What should a pet be allowed to do in Everquest?

It does change the situation, and no one's going to correct me because very few group geared mages molo in T2 to begin with because they aren't able to handle 2-3 mobs at a time. To date, the only group geared mage I've seen molo in T2 on my server is myself. Everyone else boxes a pulling class / second mage to handle adds.

Dude back up your claim by actually playing the game.

Ok then, let's have fun: post the list of all named mobs in RoF (not just in the top zone) that you are unable to molo. And I'll post the complete list of all named mobs in RoF. And we shall find the exact percentage of the named mobs that mages can molo in the current content. And compare that to other classes.

I think this is the major problem with the current development scheme. Why should group content be designed in a way where I need to kick a friend out and find someone else to fulfill a role in order to make it viable? Sure, we have the tank/healer dynamic. But content should be designed to where any group of any makeup can possibly finish it. For instance, some enchanters think we shouldn't receive any attention, but that instead content should be designed to make us more desired. I disagree vehemently. I think we, all of us, every class, should be viable in all content.

That's why the upset over the pet thing. People should be able to have pet groups. The should also be able to have standard tank groups. They should be able to use any healer in group content (cleric, shaman or druid). They should be able to use any dps, and adps combo and still have a chance to beat it. We shouldn't have to go get the optimum group to beat group content. Otherwise, you can leave the enchanter out of any vent that doesn't involve charm or mez and add a bard instead and do better.

For the group game, if you took 10% of Tanks HP would they be able to tank as well? No. And that is basically what is happening to pets. You guys finally started to address Mages DPS issues and now you have twice in the past month clipped their pets. As you said in other posts, the change is minor and edge cases have had a reduction. If you made minor reductions to tanks ability to tank or dps classes ability to dps, they'd all be screaming nerf too.

The problem is this change was done to address pet tanking on raids. It doesnt do anything to address that problem at all.

What you guys dont seem to get is the "raid pet tanking" isnt 1 pet tanking the mob so changing AC/HP or anything of that nature isnt going to do anything. There are 4 or 6 or however many on the mob. One pet tanks for 10 or 15 seconds or whatever and is killed, then the next pet takes its place. Whoever owned the pet that got killed summons another and sends in the new pet into the tanking line. It's waves of pets being used and it doesnt matter if they have 200K HP or 100K HP, they will just keep sending them in. Maybe a light bulb went off, that is why people in guilds that use pet tanking complain about raids tanking forever. No one can DPS because there really is no constant tank for more than a few seconds.

As for a solution you've got me. If you ban pets, then you'd have to compensate all the pet classes for the DPS losses which can be quite substantial. You guys have already said your totally against raid only abilities so I've got nothing for you.

If you lose a percentage from your hps and ac, then you lose ability. It is a loss. Thats mind boggling.

In fact turn around logic, if evidence was "nothing" then why would you change anything. If the change did "Nothing?"

-----------------------------------------------------
What you actually mean is "Is the chance to Pet AC/Hps large enough to turn winning encounters to losing encounters.?"

I don't know how you can expect a solid answer to that question. It depends on near infinite variables
1) Which Named Mob or Trash Mob
2) Which Pet Focii Level are you talking about
3) How powerful is the Mages Nukes (Gear Level/Pool/Fire Focus)

Specific Evidence would require large amoutns of Data, and Huge Amounts of time to test for you.

Ancedotal Evidence, I know there have been times I have "Barely" survived or won an encounter. A "Barely Win" with lost power may well have been a death.

Every time after this nerf my pet dies. I will wonder, would the heal have landed in that 10% more hps and little extra ac. Did I just lose a pet or wipe or die because of that.

How can I provide Evidence for the margings there?

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

All of which has nothing to do with pet raid tanking, which is a matter of chaining pets.

Hrrrmm, this is what I thought pet tanking was too, then I saw a SINGLE mag pet tank Zeixshi-Kar from 70 % to 0 %. I think the main reason he did so well was the boost in base hps really put him over the edge against PC tanks against the knockback ZK sometimes does. He could survive interrupted heals, tanks were having much more issues due to a lower HP amount. Some might say so what, only 40-60k more hp, but any tank that knows anything knows having just 5k-10k more to survive that 1 more hit can make all the difference in keeping up against a mob, especially in a raid setting.

As for the OP's original statement, feel a Mage pet should be able to handle whatever with a real healer or maybe 2 healer mercs, but never as well as a real tank that has gear and knows anything. I think one of the major complaints of tanks is consistency, sure we can pop discs for a few mins, and be better than a pet, at least against pure melee, for that time. Sure some discs are better against spell damage, but overall a tank's discs really only consistently save against melee. However once those discs go up in flames, so do we typically. Pets as they are/were whatever don't seem to have this issue so much, due to having more base hps and such.

One point I'm really curious about that doesn't seem to get addressed, do pets bypass a lot of raid mechanics? This could be leading to a lot of misinformed/misguided thoughts about pets as a whole. Seen plenty of games where pets are simply amazing against mobs due to several mechanics NEVER going off against pets. Is Everquest this way at all? I don't make a habit of standing next to raid mobs being tanked by pets for obvious reasons, maybe some do though?

Reasonable solutions include time limited events, so the raid CAN'T take forever; or just having raid bosses detect if any pet has been tanking for 8 out of the last 10 ticks, and react appropriately (Up to, and including fully resetting the event.)

If there really isn't much of a difference as you claim, then what was the purpose of the nerf? There wasn't a reason to include all three pet classes or group casters in a nerf if it was designed to deal with a raiding situation. I encourage you all to look up the word "overkill" and commit it to memory.

