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Xalmat

10-03-2010, 05:06 PM

I've been giving a lot of thought to how to fix the Scout Pet, which has been mediocre compared to the Mage Pet for years.Scout Pet's PurposeThe Scout Pet's purpose is to be our single-target DPS pet of choice, whereas the Mage Pet's purpose is to be our AoE DPS pet of choice. If you don't consider outside buffs, gear-based pet effects, or AAs that have been added since KoS was released, the Scout Pet still outdamages the Mage Pet on single targets by a small margin. However if you add even a teensy bit of any of those, and the pendulum swings wildly to the Mage Pet's favor, and never returns to the other side.The problem is multifaceted. Here's a few of the problems.<ul><li>Summoners have no easy way of boosting the pet's Double Attack, Haste, or DPS mods.<ul><li>In a typical raid group consisting of a Troubador and Illusionist, the Summoner does not have access to any of these types of buffs, or if he does then they will be given out to players before they are given out to pets. Nobody likes buffing pets anyway.</li></ul></li><li>Likewise the Summoner has no easy equivalent way of boosting the pet's base auto-attack damage compared to scouts (buffing our INT is the equivalent to boosting a scout's AGI, but if a scout acquires a new weapon the Summoner has no equivalent).</li><li>Summoner AAs are not applied evenly between the scout and the mage pet. The AAs as applied to the Mage pet are vastly superior to the Scout pet versions.</li><li>Scout Pet's base combat arts are on a longer recast than the equivalent mage pet spells, and do less damage per cast as well.</li></ul>Let's tackle these problems one at a time.AAsHere are some proposals for AAs.Summoner TreeWild Channeling - Have this apply to both the summoner and the pet. This would greatly help all pets.Implode - This ability should not outright kill the pet.Shadowstep - The purpose of Shadowstep was to get the pet back in action after it was called back to the summoner to avoid dying to an AoE. In today's AoE intense environment it's not practical to call the pet back to the summoner to avoid an AoE, as the pet would never be attacking. Also this ability causes the pet to consume power, and triggers a Recovery Time cycle which delays auto-attacks. As a result, using it whenever the ability is up actually lowers the pet's overall damage output. This ability should be changed to do neither of those negatives; neither trigger a recovery time cycle, and not consume the pet's power.Minion's Zeal - This should apply to all pets, not just the scout pet. Although in truth it would only benefit the Tank pet and not the Mage pet.Reanimate - Considering the plethora of death-save abilities, AoE protection abilities, and Dimensional Storage that both Summoners presently have, this AA is fairly worthless nowadays. It should be changed to something similar to a Brigand's "Amazing Reflexes" ability, or perhaps just a straight up damage reduction from non-direct AoEs. Or even some kind of buff or high damage attack that the pet can execute.Shockwave - This ability really should be usable on all petsPerceptor's Bodyguard - This should apply to all pets, not just the tank petMagic Leash - This should apply to all pets.Arcane Minion - This would greatly help all pets out.Empower Servant - This should apply to all pets as wellAptitude of the Theurgist - This should apply to pets as wellCabalist's Aura - This should be usable on all pets. It should also grant the pets melee double attack.Animist's Aptitude - Instead of just resistability, this should boost the pet's Accuracy or Strikethru stat as well (keep it in line with what other classes get). Or perhaps make this similar to what Warriors get: 4% Strikethru in Offensive Stance, 4% Mitigation in Defensive Stance, in addition to the resistability boost.Focused Minion - This should be viable for the scout and tank pet as well as the mage pet.Conjuror TreeEnhance: Fiery Magician, Enhance: Earthen Avatar, Enhance: Aery Hunter - These three AA should be changed to generic AAs that affect all pets, instead of the specific pets listed. Enhance Aery Hunter should be changed to increase offensive skills of the pets, and Fiery Magician should remain a resistability boost AA.Unabate - This should increase the melee pet's Accuracy, in addition to resistability, in my opinion.Bubble - If you consider how rapid fire most AEs are these days, Bubble is outright impractical for the pet. It was meant to be used in conjunction with Call Servant just before a big AoE goes off, followed by Shadowstep after the AoE fires. However with many Sentinel's Fate raid encounters having multiple high-damage rapid fire Aoes back to back, this is outright impractical. Bubble should be changed to a more passive ability that doesn't require the pet to be near the Conjuror (I'd also support a change to Blood Pact for necromancers, since these two abilities are meant to be equivalents).Elemental Blast - This AA ability goes off the scout pet's Spell Crit Bonus, which is lower than it's Melee Crit Bonus.Shadows TreePet Weapon Mastery - All pets should gain 20% weapon damage (with a larger weapon damage spread and longer weapon delay to go with it) and 8% Potency, rather than just the specific adjustments each pet gets.Minion's Critical Strike - If Wild Channeling is being changed to apply to the pet, then this ability should be changed to boost the pet's Crit Bonus by 1% per rank.Scout Pet Combat ArtsThis is a bit of a complex topic, so I'll tackle it the best I can.<ul><li>Scout Pet AI</li></ul>Ask any scout, you don't want to let your combat arts delay your auto-attack. The scout pet should follow the same logic: If a combat art's cast time + recovery time will lead to the pet missing or delaying an auto-attack round, the pet should not use a combat art.I have not tested the Scout Pet's Combat Art preferences, but like the Mage Pet it should favor its AA Combat Arts over its normal Combat Arts (Minion's Mark, Blazing Conjuration, Fury of the Elements).The pet's AI needs to be changed so that it will cast its Combat Arts more often; if a combat art is ready to be cast, it should cast one.<ul><li>Individual Scout Pet Combat Art issues</li></ul>Galestorm - The recast time on this combat art needs to be lowered to 1 minute. The base damage needs to be doubled.Furystorm - The recast on this combat art needs to be lowered to 30 seconds, and the base damage needs to be doubled.Wisp Blade, Aery Whip, Storm Surge, Thunderous Attack - The base damage of these combat arts needs to be doubled.Fury of the Elements, Minion's Mark - These two AA-based abilities are considered Spells, and do not use the Scout Pet's Melee Crit Bonus when critting; instead it uses its Spell Crit Bonus. Also this means that the pet cannot cast these spells while on the run, unlike all other Combat Arts it uses.Overall: I'll grant that the mage pet's spells are supposed to be superior to the scout pet's combat arts; the mage pet doesn't melee, while the scout pet does. However one should keep in mind that the combination of scout pet melee + scout pet combat arts should exceed the mage pet's spells on single targets by a healthy margin. Right now, it's not even close.Scout Pet Power PoolThe scout pet's power pool needs a significant boost. Right now the Mage Pet has a larger power pool by about 60%.Scout Pet SurvivabilitySpeaking in terms of survivability, the Scout Pet should have superior survivability to the Mage Pet. In theory it does, due to having slightly more HP than the Mage Pet, and better physical mitigation and avoidance.However there's two things holding it back: Significantly lower base resists than the Mage Pet, and the fact that the pet must be in melee range to attack, exposing it to harder hitting AEs than the Mage Pet will normally be exposed to. In general the resist issue can be solved by having the pet share the summoner's resists, or by making Minion's Resilience far more common than it is. However the latter solution would require Minion's Resilience to be on just about every piece of gear there is just to make the pet have enough resists to survive an AE at point-blank range, so the former solution is preferred.Accessibility to Melee-Enhancing EffectsShort of buffs from other players, and the rare item that directly grants our pet DPS, Haste, or Double-attack (Multi Attack) mod, we have no way of buffing these pet's stats. Even if we go directly the route of shared stats with our pets, our options of boosting these stats are limited.Thus there needs to be other solutions. Depending on the route we take (shared stats vs pet effects on gear) there ought to be some way to boost these stats for the melee pets, to at least keep them in-line with what the mage pet gets.I'll propose it two ways then: One considering direct pet stat sharing, and one with pet effects on gear.<ul><li>Direct Pet Stat Sharing</li></ul>Potency - Every point of Potency should boost our pet's base weapon damage and DPS mod by an equal amount of Potency.Ability Cast Speed - This should increase the pet's Haste mod by an equal amount.Spell Multi Attack - This should increase the pet's Melee Multi Attack by an equal amountOther than Spell Multi Attack, I'm having trouble figuring out what else could boost the pet's Multi Attack stat without overpowering the pet.<ul><li>Pet Effects</li></ul>Empowered Minion / Destructive Forces - This should boost the pet's base weapon damage by an equal amount to the potency granted.Molten Carnage - This should boost the DPS and Haste mods equal to the Potency.Power Flux - This should boost the pet's Multi Attack equal to the crit chance grantedQuicksilver Blood - Boost the pet's Haste mod equal to the Ability Cast Speed modOther IssuesBecause the Scout Pet is a scout, it's Spell Crit Bonus is lower than it's Melee Crit Bonus (1.5 vs 1.3). As a result, several key abilities cast by the Conjuror are less effective with the Scout Pet than the Mage pet. These include:<ul><li>Blazing Avatar</li><li>Elemental Unity</li><li>Elemental Blast</li><li>Elemental Toxicity</li></ul>As a result, the Scout Pet's Spell Crit Bonuss should be bumped up to 1.5, or these spells need to be recoded to use the pet's Melee Crit Bonus.The Scout Pet should be useful even in a mage-oriented group on raids, with little additional support needed beyond what the Mage Pet already has. Even in a mage-oriented group, it should be the pet of choice for single target fights.Final ThoughtsMy ultimate goal is to bring the Scout pet in-line with the Mage Pet in terms of its original purpose: Be the superior pet of choice for single target fights. Much of the flavor of having multiple viable pets was lost many years ago, and this aspect of the class should be restored.Some of these changes might be over the top, or boost Summoners well above the level of damage we should be doing. If that's the case, then an appropriate toning down after implementing these changes would be justified (it's important to maintain overall class balance after all).That said, a return to the days of three viable pets is much needed in my book.

