Dog AE immunity worthless?

[Tholar]

<p>Well i noticed it in beta already, and did feedback it, but our dog gets killed by a lot of ae's (if not all) or eats them, which makes me wonder, why bother with the dog then with it beeing on a high casting time (10s base i think) and dieing all the time, making the other aa choices for the dog also worthless?</p><p>i mean how can it be that something beeing ae immune and still getting smacked by an really hard hitting ae.</p><p>so my suggestions are as follows: either really follow through with the ae immunity, lower the casting time (to 2s) for the dog, or just revamp the whole tree.</p>

[Banditman]

<p>For example?</p>

[Tholar]

<p>first named in palace killed my dog on 1 pull 6 times, but mainly due to AE attack.</p><p>2nd named arcane AE hit it a couple times and died 1 or 2 times during that pull.</p><p>kendis/penda ae'ed on incomming and pet instantly died.</p><p>other than that would have to go through logs and check it, but if you didnt notice the massive dieing of the dog, then either you're blind, didnt spec it or just dont care about it.</p>

[Banditman]

<p>My dog almost never dies, but then again, I've had a lot of practice and experience on when to send him in, when to pull him out, and when to expect his death.  In Sentinel's Fate, I'm still not even sure I'm going to spec the dog at all honestly.  The cost may be prohibitive, comparatively.</p><p>Every expansion requires some give and take, some re-evaluation and relearning.  That's the point where we should be at right now.</p><p>Why don't you grab a few log lines and post them here so we can see what effects are actually killing him.</p>

[Gisallo]

It really does come down to when and how dog dog gets sent in. Frontals and other "special AE's will still get the puppy. When I first started raiding I used to scream with how often he died. I scream a lot less now that I know how to use him.

[Tholar]

<p><cite>isallo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>It really does come down to when and how dog dog gets sent in. Frontals and other "special AE's will still get the puppy. When I first started raiding I used to scream with how often he died. I scream a lot less now that I know how to use him.</blockquote><p>it is not about when the dog gets sent in, he just instantly died on pull of penda in The Palace of Rhoen Theer (think it was an uncureable elemental on inc).</p><p>trying to find the log to it atm.</p><p>not sure if it was that, but i have normally 20k+ hp on a raid and then still wards on me, so</p><p>(1266952256)[Tue Feb 23 20:10:56 2010] Penda Parmare's Magical Tempest hits Aranil for 17252 magic damage.(1266952256)[Tue Feb 23 20:10:56 2010] Aranil's aura begins to fade.(1266952256)[Tue Feb 23 20:10:56 2010] The bright light around Aranil's disappears.(1266952256)[Tue Feb 23 20:10:56 2010] Penda Parmare has killed Aranil.</p><p>pretty sure i have more resists than my dog, so</p><p>(1266954207)[Tue Feb 23 20:43:27 2010] Iilsaad's Barrier's Icy Tempest hits Aranil for 88431 cold damage.(1266954207)[Tue Feb 23 20:43:27 2010] Iilsaad's Barrier has killed Aranil.</p><p>and</p><p>(1266954625)[Tue Feb 23 20:50:25 2010] Iilsaad's Barrier's Flames of Rage hits Aranil for 87526 heat damage.(1266954625)[Tue Feb 23 20:50:25 2010] The bright light around Aranil's disappears.(1266954625)[Tue Feb 23 20:50:25 2010] Iilsaad's Barrier has killed Aranil.</p><p>and those are only some examples.</p>

[Banditman]

<p>Was your pet attacking in these cases or simply standing there?</p>

[Tholar]

<p>doesnt matter, ae immunity should always be there, but on penda it was just standing there as it was on pull.</p><p>on the barrier golem think it was attacking, but still as i said, ae immunity should work 100% regardless if the dog attacks or not</p>

[Banditman]

<p>No, it matters a lot.</p><p>There are certain mob abilities that strike thru *any* AE immunity, be it player immunity (Bladedance, Tortoise Shell, etc) or some sort of pet immunity (Spiritual Foresight, Unflinching Servant, etc).</p><p>For the most part, those abilities that "strike thru" immunity are all PB or very short range.  So, if the pet was attacking, it could have been in range of one of these abilities.  Some of the more obnoxious of these abilities are AE auto attack and certain directional attacks.</p>

