86+ pets very underwhelming...

[Failcon]

While I am a big fan of the "weak" mobs, we can't have our pets just win out of the box. That would, with focus scaling, lead to pets that would tank much higher mobs. I know we would like that, but when your pet out tanks the monk in your group there is an issue. The current content DOES expect you to have a curtain amount of AAs and pet focus. The avg. EQ player has played what 4-5 yrs, the content is designed to be a challenge. There is not alot of new blood coming into EQ, it is the die hards like us who keep the game going. The "new mages" we commonly see are actually players making mages cause they want to try a "new" class or think mages are "gods" and want a peice of the pie. I will bet at least 90% of us reading this have over 2k AA, which with any forethought will be partially linked to the pet. Also there is no reason that anyone, who has 6 months or so time on a mage, does not have at least EM4. It was given away by the loyalty vendor, which everyone sneared at. Not to mention that the EM8 ear is not only a easy drop but common (at least on Rathe), I see it rot all the time. They have made it all to easy to obtain any of these, AAs are now a joke under 2500 and the pet foci are easy to obtain.

So you cannot say they didn't give us a good pet. They just made it scale in accordance to your content level. I could sit her and complain that I have been stuck with EM8 cause the last expansion did not scale it fast enough and this one is still lacking, but as it is, I can tank every named I have incountered so far in HoT (not all, but quite a few), with only one exception so far (Shaman Jorg, last try was at 86). I am not the greatest mage, I still am learning new tricks. Yet some how, with all my flaws (no sarcasm), I can pet tank all these things that are "too hard". This expantion the mobs are not even close to as hard as Underfoot was. The biggest issue I have honestly found is our mana blows and mob HPs are high (even trash).

I think, in all honesty, either people want this game to turn into WoW, or cannot differenciate between mob issues and pet issues. Also it seems there is a big push that cause UF was so smurf hard, this has to be as bad. If you go back a lil in content and compare mobs, you can find lt blues in SoD, UF and HoT (same with blues). Fight them, notice that SoD is faster kills with little pet worry, UF has a much longer and drawn out fight with pet needing attention, then HoT mobs with a fight in the middle but still longer and pet needs attention. The pet is not different, the mobs have changed, the format has gone back to "big ugly mobs" and as EQ history goes, this will pass. Just be glad this is not Gates or Omens, known for the "big ugly mobs" and our pets were shaking, hiding behind us saying not again.

Out of the box mobs are not going to be "beasts" anymore. Each time they gave us good pets it has caused riots, and they don't care for us enough to put up with the other classes. When Monks start screaming about "monk" pets out tanking them, the devs will keep reducing pet power, or they are going to reduce ours (again).

We are one of the greatest, most well rounded classes in the game. We have awesome pets who tank/dps better than any other. We can keep up dps in the grp game rather well, though raids are a lil lacking the higher you go. We have only 2 areas we lack in, CC and pulling and even then some of you have tricks to get around that at times (all hail the CotH pull). This is why I do not understand how people are still... complaining... about our pets and our class. Most people I know are envious about what mages can do. I have friends who would rather I pet tank then get a real one most of the time (which I hate). Are you going to tell me, that you all don't have friends who rely on y'all also. Mages, who know what they are doing, are EQ gods. And our pets are our Avatars. (Don't beleive me, ask Terris Thule, my pet ate her lunch, and I took her milk money!)

[svenalo]

There is a lot of truth in there. That said, I would put sustained DPS in as a lack, and also mana regen as still a big issue because of the mana return nerf (sort of is tied into the sustained DPS problem). All told, though, I am happy with my mage and don't view my comments as complaining so much as highlighting what issues there are with the class.

[Voragath]

I don't have pet tank groups much anymore. I prefer a real tank because that makes everything easier, including the availability of melee dps. At EM 8 pet tanking is "ok" but could be better, imo. I don't like relying on RS to assist in tanking but that's how it is and probably will stay. With a real healer, you can maximize this by healing the RS pet.

The real problem with pets is their dps, as Sven said and as we expressed during beta; exception to the earth pet which is the reverse.

But, Fail, I think you are taking the wrong approach. Taking the max focus, gear, and aa's only pertains to the highest tier. And, no, not everyone has over 2k aa's. But 2k aa's today isn't the same as 2k aa's yesterday so that is an invalid point. The devs have adjusted the aa scale to stop where the average aa count is for the player base.