Blambil

10-04-2010, 01:38 PM

well thought out, well written, well summarized... Nice work as always..Now I hope that someone with power reads it...

Lark42

11-15-2010, 07:24 PM

Very good summary of what is needed to make the Scout pet even worth casting.I find it very sad that not a single Conjuror wants to use the wind pet simply because it is utterly inferior.Hopefully the developers will review what you posted and consider giving Conjurors a reason to use their Scout pet.

Banditman

11-16-2010, 11:13 AM

I think we should ditch the concept of a Scout pet entirely.It's pretty simple really. If you boost the surviveability and DPS of the Scout up to the point where it would be a useful alternative for single targets, there would be absolutely no need for a Tank pet.Instead, I would propose that the current Scout pet be changed to an "Air" Mage pet, and given abilities to DPS single targets. The current "Fire" Mage pet needs to have more of it's abilities converted to AE type abilities.This gives us the spread of damage dealing we need, without the headache of trying to balance out two melee pets performing similar functions. While it might seem that the two "Mage" pets that I propose are filling similar functions, that would be completely dependant on the developers to give each the abilities to perform a given role: AE DPS or ST DPS.Oh, and of course, the developers would need to include content where each is useful, at all three levels: Solo, Group and Raid.

Xalmat

11-16-2010, 11:47 AM

Now THAT is an idea I can get behind.

Rael

11-18-2010, 05:00 AM

I actually like the idea of having a pet for each archtype; I just wish that half of them wern't useless... As for the idea of a usefull scout obsoleting the tank... give the tank better agro generation and lower its DPS some more. And by better I mean A LOT BETTER mage pet in defensive stance should not be the ultimate agro generating tool. That way the soloing options are a meatwall tank that won't lose agro, a single target scout that may or may not lose hate, and an aoe mage that will never lose hate, and a healer that doesn't actually do anything. Seriously, I've got 86% potency for my pets and she wards for 200. But that's a different thread.

Banditman

11-18-2010, 10:54 AM

Why? I don't get it. What is the fascination with having a Scout? Quite frankly, don't we do enough pet management already?If you have a Scout pet, there is absolutely no way you're going to get a pet that can "stay in" during an AE. If a player has to joust it, you can rest assured your pet will have to joust it. Given the AE standard in place now, do you REALLY want to do THAT much pet management? Really?Honestly, I do enough already. Making sure he stays healed and cured. Stoneskinned or death saved when necessary. It's enough.It would take, as Xalmat posted, a pretty massive rewrite of many abilities to create the potential for a Scout pet that was worth using. And this doesn't even address the massive balance issues that would exist if a Scout pet was ever made "tough" enough to matter.Instead of a massive revamp of the summoner classes to make some sort of Scout pet worth having, a simple revamp of the Air pet and his abilities to become a single target mage and the same for the Fire pet to become a multi target mage would frankly not take long at all. The other abilities are already in place, you know, the ones that make our current mage pet rock.The best part about this is that it would apply equally to both Summoners. When you break it down, our pets are nearly identical. You can check the thread in the general mage discussion where I posted screenshots of the Conjuror and Necro pets with all buffs and gear stripped. It's scary, they are identical.You still have the tank pet, who can still be buffed if the developers feel that balance requires it. Frankly, I don't see that balance does require it right now, but who knows what the future may hold.

Xalmat

11-19-2010, 01:59 PM

I think the reason we have a scout pet at all is because our EQ1 counterparts do. But then again EQ1 magician pets are required to stay at melee range no matter what, and they don't have range-based AoEs like we do in EQ2, so it's perfectly viable.

Banditman

11-19-2010, 02:17 PM

Our EQ1 counterparts have four pets I believe: Earth, Fire, Air, Water.The Earth pet roots, Air pet stuns, Fire pet is just DPS . . . dont remember what was special about Water.In any event, the attraction of turning our "Scout" into a single target mage and our "Fire" into an AE mage is that we already have all the supporting AA's and gear to make this work. The changes would be fairly minimal. Yes, it would render the AGI line useless . . . . oh wait, it already is!

Germs666

11-19-2010, 04:40 PM

I say we ditch those scout pets/water pets and get some cast speed/reuse/recovery AA lines in place. Necros only get speed increases to 1 spell. I think that's a joke.With itemization the way it is how are we supposed to itemize multi attack now for a pet we seldom use? Stupid idea!We need speed!

Xalmat

11-19-2010, 04:57 PM

EQ1 pets:Earth pet is the tank pet, highest HP amount, lowest melee damage + casts a root every 12 seconds.Air pet is the "monk" pet, medium-high HP, medium melee damage + casts a stun every 12 seconds.Water pet is the "rogue" pet, medium HP, highest melee damage + it backstabs every so often for high damage + high damage water attack every 12 seconds. Out of the three melee pets it's the best DPS pet they get.Fire pet became useless after level 52 because it became a caster with damage spells that scaled up poorly (as bad as our eq2 scout pet). Prior to that it had the highest melee damage output + a super high damage shield + super high fire attack every 12 seconds, but the lowest HP of all the pets.If we made the AGI line affect the tank pet, it would turn that line into a very useful line.

Banditman

11-19-2010, 05:19 PM

Yea, it really would. It would give you different options for solo / tanking builds than you have now.

Lark42

11-19-2010, 06:40 PM

What I think is that the Scout pet needs a newly defined, unique role.If it had other merits besides DPS, than we wouldn't have to worry about making it a roughly equivalent DPS'er as the utterly superior Mage pet.What do you guys think about having the Scout pet act as the "Utility" pet -- One who could provide utility through significant mitigation debuffs, interrupts, slows, stuns, snares, de-taunts for the mage and itself, aggro transfer to tank in group, etc.?