[Gahnand]

<p><cite>Aranil@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>doesnt matter, ae immunity should always be there, but on penda it was just standing there as it was on pull.</p><p>on the barrier golem think it was attacking, but still as i said, ae immunity should work 100% regardless if the dog attacks or not</p></blockquote><p>This is wrong. Unless they changed it with SF, the dog is only immune to "non-direct" ae damage. If the boss is facing the raid when the ae goes off, (or if the dog is position within what is considered the front of the mob, which i believe is 15 degrees in either direction from the mob's exact front), then ur dog is going to get hit, and in a raid, is probably going to die.</p><p>This doesn't change the fact that it still greatly affects the dog's value if it dies on pull. <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> However, if you are positioning your dog properly during most fights (behind or flanking), then the dog should remain effective.</p><p>PS the AE immunity proc from the dog is also non-direct.</p>

[Laenai]

<p>Focus damage vs. AE is probably what you need to be looking at.</p><p>A lot of "AEs" the mobs do in TSO zones are actually focus damage, making AE immunity spells (Bladedance, Holy something for inqs, whatever the swashy one is, and Tortoise Shell among others) worthless. AE immunity does NOT include focus damage.</p><p>Once I learned that, I pulled AAs out of the dog and really all he's there to do now is pull across big distances.</p><p>A good rule of thumb is: If the melee has to joust, your dog will probably die. If its something that strikes the whole raid and ticks damage, he'll probably be immune. Please note that this is a generalization and there are exceptions. But this should get you started on figuring out what, where, when, and why.</p>

[Gahnand]

lol @ sig

[Tholar]

<p>you probably didnt look at the logs i posted, it doesnt say focus dmg.....</p><p>and again it doesnt matter, if it attacks or not, as it dies anyway, sometimes it gets hit straight away, and by EVERY ae, and the other time it doesnt get hit at all by any ae (apart from the focus dmg ae's ofc, but on those i call my dog back)</p><p>it really cant be that normal ae's hit the dog despite having ae immunity</p><p>edit: the idea of non direct ae effect is when the mob doesnt target you, you dont get the AE (if you are immune to non direct ae effects, which it says on our dog's ae immunity), so it doesnt even matter if the dog is in front of the mob or not, unless it gets focus dmg or directly targeted by the mob.</p>

[Banditman]

<p>Directional abilities (abilities that only hit in a given arc) are considered direct even though the mob isn't "directly targeting" you (or your pet).  Point blank effects are the same deal "sometimes".  It sucks, but there it is.  Aerilik explained it a long time ago.  It even nearly made sense when he explained it, but that didn't make it suck less.</p><p>Still, I'll be real curious to see if these effects you've logged are directional.  The don't really "read" like a directional effect to me, and they are definitely not focus damage.</p><p>I'd say that this is definitely something I want to have re-examined by a Dev, and probably greatly clarified.  Like I said above, I still haven't decided if the dog is going to be worth the AA's in Sentinel's Fate, and the clarification and explanation of this issue is fairly important in making that decision.</p>

[Gahnand]

<p><cite>Aranil@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>edit: the idea of non direct ae effect is when the mob doesnt target you, you dont get the AE (if you are immune to non direct ae effects, which it says on our dog's ae immunity), so it doesnt even matter if the dog is in front of the mob or not, unless it gets focus dmg or directly targeted by the mob.</p></blockquote><p>You couldn't be more wrong.</p>

[Tholar]

<p><cite>Gahnand@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Aranil@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>edit: the idea of non direct ae effect is when the mob doesnt target you, you dont get the AE (if you are immune to non direct ae effects, which it says on our dog's ae immunity), so it doesnt even matter if the dog is in front of the mob or not, unless it gets focus dmg or directly targeted by the mob.</p></blockquote><p>You couldn't be more wrong.</p></blockquote><p>well if ppl cant be arsed to try get a dev to look into it, then so be it. but out of curiousity pls explain it to me how our dog ae immunity works, especially in SF as it wasnt dieing that much in TSO.</p>

[Gahnand]

