FYI -- Pet changes intentional and staying -- More nerfage on the way (- 1 DPS teir)

Blackguard Community Manager
Posts: 2705
Registered: 11-08-2004
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=spells&message.id=10689#M10689
It looks like the changes you listed were actually intentional. The old spells appear to be legacy pet abilities that the pets should not have been using post-revamp, as they were not consistent in their damage/reuse/power to what was defined during those changes. These are not the same changes as what we had temporarily listed in the Test notes and removed, they are separate changes that I believe I misunderstood as changes that were reverted at the same time as the others that actually did get reverted.


Lockeye
Game Designer Posts: 118 Registered: 11-21-2004http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=spells&message.id=10781#M10781
Necromancer changes:- The Scout Pet will now use the proper combat arts more consistently and will correctly gain a new combat art at level 60.

Sometimes things get lost in truncations of release notes. Here's a full explanation: Necromancer Scout pets varied inconsistently on whether they had the updated abilities with the general changes to pets that were made between the expansion releases, or had combat-revamp era abilities. Now all Necromancer Scout pets use the updated abilities, which are balanced overall with regards to damage and reuse timers. They were also missing an additional combat art at level 60.

Necromancers aren't in their own damage Tier like Rangers used to be, but they are performing generally 1 tier higher than they should be even after the abilities changes. The test notes that indicated reductions in Conjurer and Necromancer Scout/Mage pets did not happen. The reasons for this is that we had to make sure all Necromancer pets were using the correct abilities, which they weren't, and that their critical spell damage achievement had the correct percentages. That way, their performance could be evaluated properly.






Basically the nerf that MG talked about being 'reverted' and not pushed. He was probably refering to the 'rescaling' nerf. That change can not take place until they had all the correct spells attached to the pets, all using Post-Combat revamp skills, which pets were not. (I guess only players were re-done not pets/npcs?)

So the 'stealth nerf' was not a stealth nerf, it was just a 'bugfix' of the original combat revamp done to players months ago.

Regardless, MG was totally truthful in honest in him remark since the 'nerf' he was talking about did not go in, and is still upcoming, the only thing that went in was the same thing that went in for players when DoF launched.

Ouch... oh well hold on tight, hopefully it won't be too bad. Maybe just a dozen little things instead of one or two major ones... errr.. waitaminute... :smileywink:



Message Edited by Gargamel on 04-04-200601:32 PM

When does it end? Nerf, nerf, nerf, nerf, nerf.... Jeez. Can any class get a break...? :smileysad:
I pray for all our sakes it's not to bad....

When does it end? When we are where we belong.

Summoners are NOT meant to be T1 DPS. We currently are, and as such we are broken.

I don't care what tier DPS i am...I'm happy with the ability of my class even after this last nerf....

However, Why was this only applied to Necros... I see no changes to Conjys...Not that i want them nerfed, honestly id rather see the alleged Underpowered t-1 classes get a boost, but if "summoners" are overpowered dosen't that include them as well???

Because our pets were not using the old incorrect abilities.

Now that both scout pets are using the correct abilities, they can begin to look at balancing us where we belong.

Oh well....We must all bow down to the mighty DPS tree....

I hate to be a "glass is half empty" guy, but I honestly don't think they will ever "Balance" the classes....

One classes nerf will always tip the scales to some other class... So really, it does not end....

They are still "balancing" EQ 1 classes....


i agree, we have a little more horsepower than we should but usually there is a knee-jerk reaction to being over powered and then you get over-nerfed...just ask rangers....

I won't quit, but untill i see that we aren't nerfed to complete uselessness, i am very apprehensive about this situation....

But they didn't leave rangers down at T3, did they?

If they overnerf us, we'll be adjusted back up.

So what are these infamous nerfs that got posted ahead of time? by accedent?

Very true....

But, it still makes me nervous

I LOVE the necro class... But honestly... in some areas summoners are just plain NOT RIGHT.

Just a few weeks ago on a raid with 24 ppl... I and one other Conj... the only 2 summoners in the raid... managed to on multiple occations do 10x more damage than the next best player...

The two of us did roughly 1/2 of the mobs total HPts in damage, while the 3rd place wizard did 10% of our total damage... The numbers were just plain silly, something like over the course of the fight we together did 190k damage, 3rd place did 19K.

That's broke dude. Yeah sure, we both were intentionally maxing out damage for those fights, including our L65 wonder pets, but still, when you have that kind of gap for any reason, that's a bit much.

Yep, I just worry what they balance for. Are they looking at Necro DPS agains solo raid mobs, and are going to nerf that down T2, but not nerf the non-raid mobs from T2 down to T3? Is it even possible?
I just hope they don't scale us using the ad3 necro against solo raid named mob as the 'standard' and move from there.
Zod is the typical example... becuase he was able, in a special case (raid mob in a guild?!?) are able to clock very high dps when pulling out all the stops... so suddenly that is the standard to judge by. The reason they nerfed pets to die to AoE was to reduce their effectiveness in raid situations where they can regularly achieve T1 DPS due to power concerns and DoT nature. There isn't many nerfs that can apply 'only' to raid mobs like that, and most will affect necro during solo and group play just as much but be felt much more IMO.

