pets

[Voragath]

Completely off topic but... I think an equal focus'd warder is a better tank than our air pet now

Discuss!

Are you verklempt? XD

[Voragath]

He was not wearing weapons. Did you give your pet weapons?

Also, he was versus a level 90 test dummy. What mob or dummy were you killing/attacking?

I tested mobs all over Norrath. Max hit on any and all was 404. No weapons, no focus, no aura, nothing. Just summoned and sent in pet for the kill. I don't have logs at the pc I am currently at, but me and many other mages agree the max hit out of the box is 404 for level 86 air.

Yeah, I forgot to take the focus off. Good catch.

Just want to still mention, you are still better off using the 86 air pet unfocused if you have EM 3 or less and gain level 86. The 86 air pet is gonna be better in all instances over the level 81 air pet.

[svenalo]

Completely off topic but... I think an equal focus'd warder is a better tank than our air pet now

Discuss!

Wouldn't that be a kick in the nuts?

[Gnomeland]

He was not wearing weapons. Did you give your pet weapons?

Also, he was versus a level 90 test dummy. What mob or dummy were you killing/attacking?

I tested mobs all over Norrath. Max hit on any and all was 404. No weapons, no focus, no aura, nothing. Just summoned and sent in pet for the kill. I don't have logs at the pc I am currently at, but me and many other mages agree the max hit out of the box is 404 for level 86 air.

Yeah, I forgot to take the focus off. Good catch.

Just want to still mention, you are still better off using the 86 air pet unfocused if you have EM 3 or less and gain level 86. The 86 air pet is gonna be better in all instances over the level 81 air pet.

Damage-wise, maybe. But tanking-wise, it's far from proven. The parse here indicates that the unfocused 86 pet tanks rather badly compared to the focused 81 pet (due to the lack of mod3s, etc.):

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts ... _id=169991" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In fact you posted on that thread claiming that the 86 pet will be better than the 81 pet in all circumstances, when the parse data shows that even WITH EM 5 the two pets tank almost exactly the same - which is terrible given that the 86 pet is supposed to be five levels higher and scaled to UF/HoT content.

We need a data table from SoE to confirm our suspicions, but so far the parses have not shown any significant improvement except in DPS.

[Goranothos]

While I do not have any parses and am relying solely on my personal observations and experiences, I know that the EM7 focused 86 pet tanks better than an EM7 focused 81 pet. This is against mobs, both dark and light blue, that I have spent a great deal of time killing for AA experience.

As far as how the two pets compare when summoned with lower level focus items, I don't know, and Gnomeland could be correct. We need more data.

[Failcon]

No offense Failcon, but the only thing you've done since you came recently was to state that mages are fine and must be punished for having strong pets based on a plethora of bad logic and crappy ideas about game balance, including that mages aren't supposed to have great DPS because you're supposed to use pets to tank on raids.

Never said pets should tank on raids. Mages are fine in the group game, I do agree we need work in the raid game. During the live video chat with Devs on launch, I actually made Elidroth admit that mages are not balanced in raid DPS. What you have not let your self come to grips with is a simple issue, the more power they give us to balance us on raids, also equals more power that we get when soling or grouping. This is an issue because if we are given the power in raids that everyone wants, it sends us into a highly unfair place in the group and solo settings. With the way things are currently mind you, the Devs are getting tons of complaints about how mages are over powered in the solo/group setting by other classes. They are having issues with giving more power to a class that has members going out and soloing final teir named mobs. It is not an issue that only the upper 1% do this, but that there has become a huge mystique about the super abilities of mages. With an increase in power to balance out raid power for mages, we then go from 1% of mages doing extreme soloing, (that is not designed for) to a much larger group being able to do this. Other classes call for Mages to be nerfed for many reasons, our pets out tanking tanks, being able to solo content that groups either can't or just barely. Do you think the group player cares you are a raider and they just don't have the gear you do?

