So post your results, please. If you have data showing the Scout pet using it's abilities as often as possible, I'm sure everyone would love to see it.
Trensharo@Antonia Bayle wrote: This is incorrect. I have used my mage pet as my primary pet for soloing since about the middle DoF or so only switching to the tank for things that could not be kited. Just because this method has become more popular now due to pets increased damage, does not change the tactic that made it viable to begin with and that is still useful for this method.
Banditman wrote: Why do you have to be an idiot with poor reading comprehension now? I never said that. I said all pets have the same issues. The scout, the mage, and the fighter. I said the mage pet only "seems" fine because it is kept at range (either on its own, or forcefully by the platyer when it attempts to run in or start meleeing (i.e. call servant away from the mob and it will be forced to start casting again)). I never once in any of my posts here stated the scout was using its abilities as often as possible. I stated there was a clash between the auto attack and the spell casts and offered a pretty brain-dead recommendation on how to fix it, which I'm suprised none of your number-crunchers mentioned. @ the above poster: People I'm sure used the scout pet to solo as well. It still does more damage than the tank on a single target and has more surviveability than the mage. The primary reason why 99.9% of summoners use the mage pet has nothing to do with WoV. Necros didn't start using the mage pet in the 20/30s because they suddenly got some unbreakable snare (they have none). They started doign it because of the mage pet sharing stats and becoming a beast to rock all mobs (especially if you can Expert/Master it the minute you get it). Mythical notwithstanding, there are two summoner classes, so we can see how changes affect the archetype as a whole without using class-defining abilities (Winds of Velious) as a crutch for our arguments Outside of soloing hard solo mobs/named/heroics, Winds of Velious is useless while leveling, anyways. It isn't even worth casting (P.S. I did betray to Conjy for about 25 levels while leveling up) otherwise... @ banditman The main issue I have with these threads is the way they frame the issue. "The Scout pet's AI is utterly broken!!!1!" It's not just the scout pet, it's all the pets. A heroic MOB does twice as much damage to me than to my tank pet, so when it cannot hold agro off of two DoTs that is a major issue. Like I said, the Mage pet has no issue keeping agro and the scout pet has better agro management due to the detaunt passive buff it has. The pet suffers from the same AI issues and doing what I suggested would probably double its hate generation. It would definitely out-threat the mage pet if they did that. Like I said, this isn't hte first time SOE miffed this up. The same issue existed with the Magician Fire Pet in EQ1 (which was Wizard class).
Ah, so the insults start flying. That will surely make your arguements more convincing. So, what you are saying is that NECROMANCERS have troubles? Somehow, that doesn't really seem like something to be discussed in a Conjuror forum. Maybe I'm just strange that way. If Necromancers have issues with their tank pet, perhaps you might like to discuss that with them. I can tell you that a Conjuror tank pet works just fine. I have no trouble going all out provided I do the precautionary things to assure proper aggro control from the beginning . . . BA, EU . . . heck, you can even Soulburn right at the start if you do it right. I will take up the challenge of demonstrating that the pets have different AI however. I'll have you some actual data, hopefully this weekend.
Feel free to try to explain how these three pets follow the same AI. This test was run in guild hall, solo. I put each pet in melee mode, so that they would auto attack any target in range. I then placed each pet directly next to an epic training dummy and told them to attack. Mage Pet - 6 minutes, 56 seconds in combat. (killed dummy) Fury of the Elements - 35 casts Minions Mark - 51 casts Blazing Conjuration - 19 casts Scout Pet - 7 minutes, 24 seconds in combat. (took dummy to 63%) Fury of the Elements - 17 casts Minions Mark - 44 casts Blazing Conjuration - 15 casts Fighter Pet - 6 minutes, 58 seconds in combat. (ran out of power) Fury of the Elements - 14 casts Minions Mark - 41 casts Blazing Conjuration - 14 casts So, somehow, despite having "the same AI", the Scout pet used his available common abilities a total of 32 fewer times. You might try to write that off as an auto attack problem, however, strangely enough, despite being in range to auto attack the target, the Mage pet *never even swung* at the target! Feel free to run your own tests if you still feel that the AI for the pets is identical. I am more firmly convinced than ever that not only are the melee pets on a different AI, that AI is *not working properly*.