Xalmat

11-19-2010, 07:26 PM

<cite>Lark42 wrote:</cite><blockquote>What I think is that the Scout pet needs a newly defined, unique role.If it had other merits besides DPS, than we wouldn't have to worry about making it a roughly equivalent DPS'er as the utterly superior Mage pet.What do you guys think about having the Scout pet act as the "Utility" pet -- One who could provide utility through significant mitigation debuffs, interrupts, slows, stuns, snares, de-taunts for the mage and itself, aggro transfer to tank in group, etc.?</blockquote>Ask Necros what they think of their Ooze pet, and you'll get your answer.

snowli

11-20-2010, 04:39 PM

Not a conjy, but from an outsiders perspective, wouldn't it be better to remove the current pet stances (that don't work for offensive) remove the 2 extra pet types and go with 1 summoned pet. Wait before you lynch me...Now give conjies 3-4 new major 'pet role' defining buffs:<ol><li> the first buff turns your pet into a low damage, high mitigation, taunting like crazy tank type. Tank Buff.</li><li>the second buff makes your pet do ranged aoe damage, like current fire mage but all aoe. Ranged AOEr Buff.</li><li>the third buff makes your pet do only single target ranged damage. Ranged ST nuker buff.</li><li>An optional fourth buff makes your pet do slightly higher dps but at melee distance & bonus backstab positional, risk/difficulty versus reward. Backstab buff.</li></ol>So you can cruise through the trash with your aoe buff operational or your backstabber buff, and when you reach the named you don't have to totally resummon and rebuff (especially re-request buffs from other people) for your pet, you change your 'pet role' buff and you're ready to go, a bit like the myth switch for warlocks.Finally, a pet illusion panel, allowing you to pick the visual look of your pet from all spells you have available.

Masuma

11-20-2010, 04:44 PM

our mage pet is not aoe, it is encounter aoe. And I hope they never give it a blue aoe because that would be a nightmare to control (it would pull other mobs if it roams too close). Unlesss..... unless we have to trigger the blue aoe ourselves.

snowli

11-20-2010, 04:51 PM

Also worth mentioning if they did consider 'pet role' type buffs they shouldn't include it in a way that makes it even harder/longer to get back into the fight after a pet death.If current pet summon base time is 10 second, then the new time should be 2 seconds. But the pet without it's role buff isn't really good at anything. All the pet role buffs should have 8seconds base cast, to make it nearly add backup to the original (okay you have a slight extension from recovery inbetween 2 spells).

Xalmat

11-20-2010, 05:21 PM

<cite>Shalin@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote>our mage pet is not aoe, it is encounter aoe. And I hope they never give it a blue aoe because that would be a nightmare to control (it would pull other mobs if it roams too close). Unlesss..... unless we have to trigger the blue aoe ourselves.</blockquote>What does it matter if it's a green AoE or a blue AoE? It's still AoE.That's like saying Shattered Earth, Ice Storm, Elemental Toxicity, and Elemental Unity aren't AoE attacks just because they only hit the target encounter.

Xalmat

11-20-2010, 05:32 PM

<cite>snowline wrote:</cite><blockquote>Not a conjy, but from an outsiders perspective, wouldn't it be better to remove the current pet stances (that don't work for offensive) remove the 2 extra pet types and go with 1 summoned pet. Wait before you lynch me...Now give conjies 3-4 new major 'pet role' defining buffs:<ol><li> the first buff turns your pet into a low damage, high mitigation, taunting like crazy tank type. Tank Buff.</li><li>the second buff makes your pet do ranged aoe damage, like current fire mage but all aoe. Ranged AOEr Buff.</li><li>the third buff makes your pet do only single target ranged damage. Ranged ST nuker buff.</li><li>An optional fourth buff makes your pet do slightly higher dps but at melee distance & bonus backstab positional, risk/difficulty versus reward. Backstab buff.</li></ol>So you can cruise through the trash with your aoe buff operational or your backstabber buff, and when you reach the named you don't have to totally resummon and rebuff (especially re-request buffs from other people) for your pet, you change your 'pet role' buff and you're ready to go, a bit like the myth switch for warlocks.Finally, a pet illusion panel, allowing you to pick the visual look of your pet from all spells you have available.</blockquote>Our Offensive and Defensive pet stances work just fine; it's just one aspect of the offensive stance that is useless, and that's the INT portion due to mechanics changes that happened with Sentinel's Fate.Not to mention your different pet role buff idea is flawed at its core, and from a mechanics perspective not possible: The Earth pet is a Guardian class, the Fire pet is a Wizard class, and the Air pet is a Ranger class. Buffs affect pets very differently as a result (things like Alin's Serene Serenade do not affect the Earth pet). The pet melee and defensive skills work very differently (The mage pet has a different avoidance table than the tank pet; the tank pet can parry and the mage pet cannot, etc). The pets even have radically different base stats (tank pet has FAR more HP than the mage pet), and the effects of stats works differently for the pets.

snowli

11-21-2010, 12:33 AM

Your earth pet can't be a guardian class, it can tank things like sages and sisters without triggering fail effects for being the wrong type of fighter. The air pet appears to be a ranger that can't attack from range, because he doesn't own a bow <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /> etcYes, if the scout pet wasn't worthless, the melee haste and weapons skills might be useful on the offensive stance, and if you're not raiding, or in hard heroic zones, the defense might be worth something I guess. In many situations though the defense stance is no good because of taunts, and the offense stance brings nothing meaningful to the mage pet at all, but you can turn it on if you like it doesn't really matter.I expect you could well be right about the base class of the pet needing to change to work well with various buff and encounter conditions. I did however like the idea of a conjuror rolling upto vaclaz easy for example and changing their pet's role to no longer have it nuke the hell out of the adds that shouldn't be touched, rather than having to resummon, rebuff, then resummon afterwards, re-request buffs etc. Perhaps that idea's more in the area of extra commands for summoner pets to switch between aoe/single target for pet, or taunts on/off for tank pets etc. It might be possible to change the base class of the pet via the role buffs idea, but might be too much dev time to test that it works properly and iron any kinks out.The issue I see is, if the goal is making all the conjy (and necro of course) pets worthwhile and situational, that can potentially create the problem that summoning and changing between pets becomes a further burder on summoners, who already have a lot more to look after than the other 2 dps mages (70% of a sorcs dps doesn't wander around dumbly into aoes/frontals, fail to see over a pebble, or have much lesser mit/resists, or regularly require cures for invisible dets, have invisible hate, or generally need extra heals death prevents and repositions for e.g.). So in that vein of not creating extra lead time to getting into the fight or recovering from a death/pet death, I thought the idea of switching pet role without necessarily having a complete resummon and rebuff would be quite attractive.

Xalmat

11-21-2010, 01:20 AM

<cite>snowline wrote:</cite><blockquote>Your earth pet can't be a guardian class, it can tank things like sages and sisters without triggering fail effects for being the wrong type of fighter. The air pet appears to be a ranger that can't attack from range, because he doesn't own a bow <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /> etc</blockquote>One, possess your pets and open your Character window, and it will reveal your pet's class.Two, fighter pets triggering the things on Sages was a bug, and it has since been fixed some time ago.I don't see your argument regarding a further burden. You summon the appropriate pet for the fight, and you spec your AAs for the appropriate pet. The only burden is that we have three pets, and only two AA builds. And besides, it's nothing that other classes don't deal with.

snowli

11-21-2010, 09:05 PM

There are encounter scripts in the game where for example only a monk or bruiser can tank them, or crusader etc, without getting fail effects, yet the conjuror "guardian" tanks them just fine without causing fail effects. It's not a real guardian at all. However that's a sidetrack really, what's more important is...Having 3 pets that have equally solid uses is a nice goal, but I think you also have to be careful what you wish for. Do conjurors want to have to constantly resummon and rebuff their pet and possibly swap their gear ontop as they move from trash encounters, to single named fights for example?When I look at the raid fights this expac, the only encounter I can really see conjurors wanting to use anything other than mage pet is Vaclaz easy mode so they don't damage the adds, perhaps I'm wrong about that though.