In this thread and that other thread all you've done is whine about whiners even though everyone here have legitimate complaints. Perhaps you don't main a mage but play one as a alt and that's why you think the way you do. Maybe you are eccentric and just have opinions contrary to most people on this board. Or possibly being raid geared for the entirety of your existence made your view of the game lopsided, which I admit is possible since you're talking as if ripping through group content with a raid geared group has anything to do with balance. Either way, I don't think you are in a position to say that I am whining for the sake of whining when almost every mage believes that there is a serious issue with HOT balance and you haven't yet shown that you have a clue about game balance.

Btw, your understanding of how the loyalty system works is also wrong.

I have been a active raider for about a year and a half, maybe a lil longer, so lets say 2 years. This is out of my nearly 7 years of active account time. I play my mage to the near exclution of all other toons (best one is 78 and 300~ AAs). I was a very casual player, and still am by many raideer standards. It was in this last guild I joined where I was taught the tricks to get gear, where to farm augs and the like. So no I am not jaded, some of my best friends are group players, who I am glad to help, cause I remember how hard it was. I have now however, come to the conclution that I like having a touch of power and control. I know that I was at a point, very over powering to the group game, at the end of SoD I was the #2 mage on my server. That does not mean I have no understanding of my class, I have learned my class from years of experience and testing just how far I could push myself. My opinions are based on what I have seen, as you can see I was not a part of these boards for long, and am giving the opinions of a person who earned his way to where he is. Oh and no with the server merge, and the snag of UF, I am not the top 5 mages anymore, I refuse to buy low teir UF gear that isn't that much of an upgrade. Oh yeah, btw I don't have the most AAs, but I can still keep up with nearly amy mage you put me against. So if you wanna doubt who I am, and what I know about mages...bite me

I didn't buy HoT. Don't intend to either, unless something changes. What I've done is analyze the state of the game on the eve of HoT release, and based on past experience, I'm telling you all that you need to wake up and realize what's happening. The community has been lacking in direction and organization and this was apparent during the HoT beta. This hurt the class greatly, and it is time people realized why you should care.

SoF was four expansions ago. The SoF devs have been rotated out of EQ. This new balance is a whole new ball game, and people need to stop acting like this is still the SoF/SoD Lala-land. The new devs are going through the motions but they don't strike me as having an in-depth understanding of what to do. If they did we should not have seen last minute across-the-board nerfs to HoT mobs. That was a clutch effort to salvage what was to be another game-killing expansion ala UF. It demonstrates exactly what we're dealing with in terms of the content balance team.

Dude, you don't have HoT, so how do you know how things are working? My mage friends are all doing just fine, yeah they have to get a lil help and can't solo easily but that is based on being the lowest level the zones are made for, with the lowest gear. And yet they are getting progression done. Maybe that is because, as the Devs state, EQ is a group game, and has been designed as such. So either buy the game, so you can talk about what you know, or shut up. You are spewing useless hot air. Decent in our ranks comes from people like you, who haven't either got a clue, or are jealous of those who have worked to get the better gear and such. I say that, cause all to often in EQ there is a rift between raid and group players, and it is people who choose to be just group or solo players, that whine about what they can't do and how it is not fair. I am sorry but that is your choice, and you have to accept the status of your toon because of it. I raid in a guild that does not traditionally allow for alts to loot gear, and as such, we don't allow alt mages into raid even for flagging (deemed unfair to other classes). So even my raider friends alt mages had to find ways to improve, and go figure they did. This may be a game, but unlike nearly any other game like it, you have to work for what you get (one of the major reasons poeple play everquest). As long as EQ is tough, there will be people who are not happy, but as it has been found time and again, even larger groups of people get mad when the content is to easy. There have been expantions that were not an increase in difficulty and they got mainly over looked and players threw a huge fit, EQ learned its leason from it.

[Failcon]

But because of the loyalty fiasco, which gave the devs an answer to fallback on: "you have EM 4 from loyalty, so STFU,"... all of these issues were completely ignored, to the point where if you don't have EM 4+, either from loyalty or UF or /taskadd, your 86 pet is worse than your 81 pet.