The mage pet is coded to prefer spells over melee, even in melee mode. It's plainly obvious. But when it does melee it has the same issue. Yes, it does melee mobs on occasion, and you have to force it back out to start casting again. Also, AA skills have a very high priority. You have to examing how many times they cast their innate skills as well. Listing the 3 AA skills doesn't really tell me anything that I didn't know already. Also, the fighter and Tank pets in their respective stances have different attack speeds so the melee auto attack issue affects the scout pet much more than the fighter since it has at least 30% or so more haste than the fighter pet - which has more room in between auto-attacks to fit in spell casts (and they're all < half a second). If you haven't seen the mage pet melee to examine the issue, then perhaps you should go back to the training dummy and let it melee and see how it functions once it starts swinging its weapon. 3 minutes isn't enough, and when/if it goes in to melee is totally viable. If you're going to provide data, at least provide data that is usable. And no, I'm not wasting my time with this because it's not worth it in the grand scheme of things. They will never fix the AI issues in the pets and it's not hard to reroll when the lack of choice in which pet to use becomes an issue (i.e. the toon becomes too boring to me).
Nope the pet seems unable to do anything while the attack animation is running, even though the damage is instant.
No. That's not a scout pet specific problem because they all do it. I ran some tests this weekend with the mage pet and it does the same thing. Even though the melee damage is instant, it is unable to cast spells until the entire animation is over, which adds a ton of time and results in factorably large DPS increases when it's allowed to melee. But I will try to get some parses in this week and see what the descrepency is in a group/raid situation. Even if they fix the scout pet AI. I noticed that while it has an innate AoE bubble it still gets plowed by AoE melee attacks and frontal attacks (riposte, etc.) if not positioned correctly. This is not much of an issue for Necros (Tainted Heals), but Conjurors may not like that - especially if its DPS is boosted to a level where min/maxers have no choice (using the term loosely) but to use it. Even on single target fights, it would have to significantly outperform the mage pet to make up for the increase in micromanagement and weaker Soulburns (because you have to use Offensive Stance with the scout, or it's going to be kind of terribad). The buff they added to it has no business on the pet with those melee bonuses, at this stage in the game when they know even casual raiders are trying to set up their groups in a rather sane manner. The stoneskin trigger is nice, though... Whatever, I'll try to get some data, if I don't get fussed at so much for naming my pets something different
I ran an instance with a Scout Pet and I'm not sure if I just got better or what but my DPS did not drop dramatically. The pet seems to prioritize AA skills very high. But his innate spells, not so much. There were 30 second fights where all he used were AA skills and melee. He seemed to use them whenever they came up, though, but hardly anything else. Looking back at parses, even 50 second fights he used the AA skills on cooldown, and nothing else. Has anyone tried using the Scout in Ranged Mode and seeing if that changes everything (yes, that seems like an odd thing to suggest, but I'm curious). Hit DPS was the same whether I had him set to ranged or melee stance. It was between 12 and 16k DPS self-buffed (and not using stuff like consumption, etc. just letting him solo a heroic MOB). It never went above that.
Trensharo@Antonia Bayle wrote: No, they do NOT all do it! That's the point. The Mage pet *NEVER SWINGS A MELEE WEAPON*. You can park his *(& right on top the training dummy, /pet melee, /pet attack and you won't see ONE SINGLE MELEE SWING. If the AI was the same, you're right, you would expect to see similar things.