Another thing to point out is that aa's are what makes a huge difference for various pet abilities. A pet with full pet aa's will outtank a monk who doesn't have all their defensives and is in inappropriate gear for the content. Not once have I seen an appropriately geared toon outperform any of our pets this expansion. I'm reminded here by this when a level 87 warrior in mostly SoD tier 4 gear, with some Tier 1 HoT gear, was tanking giants in SS just as well as my air pet; he had just come back from a 2 yr hiatus. Also, you need to remember raid geared mages actually do perform better at their tasks when soloing or grouping as they can do more dps, healing goes WAY up, and mana costs come down. You may do good because your healing focus is almost double a grouper and your mana pool and cast times can handle it but a group geared toon won't have that stuff and will really struggle. I don't care what YOU can solo or group, I care about what J. GROUPER can solo/group. Raiders have their zones/content: raids.

Pets are NOT fine and we need to keep pushing for improvement. We should always ask for more than necessary so when the devs scale back, they scale back to where pets should be so that we don't fall behind as we have. Our dps pets need some serious boosts to help us out in the raid community; which we will get some with the removal of rage but that doesn't even scratch the damned surface.

I really think the push needs to be for two sets of pet focii where one focii is ONLY available from raids so that raid pets can see some real boosts. This way, you can make that fire pet do some crazy ass nuke dmg and that water pet do some serious stabbing.

One final point: those of us on this board that are raiders should be conscious to stop using our abilities to talk about the state of our class as a whole. Groupers are usually much, much more casual than raiders and just won't have what we do and then their gear is half as strong as ours to boot.

[Failcon]

I am mostly group geared.

[Voragath]

I am mostly group geared.

You can't just go around poking holes in my arguments like that, it's just plain rude XD

Seriously, though, what do you mean "mostly" group geared? More than half is group? Is healing and nuke focus from raids or group? What about mana and spell haste focus? Is the raid gear less than tier 4 HoT group? I'm talking strictly HoT tier gear. And using tier 4 to exemplify the whole expansion is still disingenuous, even if it IS easy to get.

[Zatpus]

I really think the push needs to be for two sets of pet focii where one focii is ONLY available from raids so that raid pets can see some real boosts. This way, you can make that fire pet do some crazy ass nuke dmg and that water pet do some serious stabbing.

This argument lately I have seen mentioned more than once. For me it looks like: "Lets convince the devs to widen the gap between grouping and raiding Mages to fix our problems". I frequent different classboards. Nowhere else I have ever seen such an approach.

Have you ever seen some argument like: 'Lets ask devs to create a superduper heroferocity-focus available only throught raids" to get us more ahead on any meele-classboard?

If an dps-increase can't bee gained by simply getting higher output on existing stuff, wouldn't it be more kindly to ask for some stuff more in line with what the rogues got? Didn't they got some poisons which, applied by different rogues on same mob have some multiplicative effect to all rogues targeting same mob.

Could be a set of debuffs (2,3,4, whatever fits), all on same timer so they can't be applied by a single mage, which, when applied all on same mob would make it x% weaker against pet-damage. You would have a mechanic which would support a raid-scenario where multiple mages are around without completely excluding groupers already by design.

"Blow up the groupers if that's needed to fix us raides" ... feels a little elitist.

[Voragath]

The raid poison proc is about maybe once a minute, it's terrible. Also, it's just a huge jolt at once but overall it's low dps AND it wasn't supposed to be their dps, just a boost. Ngreth said it was just a bonus and that's why drops were rare; to make the drops common they'd have to make it part of their dps and he wouldn't be adjusting the proc or dmg to match that. Then, Eli or someone comes along and says, "it's your dps, why wouldn't it count?" Personally, I'd like to avoid such detrimental confusion.

And, no, I'm not asking for a raid/group chasm. The raid mage dps is held back because of the group. A group dps amount is insignificant at raids. Raiders and groupers have a huge chasm already but it's minimal with mages. Tell me a group rogue matches the abilities of a raid rogue, group zerker of raid zerker, warrior, etc... Our dps is split between casting and pet; essentially, we are the hybrid of caster dps. Our casting dps got a small boost this time around and we need our pets to get a boost too. All I'm asking for is a pet dps boost. They don't go big with a pet dps boost because groupers will soon have access to the very same focii next expansion.

