Necromancer LU # 36 Changes

[Estean1]

<p>Here they are..  I'm crying that you can't implode a charmed pet anymore. I love that.  </p><p>PETS</p><ul><li>Primary player pets should now stay in the pet window when you have a controllable charmed pet.</li></ul><p>Summoner</p><ul><li>Starter - Pet Possession: Increased reuse speed from 3 minutes to 1 minute. </li><li>Strength 5 - Implode: Temporary buff also improves recovery speed, and altogether its bonuses also apply to pet buffs on pet for up to 12 seconds. No longer works on charmed Control Undeath pet. </li><li>Agility 2 - Distracting Strike: Renamed Shadowstep: Teleports scout pet to target and launches an attack. </li><li>Agility 3 - Cabalist's Cover: Is now a permanent buff applied to pet. Increased effectiveness per rank. </li><li>Agility 4 - Minion's Zeal: Increases Doubleattack 2.5% per rank instead of Critical hit. Is now a permanent buff applied to scout pet. </li><li>Agility 5 - Shadowstep: Renamed Reanimate: Instantly summons scout pet if it recently died. It cannot be interrupted and can be cast while casting another spell. </li><li>Stamina 3 - Perceptor's Bodyguard: Renamed Perceptor's Command: Increases hate of your target towards your pet. </li><li>Stamina 4 - Perceptor's Command: Renamed Perceptor's Bodyguard: Increases maximum health of Fighter pet by approximately 2.5% per rank. Is now a permanent buff applied to pet. </li><li>Stamina 5 - Unflinching Servant: Added Root, Fear, Mesmerize, and Daze immunity. </li><li>Wisdom 3 - Minion's Barrier: Is now a permanent buff applied to pet. </li><li>Wisdom 4 - Minion's Uproar: Is now a permanent buff applied to pet. </li><li>Wisdom 5 - Animist Bond: Improved damage to mana consumed ratio from 2:1 to 3:1. </li><li>Intelligence 2 - Magic Leash: Removed power cost. Increased detaunt amount. </li><li>Intelligence 3 - Minion's Warding: Is now a permanent buff applied to pet. </li><li>Intelligence 4 - Arcane Minion: Is now a permanent buff applied to pet.</li></ul>

[Tharangus]

<p>I said it in another post and I'll say it again.  Ability was overpowered... we all knew this was coming.  I've used it too, had fun with it while I could and I'll use it right up to when the patch hits.  Suck it up and deal.</p><p>The AGI line changes look interesting and particularly for me since I invested in a master 1 nightshade.  Distracting strike I've found to be a bit useless because I really don't need a deaggro except in some extreme cases and that implementation of Shadowstep more or less does what I think it should do.  I wonder if they did away with the problem with it failing nearly all the time?</p>

[quamdar]

<cite>Tharangus wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I said it in another post and I'll say it again.  Ability was overpowered... we all knew this was coming.  I've used it too, had fun with it while I could and I'll use it right up to when the patch hits.  Suck it up and deal.</p></blockquote><strike>what ability is being nerfed?  did i miss something?</strike> NM, implode is what you are talking about i am guessing. also on the agility line they made some nice improvements and can't really say 100% till i see how much damage the attack from shadowstep will do at the 8th rank (would have to be a lot to make it better than mage pet) but i don't see scout pet replacing mage pet.  might make it closer on single target fights but mage pet will still be way better on AE fights i think.

[Estean1]

It seems they are claiming they have fixed the "main pet" window problem   If thats true (I'll believe it when I see it)  this LU will be totally worth it Imho.  Its not as good as giving us the option of multiple pet windows but I guess it will be ok.   I wonder if that means they fixed pets like quacker yig overwriting my main window too.  (hehe that happened to me just a few days ago in castle..  I cast him as a joke and regretted it as the mobs popped).  I also hope that the charmed pet will still get my buffs!!

[nadym]

<p><b>PETS</b></p><ul><li><b>Primary player pets should now stay in the pet window when you have a controllable charmed pet.</b></li></ul>Really like this change. <p><b>Summoner</b></p><ul><li><b>Starter - Pet Possession: Increased reuse speed from 3 minutes to 1 minute. </b></li><li><b>Strength 5 - Implode: Temporary buff also improves recovery speed, and altogether its bonuses also apply to pet buffs on pet for up to 12 seconds. No longer works on charmed Control Undeath pet.</b></li></ul>Pity because was fun, but was crystal they were going to remove it. I even felt guilty on unrest with other group members. <ul><li><b>Agility 4 - Minion's Zeal: Increases Doubleattack 2.5% per rank instead of Critical hit. Is now a permanent buff applied to scout pet.</b></li></ul>Wonder if this will be better than the critical hit and then better than mage pet. Ill need some testing though. <ul><li><b>Agility 5 - Shadowstep: Renamed Reanimate: Instantly summons scout pet if it recently died. It cannot be interrupted and can be cast while casting another spell.</b></li></ul>Very nice spell, depending of course on the recast time. Anyone knows whats the recast time? <ul><li><b>Stamina 3 - Perceptor's Bodyguard: Renamed Perceptor's Command: Increases hate of your target towards your pet.</b></li></ul>Do we have the same numbers here in test as before? <ul><li><b>Stamina 4 - Perceptor's Command: Renamed Perceptor's Bodyguard: Increases maximum health of Fighter pet by approximately 2.5% per rank. Is now a permanent buff applied to pet.</b></li></ul>I like this one, i think i can do better use of this than the old one, will improve the Heal per second of tainted heals if you for it too. <ul><li><b>Stamina 5 - Unflinching Servant: Added Root, Fear, Mesmerize, and Daze immunity.</b></li></ul>I have always wondered if the original US was that good. Welcome. <ul><li><b>Wisdom 3 - Minion's Barrier: Is now a permanent buff applied to pet.</b></li></ul><ul><li><b>Wisdom 4 - Minion's Uproar: Is now a permanent buff applied to pet.</b></li></ul><ul><li><b>Wisdom 5 - Animist Bond: Improved damage to mana consumed ratio from 2:1 to 3:1.</b></li></ul><ul><li><b>Intelligence 2 - Magic Leash: Removed power cost. Increased detaunt amount. </b></li><li><b>Intelligence 3 - Minion's Warding: Is now a permanent buff applied to pet. </b></li><li><b>Intelligence 4 - Arcane Minion: Is now a permanent buff applied to pet.</b></li></ul>All very nice changes. I think the nerf will come on the hands of other classes with all those aggro nerfs (guardian, coercer, ..) We will have to control ourselves more now <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> I miss one change in the STR line, dont really like the dagger pet (anyone?), would be possible to have increased damage for it? Cheers all, I really hope there wont be any nerf to necros .........

[LiquidFlex]

Well, it sounds like I'll get to use my scout pet again... maybe. On another note... it also sounds like they didn't fix the one MAJOR issue we had... *cough*pet follow*cough* Hopefully the whole 'primary pet window' fix is actually a fix... but you know how that goes. Time will tell. I still think that whole 'Animated Dagger' is completely useless.

[Image_Vain]

Ugh, I agree, we need to be able to cast haste on your pet/or increase it's run speed.

[MadLordOfMilk]

<cite>Image_Vain wrote:</cite><blockquote>Ugh, I agree, we need to be able to cast haste on your pet/or increase it's run speed. </blockquote>Call Servant. Shadowstep. Between those two, run speed doesn't mean a lot - that, and I rarely have the pet lag that far behind me anyway, only issue is when it gets snared and crrraaawwwlllls toward a mob (which I can just use Shadowstep for).

[Naughtesn]

This seems to be the biggest change for me: <b>Agility 5 - Shadowstep: Renamed Reanimate: Instantly summons scout pet if it recently died. It cannot be interrupted and can be cast while casting another spell. </b>Also, interested in recast.  Might make it very interesting to choose between scout and mage pet on those single namers. RE: Implode - i just respecced to get final ability - is this worth keeping in raid situations? (In the meantime more Unrest for me!) - I was specced through Uproar....wondering if i should go back... Could have done something with the dagger thingy Got scared when i read the PVP note that our base damage was being nerfed.....thank god... We'll prob get nerfed worse when they adjust EoF tree...

[LiquidFlex]

Kraaj@Everfrost wrote: <blockquote><cite>Image_Vain wrote:</cite><blockquote>Ugh, I agree, we need to be able to cast haste on your pet/or increase it's run speed. </blockquote>Call Servant. Shadowstep. Between those two, run speed doesn't mean a lot - that, and I rarely have the pet lag that far behind me anyway, only issue is when it gets snared and crrraaawwwlllls toward a mob (which I can just use Shadowstep for). </blockquote>It isn't a '<i>Run Speed</i>' issue. It's a [Removed for Content]' failure of the pet to keep running. They stop, look around, run some more... stop again... nothing to do with run speed. And giving us a Call spell is just a lame attempt at quieting us. Period. It's not a fix and I don't care how many people think it is. You go running across a zone that is wide open and your can see you pet just stop... for no reason. Why should we have to use a spell to get our pet to our side? We already have to summon the pet... having to '<i>re-call</i>' it every so often is just [I cannot control my vocabulary].  <-- EDIT:  apparently the word re-ta-rd-ed is bad language? And shadowstep isn't a fix either. Sorry, I'm not flaming or bashing. I just <b>refuse</b> to accept this as a fix. It's broken, SoE knows it as does every necro.