Xalmat

11-22-2010, 11:33 AM

<cite>snowline wrote:</cite><blockquote>Having 3 pets that have equally solid uses is a nice goal, but I think you also have to be careful what you wish for. Do conjurors want to have to constantly resummon and rebuff their pet and possibly swap their gear ontop as they move from trash encounters, to single named fights for example?When I look at the raid fights this expac, the only encounter I can really see conjurors wanting to use anything other than mage pet is Vaclaz easy mode so they don't damage the adds, perhaps I'm wrong about that though.</blockquote>If it was perfectly viable to switch between Fire and Air pet to achieve superior DPS in any given situation, I'm all for it.

snowli

11-23-2010, 05:29 AM

<cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>snowline wrote:</cite><blockquote>Having 3 pets that have equally solid uses is a nice goal, but I think you also have to be careful what you wish for. Do conjurors want to have to constantly resummon and rebuff their pet and possibly swap their gear ontop as they move from trash encounters, to single named fights for example?When I look at the raid fights this expac, the only encounter I can really see conjurors wanting to use anything other than mage pet is Vaclaz easy mode so they don't damage the adds, perhaps I'm wrong about that though.</blockquote>If it was perfectly viable to switch between Fire and Air pet to achieve superior DPS in any given situation, I'm all for it.</blockquote>Right, but how do you deal with your personal dps wanting trouby/illy/fury and your scout wanting coercer/dirge/mystic/inq? A viable scout (ranger bow using?) pet might be a nice option if you get stuck in a melee spec group, but you'll still want a mage pet if you can get into a mage spec group for your personal dps.Independant of any pet, you probably want an ability similar to the warlock myth clicky to change pet role from aoe to single target dps. Particularly considering there have been producer/dev comments about bringing crowd control back into heroic and raid gameplay next expansion (but then even if the devs might want to consider doing it, I'm not sure they'll actually translate that to having a workable reimplementation of crowd control).

Haapy

12-20-2010, 05:40 AM

I would be all for the scout pet being changed into a ranger type, a single-target ranged damage dealer with attacks and CAs rather than spells. It would keep it from becoming tank pet replacement, and would help it avoid AEs in the same manner as our fire pet currently does.For pet switching, just have our "pocket pet" AA switch our pocket pet with the current one.In eq1, we flipped through pets, equipped them with summonable gear, AND run around sowing T-Rods around the camp with no problems. I do not think switching between air and fire for some fights would break us.

Banditman

12-20-2010, 11:25 AM

Switching would be fine, even within fights given Dimensional Pocket. The problem is that given SIX YEARS of history, SOE is going to screw this up and we're going to end up either nerfed or with a still worthless "scout" pet. Or both.

Nimbrithil

01-06-2011, 04:09 PM

Only thing I would add and its possible I missed it someplace in there is that the scout pet auto attack damage is laughable, same with the tank pet. Adjustments to that would be needed also.

napalmpt

04-08-2011, 03:56 AM

dont know if any one has noticed this or not but the scout pet now has a permanant buff that protects is from all AoE damage. noticed his tonight while i was messing around with mine. Just posses it and and check out the buffs it has on. the group/raid buff for potency, the group buff for regen mit and parry, and now it has one called turn strike that prevents aoe so you don't back to back it off for the ae's anymore. how about something like this: the max MA we can give him is 15% which is absolutely nothing now that dov is out. and seeing how it is primarily a melee pet, can we look into possibly raising this to 10% a rank so he can at least achieve 100% multi attack? also the first rank of the aa line is kinda crappy too, maybe that would be a buff for 15% more flurry that last for 15 seconds? that way we can have it do burst damage on a target when we wanted and not have to worry about it grabbing agg

Banditman

04-08-2011, 09:46 AM

It's been discussed to death, even with 20% per rank, it wouldn't fix the problems our "scout" pet has. We simply don't buff him to be a melee DPS'er. Our stats are all "caster" stats . . . nothing melee. Therefore, we have nothing worthwhile to pass on to a melee type pet. Our pet needs things like Accuracy, DPS mod, Haste, Flurry, AE Auto Attack, Multi Attack . . . and he needs those things in copious amounts.The bigger problem our Scout pet has is simply his AI. He simply doesn't understand "when" to use his abilities, and when to wait. He interrupts his auto attack constantly to cast abilities which are just awful in damage dealt.Then, once all those problems are taken care of, there are things you would never think of that will need to be dealt with. For instance, some of our temp buffs will need their range extended so that we can hit the pet with those abilities while still at the range we need to be at.With the Mage pet, you're already doing a lot of pet management. A Scout pet will be even more of that.

Nimbrithil

05-18-2011, 08:22 AM

having tested it with ma gear i belive it doesnt trafer to the pet anyway even if we dxo find ma gear the change to a different type mage pet is a better aswer

Blambil

05-18-2011, 03:41 PM

<cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite><blockquote>EQ1 pets:Water pet is the "rogue" pet, medium HP, highest melee damage + it backstabs every so often for high damage + high damage water attack every 12 seconds. Out of the three melee pets it's the best DPS pet they get.</blockquote>This would be a great path to take for the existing scout pet.

Banditman

05-19-2011, 10:55 AM

If the existing Scout pet actually "worked", that's exactly what it is.Keep in mind however that in EQ1, mechanics and classes are radically different. The EQ1 "Magician" is a fairly good approximation of what we are as Conjurors, however, Magicians are able to summon temporary items . . . armor, weapons, jewelry, etc which they can then give to their pets to use. In fact, it's actually a fairly lucrative side trade for Magicians. They can summon these items and sell them to the other pet classes.Once again, the biggest problems with the Scout pet are:<ol><li>It's own abilities are not nearly strong enough given their recast. </li><li>The Scout pet doesn't use those abilities nearly as much as the Fire pet uses it's abilities.</li><li>The Scout pet times the use of it's abilities EXTREMELY poorly.</li><li>There is no sort of "conversion" to give our own shared abilities some meaning for a melee based pet.</li></ol>Until these things are corrected, the Scout pet will continue to be an extremely poor substitute for either of the other two. It's not really that surprising since Sony continues to try to make this pet the "middle" ground between tanking and DPSing. They have not yet realized that we don't NEED a middle ground, we need specific roles for each pet.

Trensharo

05-29-2011, 08:26 AM

I'd like to see them (ASAP) change the Fighter and Scout pet abilities back to Combat Arts to allow them to be cast while moving, and allow those pets to cast their combat arts while auto attacking. That will allow them to use them without these Auto-Attack/Spell Clashes that we're seeing, which is why those pets do not use their abilities as optimally as the mage pet. The mage pet does not melee normally, so it doesn't have to worry about that. But if you allow your mage pet to run in and melee, it will suffer the same issues (it will be swinging a weapon when it normally would be casting a spell, missing a cast).The reuse on the skill are fine. The pet has like 10 abilities when you factor in AAs. That is fine.The problem is that the fighter and Scout Pet are supposed to be getting more of their damage output (and agro generation for the fighter) from their auto-attack, but the auto-attack is clashing with the spells. So either it's missing spell casts, or it's missing weapons swings. The net result either way is a dramatic DPS loss - or in the case of the fighter, poor threat generation.No, the Scout does not cast it's abilities as much as it should. That's true. On the flip side, it definitely does not auto-attack as much as it should be, either. And since non-mage pets get most of their AAs boosting their auto-attack abilities (Weapon Damage, Auto-Attack Modifier, Flurry, Weapon Skills, etc.) this means the pet is performing woefully inoptimally.If they turned them back into combat arts and allowed them to cast while auto-attacking the scout pet would most likely best the mage pet on Single targets, but the mage pet would be much better on encounters. The fighter pet would most likely start out-agroing the mage pet, as well, and we'd be able to actually use it as a tank without dropping out solo damage output into the ground.This would only be imbalanced if they idiotically designed an entire tier of content with just single target or AoE encounters. If they put a healthy balance between the two, we'd all be happy with the choices we have <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /> ATM, there are no choices. Mage pet or bust, unless the surviveability of the Fighter pet is needed in which case make sure you don't fall asleep soloing that hard mob, some of them can take quite a while <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" />EDIT: Also, the Scout Pet buff needs to give a mage benefit outside of the decrease threat gen. SOE should know by now that most Conjurors prefer to go in a mage group. How about 3% SDA or something?