You as a wizard only need 9123 AAs to Max Out.
A Magician needs 10097 AAs to Max out.
So when you group with a Magician, you should take a 10% XP penalty correct?

What about duos? Your a Wizard. Your burst is way higher than a Mages Burst.
Can we compare what 2 Wizars with 2 Mercs can do vs 2 Mages with 2 Mercs.
Factor in Tank/Healer Merc. 2 Wizard Silence Casting/Twincasting. Now who can do more?

Heck your burst being the highest, tends to mean you + anyone + 2 mercs beats anyone else in your spot in your situtation. So how about nerfing your burst?

Do you get it, classes shine in different ways. In different combos. Rogues/Monks/Bards beat other classes in Collection Quests. Lets Nerf Them.

Given that you have shown no understanding of what mobs are moloable by mages, how am I to trust you on what mobs are moloable by other classes? I corrected you because you acted as though mages & necros were invincible molo machines capable of moloing their way through the entire expansion.

I fully accept that mages and necros are capable of moloing a greater quantity of mobs than the other 14 classes. So? Wizards are capable of moloing a greater quantity of mobs than rogues. Nerf wizards?

It is not so much about a swarm of pets keeping a mob busy. The core of the issue is too many adhere to a very regimented view of how things need to be and whatever fear might come of some deviation from that long traveled path to Winsville. Hey look its a boss mob in a raid. It needs to have a warrior tanking it or you are wrong. It doesn't matter if it is unslowable and hits for 600k. Same goes for group content. Hey look a..whatever. That needs to have a warrior or some tanking class tanking it so that tanks can have relevance. When classes don't feel relevant, they come to these boards and complain. The complaints either ask for boosts or ask for other classes to be unable to be substituted in place of whatever class that feels slighted. They might threaten take their ball and go home and deny SoE revenue until they get their way. Its no surprise when they just so happen to get their way as well too. It might also come as no surprise that said slighted class already had an edge over whatever other class that is soon to be nerfed thanks to their whining and if they had just taken an extra minute to learn how to best use that advantage than the bickering would be saved.

Things don't work like that around here, however.

I can't say that any one of the nerfs is wrong, it's just lame having so many hit at the same time.

To repeat an analogy I used before, SoE is like a driver on an icy road, over-correcting and fishtailing out of control.

Would it really hurt to apply one nerf now, wait a few months, then apply the next if needed?

How about the other pet classes? Their pets are not close to the magician so thinking this wont affect the group game for those is just ignorant really.

Everyone complaining, Noone testing...

What does any of that have to do with my point? I am not talking about combos, or xp, or dps parses. The ability to solo/molo named mobs is HUGE. It's incomparably bigger than any of that stuff. And the possibility of losing this advantage is what this is all about.

This whole thing is funny on both sides: here we have mages trying to deny that they have this huge advantage, but act concerned about the nerf (your pet will lose 10% of its tanking power? and what exactly is it tanking where those 10% matter? ) - and on the other side we have SOE denying that this is in fact a nerf (how big it is may or may not matter, but reducing primary tank stats such as AC is a nerf by definition, no?). In fact, Piestro seems to be trying to sit on both chairs - denying that pets are overpowered AND that this is a nerf.

Well, one person has been testing, although they not in this thread, I'll post what they had to say about this on my guild website. Keep in mind this person is a 7k AA Mage.

I have had (MageName) on test for a while and these pet changes not only effect raid pet tanking they effect the group game mages even more. With the t1 RoF pet earring, my pet can tank a single t2 mob, with a single healer merc. Using the bests pet focus grp ear, it is not mana effective to even try, your healing and blasting trying to keep the pet alive. I cant confirm this yet either but something was going on with the RS pets, not stealing agro from (OtherCasterName)..so earlier I was in BG on live server and (OtherCasterName) tanked 3 unslowed mobs from the eggs, so I went over to test and attempted the same thing, with 2 ash dragons, think enchanter pet...that is how fast (OtherCasterName) and (MageName) died...fun fun. next run i will see if they messed with the dps aspect of them.

Challenge Accepted....

I am usually by myself named hunting... on occasion I do have my bard box or the wives enchanter... depending on if she is using her computer personal reasons or if she is playing.

Every Named in Xorbb : Check


Xolok the Blind duo'd with another Necro

A J5 healing merc, a tank pet and a caster is by definition a three person small group, so to all intents and purposes they should be able kill all names with a small group’s chance of failure.

It kind of gets difficult when it’s a two person set up, ie merc and player so the risk here should be the highest.

Raid content issues like pets tanking raid names should not be detrimental to group or solo content. If a raid EM is better than a basic EM, so names are trivial to raiders, is something casual players put up with daily.

I think with EM13 I should be able to Merc solo all T2 upgrades with a 25% chance of a win and higher with pet toys plus lots of aa’s. T3 names maybe not, but then I expect a better EM my friends can help me get. Sometimes it’s just a feel good factor to win and self improve a toon, it is a game you know.

TBH if it’s about exp, I can get the best results per time frame with not pet and no merc with root rotting non summoning mobs.

Oh, don't concern yourself with the other classes, master! Just post the list of named mobs that you, mage, can molo (or cannot - that will be a lot easier). I will mark that in the complete list of the named, and will add the data for the classes that I play myself (wizard, enchanter, bard). And will ask players from the other classes add their lists too. You won't have to trust me on any classes but my own.

1. Nice try switching named mobs with just 'mobs'. No difference at all.
2. I am in no way calling for any nerfs. I am just noting that this is in fact a nerf of a big advantage that does in fact exist.