I don't like the chasm between grouper and raider either but it's there and it's going to stay. Raid mages need a leg up regarding dps and pet focii is a good place for that. A raid pet that does 200 more dps than a group pet does not help the raid mage.

If an dps-increase can't bee gained by simply getting higher output on existing stuff, wouldn't it be more kindly to ask for some stuff more in line with what the rogues got? Didn't they got some poisons which, applied by different rogues on same mob have some multiplicative effect to all rogues targeting same mob.

Could be a set of debuffs (2,3,4, whatever fits), all on same timer so they can't be applied by a single mage, which, when applied all on same mob would make it x% weaker against pet-damage. You would have a mechanic which would support a raid-scenario where multiple mages are around without completely excluding groupers already by design.

Putting it on existing stuff puts it on the grouper too and everyone agrees we are fine there. Are you asking to make group mages OP so we can fix raid mages? Great, put us right back where we started. My idea here is to bump the raiders without hurting the groupers, much like the "of many" line did. And we can reverse your elitist statement: "Hold back the raiders so the groupers can be just as good." It's just as bad as yours.

[svenalo]

The problem on the dev side is they lack the development historian that keeps things in perspective of why X is the way it is. Dev gets a new role, or a new dev comes along, and they don't have - or outright reject - that perspective so they make what seems to us a rash judgement/change because those of us who have played for 10+ years do have that perspective. I don't see any way of fixing that as it seems to be a cultural fact of SOE life.

That said, anything requiring multiple mages together to achieve the raid boost is doomed to failure. Many raiding guilds do not have a lot of mages to start with - mine is lucky to field more than 2 on any given night, and I know of several on the server and elsewhere who only have 1 most of the time. Requiring multiples just shafts those folks.

Placing a sizable DPS boost from the focuses on a single pet, fire's, from each successive focus will not break the group game and would help the mages that raid. The pet is a wizzie - make it act like one, unable to tank worth a smurf but providing a semi-decent nuke ability of its own OR pray tell, do what we asked for that if we have a fire pet out, have THAT act as a focus for the mage to boost the mage's fire spells. Both of these could be done without breaking the group game, without making super pets that a mage could solo with impunity, etc.

[Baramos]

Placing a sizable DPS boost from the focuses on a single pet, fire's, from each successive focus will not break the group game and would help the mages that raid. The pet is a wizzie - make it act like one, unable to tank worth a smurf but providing a semi-decent nuke ability of its own OR pray tell, do what we asked for that if we have a fire pet out, have THAT act as a focus for the mage to boost the mage's fire spells. Both of these could be done without breaking the group game, without making super pets that a mage could solo with impunity, etc.

Excellent.

[Calebe]

Lets stop with raiders need a raid only pet focus that groupers will never get.

Wizard's who raid. Rank 3 spells, raid gear with higher damage focus and more mana.

Wizards who don't raid. Rank 2 spells and group damage focus and less mana.

Do I see wizards saying the gap is not enough? Do wizards say that raiding wizards need something more then rank 3 spells and focus that the grouping wizard will never have access to? No because as we all know when the next level increase comes all grouping wizards will have better spells then even the current rank 3 has.

So the same should be true for mages. Yes a raid only pet focus, but that same focus should be available to the grouping mage in the next expansion, and a new raid one is made. It is the same for necro's and enchanters. The difference from raiders to groupers is exactly the same as it is a raiding mage to a grouping mage, rank 3 spells, and focus. In the case of a mage and necro the pet focus is the other difference. The thing is necro's aren't shouting to deny that to grouping necro's in the next expansion (nor do beastlords).

We are hurting our class with this elitism I despise. No we can't let a grouper ever get a raid focus in the next expansion. Why? Do wizards deny better spells then the rank 3 version they use for a wizard in a new expansion? Do necro's? Do enchanters? Do any other class? Nope, only mages with this fear.

The only change needs to be that the focus is easily to attain, and early on. Think how it is now, you get to the last tier to get the very best pet focus, meaning you never needed it in the first place to get there or enjoy the expansion. This is counter productive. It should happen early on so the increase is felt and needed.

Calebe