Banditman

05-31-2011, 10:22 AM

Changing the abilities from Spells to CA's would make absolutely no difference at all. Please refer to <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=499257" target="_blank">this thread</a> where a clear comparison was done.Basically, the AI for the Scout is just grossly broken. It had nothing to do with the pet moving or not moving.The addition of the "Scout Buff" to the pet was simply an attempt to fix it without actually addressing the root problem. A band aid over a broken arm just doesn't do much.

Trensharo

05-31-2011, 10:40 AM

I seen the thread. The issues aren't exclusive to scout pets. They are shared by all pets, even the mage pet. If the mage pet starts meleeing, it begins suffering from the same issue as the Scout and Fighter pet. Their spell priority goes to whack and they start missing casts. The Mage Fire Pet in EverQuest (which they made a ranged Wizard pet) had the same issue when it would run into melee range and stop casting/start missing casts.Changing the spells back to Combat Arts will allow the pet to cast them while moving, giving it more uptime on mobs that have to be moved. Everytime the pet casts a spell while the MOB is moving, it can miss a melee swing, lowering its damage output. Add up an entire instance run of it missing 1 hit (with 100% crit rate and a chance to Multi-Attack and Flurry, mind you) every third MOB and that's not a trivial amount of damage lost.Allowing the pet to cast it's CAs while Auto-Attacking will let it avoid clashes, so it will be able to cast its CAs the same way a ranged Mage pet (which is not meleeing) casts it's spells. They may have to lower the damage of some of the skills to compensate, but that would be a clear winner.That would allow the scout pet to do significantly more Damage Output with more uptime on MOBs that are moving (as well as get on a MOB faster, because some of those spells have ridiculously long ranges ... on a melee pet), and it would allow the fighter pet to generate a lot more threat and hold agro better.The idea to change the pet into some sort of cold nuker or something is a little laughable. We already have a mage pet. We don't need two.I'm pretty sure the above two changes would bring the Scout Pet in line if not above the Mage pet for Single Target damage output - easily.Pet AI is broken for all pets. The Mage pet just avoids it because it doesn't melee (normally), so the AutoAttack/Spell Cast class is totally avoided for it. It almost feels like the pet can't do anything while the auto-attack animation is "playing," as well...EQ2 isn't the first or only MMORPG to have this same issue <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Khiah

05-31-2011, 11:51 AM

Just wondering here and I am no caster by far tried it but just not me I guess. Anyhow, my thoughts were this when it comes to the mana pool etc your talking about. With the update of shared stats.. a tank pet would need str wich you dont have so cant share any with it, scout would need the agil which you also dont have to share with it. This being said theyre lacking the stats to have what they need to do their job? I can see how the scout pet would be a hard fix, they dont have anything a real scout would need to survive and would be hard for soe to fix but your tank pet seems to be one that they could work on easily. When Ive grped w a necro on my healer weve tried the tank pet for a tank it fails, he brings up his mage pet tho and it can hold the agro do the damage and I can heal thru it etc just seems a bit backwards. Since the primary player I group with is a necro I too would very much like to see this issue addressed for you all. (yes I know I should just do a shout for a real tank) just sayin I do hope they can address these pet issues for you soon.

Banditman

05-31-2011, 12:52 PM

The tank pet is fine. It does it's job. It gets damage bonuses based on our INT. The Scout also gets damage bonuses based on our INT. That piece is fine.The problem, AI epic fail aside, resides in all the other things a real Scout needs: Multi-Attack, DPS mod, Haste. Our Scout pet gets next to none of those things, particularly DPS mod and MA. He also doesn't have any sort of procs available to him.

Trensharo

05-31-2011, 08:24 PM

<cite>Banditman wrote:</cite><blockquote>The tank pet is fine. It does it's job. It gets damage bonuses based on our INT. The Scout also gets damage bonuses based on our INT. That piece is fine.The problem, AI epic fail aside, resides in all the other things a real Scout needs: Multi-Attack, DPS mod, Haste. Our Scout pet gets next to none of those things, particularly DPS mod and MA. He also doesn't have any sort of procs available to him.</blockquote>Ugh. Nevermind. Continue hoping. I'm sure you'll get your comprehensive Summoner AA Line and Scout Pet Revamp soon <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" />The tank pet is not fine. There's nothing fine about a Tank Pet that has worse Agro than the Scout pet (even with its terrible DPS) or Mage Pet - absolutely nothing.The only thing the tank pet has over the other pets is an HP/Mitigation advantage, all of which means absolutely nothing when the MOB is not targetting it.The Summoner and/or any group has to underperform substantially for that thing to actually tank anything. There's a reason why everyone soloes with a Mage pet from the first rank all the way up to 90 these days - unless they're soloing ^^^ heroic/epic mobs.

Banditman

06-01-2011, 09:55 AM

The tank pet is 100% fine. It doesn't replace a real player and it wasn't meant to. It was meant to do exactly what you said - mitigate damage and TANK. With EB, the chances of your pet gaining aggro over you is indeed quite remote. Even if it does, Perceptors Command *instantly* flips aggro back.There are few things that I am unable to solo with the tank pet. If you're having issues solo'ing with it, I would suspect you're doing something remarkably wrong.Incidentally, people only solo with the Mage pet now because Winds of Velious was re-vamped to become available earlier. Initially, WoV was available at L55+ . . . and people used Scout / Fighter at low levels. Even now, at lower levels and lower AA, the Scout and Fighter may still be more effective. Clearly, at level cap, this is not the case.

Trensharo

06-01-2011, 07:53 PM

1. The tank pet is fine. Summoners everywhere are complaining about how terrible it is at holding agro. The mage pet generates 500x the threat the tank pet does, there is no need for an agro flip. Just put defensive stance on it and tell it to attack, it will do its thing.2. I don't care what you can and can't solo by working around the tank's terrible threat generation. The fact and the matter is that the actual tank pet generates and holds threat worse than the Mage pet, and that's a clear imbalance that needs to be fixed.3. People using the mage pet to solo now has nothing to do with Winds of Velious. It has everything to do with Stat Sharing. The mage pet is beast mode now and the minute people start getting gear with blue stats on it it gets more and more powerful. People are using the mage pet to solo from the first level they get it, WAY before they have Winds of Velious. The fighter pet is only useful for soloing mobs that hit too hard for the mage pet to tank. Winds of Velious just makes it viable to solo named that hit hard with the mage pet if you have room to kite it. The reuse on Winds of Velious is so long (generally speaking) that it's impossible to use it as an excuse for players replacing the Mage pet with the tank pet almost entirely after they get the mage pet. AAs and Mythical [Buff] make the mage pet wildly superior to all other pets because it seems to get preferential treatment due to the fact that it does all of its damage via spells (unless you let it melee, in which case its DPS will go down to scout pet levels while it's doing that).The Scout pet is useless because it does half the DPS of the Mage pet and has barely any surviveability benefits.Scout is only usefull in some PvP situations. For PvE no one touches it.I'm a Necro so I don't have any issues soloing with Either pet. A tank pet should take Energy Clash, anyways, so bouncing the mob back is not a problem. However, we should not have to depend on Hard Swaps to keep the MOB on a tank pet. The Mage pet doesn't have this issue, aforementioned.Moving on...I went out and tested the mage pet, just to make sure. I was right. It has the SAME AI as hte Scout and Fighter pets. The only difference is that it's always on ranged and away from the MOB so it avoids the issue 99.999998% of time. If the mob run sup to the pet and the pet starts meleeing, it starts missing casts. Had a bunch of times where my pet melee'd for over 20 seconds without casting a spell. One time the pet actually died because I let it tank a MOB it could easily 4 shot because it started meleeing and never casted again, and the MOB was 1 nuke form being killed.Let the Scout Cast while meleeing and I'm pretty sure their skill usage will normalize, or at least almost get there. Their DPS will go up dramatically, as well.Asking for more multi-attack, attack speed, flurries, whatever won't happen without a revamp of a lot of AAs, or even full trees (i.e. in the summoner tab). It's best to ask for obvious incremental steps that are easier to implement than give them a huge list of revamps and expect anything out of them, IMO.

