Why's our Warlock pet so poopy?

Went ahead and tested it all out... the controls are me at 55 without the teachings buff turned on, three grim fights against greens without pet buffs, three with; three ad1 52 tank pet unbuffed, two offensively. I also charmed a 46 glyphskull skeleton to take some of the taunt slack up... I cast no spells in these fights to ensure they last a decent duration. These are the key spells:


Apart from the wicked clawing nerf look at the red... that's why our pet is so horrid. Here we go!

• Grim terror ad3 with no buffing of any kind
  • 48 Rujarkian Brute: 28 seconds, 3,969 damage for 142 dps, glyphskull did 52 dps
  • 48 Rujarkian Brute: 25 seconds, 3,850 damage for 154 dps, glyphskull did 53 dps
  • 48 Rujarkian Highwayman: 28 seconds, 3,862 damage for 138 dps, glyphskull did 45 dps
• Grim terror ad3 with Rending Fury and Voice of the Departed:
  • 48 Rujarkian Highwayman: 23 seconds, 3,516 damage for 153 dps, glyphskull did 56 dps
  • 47 Rujarkian Highwayman: 24 seconds, 3,798 damage for 158 dps, glyphskull did 59 dps
    • One clawing of the soul proc went off
  • 47 Rujarkian Highwayman: 17 seconds, 3,909 damage for 230 dps, glyphskull did 64 dps
    • Somehow, the pet hit three clawing of the soul proc's and boosted the damage something fierce, certainly not the norm
• Tank pet with no buffs:
  • 48 Rujarkian Protector: 46 seconds, 4,050 damage for 88 dps, glyphskull did 40 dps
  • 47 Rujarkian Highwayman: 34 seconds, 3,211 damage for 94 dps, glyphskull did 51 dps
  • 47 Rujarkian Highwayman: 43 seconds, 3,577 damage for 83 dps, glyphskull did 37 dps
• Tank pet with Rending Fury and Voice of the Departed:
  • 47 Rujarkian Highwayman: 24 seconds, 3,287 damage for 137 dps, glyphskull did 77 dps
  • 47 Rujarkian Highwayman: 30 seconds, 3,328 damage for 111 dps, glyphskull did 60 dps

So, what's the conclusion? Well, simply put the pet buffs don't boost the warlock pet by any appreciable amount. Some of grimmies damage comes from her damageshield since she always had the agro so she gets a touch more damage when buffed. Glyphskulls are casters so the buffs didn't really boost them.

The theory goes that the increase to cast level makes it easier to hit a high con mob... problem is that the warlock pet will never do more damage then I just did against green solo mobs. Note also that my buffed tank pet did almost the same damage as either a buffed or unbuffed warlock pet. Note also that the tank hit no clawing buffs which seems very light to me since the tank pet averaged 21 hits per fight (4 procs in 222 hits)... for those that wonder, yes, the glyphskull also proc'd clawing of the soul but not too important in this discussion.

The warlock has a decent AoE as well as a decent lifetap, however, the slow cast speed coupled with the unbuffability of the pet makes this pet, on average, broken. Tank can AoE too and I'll take his huge hp's over a little boost to dps when compared to the warlock... the assassin of course is great but the warlock needs some serious attention, especially compared to the buffing of the conji's which is like 170 int increase instead of that 26 increase to disruption and subjugation (note that focus is boosted too, something the warlock pet has no use for since he's one shot killed in her designed roll).

As always, discuss away!

Edit: Cleaned things up a touch.
Edit2: 4 proc's in around 120 successful attacks, silly me added all the fights hits together.

Message Edited by El Chupacabras on 11-09-2005 11:55 PM

I guess our tank pet is a dps pet too anyway I never use the warlock pet, it's cast time is way to slow. Damage looks good when it hits, but it is slow at dealing it out. Your test confirms what I have seen. Only use the assassin pet while grouped, I have used the warlock pet maybe once or twice until I noticed large time gaps between hits. it needs to cast faster or deal out higher damage. Not sure what dps range this pet is suppose fall into, compared to the assassin pet. Even, greater, or less?\

Edit: So are we in tier 2 yet? or more nerfage coming!
Message Edited by Nibblar on 11-09-2005 08:55 PM

Yeah caster pet is just horrid dps considering it's supposed to be the high dps pet. And don't buy into that whole "it's much better with large groups of mobs" arguement. It's just as bad.

FYI, parse your assassin pet now with no buff. I have a feeling you won't like what you see post LU16.