Do you have the numbers to prove this? Does this only apply to dmg? HP? Avoidance? Does this mean I need to start /petitioning the Devs that my pet us unfair cause the bottom 2% who have either no clue, no desire, or just too lazy don't have EM4 since it has been given away to just about everyone.

Just cause you don't like the Loyalty vendor, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Thus putting the EM4 in nearly everyones hands.

[Failcon]

1. The claim that the 86 pet is too little of an upgrade, defensively, compared to the 81 pet. Parses on the SoE mage forums have shown a mere 3% increase in overall damage reduction using EM 5. Yet mobs at 90 certainly do not merely have a 3% increase in their DPS, compared to mobs at 85. It is unacceptable for us to lose relative power against dark blue mobs such that we are gradually again reduced to the role of fighting light blues. The unknowns in this debate are the effects of AAs and improved spells. I would consider this issue "solved" if it is shown that mages with an average number of AAs (~1500) and gear (corresponding to EM 5, which is T1 HoT) can effectively solo dark blues at level 90 as they were able to at 85 (with EM 1, which was T1 SoD when you discount the ezmode zones).

First off, if you had played HoT, Teir 1 starts at dark blue at level 85, named mobs ranged between yellow and red. At 86 with EM8, I am moloing mobs in Feerrott like it is a joke, so at 90 with EM5 it should be easier, being that dps will be massively increased. Also in Beta, before they tuned up our pets even higher, raid geared 90 mage could pet tank teir 3 red con nameds (I did it on multiple mobs).

2. The claim that the 86 pet is too little of an upgrade, offensively, due to massive increases in mob hp and stagnant mage spell DPS. The question is whether a 150-300 DPS upgrade (as shown by parses with the new weapons) is "too little," which can only be answered in the wider context of mage DPS scaling through spells and AAs. Once again, we don't have the overall parse numbers from weaves + pets, but the general Beta consensus is that we are way behind the DPS curve. For this reason additional DPS must come from somewhere - whether it's pets or spells is a matter of negotiation.

Those numbers are based on the air pet, and the air pet does aveage dps, just like always. On the other hand, the fire and water pets have had drastic increases, the pets designed for dps, the fire pet also had FBO fixed to work on it, and wow is it a huge increase. You do not know this cause you are regurgatating info that you do not even know is correct. On Beta, people were constantly complaining about raids DPS, the pets are tuned in line for groups not raids.

[Failcon]

Completely off topic but... I think an equal focus'd warder is a better tank than our air pet now

Discuss!

Had a Bst friend in Beta in a grp in Morell's Castle and dang was a pain, we would both tank diff mobs and her pet was doing at least as good as our air pet. They not only tank as well but dps near the same.

[Gnomeland]

Never said pets should tank on raids. Mages are fine in the group game, I do agree we need work in the raid game. During the live video chat with Devs on launch, I actually made Elidroth admit that mages are not balanced in raid DPS. What you have not let your self come to grips with is a simple issue, the more power they give us to balance us on raids, also equals more power that we get when soling or grouping. This is an issue because if we are given the power in raids that everyone wants, it sends us into a highly unfair place in the group and solo settings. With the way things are currently mind you, the Devs are getting tons of complaints about how mages are over powered in the solo/group setting by other classes. They are having issues with giving more power to a class that has members going out and soloing final teir named mobs. It is not an issue that only the upper 1% do this, but that there has become a huge mystique about the super abilities of mages. With an increase in power to balance out raid power for mages, we then go from 1% of mages doing extreme soloing, (that is not designed for) to a much larger group being able to do this. Other classes call for Mages to be nerfed for many reasons, our pets out tanking tanks, being able to solo content that groups either can't or just barely. Do you think the group player cares you are a raider and they just don't have the gear you do?