[Supernova17]

<cite>nadym wrote:</cite><blockquote><ul><li><b>Intelligence 3 - Minion's Warding: Is now a permanent buff applied to pet.</b></li></ul>All very nice changes. </blockquote>How can you honestly say that? <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=366929" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> <a href="http://forums.station...c_id=366929</a></a>

[nadym]

<i> I'll make it simple, since no one outside our class (meaning Conj's and Necro's) understand our class better than we do. This ability is currently controlled by the Summoner as far as casting it goes, and can be applied to any of the Summoner's pets per of their choosing. The proposed changes make us lose that choice and the AA is instead forced upon us, with drastic consequences... The Mage pet has the HP of a wet paper bag and it's mitigation / resists make real people in treasured gear look like uber raiders in full fabled gear by comparison. Why exactly do we want the Mage pet intercepting damage? Especially on raids? We lose our pet to a strong AOE (which we had it /backed off and Bubble protected to begin with), we lose our DPS potential for at least the next 15-20 seconds, that is if we don't peel the mob off the tank since our pet's hate list just got dumped on top of our head and get pasted to the wall. I've been feedbacking and bug reporting for the last couple of days, hopefully they'll hear us and take notice. </i>You are absolutely right Super, i didnt think about this detail, maybe they have not even thought it as a nerf and is a mistake they will fix. Lets at lest hope it, because would be a nerf to mage pet. We have enough problems with mage pet and aoes.<i> </i>

[evhallion]

<cite>nadym wrote:</cite><blockquote><i>I'll make it simple, since no one outside our class (meaning Conj's and Necro's) understand our class better than we do. This ability is currently controlled by the Summoner as far as casting it goes, and can be applied to any of the Summoner's pets per of their choosing. The proposed changes make us lose that choice and the AA is instead forced upon us, with drastic consequences... The Mage pet has the HP of a wet paper bag and it's mitigation / resists make real people in treasured gear look like uber raiders in full fabled gear by comparison. Why exactly do we want the Mage pet intercepting damage? Especially on raids? We lose our pet to a strong AOE (which we had it /backed off and Bubble protected to begin with), we lose our DPS potential for at least the next 15-20 seconds, that is if we don't peel the mob off the tank since our pet's hate list just got dumped on top of our head and get pasted to the wall. I've been feedbacking and bug reporting for the last couple of days, hopefully they'll hear us and take notice. </i>You are absolutely right Super, i didnt think about this detail, maybe they have not even thought it as a nerf and is a mistake they will fix. Lets at lest hope it, because would be a nerf to mage pet. We have enough problems with mage pet and aoes.<i> </i></blockquote>Good catch. I didn't even think about this til I saw this post. You're absolutly right, I never cast this buff in raid. I'm sure SOEs thinking is better your pet dead than you, but every summoner knows that most the time your life is tied to your pet, it dies and you follow shortly as you gain it's hate on top of your own. So everyone please /bug this.

[hailskins2006]

There are several references in these posts about our mage pets being "bubble protected" - I've never heard this before - what does it mean?  Thanks.

[LiquidFlex]

Sarafan@The Bazaar wrote: <blockquote><cite>nadym wrote:</cite><blockquote><i>I'll make it simple, since no one outside our class (meaning Conj's and Necro's) understand our class better than we do. This ability is currently controlled by the Summoner as far as casting it goes, and can be applied to any of the Summoner's pets per of their choosing. The proposed changes make us lose that choice and the AA is instead forced upon us, with drastic consequences... The Mage pet has the HP of a wet paper bag and it's mitigation / resists make real people in treasured gear look like uber raiders in full fabled gear by comparison. Why exactly do we want the Mage pet intercepting damage? Especially on raids? We lose our pet to a strong AOE (which we had it /backed off and Bubble protected to begin with), we lose our DPS potential for at least the next 15-20 seconds, that is if we don't peel the mob off the tank since our pet's hate list just got dumped on top of our head and get pasted to the wall. I've been feedbacking and bug reporting for the last couple of days, hopefully they'll hear us and take notice. </i>You are absolutely right Super, i didnt think about this detail, maybe they have not even thought it as a nerf and is a mistake they will fix. Lets at lest hope it, because would be a nerf to mage pet. We have enough problems with mage pet and aoes.<i> </i></blockquote>Good catch. I didn't even think about this til I saw this post. You're absolutly right, I never cast this buff in raid. I'm sure SOEs thinking is better your pet dead than you, but every summoner knows that most the time your life is tied to your pet, it dies and you follow shortly as you gain it's hate on top of your own. So everyone please /bug this. </blockquote>Ok, bare with me here b'cuz I'm still at sea in NZ, so I cannot actually test any of this regarding the changes and spells... however: Granted the Mage pet has a '<i>wet paper bag</i>' for armour (<i>love the analogy.. made me laugh</i>), but doesn't the spell you are referring to (<b>Minion's Warding</b>) have text that says: <i>...blah blah blah % to intercept Magic Damage</i>...? If that is the case, doesn't our Mage pet have the best chance to resist a magical attack vs. our other two pets? Just wondering here. I never used the <i>Minion's Warding</i> so I cannot attest to this personally, but I'm sure someone could find out really quick. Granted our Mage pet still goes down like a cheap-prostitute when hit with a massive AoE, but then again that AoE usually isn't a direct hit in a raid or group. So, does this also affect non-direct magical AoE spells as well?.. Meaning it will be <i><b>ALL </b></i>magic based damage whether or not it be direct or not, or am I missing something completely? Yes it would be nice to have all of our pets be able to utilize this utility, but would that really be considered fair? I mean naturally tanks and scouts are going to have a lower resistance to magical effects than a wizzy or coercer, etc. etc. ... again, I'm just thinking out loud b'cuz I'm drooling waiting to get home to start trying some of the new changes. When does the update go live? p.s. Also, why is it referred to as <i><b>GU</b></i> instead of <i><b>LU</b></i>?

[Tharangus]

<p>My guess would be the last wednesday of this month so... we've got about a week and half before all this happens.  There could also be several adjustments to this before it hits live depending on how feedback is responded to.</p><p>GU to me just refers to the update itself in general (whether that is live or test).  LU is the actual Live Update.  So there is a difference, though most use the terms interchangably.</p>

[Estean1]

<cite>LiquidFlex wrote:</cite><blockquote>Sarafan@The Bazaar wrote: <blockquote><cite>nadym wrote:</cite><blockquote><i>I'll make it simple, since no one outside our class (meaning Conj's and Necro's) understand our class better than we do. This ability is currently controlled by the Summoner as far as casting it goes, and can be applied to any of the Summoner's pets per of their choosing. The proposed changes make us lose that choice and the AA is instead forced upon us, with drastic consequences... The Mage pet has the HP of a wet paper bag and it's mitigation / resists make real people in treasured gear look like uber raiders in full fabled gear by comparison. Why exactly do we want the Mage pet intercepting damage? Especially on raids? We lose our pet to a strong AOE (which we had it /backed off and Bubble protected to begin with), we lose our DPS potential for at least the next 15-20 seconds, that is if we don't peel the mob off the tank since our pet's hate list just got dumped on top of our head and get pasted to the wall. I've been feedbacking and bug reporting for the last couple of days, hopefully they'll hear us and take notice. </i>You are absolutely right Super, i didnt think about this detail, maybe they have not even thought it as a nerf and is a mistake they will fix. Lets at lest hope it, because would be a nerf to mage pet. We have enough problems with mage pet and aoes.<i> </i></blockquote>Good catch. I didn't even think about this til I saw this post. You're absolutly right, I never cast this buff in raid. I'm sure SOEs thinking is better your pet dead than you, but every summoner knows that most the time your life is tied to your pet, it dies and you follow shortly as you gain it's hate on top of your own. So everyone please /bug this. </blockquote>Ok, bare with me here b'cuz I'm still at sea in NZ, so I cannot actually test any of this regarding the changes and spells... however: Granted the Mage pet has a '<i>wet paper bag</i>' for armour (<i>love the analogy.. made me laugh</i>), but doesn't the spell you are referring to (<b>Minion's Warding</b>) have text that says: <i>...blah blah blah % to intercept Magic Damage</i>...? If that is the case, doesn't our Mage pet have the best chance to resist a magical attack vs. our other two pets? Just wondering here. I never used the <i>Minion's Warding</i> so I cannot attest to this personally, but I'm sure someone could find out really quick. Granted our Mage pet still goes down like a cheap-prostitute when hit with a massive AoE, but then again that AoE usually isn't a direct hit in a raid or group. So, does this also affect non-direct magical AoE spells as well?.. Meaning it will be <i><b>ALL </b></i>magic based damage whether or not it be direct or not, or am I missing something completely? Yes it would be nice to have all of our pets be able to utilize this utility, but would that really be considered fair? I mean naturally tanks and scouts are going to have a lower resistance to magical effects than a wizzy or coercer, etc. etc. ... again, I'm just thinking out loud b'cuz I'm drooling waiting to get home to start trying some of the new changes. When does the update go live? p.s. Also, why is it referred to as <i><b>GU</b></i> instead of <i><b>LU</b></i>? </blockquote>This is a really good point.   Maybe they could put it into a spell icon like you get with certain items.  You summon the pet and you see what buffs it has on it and can click them off.  Could put it in the maintained spell window.  That way when you are in a raid and using the mage pet you can click it off easily so his 32 hitpoints are not intercepting damage for you.  <img src="/smilies/49869fe8223507d7223db3451e5321aa.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[quamdar]

