What should a pet be allowed to do in Everquest?

Clearly there's more than just mages, necros, and beastlords against this change, it's poorly thought out, poorly implemented, and did almost nothing towards what the intentions were. There is a necro out there who will disagree with his entire class just to spite them.

Funny thing is, the devs probably know the way they did this, was horribly bad.

I would love to see a dev post on this, but they know it's a hot topic right now, and will most likely avoid it and hide somewhere.. I hope me saying this calls them out.

As for what a pet should be allowed to tank? I say anything they were allowed to before, minus raid named mobs for extended periods of time. There are so many ways to prevent that from happening, but alas, the easy way was taken, and chaos insued.

These changes are evidently now on test. My bad. Go test them, then comment.

The only thing I thought needed changed was the aggro of a pet when you didn't want them to take aggro not anything to do with tanking this is a useless change.

The problem with your example Cicelee is that I think mage pets are about where they need to be. They've scaled the same for quite a few past expansions. It's the tanks have fallen behind in terms of survivability. The other is that not all tanks are created equal. Some do not use all of their AA's or don't work as hard, and get upset when pet classes "out tank" them because they're being lazy.

EM 18, max pet aa's and so forth, that pet should be worse than an equivalent geared/AA'd tank in raid gear.-They are

EM 13, max pet aa's should be worse than an equivalent group geared/aa'd tank.- They are

EM 12, some pet aa's should be worse than an equivalent group geared/aa'd tank. -They are

I think raid geared toons should outperform their group geared counterparts etc as in you with raid gear should be able to outtank a RoFt1 group geared tank with 3-4k aa(although realistically that is enough aa to get 99% of the tanking aa.)

With that said, group geared mages do far outperfrom their comparable geared tanks even with the change but that should say something about tanks and their scaling.

The change wasn't necessary against necromancers or beastlords or really any group caster. What is there to test?

EM 13 pets aren't worse than group geared/AA'd tanks because group geared/AA'd tanks scale differently than pets.

The difference between two EMs is small, and with this patch it's become even less.

However, the difference between two tiers of gear for a player tank is pretty huge.

Pets are better out of the box than player tanks because player tanks have yet to gear up.

This is simply due to game mechanics.

It was tested last night. And they didn't solve any raid tanking issues.

This thread, the test update thread the the thread that one of your moderators locked said this. What else would you have us do?

Well I guess our definition of group geared/AA'd tanks are different. I'm talking about someone that's gotten his augs (not the best by any means, but all slots have some form of AC). I personally will take a live tank over my mage pet tanking 99 times out of a 100 due to the fact that:

1. He's a live player and can react and overcome situations much more effectively (Pathing and other moments from pets).
2. I don't have to pick and choose who's in my group, range vs melee (big one since grouping is kinda PITA).
3. My pet can and will act as CC/backup tank when needed.
4. A well balanced group is damn hard to beat in terms of raw XP.

I dont dispute that pets are better out of the box. That's where tanks, hell melee in general, really hurt is that they are more gear dependent, and w/o the proper equipment tanks blow. I fail to see how one class's need to be fixed should institute a nerf though. Guess that's why I'm so against these changes.

Right, you said that in the OP, asked people to post if they disagreed and when they did just repeated yourself.

What's the point of group content if all someone needs to do is get in six T1 raid wins including atleast one from Kael and that person should be able to beat the majority of RoF group content? This is the logical progression from your T2 raid pet focus being the backbone of your ability to solo the majority of SoF content.

Why have any other classes in the group game? Just app with a Mage to a mid-tier guild, last 2 weeks, get EM17 and go wipe out the entire expansion and loot the rot with whatever class you think might be the least bit relevant next expansion or if you feel like playing hardmode and gearing up an entire group full of players to kill a mob that you can solo with a Mage alt?

Tamer's Trinket and what 3kaa or so to max out pet related AA? That simply can't be the standard for what it takes to beat the majority of group content.

I don't understand. Do you think people aren't able to currently progress through all the group content two boxing with two mercs? Because mages aren't able to do group content beyond sniping loot dropping mobs that are pet friendly. You still need a group to do instances and mobs that are not pet friendly, ie mobs with aggro switch abilities, mobs with range leash abilities, mobs that summon adds that need to be mezzed, mobs that /emote things player tanks need to do, etc.

A mage that joins a raiding guild isn't able to make up for the fundamental deficiencies of pet tanking, nor does he suddenly gain the ability to pull, mez, start instances that require groups, make his pet handle /emotes, etc. No mage is wiping out the entire expansion by himself. BOXERS - both those who use mages and those who do not - are.

Doing the expansion solo as a mage would take about six times as long as doing it with a group. There are also mechanics that make doing alot of the missions impossible.

