[req] pets

[goodthink]

I have played with all 3 major pet classes [bst. mage, necro] and I can't help but feel the pets, themselves, are too weak - especially at 70 when facing seb+ stuffs.

Now players can get lots of chaotic gear, and weapons in the guk tier to increase their overall durability, and with aa's it might even be possible to solo much of the seb+ content. This is the greatest benefit to tank classes who pop a cleric bot and go nuts.

However, casters and bsts are lost at this point. I have seen a lvl 70 earth pet devoured by greens in seb and completely unable to tank 3 adds. Now, I am sure someone, somewhere is gonna say pets shouldn't be able to tank. But the earth pet is the mage's only defense and the only way a mage can nuke safely. Without a sustaintal ac or hp adjustment mage pets are next to useless outside a group context which severely limits the progression of people who play mages.

For bsts, the pet takes up roughly 1/3rd of their dps and I find the pets much more balanced. They still have problems tanking named in the seb+ and should last a bit longer, and again, when faced with multiple greens, they fold quickly.

I haven't played with necro's much, but indoors, without kiting their pets fold as fast as the mages.

I see the problem as a dicotomy of sorts. You don't want to increase the pets natural (via summoning) because the pet player would automatically be granted an upgraded pet without any real work but in addition, the pets even after the intial adjustment would just fall behind again.

My suggestion is 2 fold.

1) introduce upgrade augments in the guk tier. Possibly one for hp, for for dmg, one for spell procs.

2) Increase the benefit of augs for pets

3) and finally, perhaps put into place an epic question for pets. The reward could be a pouch that summons weapons that give complimentary procs (for mages for example, a malo sword and a 2k nuke as their epic) and you could even have the player specialize their pets via choice in epic quests. Examples,

Mage:fire [malo/nuke ac:low hp: low mana:high ds:high]
Mage:water [slow/ice ac:med hp:med mana:med aura:sloth]
Mage:air [whirl/stun ac:high hp:low mana:low aura:regen]
Mage:earth [root/ae earthquake ac:high hp:high mana:low ds:low]

Necro:SK [shrouds/high taps ac:high hp:med mana:med]
Necro:War [stun/hate proc ac: high hp: high mana:none]
Necro monk: [Dot (dragonfist)/enfeeblement] ac: med hp: med]
Necro: rogue: [poison proc ac:med hp: low]

Bst:WAR focus [root/stun hp: high ac: high]
Bst:Utility focus [slow/snare hp:med ac:med]
Bst:Proc Focus [% increase to magic procs, ac:low hp:low]


You could call the items totems for mages, jewelled skullls of X for necro's and fetishes for mages or something.

Would be interesting to make pets for viable and give pet classes a clear path for upgrades regarding their pets without handing them free upgrades.

[Tyler]

Maybe you don't know but this server already has custom pets. ALL pets on this server are 2 levels higher than what they usually are. They have more hps and ac (about 10-15%) and do more dps (again about 10-15%).

Every pet class also gets a lev70 pet spell that is greatly improved over their main counterpart, plus you can always buy proccing weapons for free from THF starter zone.

Why is the only safety for a mage his pet? There are snare and root items avaiable to all classes in this game. On top of that, the mage also has the root procing earth pet (again, greatly improved at 70). What has a wizard to protect him?

Also, there are already pet augments in game to summon you higher level pet. For example the mage 1.5 is yellow at 70 once summoned. I mean that definately doesn't sound weak to me, but maybe im wrong. Necro pet is designed (least on this server) to outdps all other pets, but in return to be weaker than the mage pet which is more of a tank type.

The BST didn't get a custom lev70 pet btw (well it's still 2 levels higher as on live, see above), as the BST class can already get super weapons and armor.

I am not saying here that i am not willing to tweak pets some more, but honestly i think pets are already pretty strong.

What do other pet owners feel about their pets?

[goodthink]

I know the pets are already customized, and I understand the changes you have made.

My problem is a 70 mage summoning their best earth pet will see it die fairly fast with just 2 or 3 green to lt blue mobs from seb on it.

Sure there are snare items, the fungus something-or-other, but a mage isn't a wizard and for the sacrifice of dmg variety and overall dps, they are supposed to have a pet that can tank at least as well as a warrior of the same level using poor/moderate gear. I have seen, for example, an earth pet tank in wall of slaughter on live ( with constant heals ).

Not saying that ought to be the case here, however I think some augs at the t1 level are required to make the mage line more durable so mages can upgrade and tackle t2 content.

Necro's are always iffy. They have enough tricks that they don't need to rely solely on their pet as a wall between them and the mob.

And Bst are pretty much ok, other than an increase to pet dmg throughout the tiers to stop bsts from losing the dps the pet provides.

I was shotgunning suggestions.

And, I know a lot of people don't like pet classes and have many different feelings about them. But I think it only fair the a mage should be able to summon something that can last long enough for them to fire off 2 nukes without it dying too quickly.

Even if you halved the dps of the earth and doubled it's hp or increased it's mitigation or something?

Also, pets and rampages... ugly. Perhaps a cap on how much a pet absorbs from a ramp?

[Tyler]

i'll have anotherlook at earth pets.

[Tyler]

The final 3 earth pets are gained more ac and in return lost dps. Probably need reload as always.

[Jeido]

Also, pets and rampages... ugly. Perhaps a cap on how much a pet absorbs from a ramp?

Good ole' rampage, it's even worse on high end content. The only thing I can tell you is that ramp *should be* fixed in the next rev update. The eqemu devs were made aware of the ramp bug and as far as I know they've fixed it. Once fixed, pet classes will have a much easier time on all mobs that are rampaging unless they're actually flagged as AE ramp mobs. (Every ramp in the game is currently AE -- no way to change it atm)

[Tyler]

Yup, once that goes live, we will retune most encounters!

[Shin Noir]

don't make pets too powerful though, since if you haven't noticed their aggro is all whacked out.

E.g. you can heal bomb it without aggro issues, or chain pets and do some crazy stuff (multiple pet classes at same time). Mage can kill mobs with pet tanking the whole fight, stuff is a little weird with pets. XD

[Koeril]

The problem with being able to heal bomb pets could just be the amount of aggro healing gives. About the only time I get anything on me is if a cheal lands during the pull or if there are respawns. I can't say for sure though as I have an aggro reducer focus effect. If I am duoing with my Rogue, as long as I do 95% (estimated) damage to all incoming mobs, they never attack the cleric.

[Tyler]

How often did you splat with your new BP yet?