<b>Summoner</b><ul><li><b>Starter - Pet Possession: Increased reuse speed from 3 minutes to 1 minute.</b></li><li><b>Strength 5 - Implode: Temporary buff also improves recovery speed, and altogether its bonuses also apply to pet buffs on pet for up to 12 seconds. No longer works on charmed Control Undeath pet.</b></li></ul>not much changed with the first two.  the change to pet posession doesn't effect combat and the implode change is merely a fix as it obviously wasn't intended. <ul><li><b>Agility 2 - Distracting Strike: Renamed Shadowstep: Teleports scout pet to target and launches an attack.</b></li><li><b>Agility 3 - Cabalist's Cover: Is now a permanent buff applied to pet. Increased effectiveness per rank.</b></li><li><b>Agility 4 - Minion's Zeal: Increases Doubleattack 2.5% per rank instead of Critical hit. Is now a permanent buff applied to scout pet.</b></li><li><b>Agility 5 - Shadowstep: Renamed Reanimate: Instantly summons scout pet if it recently died. It cannot be interrupted and can be cast while casting another spell.</b></li></ul>some nice changes to the AGI line but because the mage pet AEs it is still going to be better.  if you want to make it so that scout pet is viable need to do something like an AA to make it's auto attack effect multiple targets it is facing.  i would suggest making it replace the cabalist's cover AA since it is pretty worthless because if i am getting hit i am dead.  the reanimate sounds pretty cool and the 2.5% double attack is a nice upgrade over the crits but still not enough imo.  he needs to have some kind of AE damage or the scout pet will never be used since he is out DPSed by mage and out tanked by the fighter. <ul><li><b>Stamina 3 - Perceptor's Bodyguard: Renamed Perceptor's Command: Increases hate of your target towards your pet.</b></li><li><b>Stamina 4 - Perceptor's Command: Renamed Perceptor's Bodyguard: Increases maximum health of Fighter pet by approximately 2.5% per rank. Is now a permanent buff applied to pet.</b></li><li><b>Stamina 5 - Unflinching Servant: Added Root, Fear, Mesmerize, and Daze immunity.</b></li></ul>i don't solo much but to me it seems that the changes here are very nice for people that do solo.  i am just curious if the preceptor's command is a spell we have to cast every 10 seconds or if it is a spell given to the pet and the spell is added to the pet's spell rotation it casts? <ul><li><b>Wisdom 3 - Minion's Barrier: Is now a permanent buff applied to pet.</b></li><li><b>Wisdom 4 - Minion's Uproar: Is now a permanent buff applied to pet.</b></li><li><b>Wisdom 5 - Animist Bond: Improved damage to mana consumed ratio from 2:1 to 3:1.</b></li><li><b>Intelligence 2 - Magic Leash: Removed power cost. Increased detaunt amount.</b></li><li><b>Intelligence 3 - Minion's Warding: Is now a permanent buff applied to pet.</b></li><li><b>Intelligence 4 - Arcane Minion: Is now a permanent buff applied to pet.</b></li></ul>these just seem to be changes so you don't have to cast the buffs other than the increase in effectiveness of animist's bond.  i just hope they either make minion's warding useful or not make it automatically apply to the pet upon cast. overall i like the changes but for anyone that is focused on DPS there is still no reason to do anything but INT and STR unless they either make the scout pet more powerful or the AGI line a little bit better.

[quamdar]

it seemed some people didn't quite understand how the newer AAs worked and since i am pretty bad at posting SS i would just summarize exactly how they work and what they say.  i didn't bother to add descriptions to the ones that are self explanatory like 2.5% increase to health/double attack etc. Summoner<ul><li>Starter - Pet Possession: Increased reuse speed from 3 minutes to 1 minute.</li><li>Strength 5 - Implode: Temporary buff also improves recovery speed, and altogether its bonuses also apply to pet buffs on pet for up to 12 seconds. No longer works on charmed Control Undeath pet.</li><li>Agility 2 - Distracting Strike: Renamed Shadowstep: Teleports scout pet to target and launches an attack.</li></ul>30 sec recast, instant cast.  35 meter range.  don't know what damage would be my test toon is still low level.<ul><li>Agility 3 - Cabalist's Cover: Is now a permanent buff applied to pet. Increased effectiveness per rank.</li></ul>6.5% chance at rank 1. <ul><li>Agility 4 - Minion's Zeal: Increases Doubleattack 2.5% per rank instead of Critical hit. Is now a permanent buff applied to scout pet.</li><li>Agility 5 - Shadowstep: Renamed Reanimate: Instantly summons scout pet if it recently died. It cannot be interrupted and can be cast while casting another spell.</li></ul>this is the description it gives at the top of the window "resurrects the cabalist's scout pet quickly after the recent death of their scout pet for up to 10 seconds.  after this resurrection, this spell cannot be used again for another minute.  this spell shares the same reuse group as primary pet spells, so toggling it while a pet is active will dismiss the pet."  then next to cast it says instant and recast it says 1.0 seconds. <ul><li>Stamina 3 - Perceptor's Bodyguard: Renamed Perceptor's Command: Increases hate of your target towards your pet.</li></ul>this increases threat towards the pet and also gives a % chance to increase the pet's hate position.  the threat increase looks as though it happens every cast and the position increase has a 12% chance but i am not sure if the % increases with higher ranks or the amount of threat increases or both.  this is on a 10 second recast and is instant cast. <ul><li>Stamina 4 - Perceptor's Command: Renamed Perceptor's Bodyguard: Increases maximum health of Fighter pet by approximately 2.5% per rank. Is now a permanent buff applied to pet.</li><li>Stamina 5 - Unflinching Servant: Added Root, Fear, Mesmerize, and Daze immunity.</li><li>Wisdom 3 - Minion's Barrier: Is now a permanent buff applied to pet.</li><li>Wisdom 4 - Minion's Uproar: Is now a permanent buff applied to pet.</li><li>Wisdom 5 - Animist Bond: Improved damage to mana consumed ratio from 2:1 to 3:1.</li><li>Intelligence 2 - Magic Leash: Removed power cost. Increased detaunt amount.</li><li>Intelligence 3 - Minion's Warding: Is now a permanent buff applied to pet.</li><li>Intelligence 4 - Arcane Minion: Is now a permanent buff applied to pet.</li></ul>

[Dendro]

<cite>Tharangus wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>My guess would be the last wednesday of this month so... we've got about a week and half before all this happens.  There could also be several adjustments to this before it hits live depending on how feedback is responded to.</p><p>GU to me just refers to the update itself in general (whether that is live or test).  LU is the actual Live Update.  So there is a difference, though most use the terms interchangably.</p></blockquote> Nope.  Sony just decided to change the name beginning with #25. <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=352264" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=352264</a>

[LiquidFlex]

Ahh ok. I just thought that <i><b>GU</b></i> stood for '<i>gimped update</i>'  <img src="/smilies/97ada74b88049a6d50a6ed40898a03d7.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Deila]