They should, because other raiding classes (paladins, SKs, rangers, etc.) are doing the same thing. In fact it's probably not even group players (who don't have access to Convorteum) bitching but classes like necros or wizards, since I haven't seen a group-geared tank bitch about mages in along time. If devs are driven in balance by their concern over class envy then there's not much to talk about: they're wrong and their game is going to suffer for it. And it is possible to improve raid DPS without buffing mage soloing (people have suggested making the fire and water pets stronger at DPS but weaker at tanking, for example, which would not help soloing at all).

Dude, you don't have HoT, so how do you know how things are working? My mage friends are all doing just fine, yeah they have to get a lil help and can't solo easily but that is based on being the lowest level the zones are made for, with the lowest gear. And yet they are getting progression done. Maybe that is because, as the Devs state, EQ is a group game, and has been designed as such. So either buy the game, so you can talk about what you know, or shut up. You are spewing useless hot air. Decent in our ranks comes from people like you, who haven't either got a clue, or are jealous of those who have worked to get the better gear and such. I say that, cause all to often in EQ there is a rift between raid and group players, and it is people who choose to be just group or solo players, that whine about what they can't do and how it is not fair. I am sorry but that is your choice, and you have to accept the status of your toon because of it. I raid in a guild that does not traditionally allow for alts to loot gear, and as such, we don't allow alt mages into raid even for flagging (deemed unfair to other classes). So even my raider friends alt mages had to find ways to improve, and go figure they did. This may be a game, but unlike nearly any other game like it, you have to work for what you get (one of the major reasons poeple play everquest). As long as EQ is tough, there will be people who are not happy, but as it has been found time and again, even larger groups of people get mad when the content is to easy. There have been expantions that were not an increase in difficulty and they got mainly over looked and players threw a huge fit, EQ learned its leason from it.

Umm, because I have mage friends as well? There's also /testcopy, you know, in case I need to check something. Besides, I've seen the issues first hand at the very end of Beta. They haven't changed anything since then, and that's why I haven't bought HoT and don't intend to in protest. Otherwise if I pay them for HoT that is implicitly supporting what they're doing, which sends the wrong message. And your rant about soloers/groupers is irrelevant to the discussion. Don't worry about me, please - If I want something I will go out and get it and have always done so. I raided at the top as well, back when I cared about raiding, so it's not an issue of jealousy/envy. What I want is for the mage class to be what it should be. That is the purpose of this thread.

There's no point in me going out and spending months raiding for top gear WHEN THE CLASS ITSELF IS BROKEN because the devs decided to listen to whiners. I don't post on forums often because I prefer to spend the time in-game, but when I do it is because I think something is seriously amiss that cannot be addressed merely by in-game measures.

Do you have the numbers to prove this? Does this only apply to dmg? HP? Avoidance? Does this mean I need to start /petitioning the Devs that my pet us unfair cause the bottom 2% who have either no clue, no desire, or just too lazy don't have EM4 since it has been given away to just about everyone.

Just cause you don't like the Loyalty vendor, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Thus putting the EM4 in nearly everyones hands.

Yes I have numbers to back it up. Read the thread, I've even linked to parses that show it.

First off, if you had played HoT, Teir 1 starts at dark blue at level 85, named mobs ranged between yellow and red. At 86 with EM8, I am moloing mobs in Feerrott like it is a joke, so at 90 with EM5 it should be easier, being that dps will be massively increased. Also in Beta, before they tuned up our pets even higher, raid geared 90 mage could pet tank teir 3 red con nameds (I did it on multiple mobs).

DB at level 85 = LB at 90. If we can't solo LB mobs then the class is smurf.

As for your claims about level 90 raid-geared tunes tanking tier 3 nameds, how is that in anyway even exceptional? Raid-geared tunes are overtuned for the group content, EVERYONE knows that and it affects ALL classes.

Once again, you've not proven that you have a solid view of class balance and where we OUGHT to be at. You keep bringing up pets to justify mages not being on par with other DPS classes on raids, and then turn around and belittle mages asking for pets that are actually a significant upgrade from the previous tier of pets. That's a contradiction. Unless your personal opinion is that mages are overpowered and should STFU, an opinion that I doubt anyone else in the mage community holds, the logic of your arguments is heavily flawed.