Banditman

06-02-2011, 11:48 AM

So post your results, please. If you have data showing the Scout pet using it's abilities as often as possible, I'm sure everyone would love to see it.

Cometar

06-02-2011, 03:17 PM

<cite>Trensharo@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>3. People using the mage pet to solo now has nothing to do with Winds of Velious. It has everything to do with Stat Sharing.</blockquote>This is incorrect. I have used my mage pet as my primary pet for soloing since about the middle DoF or so only switching to the tank for things that could not be kited. Just because this method has become more popular now due to pets increased damage, does not change the tactic that made it viable to begin with and that is still useful for this method.

Trensharo

06-03-2011, 12:06 AM

<cite>Banditman wrote:</cite><blockquote>So post your results, please. If you have data showing the Scout pet using it's abilities as often as possible, I'm sure everyone would love to see it.</blockquote>Why do you have to be an idiot with poor reading comprehension now?I never said that.I said all pets have the same issues. The scout, the mage, and the fighter.I said the mage pet only "seems" fine because it is kept at range (either on its own, or forcefully by the platyer when it attempts to run in or start meleeing (i.e. call servant away from the mob and it will be forced to start casting again)).I never once in any of my posts here stated the scout was using its abilities as often as possible.I stated there was a clash between the auto attack and the spell casts and offered a pretty brain-dead recommendation on how to fix it, which I'm suprised none of your number-crunchers mentioned.@ the above poster:People I'm sure used the scout pet to solo as well. It still does more damage than the tank on a single target and has more surviveability than the mage.The primary reason why 99.9% of summoners use the mage pet has nothing to do with WoV. Necros didn't start using the mage pet in the 20/30s because they suddenly got some unbreakable snare (they have none). They started doign it because of the mage pet sharing stats and becoming a beast to rock all mobs (especially if you can Expert/Master it the minute you get it).Mythical notwithstanding, there are two summoner classes, so we can see how changes affect the archetype as a whole without using class-defining abilities (Winds of Velious) as a crutch for our arguments <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Outside of soloing hard solo mobs/named/heroics, Winds of Velious is useless while leveling, anyways. It isn't even worth casting (P.S. I did betray to Conjy for about 25 levels while leveling up) otherwise...@ banditmanThe main issue I have with these threads is the way they frame the issue. "The Scout pet's AI is utterly broken!!!1!"It's not just the scout pet, it's all the pets.A heroic MOB does twice as much damage to me than to my tank pet, so when it cannot hold agro off of two DoTs that is a major issue. Like I said, the Mage pet has no issue keeping agro and the scout pet has better agro management due to the detaunt passive buff it has. The pet suffers from the same AI issues and doing what I suggested would probably double its hate generation. It would definitely out-threat the mage pet if they did that.Like I said, this isn't hte first time SOE miffed this up. The same issue existed with the Magician Fire Pet in EQ1 (which was Wizard class).

Banditman

06-03-2011, 09:51 AM

Ah, so the insults start flying. That will surely make your arguements more convincing.So, what you are saying is that NECROMANCERS have troubles? Somehow, that doesn't really seem like something to be discussed in a Conjuror forum. Maybe I'm just strange that way. If Necromancers have issues with their tank pet, perhaps you might like to discuss that with them. I can tell you that a Conjuror tank pet works just fine. I have no trouble going all out provided I do the precautionary things to assure proper aggro control from the beginning . . . BA, EU . . . heck, you can even Soulburn right at the start if you do it right.I will take up the challenge of demonstrating that the pets have different AI however. I'll have you some actual data, hopefully this weekend.

Banditman

06-03-2011, 08:50 PM

Feel free to try to explain how these three pets follow the same AI.This test was run in guild hall, solo. I put each pet in melee mode, so that they would auto attack any target in range. I then placed each pet directly next to an epic training dummy and told them to attack.Mage Pet - 6 minutes, 56 seconds in combat. (killed dummy)Fury of the Elements - 35 castsMinions Mark - 51 castsBlazing Conjuration - 19 castsScout Pet - 7 minutes, 24 seconds in combat. (took dummy to 63%)Fury of the Elements - 17 castsMinions Mark - 44 castsBlazing Conjuration - 15 castsFighter Pet - 6 minutes, 58 seconds in combat. (ran out of power)Fury of the Elements - 14 castsMinions Mark - 41 castsBlazing Conjuration - 14 castsSo, somehow, despite having "the same AI", the Scout pet used his available common abilities a total of 32 fewer times. You might try to write that off as an auto attack problem, however, strangely enough, despite being in range to auto attack the target, the Mage pet *never even swung* at the target!Feel free to run your own tests if you still feel that the AI for the pets is identical. I am more firmly convinced than ever that not only are the melee pets on a different AI, that AI is *not working properly*.

Trensharo

06-04-2011, 05:55 AM

The mage pet is coded to prefer spells over melee, even in melee mode. It's plainly obvious. But when it does melee it has the same issue. Yes, it does melee mobs on occasion, and you have to force it back out to start casting again.Also, AA skills have a very high priority. You have to examing how many times they cast their innate skills as well. Listing the 3 AA skills doesn't really tell me anything that I didn't know already.Also, the fighter and Tank pets in their respective stances have different attack speeds so the melee auto attack issue affects the scout pet much more than the fighter since it has at least 30% or so more haste than the fighter pet - which has more room in between auto-attacks to fit in spell casts (and they're all < half a second).If you haven't seen the mage pet melee to examine the issue, then perhaps you should go back to the training dummy and let it melee and see how it functions once it starts swinging its weapon. 3 minutes isn't enough, and when/if it goes in to melee is totally viable. If you're going to provide data, at least provide data that is usable.And no, I'm not wasting my time with this because it's not worth it in the grand scheme of things. They will never fix the AI issues in the pets and it's not hard to reroll when the lack of choice in which pet to use becomes an issue (i.e. the toon becomes too boring to me).

Banditman

06-06-2011, 12:30 PM

<cite>Trensharo@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>The mage pet is coded to prefer spells over melee, even in melee mode. It's plainly obvious. But when it does melee it has the same issue. Yes, it does melee mobs on occasion, and you have to force it back out to start casting again.LOL! So, now you've said two completely different things. First you try to say the pets have the same AI, then you say that they don't. Make up your mind. If the mage pet is "coded to prefer" spells over melee, doesn't that sort of indicate that perhaps it has a different AI? No need to answer, that was rhetorical.Also, AA skills have a very high priority. You have to examing how many times they cast their innate skills as well. Listing the 3 AA skills doesn't really tell me anything that I didn't know already.Actually it does. My purpose for running that particular test was to demonstrate that there was in fact a difference in the AI attached to each pet. I did that pretty much catagorically. Yes, the pets are supposed to prefer their AA abilities. The AA abilities have the same recast regardless of which pet is up. So, if the AI was identical, and the recasts were identical, preference was given to AI abilities, you would think that within some reason there would be some confluence of casts for those AA abilities. Inate abilities are incomparable since they are completely different for each pet. Besides, an exhaustive test of ALL pet abilities was done in another thread, and I didn't feel like retreading the same ground when the tests provided there was already accurate.Also, the fighter and Tank pets in their respective stances have different attack speeds so the melee auto attack issue affects the scout pet much more than the fighter since it has at least 30% or so more haste than the fighter pet - which has more room in between auto-attacks to fit in spell casts (and they're all < half a second).Are you sure you play a Summoner? You understand mechanics right? Auto attack does not delay spell casting. It's the other way around. Spell casting delays auto attack. Auto attack is instant. Incidentally, I didn't put the tank pet in defensive, I put all three pets in Offensive for these tests.If you haven't seen the mage pet melee to examine the issue, then perhaps you should go back to the training dummy and let it melee and see how it functions once it starts swinging its weapon. 3 minutes isn't enough, and when/if it goes in to melee is totally viable. If you're going to provide data, at least provide data that is usable.Did you not read! I did EXACTLY THAT! I put the Mage pet, in melee mode, in Offensive stance. I placed him DIRECTLY ON TOP of the training dummy. HE NEVER SWUNG AT IT! NOT ONE SINGLE TIME!And no, I'm not wasting my time with this because it's not worth it in the grand scheme of things. They will never fix the AI issues in the pets and it's not hard to reroll when the lack of choice in which pet to use becomes an issue (i.e. the toon becomes too boring to me).That doesn't surprise me.</blockquote>