<p>The GU, as I understood it, stands for Game Update. And yeah, it's pretty much interchangable with LU (Live Update).</p><p>Okay, don't have a lot to say about the changes yet, since a lot of the ones I've been trying out... well, aren't working right yet. A lot of the percentage-increase based achievements aren't returning the correct percentages, for example; mouseover data from pet icons in the effects window is giving all kinds of wonky numbers, etc. The dev working on the summoner achievements has told us that he's digging through a lot of the data trying to find where the calculations are going bad, but since there's a lot of stats playing off each other, tracking down just where it's throwing off percentage calculations is taking some time. So, more on a lot of that once things get a bit more stable.</p><p>I'm currently specced STA / INT lines, splitting time between soloing and group/raid, so here's a bit of what I've seen so far, checking mainly soloing stuff.</p><p><b>STA 3, Perceptor's Command</b></p><p>This one I'm really liking for soloing. It's the new version of our old STA line hate transfer to pet Old version was 10% hate transfer at rank 8, new version is actually a user-controlled pet taunt (on its own queue, so it can fire even while you're casting). 10 second recast, threat increase of 784, and higher rank essentially reduces the mob resist chance, up to 100% success at rank 8. I suspect that overall there's a bit less hate going to pet, in the balance of you-to-pet, but it does allow for hands-on control of pet taunting besides hoping the tank pet bothers to use threat-increaser CAs, and allows for reasonable snap-aggro generation to pull mobs back off you should you peel. It's another thing to pay attention to during casting rotations, but I personally like it better, gameplay-wise, for the control over pet taunts and snap-aggro, and it being hands-on rather than passive.</p><p><b>STA 4, Perceptor's Bodyguard</b></p><p>Not currently working right. I took this to rank 7, which is supposed to be a 17.5% bonus to max pet health, but it's returning much less than that. Depending on the day, or the hour, I check, it's returning either 10.78% bonus, or 8.69% bonus to base health. Mouseover on the pet icon in the effects window has been reporting 12.5% (when it's actually 10.87%), or 10% (when actually 8.69%). Been /bugged and reported directly to the devs working on this stuff, so they're on it.</p><p><i>Funny thing happened to me on the way to the Bodyguard</i> - while checking Bodyguard health bonus percentages, I decided to look into the health bonus from the defensive stance as well. Yeah, it's not returning the right bonus to pet health either. Ad III defensive stance should be increasing pet max health by 14%, and it's really returning 12%. Go figure.</p><p><b>STA 5, Unflinching Servant</b></p><p>Not a dramatic change, added a few states to the immunity list. Haven't had a chance to test this out to be sure it's working right, but shouldn't be a bad thing. Added some immunities, didn't take anything away that I noticed, so far so good.</p><p><b>INT 2, Magic Leash</b></p><p>Warlock pet encounter deaggro, 2205 at rank 8. 30 second recast. Seems to be working.</p><p><b>INT 3, Minion's Warding</b></p><p>Okay, to answer a few questions about this one.... I think I've found out how this really works.</p><p>I've taken this one to rank 4 for the moment, which states in description that it "Grants pet a 20% chance to intercept 36% of the spell damage you receive". Like Perceptor's Bodyguard, the tooltip on mouseover of the pet icon in the effects window has been returning varying (and incorrect) numbers. <i>But</i>.... there is currently a buff icon for Minion's Warding itself in the effects window as well, which holds a more telling description in its tooltip. That one reads "20% chance to intercept all magical damage on target. On a successful intercept, caster takes 0% of attack damage, target takes 64% of attack damage". Okay, so - if the 36% that's 'intercepted' would then leave 64% to be dished out, that makes me the 'target' in the latter description, making my pet the 'caster'. And 'caster' is said to take 0% of the damage.</p><p>Interpretation - the pet indeed will 'intercept', but totally mitigate, the listed percentage of magical damage. If it all works the way the combined descriptions seem to point, that means that our pets won't be croaking from intercepted AE damage. It also makes me wonder if this achievement will survive in its current form, since it seems that it's also a handy AE damage reducer for raids, with no drawback on the pet or caster (besides the achievement points spent). Or, maybe that's the exact intent.</p><p>What I thought was weirdness with Minion's Warding may not be weirdness after all. This buff was reapplying itself with any pet I summoned, not just the warlock pet. Upon closer inspection, the actual description reads "Allows the Magician's pet to protect their master, sometimes preventing spell damage the Magician would otherwise take". Note - it does not specify 'caster pet', as Arcane Minion specifies, for example. It appears that this spell damage intercept is intended to work now with any of our summoned primary pets. Not a bad thing.</p><p><b>INT 4, Arcane Minion</b></p><p>Another of the buffs that is currently showing incorrect numbers in the pet icon tooltips. No idea if it's working correctly yet - I'll need to go back, respec all achievements to 0 again, get baseline numbers on casting times for all my warlock's spells, then run numbers to see if the 10.8% casting speed reduction (rank 6) is panning out correctly. Mainly listed this one here because we were seeing odd numbers in the pet icon tooltips (like Bodyguard, the numbers like to be different every time I look, it seems).</p><p>So, basic overview of what I've looked at so far. Good news is, it seems the devs have listened to we testers, and will be (or have) removed the coin costs for respecs on Test temporarily while we're looking all these over, so I'll be able to do a lot of respeccing and checking as I have time.</p><p><b>EDIT TO ADD:</b></p><p>Also meant to mention that as of this moment, all of the KoS achievement pet buffs that I've looked at are now passive buffs - don't need to be cast every time a pet is summoned. Which is kinda (read: extremely) nice for a change. Last build, there were a few holdouts that needed to be cast, but those seem to have been refined as of yesterday or today. For example, Arcane Minion's buff icon shows up when I summon a pet, and goes away when the pet dies or is dismissed. From the STA and INT lines, the 'castables' are now the ones you'd expect - Shockwave, Perceptor's Command (the taunt), Magic Leash, etc. - but everything else seems to be finding it's place automatically as needed. Well, with a few rough edges being worked out, but the idea is there.  <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Themaginator]

so is the sky falling over here to from the whole Minion's Warding thing?

[gr8scott]

<cite>Deila wrote:</cite><blockquote><p><b>STA 3, Perceptor's Command</b></p><p>This one I'm really liking for soloing. It's the new version of our old STA line hate transfer to pet Old version was 10% hate transfer at rank 8, new version is actually a user-controlled pet taunt (on its own queue, so it can fire even while you're casting). 10 second recast, threat increase of 784, and higher rank essentially reduces the mob resist chance, up to 100% success at rank 8. I suspect that overall there's a bit less hate going to pet, in the balance of you-to-pet, but it does allow for hands-on control of pet taunting besides hoping the tank pet bothers to use threat-increaser CAs, and allows for reasonable snap-aggro generation to pull mobs back off you should you peel. It's another thing to pay attention to during casting rotations, but I personally like it better, gameplay-wise, for the control over pet taunts and snap-aggro, and it being hands-on rather than passive.</p></blockquote><p> That actually doesn't sound good at all for solo play.  I like the passive 10% hate transfer a lot.  I want to maximize hate transfer, and I would rather I don't have to remember to click a button every 10 seconds to do so.  If it was a huge hate transfer with a large timer then maybe that would be nice for snap aggro.  A small transfer that you have to constantly attend to sounds terrible imo.</p><p>The 10% also will scale nicely, but a fixed amount will degrade over time.  Hope this changes.</p><p>GS</p>

[Sabutai]

<cite>Deila wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>The GU, as I understood it, stands for Game Update. And yeah, it's pretty much interchangable with LU (Live Update).</p><p>Okay, don't have a lot to say about the changes yet, since a lot of the ones I've been trying out... well, aren't working right yet. A lot of the percentage-increase based achievements aren't returning the correct percentages, for example; mouseover data from pet icons in the effects window is giving all kinds of wonky numbers, etc. The dev working on the summoner achievements has told us that he's digging through a lot of the data trying to find where the calculations are going bad, but since there's a lot of stats playing off each other, tracking down just where it's throwing off percentage calculations is taking some time. So, more on a lot of that once things get a bit more stable.</p><p>I'm currently specced STA / INT lines, splitting time between soloing and group/raid, so here's a bit of what I've seen so far, checking mainly soloing stuff.</p><p><b>STA 3, Perceptor's Command</b></p><p>This one I'm really liking for soloing. It's the new version of our old STA line hate transfer to pet Old version was 10% hate transfer at rank 8, new version is actually a user-controlled pet taunt (on its own queue, so it can fire even while you're casting). 10 second recast, threat increase of 784, and higher rank essentially reduces the mob resist chance, up to 100% success at rank 8. I suspect that overall there's a bit less hate going to pet, in the balance of you-to-pet, but it does allow for hands-on control of pet taunting besides hoping the tank pet bothers to use threat-increaser CAs, and allows for reasonable snap-aggro generation to pull mobs back off you should you peel. It's another thing to pay attention to during casting rotations, but I personally like it better, gameplay-wise, for the control over pet taunts and snap-aggro, and it being hands-on rather than passive.</p><p><b>STA 4, Perceptor's Bodyguard</b></p><p>Not currently working right. I took this to rank 7, which is supposed to be a 17.5% bonus to max pet health, but it's returning much less than that. Depending on the day, or the hour, I check, it's returning either 10.78% bonus, or 8.69% bonus to base health. Mouseover on the pet icon in the effects window has been reporting 12.5% (when it's actually 10.87%), or 10% (when actually 8.69%). Been /bugged and reported directly to the devs working on this stuff, so they're on it.</p><p><i>Funny thing happened to me on the way to the Bodyguard</i> - while checking Bodyguard health bonus percentages, I decided to look into the health bonus from the defensive stance as well. Yeah, it's not returning the right bonus to pet health either. Ad III defensive stance should be increasing pet max health by 14%, and it's really returning 12%. Go figure.</p><p><b>STA 5, Unflinching Servant</b></p><p>Not a dramatic change, added a few states to the immunity list. Haven't had a chance to test this out to be sure it's working right, but shouldn't be a bad thing. Added some immunities, didn't take anything away that I noticed, so far so good.</p><p><b>INT 2, Magic Leash</b></p><p>Warlock pet encounter deaggro, 2205 at rank 8. 30 second recast. Seems to be working.</p><p><b>INT 3, Minion's Warding</b></p><p>Okay, to answer a few questions about this one.... I think I've found out how this really works.</p><p>I've taken this one to rank 4 for the moment, which states in description that it "Grants pet a 20% chance to intercept 36% of the spell damage you receive". Like Perceptor's Bodyguard, the tooltip on mouseover of the pet icon in the effects window has been returning varying (and incorrect) numbers. <i>But</i>.... there is currently a buff icon for Minion's Warding itself in the effects window as well, which holds a more telling description in its tooltip. That one reads "20% chance to intercept all magical damage on target. On a successful intercept, caster takes 0% of attack damage, target takes 64% of attack damage". Okay, so - if the 36% that's 'intercepted' would then leave 64% to be dished out, that makes me the 'target' in the latter description, making my pet the 'caster'. And 'caster' is said to take 0% of the damage.</p><p>Interpretation - the pet indeed will 'intercept', but totally mitigate, the listed percentage of magical damage. If it all works the way the combined descriptions seem to point, that means that our pets won't be croaking from intercepted AE damage. It also makes me wonder if this achievement will survive in its current form, since it seems that it's also a handy AE damage reducer for raids, with no drawback on the pet or caster (besides the achievement points spent). Or, maybe that's the exact intent.</p><p>What I thought was weirdness with Minion's Warding may not be weirdness after all. This buff was reapplying itself with any pet I summoned, not just the warlock pet. Upon closer inspection, the actual description reads "Allows the Magician's pet to protect their master, sometimes preventing spell damage the Magician would otherwise take". Note - it does not specify 'caster pet', as Arcane Minion specifies, for example. It appears that this spell damage intercept is intended to work now with any of our summoned primary pets. Not a bad thing.</p><p><b>INT 4, Arcane Minion</b></p><p>Another of the buffs that is currently showing incorrect numbers in the pet icon tooltips. No idea if it's working correctly yet - I'll need to go back, respec all achievements to 0 again, get baseline numbers on casting times for all my warlock's spells, then run numbers to see if the 10.8% casting speed reduction (rank 6) is panning out correctly. Mainly listed this one here because we were seeing odd numbers in the pet icon tooltips (like Bodyguard, the numbers like to be different every time I look, it seems).</p><p>So, basic overview of what I've looked at so far. Good news is, it seems the devs have listened to we testers, and will be (or have) removed the coin costs for respecs on Test temporarily while we're looking all these over, so I'll be able to do a lot of respeccing and checking as I have time.</p><p><b>EDIT TO ADD:</b></p><p>Also meant to mention that as of this moment, all of the KoS achievement pet buffs that I've looked at are now passive buffs - don't need to be cast every time a pet is summoned. Which is kinda (read: extremely) nice for a change. Last build, there were a few holdouts that needed to be cast, but those seem to have been refined as of yesterday or today. For example, Arcane Minion's buff icon shows up when I summon a pet, and goes away when the pet dies or is dismissed. From the STA and INT lines, the 'castables' are now the ones you'd expect - Shockwave, Perceptor's Command (the taunt), Magic Leash, etc. - but everything else seems to be finding it's place automatically as needed. Well, with a few rough edges being worked out, but the idea is there.  <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p></blockquote> Just some info for you.  The spell says on a successful intercept, caster will take 4% dmg and the pet will take 64% dmg, meaning the AE that just hit is reduced by 36% not that the pet only takes 36% dmg.  I am including a screenshot of my possessed pet, wet paper bag is about the best description of it around.  has 1400 HP and the avg resists is about 1700.  It will mitigate ZERO dmg from an incoming AE from a mob of any significance.  Hence why this AA change is absolute garbage, forcing us to use this is crap, and it makes one of our EoF trees useless.  What's the point of making a pet AE immune at the cost of health and power if its just gonna die to the AE that just hit me anyways?  And to answer another point that I'm sure somebody will bring up, the AE dmg is not mitigated by the necro it is mitigated by the pet, since he's the one intercepting the dmg. <img src="http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t198/mherman84/EQ2_000003-2.jpg" border="0">

