to solo/molo is not the best way to measure pet tanking's effectiveness. The practical scenario for tackling challenging content is, again, 3-4 minutes of tanking on a boss/several mobs at the same time, while popping full defensives. That's how performance ought to be measured because it's what occurs in groups.

I think we've already established that necro pets are now incapable of tanking under that scenario, which is what I said a while ago.

I didn't miss it at all, I asked a question, so your making assumptions isn't answering that question at all, your dodging the question and trying to make inferences, I also answered the question without throwing an attack at anyone else or implying anything. Answer the question for yourself, don't even have to post it here, and let your posts reflect your viewpoint. I now skip over many posters because their sense of self entitlement at the cost of others is so atrocious that I cannot fathom how they came by it.

Just because the game isn't in its heyday doesn't mean there should not be balance and proper tuning in the game.

This talk of hey days is itself a case of projecting the near present onto the distant past. I was here when EQ first opened back in 1999. I remember necros and mages soloing for exp and loot in Lower Guk. I remember soloing the ghoul lord, the toughest 'group' named in the game, with a charm trick. I remember shamans soloing Lodizal and in the Sebilis crypts.

The game was different back then. It had less restrictions and less of a differential between trash mobs and bosses. All the forced grouping that you take for granted came later - with the copying of WoW.

But that's off-topic, as is the question of what ought to be soloable/moloable.