Trensharo

06-06-2011, 12:36 PM

Nope the pet seems unable to do anything while the attack animation is running, even though the damage is instant.

Banditman

06-06-2011, 05:53 PM

So you're saying the Scout pet AI is ridiculously broken? Yes, I think I might have mentioned that.

Trensharo

06-12-2011, 11:01 PM

No. That's not a scout pet specific problem because they all do it. I ran some tests this weekend with the mage pet and it does the same thing. Even though the melee damage is instant, it is unable to cast spells until the entire animation is over, which adds a ton of time and results in factorably large DPS increases when it's allowed to melee.But I will try to get some parses in this week and see what the descrepency is in a group/raid situation.Even if they fix the scout pet AI. I noticed that while it has an innate AoE bubble it still gets plowed by AoE melee attacks and frontal attacks (riposte, etc.) if not positioned correctly. This is not much of an issue for Necros (Tainted Heals), but Conjurors may not like that - especially if its DPS is boosted to a level where min/maxers have no choice (using the term loosely) but to use it.Even on single target fights, it would have to significantly outperform the mage pet to make up for the increase in micromanagement and weaker Soulburns (because you have to use Offensive Stance with the scout, or it's going to be kind of terribad).The buff they added to it has no business on the pet with those melee bonuses, at this stage in the game when they know even casual raiders are trying to set up their groups in a rather sane manner. The stoneskin trigger is nice, though...Whatever, I'll try to get some data, if I don't get fussed at so much for naming my pets something different <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" />

Trensharo

06-13-2011, 01:46 AM

I ran an instance with a Scout Pet and I'm not sure if I just got better or what but my DPS did not drop dramatically.The pet seems to prioritize AA skills very high. But his innate spells, not so much. There were 30 second fights where all he used were AA skills and melee. He seemed to use them whenever they came up, though, but hardly anything else. Looking back at parses, even 50 second fights he used the AA skills on cooldown, and nothing else. Has anyone tried using the Scout in Ranged Mode and seeing if that changes everything (yes, that seems like an odd thing to suggest, but I'm curious).Hit DPS was the same whether I had him set to ranged or melee stance.It was between 12 and 16k DPS self-buffed (and not using stuff like consumption, etc. just letting him solo a heroic MOB). It never went above that.

Banditman

06-13-2011, 10:14 AM

<cite>Trensharo@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>No. That's not a scout pet specific problem because they all do it. I ran some tests this weekend with the mage pet and it does the same thing. Even though the melee damage is instant, it is unable to cast spells until the entire animation is over, which adds a ton of time and results in factorably large DPS increases when it's allowed to melee.</blockquote>No, they do NOT all do it! That's the point. The Mage pet *NEVER SWINGS A MELEE WEAPON*. You can park his *(& right on top the training dummy, /pet melee, /pet attack and you won't see ONE SINGLE MELEE SWING.If the AI was the same, you're right, you would expect to see similar things.

Trensharo

06-13-2011, 10:38 AM

<cite>Banditman wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Trensharo@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>No. That's not a scout pet specific problem because they all do it. I ran some tests this weekend with the mage pet and it does the same thing. Even though the melee damage is instant, it is unable to cast spells until the entire animation is over, which adds a ton of time and results in factorably large DPS increases when it's allowed to melee.</blockquote>No, they do NOT all do it! That's the point. The Mage pet *NEVER SWINGS A MELEE WEAPON*. You can park his *(& right on top the training dummy, /pet melee, /pet attack and you won't see ONE SINGLE MELEE SWING.If the AI was the same, you're right, you would expect to see similar things.</blockquote>Easy on the caps, buddy.Did I really have to do this to someone posting in a thread asking for numbers and stuff like that, who is apparently too lazy to leave his guild hall and see what the pet does on a real mob (a target dummy is useless for this porpose, by the way, because the bet behaves much differently when you're fighting real MOBs (which hit back, get in its face repeatedly forcing it to Kite, and that it's tanking (outside of a raid)).Unless "crush" is a spell can you just stop bloviating and get to the point?<img src="http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/2880/petmelee.png" width="1093" height="871" />It only takes 1 minute to leave your house (use portal painting, it's not difficult) and see that the pet melees. I don't care about your target dummy parses. The pet (obviously) behaves differently when MOBs are mobile, and especially when MOBs are ON IT.It's not hard to keep it from meleeing, so that's not really a big deal.And the scout pet will always be terrible as long as none of our stats don't boost it's other melee stats like Haste, Multi-Attack, Flurry, etc.At lower gear levels the Mage isn't so manumentally better than the scout. Scout parses self-buffed around 14-16k on single MOBs, and mage doesn't do substantially higher on encounters (the above is a 5 mob Heroic no arrow encounter, that's where there are so many Grim Feedback triggers). I'm in mostly x2/Ry'Gorr level gear. That's with the scout almost never using any of its innate abilities. If it did, it would probably demolish the mage pet for single target, up until you have obscene levels of potency, perhaps, but I don't think the Mage would ever catch up to it single target... It seems to hit factorably harder with the AA skills than the mage pet (60-70k vs 40-45k harder), as well, for some reason.Even if the scout outparsed the mage pet by 10k on single target fights, you'd probably lose that resummoning it in raids and casting support spells instead of DPS spells because it's surviveability in melee range with all these mobs that AoE Physical would be terribad. It dies in heroic dungeons without tainted heals or help from the healer on Encounter Pulls and Boss Fights. If the mage gets close you can just Call Servant and it will continue casting from range (and Necro's have a better AoE bubble so that isn't a big advantage on the scout for that class).EDIT: I forgot to mention that I only have Adept Rending and Offensive Stance (for obvious reasons - I don't solo with the tank/heroics/epics and never used the scout that much if at all). If they were mastered the scout would probably gain a bit more DPS from the DPS MOD and Attack Speed from Rending/Stance.

Trensharo

06-13-2011, 01:13 PM

Follow Up: I respeced my Scout pet and got everything except Minion Mark, Minion Soulstealing, and the SF Endline pet nuke. It started using the rest of its skills on every fight, but it's DPS remained unchanged because it's missing a Nox Debuff and those other two AA skills are the hardest hitting spells it has (like 60-70k damage hard solo buffed). The melee actually seemed not too terrible because like 75% of the swings either multi-attacked or flurried.I tested the mage pet on some Epic Mobs in SoH and it was doing 25k DPS by itself, I need to test the scout, but I think in a fight that logn the mage will probably be 10-15k DPS ahead of it.I don't know why it stops using its innate skills when you spec into the AA skills, though. That's kind of Odd especially when you consider the long cooldown on at least two of those...

Banditman

06-14-2011, 10:13 AM

So you managed to find one single encounter where a mage pet actually swung ONCE. And you still can't comprehend that there is a completely different AI attached to the mage versus scout?Amazing.