It's called soloing, and mages are a solo class. If you have a problem with mages being able to solo, well, don't play that class.

If you feel this is an issue for group geared mages, toss on a EM 11 or 12 item and test how your pet tanks.

It's not even six times long. You CAN'T do it solo / molo. You won't be able to finish the group missions. You won't be able to handle various mobs due to special abilities. No one and I'm talking no one is getting through this expansion soloing / moloing.

Boxing, yes. Solo / molo, no.

EM 12 = tier 1 rof pet focus, EM 13 = tier 2 rof group pet focus, EM 14 = tier 3 group pet focus (which is close enough to release may as well be referred to as a grou pet focus now)

Realistically most group mages are gonna be using EM 13 at the moment, not 11 or 12, and honestly a couple tier 2 group missions pushed my pre-nerf group focused pet to his absolute limits just to win. Based on the little bit of dabbling i did on beta with the change I am sure group trash mobs will still be easy for nerfed pets to tank but my main concern is the overtuned poorly made copy / paste raid group misisons which already push group geared players to their limts.

I guess the devs are gonna have to go back and retune every single raid copy /paste mission in RoF tier 2 and 3 lol.

Yeah Gnomland, you and I cross posted. I edited my post after I read yours and realized that I was wrong and had over looked quite a bit.

The time difference is a big issue that most people fail to take into consideration. Mages can kill a lot of powerful content, but they fail to realize that we do not do so efficiently.

"I should be able to handle RoF and SoF group mobs including named" because they have a T2 raid pet focus and some AA. I disagree. I think content should be too hard for a single character of any class and their merc to handle group mobs including named. Tuning either the content or if necessary the abilities of classes so it takes atleast 2 toons and 2 mercs.

The thread isn't about what is, it's about what it should be. OP thinks that a raid geared Mage should be able to solo the majority of group content, I don't.

How many healers did you have, were they merc or player? Did you have any other damage mitigation abilities being used? Were you actively working on mitigating damage to your pet? Could changing the group composition have done more to help your pet? Have you tried doing the same missions now post changes?

Some missions are harder than others, some require more of one type of ability others require more of another. That's not a reason for or against the pet changes, it's a red herring.

Edit: I specified 11 or 12 specifically because it was on the lower end. Both are relatively easy to acquire.

Done a few different healer setups:

1 real raid geared cleric
2 cleric mercs being interchanged
3 cleric mercs being interchanged
2 cleric mercs + a shaman


And yeah some missions are noticably harder, Evantil 2, and chapterhouse 2 are the two missions that stand out in my mind as extremely unpleasant experiences. Evantil 2 without a necromancer was not something I ever want to experience again. There was also at least one mission in the past that OOm'd healers trying to keep *pre-nerf* pets alive the only reason we beat it was by fading and and using merc bandolier to swap in a new merc.

Some of these missions in tier 2 will be substatinatially harder for groupers after this patch. The missions will literally be harder than they were before despite all the new spells and AA abilities players are getting. Speaking as a player I honestly would rather sacrifice all my new "powers" and get nothing in tier 3 if it meant this nerf wasn't going live. As soon as tier 3 launches I need to grind out several hundred AA's just to be slightly weaker than i was before RoF launched in the first place now lol. What a disheartening nerf

I'm a pretty diehard eq'er too (as are most players that take the time to post on these forums actively), if I feel this way about it, I can only imagine how more casual players will feel about it that do not post as much.

No harm done.

IMO pets were / are pretty balanced.

What people don't understand is that mages have lost several important tools over the last few expansions.

Our Fortify Companion line, for example, has been stagnated.

Our DA line no longer works.

In effect, we no longer have pet tanking disciplines.

Yet people are trying to contrast their PC tanks not popping a single ability, with the way pets tank, which is simply wrong because PCs have abilities and are built around their abilities, while mage pets are built around a baseline that doesn't change.

Go find a T2 / T3 loot dropping mob. Pop your PC tank's 30% damage reduction ability, life leech / holy forge, etc. and then see how well the PC tanks vs. a pet. It tanks A LOT better. But of course, without using those abilities and just auto attacking the mob makes your PC tanks tank worse. So what? You're not using the full line up of your abilities, so effectively you're contrasting a gimped class with a full class. Obviously the full class wins.

Examples - against trash mobs, paladins are able to reduce its dps output to 0% via stuns. SKs are able to heal back 70% of its dmg output chaining life taps. Against bosses, paladins and SKs both have I-win-mode abilities that make the next 2-3 minutes easy mode for healers.

Warriors are the only ones who have a legit beef about being gimped in group content, and it's because of their class rather than mages.