Banditman wrote: Easy on the caps, buddy. Did I really have to do this to someone posting in a thread asking for numbers and stuff like that, who is apparently too lazy to leave his guild hall and see what the pet does on a real mob (a target dummy is useless for this porpose, by the way, because the bet behaves much differently when you're fighting real MOBs (which hit back, get in its face repeatedly forcing it to Kite, and that it's tanking (outside of a raid)). Unless "crush" is a spell can you just stop bloviating and get to the point? It only takes 1 minute to leave your house (use portal painting, it's not difficult) and see that the pet melees. I don't care about your target dummy parses. The pet (obviously) behaves differently when MOBs are mobile, and especially when MOBs are ON IT. It's not hard to keep it from meleeing, so that's not really a big deal. And the scout pet will always be terrible as long as none of our stats don't boost it's other melee stats like Haste, Multi-Attack, Flurry, etc. At lower gear levels the Mage isn't so manumentally better than the scout. Scout parses self-buffed around 14-16k on single MOBs, and mage doesn't do substantially higher on encounters (the above is a 5 mob Heroic no arrow encounter, that's where there are so many Grim Feedback triggers). I'm in mostly x2/Ry'Gorr level gear. That's with the scout almost never using any of its innate abilities. If it did, it would probably demolish the mage pet for single target, up until you have obscene levels of potency, perhaps, but I don't think the Mage would ever catch up to it single target... It seems to hit factorably harder with the AA skills than the mage pet (60-70k vs 40-45k harder), as well, for some reason. Even if the scout outparsed the mage pet by 10k on single target fights, you'd probably lose that resummoning it in raids and casting support spells instead of DPS spells because it's surviveability in melee range with all these mobs that AoE Physical would be terribad. It dies in heroic dungeons without tainted heals or help from the healer on Encounter Pulls and Boss Fights. If the mage gets close you can just Call Servant and it will continue casting from range (and Necro's have a better AoE bubble so that isn't a big advantage on the scout for that class). EDIT: I forgot to mention that I only have Adept Rending and Offensive Stance (for obvious reasons - I don't solo with the tank/heroics/epics and never used the scout that much if at all). If they were mastered the scout would probably gain a bit more DPS from the DPS MOD and Attack Speed from Rending/Stance.
Follow Up: I respeced my Scout pet and got everything except Minion Mark, Minion Soulstealing, and the SF Endline pet nuke. It started using the rest of its skills on every fight, but it's DPS remained unchanged because it's missing a Nox Debuff and those other two AA skills are the hardest hitting spells it has (like 60-70k damage hard solo buffed). The melee actually seemed not too terrible because like 75% of the swings either multi-attacked or flurried. I tested the mage pet on some Epic Mobs in SoH and it was doing 25k DPS by itself, I need to test the scout, but I think in a fight that logn the mage will probably be 10-15k DPS ahead of it. I don't know why it stops using its innate skills when you spec into the AA skills, though. That's kind of Odd especially when you consider the long cooldown on at least two of those...
So you managed to find one single encounter where a mage pet actually swung ONCE. And you still can't comprehend that there is a completely different AI attached to the mage versus scout? Amazing.
Banditman wrote: It's a 30 second no arrow heroic encounter, of course it only swung once. The fight was kind of long, but it was killing each mob one by one rather fast (DoTs, etc.) so it really didn't have time to swing more than once. It wasn't ONE mob with a lot of HP. I think I explained that. In any case, I think what's more amazing is that someone who thinks their a mechanics genious was obviously oblivious that the pet does behave this way, and spent several posts trying to tell me it didn't. The mage pet does this ALL THE TIME when I'm out doing dailies, BTW. And remember, you're the one who wrote this: No, they do NOT all do it! That's the point. The Mage pet *NEVER SWINGS A MELEE WEAPON*. You can park his *(& right on top the training dummy, /pet melee, /pet attack and you won't see ONE SINGLE MELEE SWING. Amazing. I'm done with you. Boy, you really love that training dummy I never doubted the Scout pet was broken. They made it a bard which pretty much tells me I should not expect it to outDPS the Warlock pet, anyways, but gave it a terrible buff. However, all of the pets share some of these issues, and they need to fix them across the board. These issues are embarassing to have in a game this old and with this much development put towards it, IMO. Maybe next expansion.