[LiquidFlex]

<cite>Deila wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>The GU, as I understood it, stands for Game Update. And yeah, it's pretty much interchangable with LU (Live Update).</p><p>Okay, don't have a lot to say about the changes yet, since a lot of the ones I've been trying out... well, aren't working right yet. A lot of the percentage-increase based achievements aren't returning the correct percentages, for example; mouseover data from pet icons in the effects window is giving all kinds of wonky numbers, etc. The dev working on the summoner achievements has told us that he's digging through a lot of the data trying to find where the calculations are going bad, but since there's a lot of stats playing off each other, tracking down just where it's throwing off percentage calculations is taking some time. So, more on a lot of that once things get a bit more stable.</p><p>I'm currently specced STA / INT lines, splitting time between soloing and group/raid, so here's a bit of what I've seen so far, checking mainly soloing stuff.</p><p><b>STA 3, Perceptor's Command</b></p><p>This one I'm really liking for soloing. It's the new version of our old STA line hate transfer to pet Old version was 10% hate transfer at rank 8, new version is actually a user-controlled pet taunt (on its own queue, so it can fire even while you're casting). 10 second recast, threat increase of 784, and higher rank essentially reduces the mob resist chance, up to 100% success at rank 8. I suspect that overall there's a bit less hate going to pet, in the balance of you-to-pet, but it does allow for hands-on control of pet taunting besides hoping the tank pet bothers to use threat-increaser CAs, and allows for reasonable snap-aggro generation to pull mobs back off you should you peel. It's another thing to pay attention to during casting rotations, but I personally like it better, gameplay-wise, for the control over pet taunts and snap-aggro, and it being hands-on rather than passive.</p><p><span style="color: #ff9900">I don't want to have to taunt for my pet. If this is how it is setup, then I think that might be a bad idea from SoE.</span> </p><p><b>STA 4, Perceptor's Bodyguard</b></p><p>Not currently working right. I took this to rank 7, which is supposed to be a 17.5% bonus to max pet health, but it's returning much less than that. Depending on the day, or the hour, I check, it's returning either 10.78% bonus, or 8.69% bonus to base health. Mouseover on the pet icon in the effects window has been reporting 12.5% (when it's actually 10.87%), or 10% (when actually 8.69%). Been /bugged and reported directly to the devs working on this stuff, so they're on it.</p><p><i>Funny thing happened to me on the way to the Bodyguard</i> - while checking Bodyguard health bonus percentages, I decided to look into the health bonus from the defensive stance as well. Yeah, it's not returning the right bonus to pet health either. Ad III defensive stance should be increasing pet max health by 14%, and it's really returning 12%. Go figure.</p><p><b>STA 5, Unflinching Servant</b></p><p>Not a dramatic change, added a few states to the immunity list. Haven't had a chance to test this out to be sure it's working right, but shouldn't be a bad thing. Added some immunities, didn't take anything away that I noticed, so far so good.</p><p><b>INT 2, Magic Leash</b></p><p>Warlock pet encounter deaggro, 2205 at rank 8. 30 second recast. Seems to be working.</p><p><b>INT 3, Minion's Warding</b></p><p>Okay, to answer a few questions about this one.... I think I've found out how this really works.</p><p>I've taken this one to rank 4 for the moment, which states in description that it "Grants pet a 20% chance to intercept 36% of the spell damage you receive". Like Perceptor's Bodyguard, the tooltip on mouseover of the pet icon in the effects window has been returning varying (and incorrect) numbers. <i>But</i>.... there is currently a buff icon for Minion's Warding itself in the effects window as well, which holds a more telling description in its tooltip. That one reads "20% chance to intercept all magical damage on target. On a successful intercept, caster takes 0% of attack damage, target takes 64% of attack damage". Okay, so - if the 36% that's 'intercepted' would then leave 64% to be dished out, that makes me the 'target' in the latter description, making my pet the 'caster'. And 'caster' is said to take 0% of the damage.</p><p>Interpretation - the pet indeed will 'intercept', but totally mitigate, the listed percentage of magical damage. If it all works the way the combined descriptions seem to point, that means that our pets won't be croaking from intercepted AE damage. It also makes me wonder if this achievement will survive in its current form, since it seems that it's also a handy AE damage reducer for raids, with no drawback on the pet or caster (besides the achievement points spent). Or, maybe that's the exact intent.</p><p>What I thought was weirdness with Minion's Warding may not be weirdness after all. This buff was reapplying itself with any pet I summoned, not just the warlock pet. Upon closer inspection, the actual description reads "Allows the Magician's pet to protect their master, sometimes preventing spell damage the Magician would otherwise take". Note - it does not specify 'caster pet', as Arcane Minion specifies, for example. It appears that this spell damage intercept is intended to work now with any of our summoned primary pets. Not a bad thing.</p><p><b>INT 4, Arcane Minion</b></p><p>Another of the buffs that is currently showing incorrect numbers in the pet icon tooltips. No idea if it's working correctly yet - I'll need to go back, respec all achievements to 0 again, get baseline numbers on casting times for all my warlock's spells, then run numbers to see if the 10.8% casting speed reduction (rank 6) is panning out correctly. Mainly listed this one here because we were seeing odd numbers in the pet icon tooltips (like Bodyguard, the numbers like to be different every time I look, it seems).</p><p>So, basic overview of what I've looked at so far. Good news is, it seems the devs have listened to we testers, and will be (or have) removed the coin costs for respecs on Test temporarily while we're looking all these over, so I'll be able to do a lot of respeccing and checking as I have time.</p><p><b>EDIT TO ADD:</b></p><p>Also meant to mention that as of this moment, all of the KoS achievement pet buffs that I've looked at are now passive buffs - don't need to be cast every time a pet is summoned. Which is kinda (read: extremely) nice for a change. Last build, there were a few holdouts that needed to be cast, but those seem to have been refined as of yesterday or today. For example, Arcane Minion's buff icon shows up when I summon a pet, and goes away when the pet dies or is dismissed. From the STA and INT lines, the 'castables' are now the ones you'd expect - Shockwave, Perceptor's Command (the taunt), Magic Leash, etc. - but everything else seems to be finding it's place automatically as needed. Well, with a few rough edges being worked out, but the idea is there.  <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p> <span style="color: #ff9900">Do you have a deity pet out or anything else at the same time? I know there was a few times when a 'fluff' pet was holding my regular pet buffs... not sure if this was actually corrected or not.</span> </p></blockquote>Comments in orange