The whole point for increasing Disruption, etc, is to reduce resists. So your pet does considerably more damage against higher level targets than it would without buffs (due to reduction in resists). Though it does pale in comparison to Conjurors being able to boost pet INT by a whopping 170 (with Master 2 level 53 offense stance).

The assassin will still do more damage against a red then the grim will, I know the dev response to what the skill increases are s'posed to do (and note it in the second paragraph) but all of my testing says it doesn't give a significant increase in damage due to lowered resists... also, it's pretty rare indeed that I fight reds... orange at the most on which the shadowy still completely trounces the grim. Those increased skills don't do anything in most circumstances and even when they're s'posed to have an advantage (high /con mobs) they still don't do anything for the slow casting grim.

I just tested against greens since I wanted to see max doable damage, not resist rates (and wanted to fight something my grim could survive tanking). I ran it this way because I can completely control the variables as opposed to groupmate tanking and buffing etc. From my regular group parsing I can tell you this holds true as I tested both pets in Poets Palace the other day where the assassin still performed better against reds than the grim (with no class that can buff mage skills).

Well said Chup. Looks like I need to get around to comparing my Igneous pets to my Aery pets using your same tactics.

Yeah let the lock pet benefit from the haste too (maybe not 51% casting time speed - but some would be nice).
Or even better: let my succuba benefit from my Lich - now after the Lich nerf it would be nice, but no way close to overpowered.
But as it is now - she is just pet to be showed in city....

Just let my Grim Temptress stand her ground and not commit suicide and I'll be almost happy
"No love, ranged!, I said ranged! Come back here!"

Hey Chup, I was wondering how deep you are going into PP at this time and how effective your pet is.
Last night my pet had an average DPS of about 55 for the zone with a hit rate of only 27%. My guildies 60 necro pet ad3 fared a little better at 135dps and a hit rate of 67%. I was going to try out my warlock pet in there tonight to see if she gets less resists and can crank out a tad more dps then the scout - but it seems from your parses that is not the case. I am still going to try it though, since the whole zone is yellow/orange (all the way to the end of the zone) to me instead of orange/red.
The haste isnt helping my scout pet enough since his hit% is so low, so maybe the +disruption skills will help the mage pet more. I know the warlocks are saying that their +skill line buffs are near useless, and from what I have seen the Dev post as his results - I tend to agree, but it is worth a shot.
I love doing this zone, but with my pets damage lacking against orange con mobs and my personal dps suffering from resists as well, I am eagerly wanting to hit 60. I still feel like I am doing acceptable damage, all things considered; and I know for a fact that my heal has saved the group on more than one occasion each night (Just picked up the master exchange life - 872 heal WOOT!).
I'll get back to you all with this tomorrow.

If I remember right, my last parsed PP run was to the last room (couldn't beat the boss unfortunately, too much red). No, my pets did not do well there though either did I. Of course, I dinged 55 when I was there last so there was quite a bit of red to me. I sure wasn't seeing improved hit rates on the grim pet and if it is an improvement it's pretty slight. Frankly, I just avoid fighting anything over a low orange if at all possible, the xp is better for lower mobs and I prefer feeling like I'm an actual contributor to the fight. I'm prismatic and have an orb of madness and those bonuses to cast skills sure don't help me hit more often so I know it won't help my pet either.

Give it a try and see how it parses for you, I know I didn't see much improvement with the grim but you may.

Also, doing a quick calculation it seems that I had pet buffs on for 118 seconds with four procs. If I remember right proc rates are figured to assume an attack every three seconds or one proc every 30 seconds on average... 3.93 procs were to be expected in my test timeframe and I proc'd four times... seems about right I guess for those two pets and their reletively slow attack speed.
Of course, 200 damage procs on the pet only are really starting to wind me up... would really like to see a dev response on if this was an intended reduction.
Edit: Removed something that wasn't too constructive.
Message Edited by El Chupacabras on 11-10-2005 02:19 PM

Any way to tell if the warlock was interrupted a bunch during the parsing?

GS

Thanks for the reply El Chup. I think in the warlock buff thread the Dev did some (inadequate imo) testing and he concluded that the +skills buffs would be almost insignificant while fighting reds and blues or lower - and slightly helpful for oranges and yellows. Overall I didnt get a good impression of the buffs and I think they are being looked into, but I think it will be worth a shot to see if I can eek out some more damage in PP.
Luckily I usually go with a couple lvl 60 dpsers who pick up my slack and I do what I can. I have only done the instance a few times, so I am still thoroughly enjoying myself and would like to do it every night. Our pally dinged 59 last night, and with a two 54-55ish healers (good thing they dont have resist problems - just darn fizzles) and me spot healing on the nameds, we make good time in the zone and are able to kill everything.
Here was the overall damage rankings of my group last night:

1) 60 warlock 802k
2) 60 necro 466k
3) 57 necro 256k <-- me :smileysad:
4) 59 pally 154k

healers dont count :smileyhappy:

Im feel bad barely out-damaging the tank, but I know I will be where I want to be damagewise in PP with a couple of levels and I do well enough not to drag the group down until then.

