Idea - potential way to fix pets and stances?

[Lantis]

<p>Seeing how the pet offensive stance is nearly useless (now that pet damage is based on the caster's Int), one of our pets (the scout/monk/ghost) is nearly useless, and the mage pet has enough HP to tank anything but the hardest mobs, I was wondering:  what if they gave us only one single pet, but made the stance determine wether it's really a DPS (mage) or a tank?</p><p>Benefits:</p><p>- Get rid of the useless pets that have been nearly useless since launch, and fully useless since RoK- Make pet stances once again meaningful (I only use the defensive stance when using my mage pet to tank, and my actual pet tank gets very little action these days)- Fewer things for SOE to balance/manage = better chance to have things fixed faster, or less likely to be broken and stay broken for years as it has long been the case for summoners</p><p>Disadvantages:</p><p>- Makes the class less rich (no more ability to chose a pet based on your actual playstyle)- Would allow people to switch between full DPS and full tanking with a fast casting buff (might unbalance gameplay in some situations)</p><p>An alternative based on this idea: get rid of the scout pet and fix stances.  The pet stance would determine if the non-mage pet would be DPS or tanking.  This wouldn't water-down the class as much, while still making things easier for SOE to manage.</p><p>Comments?</p>

[Xalmat]

<p>The Offense stance is still useful for the Scout pet, but unfortunately the Scout pet is useless.</p><p>I still regularly use the Defense stance with my tank and even my mage pet. It helps the mage pet hold crazy good aggro when I need it to, and the encounter taunt is useful too for the tank pet.</p><p>Personally I would like to see the offense stance boost the pet's base damage, or a proc of some sort similar to the necro version.</p><p>And rather than get rid of the scout pet, I would rather see the scout pet get the upgrades it needs.</p>

[Lantis]

<p>One of the reasons why I'm starting to lean toward the "scout pet should go away" is because with the last few expansions, jousting AEs has become a major issue.  Melee classes too have started to have serious trouble with it compared to a ranged mage.  So unless the scout pet would suddenly be able to avoid the majority of AEs, I don't see it as a worthwhile alternative to the mage pet, no matter how much they would boost its DPS.</p><p>So, why not have the offensive stance make the tank pet become as good at meleeing as we'd expect a fixed scout to be, and consolidate in the process two seldom-used pets into one that would get more action?  Because let's face it, even the tank pet is a very situational pet with the HP boost the mage pet got in SF.  Having one mage pet and one general melee pet that could cover both the tank (with defensive stance) or melee DPS (with the offensive stance) would be a good solution IMHO.</p><p>I totally agree about the defensive stance - I also do use it on my mage pet when soloing heroics or AE encounters.  I think both stances still have a place, you just need to make the offensive stance worth using at all.  Seeing the amount of DPS the mage pet currently does, I don't think it needs any further boost through an improved offensive stance.</p>