[Tharangus]

<cite>LiquidFlex wrote:</cite><blockquote>Deila wrote: <blockquote><p><b>STA 3, Perceptor's Command</b></p><p>This one I'm really liking for soloing. It's the new version of our old STA line hate transfer to pet Old version was 10% hate transfer at rank 8, new version is actually a user-controlled pet taunt (on its own queue, so it can fire even while you're casting). 10 second recast, threat increase of 784, and higher rank essentially reduces the mob resist chance, up to 100% success at rank 8. I suspect that overall there's a bit less hate going to pet, in the balance of you-to-pet, but it does allow for hands-on control of pet taunting besides hoping the tank pet bothers to use threat-increaser CAs, and allows for reasonable snap-aggro generation to pull mobs back off you should you peel. It's another thing to pay attention to during casting rotations, but I personally like it better, gameplay-wise, for the control over pet taunts and snap-aggro, and it being hands-on rather than passive.</p><p><span style="color: #ff9900">I don't want to have to taunt for my pet. If this is how it is setup, then I think that might be a bad idea from SoE.</span></p></blockquote>Comments in orange </blockquote>Are you kidding?  I've been wanting to tell my pet to taunt for AGES now!!  So you don't want to think about doing it?  Fine.  Macro it in with one of your spells that you cast frequently solo.  It will queue it up independently of what you are already doing since you can cast that while casting something else and you won't have to do anything different.  Problem solved.

[Deila]

<cite>LiquidFlex wrote:</cite><blockquote><blockquote><p> <span style="color: #ff9900">Do you have a deity pet out or anything else at the same time? I know there was a few times when a 'fluff' pet was holding my regular pet buffs... not sure if this was actually corrected or not.</span></p></blockquote> </blockquote><p> No, no deity pets, fluff pets, or anything else active. When looking at those things, it was only after cancelling everything, and just resummoning primary pets. Tried to keep my numbers as clean as possible.</p>

[Deila]

<cite>Sabutai wrote:</cite><blockquote> Just some info for you.  The spell says on a successful intercept, caster will take 4% dmg and the pet will take 64% dmg, meaning the AE that just hit is reduced by 36% not that the pet only takes 36% dmg.  I am including a screenshot of my possessed pet, wet paper bag is about the best description of it around.  has 1400 HP and the avg resists is about 1700.  It will mitigate ZERO dmg from an incoming AE from a mob of any significance.  Hence why this AA change is absolute garbage, forcing us to use this is crap, and it makes one of our EoF trees useless.  What's the point of making a pet AE immune at the cost of health and power if its just gonna die to the AE that just hit me anyways?  And to answer another point that I'm sure somebody will bring up, the AE dmg is not mitigated by the necro it is mitigated by the pet, since he's the one intercepting the dmg. </blockquote><p> Perhaps I should have clarified - I'm a full-time Test player, and was discussing the changes to achievements currently on Test. I don't see the text you're referring to about caster taking 4% in either the achievement window description, or the new effects icon mouseover tooltip - are you citing the current, "old" version on live servers? The intercept text I posted that suggested that the pet takes 0 damage from the intercepts is directly from the mouseover tooltip of the new Minion's Warding currently on Test.</p><p>Heh - and now Minion's Warding looks like it half-thinks it's a rank higher than I actually have it. Though the rank 4 says "Grants pet a 20% chance to intercept 36% of the spell damage you receive", the effect tooltip now says "20% chance to intercept all magical damage on target. On a successful intercept caster takes 0% of attack damage, target takes 55% of attack damage". Rank 5 of Warding does go up to 45% from 36% (which would jive with the 55% remaining in the effect tooltip)..... basically, every day that I look at the numbers, they're calculating differently and often returning incorrect values. Also very possible that the reporting of 'caster takes 0%' might well be a bad number being returned. It's all still a bit buggy.</p>

[LiquidFlex]

<cite>Tharangus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>LiquidFlex wrote:</cite><blockquote>Deila wrote: <blockquote><p><b>STA 3, Perceptor's Command</b></p><p>This one I'm really liking for soloing. It's the new version of our old STA line hate transfer to pet Old version was 10% hate transfer at rank 8, new version is actually a user-controlled pet taunt (on its own queue, so it can fire even while you're casting). 10 second recast, threat increase of 784, and higher rank essentially reduces the mob resist chance, up to 100% success at rank 8. I suspect that overall there's a bit less hate going to pet, in the balance of you-to-pet, but it does allow for hands-on control of pet taunting besides hoping the tank pet bothers to use threat-increaser CAs, and allows for reasonable snap-aggro generation to pull mobs back off you should you peel. It's another thing to pay attention to during casting rotations, but I personally like it better, gameplay-wise, for the control over pet taunts and snap-aggro, and it being hands-on rather than passive.</p><p><span style="color: #ff9900">I don't want to have to taunt for my pet. If this is how it is setup, then I think that might be a bad idea from SoE.</span></p></blockquote>Comments in orange </blockquote>Are you kidding?  I've been wanting to tell my pet to taunt for AGES now!!  So you don't want to think about doing it?  Fine.  Macro it in with one of your spells that you cast frequently solo.  It will queue it up independently of what you are already doing since you can cast that while casting something else and you won't have to do anything different.  Problem solved. </blockquote>Nope I'm not kidding. I mean c'mon... it's a tank pet. It should know how/when to taunt. Random or not. We don't have to activate CAs for our scout pet, or nukes for our mage, so why should we need to worry about taunting for our tank?... just my opinion, but I think it's kinda [Removed for Content]. It would have been much easier if SoE just changed the way the tank pet taunted, because we all know the tank pet can't dish out damage for anything. Or perhaps they should have increased the amount of hate the tank pet generates with it's taunts so that when it randomly taunts it is actually more effective. If they can make a change to the scout pet from crit to dbl attack, why not allow the tank appropriate hate gain? Yes I'm sure this 'player generated pet tank taunt' will be somewhat beneficial, but macro or not, problem is not solved in my eyes. It just seems like another 'bogus fix' like the 'call servant' crap we have to deal with.

[evhallion]

<cite>Deila wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Sabutai wrote:</cite><blockquote> Just some info for you.  The spell says on a successful intercept, caster will take 4% dmg and the pet will take 64% dmg, meaning the AE that just hit is reduced by 36% not that the pet only takes 36% dmg.  I am including a screenshot of my possessed pet, wet paper bag is about the best description of it around.  has 1400 HP and the avg resists is about 1700.  It will mitigate ZERO dmg from an incoming AE from a mob of any significance.  Hence why this AA change is absolute garbage, forcing us to use this is crap, and it makes one of our EoF trees useless.  What's the point of making a pet AE immune at the cost of health and power if its just gonna die to the AE that just hit me anyways?  And to answer another point that I'm sure somebody will bring up, the AE dmg is not mitigated by the necro it is mitigated by the pet, since he's the one intercepting the dmg. </blockquote><p> Perhaps I should have clarified - I'm a full-time Test player, and was discussing the changes to achievements currently on Test. I don't see the text you're referring to about caster taking 4% in either the achievement window description, or the new effects icon mouseover tooltip - are you citing the current, "old" version on live servers? The intercept text I posted that suggested that the pet takes 0 damage from the intercepts is directly from the mouseover tooltip of the new Minion's Warding currently on Test.</p><p>Heh - and now Minion's Warding looks like it half-thinks it's a rank higher than I actually have it. Though the rank 4 says <span style="color: #ff3300">"Grants pet a 20% chance to intercept 36% of the spell damage you receive", the effect tooltip now says "20% chance to intercept all magical damage on target. On a successful intercept caster takes 0% of attack damage, target takes 55% of attack damage". </span>Rank 5 of Warding does go up to 45% from 36% (which would jive with the 55% remaining in the effect tooltip)..... basically, every day that I look at the numbers, they're calculating differently and often returning incorrect values. Also very possible that the reporting of 'caster takes 0%' might well be a bad number being returned. It's all still a bit buggy.</p></blockquote><p>I'm reading that as:</p><p>Caster = Necro</p><p>Target = Pet</p><p>So necro takes 0% of damage and pet (wet paper bag) takes 55% of damage and is very much dead at that point. This is how it works currently on live. To test place your pet out of aoe range with this buff on and then take an aoe hit to your necro. Even though your pet was not hit directly with the aoe it will die due to this buff being on and it tried to take the aoe damage meant for you. The only thing that changed with this buff on test is our ability to not put it on our pet if we choose. Point being made is that who wants a pet with 1,500hp and no mit taking ANY damage for them.</p><p>To fully envision the issue this creates picture this, I'm in raid out of aoe range with my pet doing tons of dps as a good lil necro should. I'm going full out as Half my hate is on me, half is on my pet but neither half alone is enough to pull aggro. Suddenly I see in raid chat that one of the MT healers (in aoe range) is going oop and has called for a heart. I tell my pet to "stay put" and rush into aoe range to give the healer a heart. However before I can make it safely out of aoe range the aoe goes off. Luckily though I am wearing my resist gear and have enough hp to live thru it. Sadly though since the new minion's warding is on my pet he tried to absorb some of that damage and his little non-mitted hp couldn't take it and he died. At that moment all his hate dumps on me and combined with my own I now have enough hate to go to #1 on the hate list, I look over my shoulder just in time to see a POed epic running right at me with the MT chasing him vainly trying to taunt him back and cursing the aggro-stealing necro who messed up his pull.</p><p>Due to situations like the above I know of no raid experienced necro's who would have this buff on during a raid. All that's changed here is they put it on our pet permanently. I doubt few people took this cause they wanted it, most just took it to get to Arcane Minion. This buff needs to go back to being a toggle or able to be canceled from the buff window.</p>