I didn't notice any and the number of hits were consistant enough amongst all the fights. The parsed damage falls in line with what I usually see grouped so doubt that there were many inturrupts (and I didn't have to heal the pet before the mob died, another indication that there weren't alot of inturrupts). Even if there was an inturrupt issue, that uber +26 to focus should have given an increase in damage since the pet could save recover from the hit and continue casting.

By popular request, I tested my Shadowy Assassin adept 3 buffed and unbuffed with no Teachings buff with a charmed 47 Glyphskull skeleton:

• Shadowy Assassin adept 3 with no buffing:
  • 48 Rujarkian Highwayman: 24 seconds, 4,074 damage for 170 dps, glyphskull did 55 dps
  • 47 Rujarkian Highwayman: 28 seconds, 3,971 damage for 142 dps, glyphskull did 44 dps (this fight was an add so the dps got skewed a touch)
    
  • 47 Rujarkian Highwayman: 24 seconds, 3,852 damage for 161 dps, glyphskull did 48 dps
  • 48 Rujarkian Highwayman: 25 seconds, 4,069 damage for 163 dps, glyphskull did 52 dps
• Shadowy Assassin adept 3 with Rending Fury and Voice of the Departed:
  • 48 Rujarkian Highwayman: 12 seconds, 4,614 damage for 385 dps, glyphskull did 82 dps
    • This was the Shadestrike fight, hence the higher dps
  • 47 Rujarkian Highwayman: 14 seconds, 3,956 damage for 283 dps, glyphskull did 93 dps
    • One Clawing of the Soul proc
  • 48 Rujarkian Highwayman: 17 seconds, 4,113 damage for 242 dps, glyphskull did 90 dps
    • One Clawing of the Soul proc
  • 48 Rujarkian Highwayman: 16 seconds, 4,534 damage for 283 dps, glyphskull did 52 dps
    • One Clawing of the Soul proc

The problems are even more clear.

That's what I'm seeing as well. Looks to me like the assassin pet had it's base dmg lowered as well as the off buff nerf. I have logs the go back to lvl 51 and I'm almost 58 now. So I have several raid logs to look at. We are raiding this weekend and I'll get the numbers on some long fights to post here. That should tell the story even better. My assassin pet always did much more dmg on long fights than on short solo stuff.

<EDIT - just to be clear, "you" is not referring to anyone in particular in this post>
I think if you want to look at your assassin pets DPS you are going to have to compare two very like encounters pre and post patch. In groups my pet usually parses 200-240 on ^^^ encounters, yet he has sustained 320+ on raid encounters. Why so high one raids? I assume that it is due to a combination of being buffed more and the mob also being debuffed alot more. I would definately make sure the parses you are looking at are comparable.
Message Edited by Eirgorn on 11-11-2005 08:55 AM

I'm just comparing him to the warlock pet, not his pre and post LU16 self. Proc rates and auto-attack comparisons are something else entirely (and a good topic for a different post, which I don't have the logs for). Those parses look around where I expect him to be in either a group or solo fight compared to pre-update, I'll test a little more but I'm not seeing any real noticeable reductions in auto-attack damage.

Its the debuffs, if you have a brigand in your raid alone he can debuff all resists by an absurd amount, like 2-3k? I forget, but also, in a longer fight, your necromantic insigia will be on for longer than in a short fight, raising the dps of the pets special attacks. People putting on dolls and other debuffs ect make the pet do a ton more damage.

With the new master offense at 54 warlock is not so bad. Its casting rate has increased (yes it was terribly slow prior to this spell) - I have not run the numbers yet but I can see faster casts. A few more 600+ nukes too over longer fights. The real question of when to use the caster is simple: if the mob being faced is using alot of AOE then the assassin is out since aoe seems to eat him up. The tank, my favorite, is not needed as a off tank on raid, so this is when I will usually use the warlock now. Her longer range dps allows her to stand off and nuke and usually avoid significant aoe damage - she has gotten it occassionally when she chain nukes 400-600+ several times in a row: yes this is rare but it has happened. So if you need dps, and you notice the assassin seems to drop without getting direct aggro, then its time for the warlock.