I gotta be honest with you, something does seem off. Even to the point of me considering losing that tree, which is dumbfounding to me. HOWEVER, non-direct AE does not exclude attacks where your dog does not have aggro. There is a big difference between the mob targeting ur dog (as u would) by the dog having aggro, and ur dog being the target of an attack that DIRECTLY targets more than one target. These attacks include things like green TE spells like wrath of the ancients. It also includes frontal, conal ae's such as hurricane. The end result is that your dog is not 100% immune to AE attacks. This means, that you can't just have your dog kissing the mob's face. You have to be smart and patient about when you send it in, when you call it back, and how you monitor it's positioning. In groups this is very largely affected by how well the tank positions and holds aggro on the mob, in raid, it has a lot more to do with you. But, again, I'm having a really hard time keeping the dog up even using the techniques that keep within the guidelines I stated above. Generally for heroic content if you just keep your dog flanking or behind the mob, you are GTG. It's not working for me. At this point, I'm really not arguing against your point about the dog's current usefulness, but I am trying to point out that it should not be 100% immune to AEs (ie if ur dog is just standing there).

[Banditman]

<p>Honestly, I am not currently spec'ed for the dog.  The benefit gained for the AA's spent is finally no longer worth it to me.  There are too many other things I can spend AA's on.</p>

[wardman]

<p>I have noticed the same dog deaths as stated before. It does not seem to happen very often though. Usually, it is the named fights that people need to joust. 1 point not mentioned here however is the group ward. If your dog is being ate up during an attack on a named fight, your group ward is being used up for a pet that can only do about 400 dps with very few benefical procs. Should your pet even be attacking if it is doing more harm to your healing than good from the procs? An additional note, I do not see many necro and conji pets getting killed as easily. I am slowly considering dropping this AA line too. But being able to solo heal a zone and push 1-1.8k zonewide is pretty nice. A far bigger concern for me is the lvl 88 single ward master only being 21 points more of a ward than my lvl 78 master single ward and well all my heals/wards fall into similar disappointments. No Expert upgrades for a previously mastered spell.</p>

[Banditman]

<p>Once you convert your Mythical to a spell, the L88 Master is a considerable upgrade over the L78 Master.</p><p>The best thing to do when you are questioning spell values is log on to a character who cannot use the spells and inspect them.  That will show you the base values.</p>

[iduckie]

<p>Dogdog Immunity isn't worthless but I think alot of people misunderstand it.</p><p>I haven't gone down the STR line for SF raids because I wasn't sure if the Immunity would block the new AE's (they seem to be ranged determined or alot of jousting) and untill my raidforce is comfertable and more familiar with the new raid content the STA line has been most useful.</p><p>One thing I have noticed however when I was STR spec'd (I loved it btw) was the fact that you couldn't relay on it to cover all the AE's. If the scouts had to joust so did the primary pets, as if they too were characters. Curable AE's that you could cure and stay in for the dog tends to ignore. </p><p>I've noticed that alot of AE's aren't called because we can easily heal through them but these however seem to be direct and will hit your dog and it will die or drop hp if your group wards aren't up. (You tend to notice this more if you don't have the Combat line maxed.)</p><p>NOW...I'd like to know if most of the SF AE's are direct and not non-direct because if that's the case we don't need AE immunity, we need a resist buff!</p>

[Gisallo]

<p><cite>Aliya@Butcherblock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Dogdog Immunity isn't worthless but I think alot of people misunderstand it.</p><p>I haven't gone down the STR line for SF raids because I wasn't sure if the Immunity would block the new AE's (they seem to be ranged determined or alot of jousting) and untill my raidforce is comfertable and more familiar with the new raid content the STA line has been most useful.</p><p>One thing I have noticed however when I was STR spec'd (I loved it btw) was the fact that you couldn't relay on it to cover all the AE's. If the scouts had to joust so did the primary pets, as if they too were characters. Curable AE's that you could cure and stay in for the dog tends to ignore. </p><p>I've noticed that alot of AE's aren't called because we can easily heal through them but these however seem to be direct and will hit your dog and it will die or drop hp if your group wards aren't up. (You tend to notice this more if you don't have the Combat line maxed.)</p><p>NOW...I'd like to know if most of the SF AE's are direct and not non-direct because if that's the case we don't need AE immunity, we need a resist buff!</p></blockquote><p>They seem to follow the same old rule...if its a frontal or a rear tail lash its direct, if it doesn't matter where u are its indirect so the dog dog and Star of Malice still work. Least thats been my experience.</p>