[Deila]

<p>The question really is - who are they calling 'target' and who are they calling 'caster'. I've had a problem with the loose terminology in spell and achievement descriptions like that since they went in.</p><p>Yeah, you're definitely right - if the necromancer is taking 0 and the pet taking the other percentage (whatever it may be), that makes for a very simple achievement - any AE kills off warlock pets, which is completely undesirable, and having that be something you can't turn off... well, sucks. However, I read it the other way (and I could be wrong - again, that 'caster' and 'target' business generally serves to confuse more than illustrate), and here's why:</p><p>The one time that the stated values between the achievement tooltip and the effects window buff tooltip actually agreed (when the damage amounts listed were 36% and 64% [36+64=100%]), it was the wording on each of the tooltips that led me to my initial interpretation.</p><p><b>Achievement description:</b> <i>"Grants pet a 20% chance to intercept 36% of the spell damage you receive".</i></p><p>Nice that there's no confusion here, pet is pet, you is you. So, the pet has a chance to reduce your damage taken by 36%.</p><p><b>Effects tooltip:</b> <i>"20% chance to intercept all magical damage on target. On a successful intercept, caster takes 0% of attack damage, target takes 64% of attack damage".</i></p><p>Here's how I arrived at my interpretation of that. First we have to determine who caster and target are. Target is the logical choice to work on, since we have two percent values that, when added, total 100% - they agree. So we can narrow it down there. If <b>my</b> damage is reduced by 36% (achievement description, verbatim), that means that the un-reduced portion that I will be taking is 64% - the remainder. That 64% figure appears in the effects tooltip text, as being applied to <b>'target'</b>. Logically then, the term 'target' applies to me, which in turn means that the term 'caster' applies to my pet. Then we can look to the effects tooltip description, that states that 'caster' (logically identified as my pet) takes 0% of attack damage, or, completely mitigates the intercepted portion.</p><p>Anyway - there's also the distinct possibility that all the text is messed up regarding how the thing actually works in practice. Proof's in the pudding, and had I not had to work long hours the last week I'd been more likely to give it some hands-on runs. Haven't really had the chance to get out there and get hit with some reasonably strong AEs with pet out of range - I'll see if there's a chance to do that in the next couple of days. Just wanted to pass along my initial take on some of these achievements changes early, since I figured you guys would all be interested and/or curious, and most aren't playing high level necromancers on Test to see it for yourselves.</p>

[MadLordOfMilk]

<cite>LiquidFlex wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Tharangus wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>LiquidFlex wrote:</cite><blockquote>Deila wrote: <blockquote><p><b>STA 3, Perceptor's Command</b></p><p>This one I'm really liking for soloing. It's the new version of our old STA line hate transfer to pet Old version was 10% hate transfer at rank 8, new version is actually a user-controlled pet taunt (on its own queue, so it can fire even while you're casting). 10 second recast, threat increase of 784, and higher rank essentially reduces the mob resist chance, up to 100% success at rank 8. I suspect that overall there's a bit less hate going to pet, in the balance of you-to-pet, but it does allow for hands-on control of pet taunting besides hoping the tank pet bothers to use threat-increaser CAs, and allows for reasonable snap-aggro generation to pull mobs back off you should you peel. It's another thing to pay attention to during casting rotations, but I personally like it better, gameplay-wise, for the control over pet taunts and snap-aggro, and it being hands-on rather than passive.</p><p><span style="color: #ff9900">I don't want to have to taunt for my pet. If this is how it is setup, then I think that might be a bad idea from SoE.</span></p></blockquote>Comments in orange </blockquote>Are you kidding?  I've been wanting to tell my pet to taunt for AGES now!!  So you don't want to think about doing it?  Fine.  Macro it in with one of your spells that you cast frequently solo.  It will queue it up independently of what you are already doing since you can cast that while casting something else and you won't have to do anything different.  Problem solved. </blockquote>Nope I'm not kidding. I mean c'mon... it's a tank pet. It should know how/when to taunt. Random or not. We don't have to activate CAs for our scout pet, or nukes for our mage, so why should we need to worry about taunting for our tank?... just my opinion, but I think it's kinda [Removed for Content]. It would have been much easier if SoE just changed the way the tank pet taunted, because we all know the tank pet can't dish out damage for anything. Or perhaps they should have increased the amount of hate the tank pet generates with it's taunts so that when it randomly taunts it is actually more effective. If they can make a change to the scout pet from crit to dbl attack, why not allow the tank appropriate hate gain? Yes I'm sure this 'player generated pet tank taunt' will be somewhat beneficial, but macro or not, problem is not solved in my eyes. It just seems like another 'bogus fix' like the 'call servant' crap we have to deal with. </blockquote>Ya know, of even bigger concern than having to hit it every 10sec is even if you got it off exactly every time, it's still a MASSIVE nerf for the ability for a Necro who can put out a lot of dps. With the taunt ability, getting it off every time, we can do 78.4 extra DPS... err.... yeah. IF it lands. THAT'S worth AA points /sarcasm. As-is, a 10% hate transfer allows a Necro with 1000 dps to do an extra 200ish dps without pulling aggro. 1k is a reasonable # to expect; many of us who're having aggro issues with the tank pet will be putting out even more than that. If you (without your pet) can put out 1500dps, that's roughly 300dps of breathing space that you're losing. This is obviously to nerf the tank pet beyond any viability as a tank... it's taunting was ONLY worthwhile with the hate transfer at 10%, pet at master1, defensive stance at m1, as far as holding off an all adept3/master1 player in mastercrafted/legendary gear goes. With the change, even with 8 points in it, it's still totally worthless... it's roughly an extra Abate Life every 20sec with Archlich off x_X. And to top it all off, it requires about 400,000 times more maintenance (this buff didn't drop when zoning). To those who don't understand the math: 1 dmg = 1 hate 1 hp healed = 1 hate 784hate/10sec = 78.4 hate per second = 78.4 extra DPS

[Draco the Grey]

The controllable taunt is hardly worthless, and isn't a massive nerf.  First of all, your math is way off, and the hate difference isn't nearly as big as you make it seem.  The defensive stance gives your pet a nearly 50% hate buff - which boosts taunts, but has no effect on the hate transfer.  Have you ever parsed yourself while soloing?  I seriously doubt your personal DPS comes anywhere close to 1500 on single heroics unless you're using lifeburn.  (Damage from lifeburn is massive killing blow burst DPS at the end of a fight and not really relevant to your tank pet holding aggro.) Granted, the Necro tank has more aggro holding issues than the Conjuror one (BA and EV help in that regard.)  Many Summoners, however, fail to grasp many of the basics of combat system, mainly because they rarely are the ones getting hit by mobs.  The tank pets are quite good about using their taunts, but they often can't because, like players, many mobs get stuns, stifles, and interrupts - and use them quite frequently at higher levels.  Your pet didn't get worse at taunting in T7, the mobs got better at not allowing it to do so.  That's where the controllable taunt helps out, as your pet can still generate aggro while it's stunned/stifled early in a fight, where with the transfer you would probably pull aggro.  It will buy the pet time to recover and start taunting on its own (the pet will also generate less aggro when its trying to chase down a mob that's running after you.)  Plus it now comes earlier on the AA tree, so you can max it out with less of a point investment, and the previous AA, Shockwave, is also a very nice aggro generator.

[Sabutai]

<cite>Deila wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>The question really is - who are they calling 'target' and who are they calling 'caster'. I've had a problem with the loose terminology in spell and achievement descriptions like that since they went in.</p><p>Yeah, you're definitely right - if the necromancer is taking 0 and the pet taking the other percentage (whatever it may be), that makes for a very simple achievement - any AE kills off warlock pets, which is completely undesirable, and having that be something you can't turn off... well, sucks. However, I read it the other way (and I could be wrong - again, that 'caster' and 'target' business generally serves to confuse more than illustrate), and here's why:</p><p>The one time that the stated values between the achievement tooltip and the effects window buff tooltip actually agreed (when the damage amounts listed were 36% and 64% [36+64=100%]), it was the wording on each of the tooltips that led me to my initial interpretation.</p><p><b>Achievement description:</b> <i>"Grants pet a 20% chance to intercept 36% of the spell damage you receive".</i></p><p>Nice that there's no confusion here, pet is pet, you is you. So, the pet has a chance to reduce your damage taken by 36%.</p><p><b>Effects tooltip:</b> <i>"20% chance to intercept all magical damage on target. On a successful intercept, caster takes 0% of attack damage, target takes 64% of attack damage".</i></p><p>Here's how I arrived at my interpretation of that. First we have to determine who caster and target are. Target is the logical choice to work on, since we have two percent values that, when added, total 100% - they agree. So we can narrow it down there. If <b>my</b> damage is reduced by 36% (achievement description, verbatim), that means that the un-reduced portion that I will be taking is 64% - the remainder. That 64% figure appears in the effects tooltip text, as being applied to <b>'target'</b>. Logically then, the term 'target' applies to me, which in turn means that the term 'caster' applies to my pet. Then we can look to the effects tooltip description, that states that 'caster' (logically identified as my pet) takes 0% of attack damage, or, completely mitigates the intercepted portion.</p><p>Anyway - there's also the distinct possibility that all the text is messed up regarding how the thing actually works in practice. Proof's in the pudding, and had I not had to work long hours the last week I'd been more likely to give it some hands-on runs. Haven't really had the chance to get out there and get hit with some reasonably strong AEs with pet out of range - I'll see if there's a chance to do that in the next couple of days. Just wanted to pass along my initial take on some of these achievements changes early, since I figured you guys would all be interested and/or curious, and most aren't playing high level necromancers on Test to see it for yourselves.</p></blockquote>target has always referred to anything other than YOU the necro, there are several robes or effects on items that illustrate this.  The tooltip isn't messed up or wrong.  The pet is the one intercepting the dmg, the pet is the one where resists are calculated, the pet is the one who is going to get waxed EVERY time it intercepts an AE, and YOU are the one who is gonna pull agro and probably kill several people.  Enjoy.

