Your pet on 8-20-14

The wheel always turns!

Which is easier? Pick one:

1) Balance the mage class so they are not a very good tank class while at the same time a very good dps class

2) Leave mages alone, make other classes more powerful as you suggest, and rebalance the entire game (quests, raids, mobs, missions, items) to still ensure the game provides a bit of challenge when appropriate

And how did the latter three classes get harmed? SKs got amazing boosts with the patch. They were almost useless on raids before it.

SK just got buffed dude, and an across the board escalation of player power would just trivialize content further.

Soloing in various fields had gotten way out of hand and they're trying to return some sanity to the game. Swarming, headshotting, beaming, etc. was inappropriate how it was being used before, and many rogues/zerkers/rangers actually enjoy the change in relevance of those abilities. Now there is a point to training them for challenging content.

What a cool idea!!
A thread the Dev's can actually use to get a subjective (as opposed to emotional) read on how the changes "feel" and "play" out in the real world.
And a thread that's not all about just parses - but how stuff works and/or feels to be working. (or not).
/bow
-R

Did they get something I dont see, I mean beyond better hate generation?

No, but the hate generation and instant cast time on terror is huge. He wasn't exagerrating, prior to this we were literally useless on raids. Now at least have our niche again.

For anyone wanting to objective analysis (a series of my own objective, cataloged experiences and situations) of exactly how pets are functioning at the EM15 group focused level.

Raw mitigation parses (dreadful afk ones with clean, interpretable DIs):

Mage Earth
https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/...et-changes-round-4.212879/page-2#post-3114645

Necro warrior:
https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/...et-changes-round-4.212879/page-3#post-3114660

BL warder:
Didn't afk parse any for BL this round

Functional usefulness parses in tier 2 Argin Hiz. In response to a lot of nitpicking of methods, mage earth in particular was tested under a wide range of scenarios, will include basic vs single - vs 2, and the compilation of all variables. If you want to look at each and every different encounter type, it's there for you to read.

Mage air molo vs singles
https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/...t-changes-round-4.212879/page-19#post-3116636


Mage earth molo vs singles:
https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/...t-changes-round-4.212879/page-22#post-3117057

Mage earth molo vs double pull:
https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/...t-changes-round-4.212879/page-19#post-3116631

Mage earth molo vs a variety of approaches:
https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/...t-changes-round-4.212879/page-23#post-3117159

Necro warrior molo:
https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/...t-changes-round-4.212879/page-13#post-3115975

BL warder solo:
https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/...t-changes-round-4.212879/page-17#post-3116319

The entire thread, while not necessarily *fun* to read with all the arguing and bickering, is full of lots of good data on exactly how pets are functioning as of today on live.

I've got a mage, so I guess that buys me a seat at the discussion table.

Cicelee, how will these changes affect my game play while using my mage? Compared to a few months ago I will now have my pet blocks loaded and ready to use as the situation requires it. I won't be pulling 2-4 mobs anymore and just nuking while ignoring my pet, trusting that my single mercenary will just keep Roger alive. I won't be using those blocks on single pulls even in the hardest of zones because even without slows my trusty summoned tank handles their incoming damage just fine even without slows. I will, though, have them loaded so that if I do get an add (expected or otherwise) I will be ready to react and accommodate my playstyle appropriately to ensure Roger's survivial. How else will it affect my game play? I'll have to be more careful and either split pulls of previously 3-4 that I wouldn't have worried too much about before, or just find a hunting partner to go accomplish that task with me. I probabily will not keep my pet heal loaded for the majority of the time as I don't need it.

For my beastlord? It won't change my game play much as I do my best on my beastlord in a group where I can melee. What I have learned is that with the new and improved pet heal I don't even need a mercenary healer and can main heal my pet against even the toughest of single target encounters - and likewise heal through a double pull in a hard zone like AHiz. I could hire my healer mercenary if absolutely required, but I'd prefer to just hire my wizard mercenary and just go along killing quickly, efficiently, and easily. My soloing lineup at all times will now include my direct pet heal, pet heal over time, promised heal, and aegis/auspice.

For my necromancer? Double pulls in Argin-Hiz will have to be approached with extreme caution as I don't heal a quarter as well as my beastlord and can't capitalize on the swarm pet like I can on my mage. I've got the tools and it's doable, but its a better use of my time to just single pull - which I do much better than my beastlord or magician. Getting a slow on a single mob and my healer doesn't really need any help healing my pet, but if needed I've got a fast cast cascading rune with reflective heal available every 18 seconds that's arguably the single strongest "help my pet" spell out there, my 70 hit counter increase the avoidance spell likewise, stronger than what my other pet classes own. I'll keep both of these spells loaded on my bar +/- my direct pet heal (though probably not) depending on the situation.