I can explain yours in one word: Riposte. Can you explain this? Pet was in melee mode, he was tanking the mobs. These are heroic mobs. He never swung ONCE. Not 30 seconds of combat mind you. This is 5 minutes of merged parses, the longest of which was a 60 second encounter with a white triple up. The Mage pet has a different AI which completely prevents him from swinging a melee weapon. YES. If he happens to parry something and subsequently riposte it, it will show up as a swing. This is why the training dummies are actually superior for this type of testing.
Banditman wrote: I can't believe you're still arguing with me about this when I clearly showed you that the pet swung and hit a mob. Amazing. I clearly told you that when the pet does it is volatile (as in, it's unpredictable), but it DOES do it - contrary to what you say and as I have clearly pointed out (crushing outgoing damage in the parse of a mage pet). I also clearly stated that whether it melees or not is inconsequential. The data that is important is that when it does melee, it has the same skill queueing issues that the scout pet has. THAT is what I was trying to get around, but you're still bloviating about whether or not it melee (it does) to save face for abusing caps lock in your other post. You're wrong. Move on. Stop acting like an idiot. The mage pet has weak melee skills, it's possible it simply missed all of the melee swings it did take, see here taken < 1 minute ago: Parse incoming when the pet is done killing the dummy... 8min+ training dummy... You're STILL wrong... My pet was in ranged mode, as well. I'm done with you. P.S. My client lagged windowing out, so the parse split, in the 46 seconds split off on top of this parse, there were 2 more missed crushing swings from the pet on the training dummy. lol @ riposte, though. You're trying WAY too hard, buddy.
Or, perhaps there is a DIFFERENCE. Again, yes, I see the pet "can" swing, I confirmed this by taking control of the pet and simply hitting auto attack. However, the chance that in HOURS of testing my pet has missed EVERY SINGLE SWING are so beyond the scope of reality that I won't even consider it a possibility. Even if it did, ACT would show that as a "miss". I am not getting any misses! The point is that the AI is ridiculously broken. The AI is also DIFFERENT between the Scout and Mage pets. I've been saying this for months now. All you've managed to do so far is open up the possiblity that the Necro pet AI is different. Instead of calling people idiots perhaps you should try to think about "why" someone might be getting different results. I am clearly getting different results. Perhaps the fact that you are a Necro is the difference. I don't know. But my results are consistent - Fiery Magician does not auto attack. Period. It's really not important that he does. What is important is the distinction that Aery Hunter and Fiery Magician use different AI's. The FM AI is probably fine. I really wouldn't want my FM to try to auto attack in any circumstances. However, it simply highlights the differences between AH and FM. It was AH that this thread was initially about, and honestly still is. AH has a very different and very broken AI that needs to be looked at by a developer. AH isn't gaining any significant benefit from the stats that a Conjuror has available on his/her gear. All the talk about FM not auto attacking was simply a means to demonstrate that there is a significant AI difference between the two pets.
Banditman wrote: I ran the parse 3x last night, the pet attacks. I betrayed to Conjuror for a while, and my mage pet melee'd. There is no AI difference between Conjuror and Mage pets. They are literally identical outside of the element of their skills and the fact that some of the Necro pet spells tap life and power. I don't cast and on my pet that makes it want to melee. The talk about the mage pet meleeing was to illustrate an issue that affects all pets. The scout pet needs a total revamp to bring it up to Mage pet-level DPS output (single target) because it's only doing about 50% or less of what the mage pet is doing. What I suggest might give it a 20% DPS increase (as in, 20% of what it's doing now), but until it's coded to use its skills on cooldown that's about all it will get. The pet also needs way more innate Haste and Multi-Attack. I think it's time they reviewed and made some changes to the Summoner and Summoner Class AA trees, IMO. But a lot of this stuff is obvious and was stated in the other thread you referred me to. The harsh language was because getting told you basically are blind and have no clue what you're talking about is a bit ridiculous, when you have seen it happen all the time. I don't have "issues" with my pet meleeing in raids because I always call Servant when I reposition myself, or when it think's it's okay to take a few steps here and there to prevent it