[MadLordOfMilk]

My math isn't "way off". 1000dmg - (10%)(1000) = 1000dmg - 100 = 900hate/sec to Necro, with the pet gaining an *EXTRA* 100 hate/sec. That's a 200 hate per second gap, which theoretically allows a little over 200+dps to be added. The dps you can put out does hit a ceiling when it's too much for the pet to make up what's not being transfered, obviously, but as the math works out you can do a lot of extra dps. Also, you're making the assumption that the STA line is *only* useful while soloing. Some of us have used it for duo-/trioing purposes <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> And yes, with the hate transfer and tainted heals the pet becomes a very viable duoing/trioing tank.

[Draco the Grey]

Kraaj@Everfrost wrote: <blockquote>My math isn't "way off". 1000dmg - (10%)(1000) = 1000dmg - 100 = 900hate/sec to Necro, with the pet gaining an *EXTRA* 100 hate/sec. That's a 200 hate per second gap, which theoretically allows a little over 200+dps to be added. The dps you can put out does hit a ceiling when it's too much for the pet to make up what's not being transfered, obviously, but as the math works out you can do a lot of extra dps. Also, you're making the assumption that the STA line is *only* useful while soloing. Some of us have used it for duo-/trioing purposes <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> And yes, with the hate transfer and tainted heals the pet becomes a very viable duoing/trioing tank. </blockquote><p>The numbers your post was pushing was 300 vs. 78.4.  I was was pointing out that the gap was <b>much</b> narrower than that, and that the taunt was more useful in certain circumstances.  Granted, over a long fight the hate transfer will probably generate a little more aggro (things like dumbfires also aren't transferring hate to the pet.)  For them to be equal, the Summoner would be generating about 600 personal DPS (minus pet and dumbfires) which, in reality, is really about what most Summoners are generating on a single target in a non-raid situations.</p><p>And no, I'm not making the assumption that the STA line is *only* for soloing, just establishing a single heroic mob as a baseline.  I've done plenty of duo/trio tanking, particularly back when I was WIS/STA spec. <img src="/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </p>

[shagr1414]

Katryna@Lucan DLere wrote: <blockquote>The controllable taunt is hardly worthless, and isn't a massive nerf.  First of all, your math is way off, and the hate difference isn't nearly as big as you make it seem.  The defensive stance gives your pet a nearly 50% hate buff - which boosts taunts, but has no effect on the hate transfer.  Have you ever parsed yourself while soloing?  I seriously doubt your personal DPS comes anywhere close to 1500 on single heroics unless you're using lifeburn.  (Damage from lifeburn is massive killing blow burst DPS at the end of a fight and not really relevant to your tank pet holding aggro.) Granted, the Necro tank has more aggro holding issues than the Conjuror one (BA and EV help in that regard.)  Many Summoners, however, fail to grasp many of the basics of combat system, mainly because they rarely are the ones getting hit by mobs.  The tank pets are quite good about using their taunts, but they often can't because, like players, many mobs get stuns, stifles, and interrupts - and use them quite frequently at higher levels.  Your pet didn't get worse at taunting in T7, the mobs got better at not allowing it to do so.  That's where the controllable taunt helps out, as your pet can still generate aggro while it's stunned/stifled early in a fight, where with the transfer you would probably pull aggro.  It will buy the pet time to recover and start taunting on its own (the pet will also generate less aggro when its trying to chase down a mob that's running after you.)  Plus it now comes earlier on the AA tree, so you can max it out with less of a point investment, and the previous AA, Shockwave, is also a very nice aggro generator. </blockquote><p>play a necro on a pvp server and try this revamp....its a joke.  we couldn't use the pet taunts in the first place, as its been rumored they were turned off on pvp, now this is jsut an added bonus to us having another useless ability.  Right now in pvp a necro is the easiest of casters to kill instantly, we need a major overhaul to survive.  Tnk pets ned to taunt, and effectively.  This is our sole means of defense in pvp since the resists are still broken, and fears and roots are not landing as they should.  We need time to actually create enough dps to be effective but if we're dead in 2 seconds flat cause the rangers seem to beleive they were promised the ability to be GOD on a pvp server and its actually come to that as of now, this all needs to be addressed.  Been playing on test religiously and tried many differnt specs and nothing prevents us from being flat out cannon fodder. Not only to scouts, wiazard still 2 shot me b4 i can create enough dps to smolder them to around 50% health.  Tanks still perma stun me, and scouts...well thats just a rip in the [Removed for Content] imo.  Not one class archtype should be able to dominate any other class in a pvp situation.  We need the devs to create a RELIABLE source of defense, if not only in pvp but in pve also.  I don't care too much about the pove aspects since #1 i dont work for GMWORKERS.com and have the need to solo nameds 24 hours a day to sell plat online, nor do i have the massive need of raid gear, our pvp set is sweet enough for what we need. Sad part of the whole thin is in pvp a necro won't ever see a set of pvp armors with scouts rolling around and being capable of dropping a necro in 2seconds. Now this isn't some godly geared ranger either, this is MC geared rangers making amcro's and pla inf 2-3 CA's into one macro firing off enough dps off the bat to drop 5k dmg in 2 seocnds flat....honestly ive seen a MC geared ranger drop a raid  fabled EOF geared Tank in 3 seconds flat.  So the new nerfs to ranger dps is a SLIGHT improvement but is still in dire need of rethinking.  Too many skills stacked upon great front end dps is not the right route for any class.  Al  a ranger needs to do right now is stealth and prey the target, stay out of range and push 2 buttons.....we die they win they get fame and tokens we get nothing but another session of rebuffing and praying we spot them b4 they see us. Even if we spo them first though we still don't have the time to dps them down. Abate life at master 2 does roughly 800 points of dmg IF it lands at all, but on test im seeing a 90% resist rate still.  If the devs are going to make this game playable for all classes in pvp then simply you need to figure [Removed for Content] to do to make it an equal encounter.  Sony advertised this game as solo friendly, and needs to abide by these promises since they are still taking our money every month and prvoding a broken experience.   One suggestion i can think of is to allow us to actually split health with our tank pets.  Not all pets but im pretty sure this could be coded into  pvp only situation.  That way in pve we don't see necros soloing epic mobs. But as it stands now the new proposed revamps in pvp has done absolutley nothing in means of helping the necro class.  Just made it worse, we already were in dire need of help and now you flat out screw us.</p><p>Thanks, hopefully a real PVP mmo comes out soon cause eq2 isn't going to cut it if I need to re-roll a scout to feel its worthy of playing. I'm sorry I  don't like easy mode and that all pvp is now....2 macros and collecting loot from dead mages.  gratz devs..... </p>

[eburgos]

I tried the new taunt from the STA only at app4 level and it was awesome, if you havent tested it maybe you should and then come back and comment on it. I found it excellent, I can't imagine it at ad4.

[Nivmizzet]

I like the idea of me not having to cast my pet buffs on my mage pet any longer.  However, with the recent comments to the damage interception buff, this has me worried.  I don't cast this on my pet as it is.  Why in the hell would I want my mage pet to take damage for me?  He's my bread and butter, my alpha and omega, and yes...he has the hp of a "wet paper bag"!  Hopefully SOE takes this into consideration.

[evhallion]

Deila wrote: <blockquote><p>Just wanted to pass along my initial take on some of these achievements changes early, since I figured you guys would all be interested and/or curious, and most aren't playing high level necromancers on Test to see it for yourselves.</p></blockquote> I for one am always grateful for your prompt reporting on Necro issues that come across test. So in case you (and the other players of test) don't hear it often, Thanx. It's prompt awareness of issues before they get off test that gets the best chance of a quick fix.

[Supernova17]

Less confusion now, thanks SOE! Empower Servant is now also a passive buff. The pet tool tip will also display all passive buffs on the pet (just like the Enhance Pet EoF AA's) From Test 6/20 <img src="http://img454.imageshack.us/img454/243/eq2000022ty2.jpg" border="0">