They also need to decrease power now, so the relative power increase from 100-105 seems greater than it actually is.

That says more about the player base than it does about the devs.

You can keep saying that, but repeating it doesn't make it a reality. This was not a conspiracy that was spearheaded by a few people of a select class.

The devs cave to the finger pointing instead of actually playing the game and knowing the mechanics of what is going on. I guess I should have kept typing.

Pet: EM 20 Earth pet. All passive pet related AAs done.
Mob: Argin-Hiz spider. Standard rank II self buffs, no Aegis, swarms or any healing from owner. Nowhere near all merc AAs done and only the free BP for gear.

Pre patch healer merc on Efficient dropped briefly to 95% and slowly rose to completely full mana and stayed there. Post changes - with the merc again on Efficient - his mana dropped to 65% at the start of the fight when the spider got some good rounds in which slowly rose to 95-98% as the fight progressed.

Was going to provide feedback, but waiting until I get more testing in T2 zones. Thus far, my em20 earth pet seems to tank about as well as it did. I was using 2 cleric mercs with 8/8 healing acumen (one reactive, one balanced) before, and unfortunately that is the standard that I have to compare to again. But I was able to do about the exact same content just as easily with the same setup, maybe occasionally using a couple mage pet defensives here and there vs 3+ mobs at a time. But never needing more than 2 defensives at once, and never needing to use a single casted mage pet heal

Keep in mind this is with 2 cleric mercs, and 2 classes that are overgeared for the content. A raid-geared player tank + 1 other class + 2 mercs would have easily demolished this content as well. But I have run the T1 HA's dozens and dozens of times with my setup (through the partisan tasks), I know exactly how they are supposed to "feel" with my group....and they still feel like they used to feel. Your experience may vary. But thus far, I retract previous comments, the sky is indeed not falling :/

I will add that....thus far, the extra micro in weaving in pet defensives and the excitement of using them to dig a pet out of a dangerous situation has actually been a fun extra bit of challenge. Before I would use rumbling servant on the main assist because off-tanking wasn't needed (not with em20 vs t1 content), I just had to adjust that to make sure I'm using RS on adds now. If earth pet root has just landed on an add, I can /pet back off and do a double-fade for an instant peel. It's hard to do sometimes but fun to pull off. As of thus far, 2 cleric mercs + pet defensives can hold up the pet vs 3-4 mobs well enough to where I do not have to use a single mage castable pet heal (staggering aegis with groundswell and companion's blessing is enough vs t1 trash adds), which is good because in my opinion the return on the resource (time) for mage pet heal is crap

But this with a duo. So, obviously a molo mage would have a different experience. I have only duo'd so I can only compare to what I've done. But my playstyle has been otherwise unaffected, the extra challenge is light and easily overcome, thus far. I daresay, seems that the balancing seems to be handled well

So it was a raid utility thing. Are you now the snap-up-adds tank? Can you tank them (multiples) sufficiently and wont your AEs risk causing the same problem warriors reported with their 3000% aggro boost thing.

It's ironic you say it like this. As a passive bystander in this debate, this is EXACTLY what it looked like to me; a few tanks that made it their Life's Work to get pets downgraded. Like, had they put this amount of effort into solving world hunger, there would be a lot more fat people in Africa right now.

Well I took my max aa beastlord with a EM 20 ear to argin his last night to parse. I pulled a even con, slowed it and stuck my pet with self buffs only on it. My max heal aa merc on balanced let the pet die when the mob was at 54%. There is no reason I should have to patch heal my warder with a dedicated healer on it. This is a single mob that is slowed.... Very frustrating

Comments from a mage and necro in my guild - their pets were taking a lot more damage, but they were still able to successfully kill trash mobs in high end zones. They felt that the changes impacted them significantly, but weren't quite as bad as they were expecting.

I expect there will be more demand for pullers/CC in pet groups, as pets will no longer be strong enough to tank multiples. This will make it more difficult for pet classes to work their way through high end group content.

Pet change is actually worse than I expected it to be. EM21 necro rogue pet hits for 3% more than it did before and does not hit more often (? I thought this was one of the changes). The tank pet takes much, much, much, MUCH more damage and hits for three-expansion-old damage.

I'm not certain what they hoped to achieve with these pet nerfs. Instead of seeking out tanks to tank, I just log off. Finding another person to always play the same hours and times, and that is willing to tank in the first place, is a great hassle. Are you promoting account sharing? Is this a cash grab? Are you just bored?

Glad to see there are still some objective bystanders out there

Don't understand the mage hate/jealousy. Don't understand the enormous output of negative energy solely designed to hurt others and in no way help oneself. Don't understand why these energies aren't funneled into a more productive venue.

Guess I just don't really understand negative haters in general.