P.S. I do believe someone had said conj changes DID take place as well.

Message Edited by Gargamel on 04-04-200611:40 PM

SOE does not look at a single player, when balancing a class.

They have the ability to track average stats of EVERYONE playing a class, so they can see global trends that we do not.


Message Edited by Magus` on 04-04-200608:48 PM

Does that mean if on average most Necros were spent time raiding, and so on average outperforming their 'assigned' T2/3 DPS role (doing T1/T2/T3 with raids at T1) over all characters, mean necro solo dps should be reduced by 20%?

I know they are goign to make adjustments, I just hope they are mindful of how they apply them.



Message Edited by Gargamel on 04-04-200611:56 PM

Personaly I don't think solo necros need alot of balance. Fact is that necros damage starts off slow, but after a few seconds becomes insain. Since most solo encounters don't last that long, our DPS isn't off the scale in any way.

The real issue is that vs any mob that lives long enough, we do just ridiculous amounts of damage from several different places. At L70, I have:

1. Fast DoT
2. Not quite as fast DoT
3. Decent long recast Lifetap/Nuke
4. AoE DoT
5. AoE nuke
6. An Extra AoE nuke, pet, & Dot from L52 spell... Yeah very limited, but it adds in when you really want to figure out max damage.
7. AoE single encounter pet
8. single target Horde pets (3)
9. Assassin pet (with stance that increases DPS noticably)
10. Undead Tide (3 - 12 extra pets... The damage from this spell is either a bang or a wimper, but when you get off a bang, its a BANG!)
11. Liche... the all purpose extra 250-300 damage that goes off when you do ANY of the above!
12. Lets mention that snare, fear, 2 Debuffs, all proc Liche also.

Individual, none of these, except the pet and maybe liche are above par compared to any other class, but in a raid, I can build up to the point that everything listed above is all running at the same time on a mob... All that little stuff adds up and over time. Even with the AoE change that murder's all your pets, a smart summoner can work around it and pull of huge DPS numbers... I've gotten to the point that I unload everything and sometimes FD just so I that when I do finally get agro, I don't die and loose my pets.

Just to make it clear, I don't WANT to see a nerf, but I also don't like seeing the game so unbalanced in certain places. Yeah, its cool to out-DPS the other 22 people in your entire raid in total, but it really doesn't make sence.

** Yes, I know alot of our pet damage could be attributed to other classes boosts, procs, etc... but still, the differences are obscene!

I spent over a year making my necro, and now you are going to underpower her because you could not properly execute the combat revamp that occured many months ago, haven't made sorcerers T1, and only just noticed?
How on earth are they going to keep the uniquness of the class (single target dots, lich proc) and reduce our dps without making us utterly worthless to burst dps in group situations. Grinding a summoner to 70 will become tough, why on earth are they not fixing sorcerers instead, thats balancing too isn't it?
Roll on Vanguard

im totally waiting for vanguard now.

necros are not burst dps, we cannot keep up with burst dps classes. but we can however sustain our DPS over long periods of time when other classes run out of mana. thats why we do more dmg on raids. not because we are SO MUCH UBER DPS! its because of sustainable dps!

As a 57 necromancer on Venekor, I agree that necromancers are a little overpowered. Perhaps not so much as some might think since necromancers do score lower dps in some situations (solo or in groups against non-named heroic mobs) and higher dps in other situations (longer fights with a group makeup that allows them to concentrate solely on dps), but considering the number of things a necromancer can do they perhaps do a little bit too much dps in some situations.

As someone who does tend to think in terms of game design, though, I must say I'm not sure this should be changed. I see mmorpg's constantly going through the class balancing act and I think that is a flaw in these games. There will always be some issues with class balance and being stuck in a permanent cycle of nerf-and-buff tends to do as much harm as good. Balance might slightly increase over time, but players become increasingly frustrated.

I think class balance should be approached in two phases. The first phase is the post-release phase of the game and should last between six months and one year of release. This is the time in which class balance should be a primary focus of the development staff and should be when most drastic nerfs or buffs are done to classes in the name of balance.

After passing through this phase, class balancing should be done in a different way. The fact is that sometimes imbalance actually leads to more fun -- and I'm not saying that it is fun to play an overpowered class -- rather, balance in a strict analytical sense tends to lead to a duller more calculated gameworld.

Thus, in phase two balance should be done in an evolutionary sense. Classes that are very overpowered should be modified, but classes that aren't so overpowered they are causing a definite disruption in the game should not be 'nerfed' back into balance. Instead, as the game evolves -- i.e. as expansions are released, level caps are raised, and most importantly new abilities added -- this should be taken into account. While the abilties the class already has should still scale as the game grows, new abilities could be tailored for the class in terms of balance. If a class does too much damage then don't give it new damage capability in the expansion, etc.

I hope many fair weather Necros quit hehehehehe....

Might actually find some Tier 7 Masters for sale on Najena at a decent price.

/wink

Well its been said before, but some people just don't get it. Maybe you never will...

I think alot of balance frustration comes from ridiculous consumer expectations. You actually expect that a relatively small group of people working creating these kinds of games can EVER predict how their creations will be used by the masses?

Balance is not something that can ever truely be achieved. PERIOD. Ya know why? Becasue balance is significantly affected by dynamic criteria such as player population, Age of the game and playbase maturity, itemization and gear players possess.... etc...

Balance is NOT only about player to player balance, in fact that really only half of the equation... This is why the boost wizard posts are plain stupid and not well thought out.

Balance 1st and foremost is playerbase vs the environment. Thats the PCs vs the NPCs. If that breaks the game is screwed... At this moment, there is balance between the players and the AI for the most part. If anything the players are ahead of the curve, the game is way easier than most MMOs... if you're waiting for Vanguard, I hope you realize that their goal is to NOT follow this path, they're striving to make a game that is tougher and less in favor of rapid player progession and ease. Which personally I'm looking forward to.

Boosting T1 up a knotch is just an unrealisticly bad idea. If you do that, then the PvE balance is shot completely to heII worse than it already is. So now you probably don't care becasue short term the game seems really fun... but long term SoE looses interest in the game 50% sooner than a typical player would have. People already abandon the game once they reach the current max... which by the way, for KoS, going from 60-70 took around 2 weeks for many people, the avg player might take a month.... That's VARY fast progression for any MMOG.

All that said... I don't see them ubber nerfing necros for all the reasons people have pointed out... We're an odd class thats kept in bounds in 90% of the game... but due to our design have potential to do stuff that seems wrong.

One way to indirectly "nerf" necros for certain encounters... Simply have mobs cast cure disease on themselves on a more regular basis... This would lower our DPS specifically since so much of it comes from pets, this would at least drop our DF pet damage for those encounters... For these fights we'd just need to rely on nuking and our regular pets.

(This post is from a raiders perspective and only that so please do not reply with things like what about our root/stun/fear etc, they do not apply to what i'm discussing.)

Is our damage out of line? Well like many have said already it depends on the situation. Doing a run through halls of fate or just grinding out some exp our dmg is perfectly fine, a good(KEY WORD: GOOD) sorcerer can out damage me any time. But all this talk of summoner brokeness stems from parses on raids. When you here of all the "uber" dmg summoners are doing it isn't coming from grouping in santum or Palace, it's from raiding.

We all know the nerf is coming, we just dont know how bad. It's been stated we will more than likely be brought in line with other T2 dps classes. If we take a full Tier hit to our DPS our raid usefulness is going to nose dive. As things stand right now (LU21) we are a desireable class to be brought on raids because we put out the numbers and thats the truth. Yes we do come a long packing a few other tools on raids, those would be our feign/rez and our hearts. I'm not going as far as saying after this nerf we wont be brought a long on raids because thats not true, my guild will still take me a long because I am a good player regardless of my class.

What i'm trying to get at is our utility is not T2 quality. Our group buffs are pretty pitiful, no one is thinking oh i want a necro a long on this raid because we give +sta/int and disease/poison resist. Perhaps if your fighting a disease based mob but thats very rare in T7, and whats worse is usually you need poison resist not disease so warlocks are better for that anyway since our resistance buffs dont stack and they buff better poison(last time i checked). The same can be said for our debuffs as well.

It really irriatates me that they say we are going to be a T2 dps class, but they dont say that we will be compensated in another way. It makes me believe that they are just going to take the lazy approach and slash some numbers. I dont think this is the right solution to fixing us at all. Slash our dps and then our AA's need to be revamped cause as of now they are pretty awful. If you slash pet dps why the hell do we need a deagro anymore? Slash our dps then that measily 11.7% crit proc seems pretty pitful as well.

To sum this all up I just want to say this IS NOT in anway like those little nerfs that we have recieved in the last 4-5(lost count) patches. If they do what they say there going to do this upcoming nerf is going to be huge and really shouldn't be taken lightly. I know some of my examples of our debuffs/buffs seem bad but i'm not really going into detail, this reply is more of a way get people thinking and to not just sit back and let this Update kick our [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn].




I think we should all make as many suggestions to what we would like to see happen, if we go down to T2. They may not listen to a thing we have to say but at least we can try. Here are a few things I would like to see happen to us if our dps is taken down to T2.

Change our rez to be able to summon the corpse to us.
Add other benefits to our hearts when consumed
Let some of our attacks have disease/poison debuffs attached like they did pre LU 13
These are just a few things i came up with in the last couple minuits of writing this post.