Trensharo

06-14-2011, 11:31 AM

<cite>Banditman wrote:</cite><blockquote>So you managed to find one single encounter where a mage pet actually swung ONCE. And you still can't comprehend that there is a completely different AI attached to the mage versus scout?Amazing.</blockquote>It's a 30 second no arrow heroic encounter, of course it only swung once. The fight was kind of long, but it was killing each mob one by one rather fast (DoTs, etc.) so it really didn't have time to swing more than once. It wasn't ONE mob with a lot of HP. I think I explained that.In any case, I think what's more amazing is that someone who thinks their a mechanics genious was obviously oblivious that the pet does behave this way, and spent several posts trying to tell me it didn't.The mage pet does this ALL THE TIME when I'm out doing dailies, BTW.And remember, you're the one who wrote this:No, they do NOT all do it! That's the point. The Mage pet *NEVER SWINGS A MELEE WEAPON*. You can park his *(& right on top the training dummy, /pet melee, /pet attack and you won't see ONE SINGLE MELEE SWING.Amazing.I'm done with you. Boy, you really love that training dummy <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" />I never doubted the Scout pet was broken. They made it a bard which pretty much tells me I should not expect it to outDPS the Warlock pet, anyways, but gave it a terrible buff. However, all of the pets share some of these issues, and they need to fix them across the board. These issues are embarassing to have in a game this old and with this much development put towards it, IMO.Maybe next expansion.

Banditman

06-14-2011, 09:13 PM

I can explain yours in one word: Riposte.Can you explain this?<img src="http://thetemplars.net/images/CombatLog.JPG" width="1441" height="656" />Pet was in melee mode, he was tanking the mobs. These are heroic mobs. He never swung ONCE. Not 30 seconds of combat mind you. This is 5 minutes of merged parses, the longest of which was a 60 second encounter with a white triple up.The Mage pet has a different AI which completely prevents him from swinging a melee weapon. YES. If he happens to parry something and subsequently riposte it, it will show up as a swing. This is why the training dummies are actually superior for this type of testing.

Trensharo

06-14-2011, 10:19 PM

<cite>Banditman wrote:</cite><blockquote>I can explain yours in one word: Riposte.Can you explain this?<img src="http://thetemplars.net/images/CombatLog.JPG" width="1441" height="656" />Pet was in melee mode, he was tanking the mobs. These are heroic mobs. He never swung ONCE. Not 30 seconds of combat mind you. This is 5 minutes of merged parses, the longest of which was a 60 second encounter with a white triple up.The Mage pet has a different AI which completely prevents him from swinging a melee weapon. YES. If he happens to parry something and subsequently riposte it, it will show up as a swing. This is why the training dummies are actually superior for this type of testing.</blockquote>I can't believe you're still arguing with me about this when I clearly showed you that the pet swung and hit a mob.Amazing.I clearly told you that when the pet does it is volatile (as in, it's unpredictable), but it DOES do it - contrary to what you say and as I have clearly pointed out (crushing outgoing damage in the parse of a mage pet).I also clearly stated that whether it melees or not is inconsequential. The data that is important is that when it does melee, it has the same skill queueing issues that the scout pet has. THAT is what I was trying to get around, but you're still bloviating about whether or not it melee (it does) to save face for abusing caps lock in your other post.You're wrong. Move on. Stop acting like an idiot. The mage pet has weak melee skills, it's possible it simply missed all of the melee swings it did take, see here taken < 1 minute ago:<img src="http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/2207/eq2000028n.jpg" width="1280" height="1024" />Parse incoming when the pet is done killing the dummy... 8min+ training dummy...<img src="http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/7931/dummyparse.png" width="1093" height="868" />You're STILL wrong... My pet was in ranged mode, as well.I'm done with you.P.S. My client lagged windowing out, so the parse split, in the 46 seconds split off on top of this parse, there were 2 more missed crushing swings from the pet on the training dummy. lol @ riposte, though. You're trying WAY too hard, buddy.

Banditman

06-15-2011, 10:07 AM

Or, perhaps there is a DIFFERENCE. Again, yes, I see the pet "can" swing, I confirmed this by taking control of the pet and simply hitting auto attack. However, the chance that in HOURS of testing my pet has missed EVERY SINGLE SWING are so beyond the scope of reality that I won't even consider it a possibility. Even if it did, ACT would show that as a "miss". I am not getting any misses!The point is that the AI is ridiculously broken. The AI is also DIFFERENT between the Scout and Mage pets. I've been saying this for months now. All you've managed to do so far is open up the possiblity that the Necro pet AI is different.Instead of calling people idiots perhaps you should try to think about "why" someone might be getting different results. I am clearly getting different results. Perhaps the fact that you are a Necro is the difference. I don't know. But my results are consistent - Fiery Magician does not auto attack. Period.It's really not important that he does. What is important is the distinction that Aery Hunter and Fiery Magician use different AI's. The FM AI is probably fine. I really wouldn't want my FM to try to auto attack in any circumstances. However, it simply highlights the differences between AH and FM.It was AH that this thread was initially about, and honestly still is. AH has a very different and very broken AI that needs to be looked at by a developer. AH isn't gaining any significant benefit from the stats that a Conjuror has available on his/her gear.All the talk about FM not auto attacking was simply a means to demonstrate that there is a significant AI difference between the two pets.

Trensharo

06-15-2011, 12:56 PM

<cite>Banditman wrote:</cite><blockquote>Or, perhaps there is a DIFFERENCE. Again, yes, I see the pet "can" swing, I confirmed this by taking control of the pet and simply hitting auto attack. However, the chance that in HOURS of testing my pet has missed EVERY SINGLE SWING are so beyond the scope of reality that I won't even consider it a possibility. Even if it did, ACT would show that as a "miss". I am not getting any misses!The point is that the AI is ridiculously broken. The AI is also DIFFERENT between the Scout and Mage pets. I've been saying this for months now. All you've managed to do so far is open up the possiblity that the Necro pet AI is different.Instead of calling people idiots perhaps you should try to think about "why" someone might be getting different results. I am clearly getting different results. Perhaps the fact that you are a Necro is the difference. I don't know. But my results are consistent - Fiery Magician does not auto attack. Period.It's really not important that he does. What is important is the distinction that Aery Hunter and Fiery Magician use different AI's. The FM AI is probably fine. I really wouldn't want my FM to try to auto attack in any circumstances. However, it simply highlights the differences between AH and FM.It was AH that this thread was initially about, and honestly still is. AH has a very different and very broken AI that needs to be looked at by a developer. AH isn't gaining any significant benefit from the stats that a Conjuror has available on his/her gear.All the talk about FM not auto attacking was simply a means to demonstrate that there is a significant AI difference between the two pets.</blockquote>I ran the parse 3x last night, the pet attacks.I betrayed to Conjuror for a while, and my mage pet melee'd. There is no AI difference between Conjuror and Mage pets. They are literally identical outside of the element of their skills and the fact that some of the Necro pet spells tap life and power. I don't cast and on my pet that makes it want to melee.The talk about the mage pet meleeing was to illustrate an issue that affects all pets.The scout pet needs a total revamp to bring it up to Mage pet-level DPS output (single target) because it's only doing about 50% or less of what the mage pet is doing. What I suggest might give it a 20% DPS increase (as in, 20% of what it's doing now), but until it's coded to use its skills on cooldown that's about all it will get.The pet also needs way more innate Haste and Multi-Attack. I think it's time they reviewed and made some changes to the Summoner and Summoner Class AA trees, IMO.But a lot of this stuff is obvious and was stated in the other thread you referred me to.The harsh language was because getting told you basically are blind and have no clue what you're talking about is a bit ridiculous, when you have seen it happen all the time.I don't have "issues" with my pet meleeing in raids because I always call Servant when I reposition myself, or when it think's it's okay to take a few steps here and there to prevent it <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />