Proposition for NEW pet system for Mages and Epic changes

[ChaosSlayer]

the advance pet gear is coming soon by itself.
as far pet focus goes- its already available via augment for lev 70+ pets, I am pretty sure Lillu wants it to be earned separetly from epic

[Lillu]

yep, Chaos got the point

[grindle]

I think that taking pet off the 1.5 is a horrible idea ..why not just take the pet off the spell scribble at level 48. You could also make the level 48 orb summon a lower level pet (better than stock level 48 pet of course) that would help mages get to 70 then that would make the 1.5 mage usable again.

The right click swarm pets will have to have a metric ton of HP and AC to be of any use at all, other wise the upper level raid mob will just kill them with a backhand and not even notice the dps.

Greydon 70 Mage

[Seipher]

I think it will be good taking the pet off the staves, but having swarm pets instead of a nice buff is still iffy to me until i see their worth using against higher level raid mobs

[ChaosSlayer]

I will work on a swarm pet to make sure its a worthy epic effect:

-it will be a MASSIVE dmg pet - considering it will be usable only once in 20 min by my plan.
-I have a few ideas how to make it to last full duration without going POOF on first repost/rampahe, but at same time not loading it with 1 mln hp - they still being worked out.

If all else fails, I have a reserved idea to give you an UBER DoT

[Ayeima]

How about fixing Mage pets and items first.

I have talked about it before in a different post, but my mage pet doesn't get full bonuses from summoned items.

Base HP 19800, AC 4200, and Haste 0, str 230, sta 230, dex 185, agi 230, int 140, wis185 and cha 140

with mask belt and 2 tonfas of the northwing the pets base Hp goes to 21300 and ac goes to 4450 and haste stays at 0 and all physical and mental stats stay the same.

The Tonfa's of the northwing (From TOV) are +1500 hp, +250 ac and +40 regen each
Crystal belt is +650 hp, +20 str, dex, sta, and agi
Muzzle of Mowcha is +15 attack, +10 accuracy and +20%haste

I havent experemented with the summoned armor yet so i dont know if it works.

Questions:
Will the swarm pets be able to stand upto rampage or reposte?

Will the new elemental pets still have their normal abilities, such as root, invise, Backstab, cast lure of fire (i think fire pets cast that i cant remember), Damage sheild and such?

Could the swarm pets be "Elemental Swarm" and have the different abilities of the different pets, Earth procs root and rune, fire has big damage shield and procs fire, air stuns, and water backstabs.

What raid tier will the pets be dropped?? and will it cascade, I.E. level 1 tier drops water, Tier 2 drops water and fire, tier 3 drops water, air and fire, and tier 4 drops water, air, fire, and earth pets.

and could we mages get a complete heal for our pets my biggest heal is only 2k and some change.

[Seipher]

a CH is a bit much, maybe a 4-5k base heal, with heal focus, would be a really nice boost to it.

[ChaosSlayer]

How about fixing Mage pets and items first.
I have talked about it before in a different post, but my mage pet doesn't get full bonuses from summoned items.

to best of my knowledge pets only get stat bonuses from items that go into visable slots on player, some except the haste effect. So pet in fact not getting hp/ac from belt or mask. But I will confirm this in game for sure today.

This problem however easily can be addressed by making pet items only go into the "visible" slots.

Questions:
Will the swarm pets be able to stand upto rampage or reposte?

I believe I answered this in the other tread, but that's the whole point, that they are "raid durable" and last for entire duration, unless attacked directly but the mob. I am still looking for best solution for this at this time.

Will the new elemental pets still have their normal abilities, such as root, invise, Backstab, cast lure of fire (i think fire pets cast that i cant remember), Damage sheild and such?

This could be discussed. I always believed that 4 different pets are simply too many, and people spent years playing only using 2 types most of the time.

On EQ2 for example mages only have 2 normal pets - 1 tank and 1 dps, and 3rd comes in a form of 1 min swarm.

Fire pet notable always was judged as most useless, due to tiny hp, and high resist rate of his spells.
As far old effects go - we can keep them or we can replace/drop them. Fire shield of fire pet is kind of natural thing, and I propose above to make a monk with procs instead fo a caster to be more reliable. Invisibility for pet - not sure why really need thought - in the odl days of eq when pets had faction, self invised pet was a blessing what you had to crawl through a dungeon which was green to you but mobs could still agro on your pet. Nowdays it hardly has a purpose (other than for mob's pets to surprise you).

In other words we have opportunity here to rework entire 4 pets set up to the optimal solution, and hand pick what we want to have on each pet as proc or as self cast.

I however propose to do this in the "Pet thread" rerfu started for us.

Could the swarm pets be "Elemental Swarm" and have the different abilities of the different pets, Earth procs root and rune, fire has big damage shield and procs fire, air stuns, and water backstabs.

We could do that - I just do see a real purpose from having 4 pets out rather than for a sheer stylish part of it. Also I was planning to use a whole new npc model for the swarm pet.

What raid tier will the pets be dropped?? and will it cascade, I.E. level 1 tier drops water, Tier 2 drops water and fire, tier 3 drops water, air and fire, and tier 4 drops water, air, fire, and earth pets.

This is being worked out. The current idea as following (not final):

First raid tier pets:
-Droped from lower end raid zones (no exact details atm)
-OR earned from LDON as ultimate upgrade to non raiders for VERY high price.

Higher raid pets:
-dropped from somewhere higher up or perhaps raid level quested.

One the issues with spreading pets by theme related raid zones, is that for example to get fire pet you would have wait all till PoFire - which is tier 4 if I am not mistaken, by which time the pet from 1st tier will be significantly absolute. (if you make pet power grow in relation how much dropped gear grows from tier to tier)

So this is not final yet.

and could we mages get a complete heal for our pets my biggest heal is only 2k and some change.

Well not a complete heal (unless you want to have that as epic effect ), pet heal upgrade is possible.

[Seipher]

I think their should be some in Icewell to go along with the earth pet.

Next tier should be ToV since thats the huge jump in power from kael gear, then some in air since other classes get spells then also.

I think a heal with a base value of 4-5k should be sufficient, with a healing focus, it can boost it quite a bit.

About different pets, i think their should be atleast 3, Warrior / Rogue / Monk.

as for pet toys, how about an 8 slot bag, 2 weapons, gloves for haste, arms for str, boots for agi, bp for hp, legs for dex, helm for +Attack?, weapons could forgo stats to get bigger procs then 250 probably?

[ChaosSlayer]

the thing is- there is absolutely no point in getting new pets and getting pet toys at same time.
Its redundant.
Essentially pet toys ARE pet upgrades. Of course of live they were not sold on vendor, so mage could always have them, but other pet classes did not. On THF - even if just 1 mage on raid has new toys- he gives it to all other pets on raid.
If you have ALWAYS available toys why simply not make their bonuses default to pets themselves?
I also see no point of making entire BAG of pet toys from a single spell - this again equal to just getting a new pet with those exact bonuses as default. Now if pet toys would be individual and rare drops- they it would make sense. So you can get a pet weapon (with specific unique proc) from one raid zone, another pet item from a different raid zone. Then it would make sense to collect entire set. But if you getting a whole bag of items at once - I can simply give you a new pet with those bonuses included.
So, imho it should one or the others. I think the reason pet toys become available from the start in the first place, is cause Tyler didn't had time to evaluate and rebuff every single pet other than high end pets - so simply put toys on vendor as DEFAULT UPGRADES.

Now on to specific items. My test show that:

mask - no effect (if haste is applied, my view of npc stats before and after doesn't show it at all
belt - no effect
helm - you get Ac, but don't get HP
BP, legs, arms, gloves - ac, hp, simple stats

If things like ATK and Accuracy even apply - they not visible on show stats command.

BTW - if limiting number of pets - what would be actual difference between Rogue and Monk pet? Won't they both be used for DPS?