Swarm pets

[Faeward]

<p>Could we test some changes to swarm pets/dumbfire pets? Give them AOE immunity and we will test it and give you feedback.</p><p>At the moment they appear to be debuffs with a nifty visual effect (the illusion of pets swarming toward the target). But like debuffs can be easily 'cured'. Unlike debuffs they can also be damaged, and due to their very, very, very low amount of Health, they die very quickly, instantly in some cases. Perhaps this is also due to the fact that an enemy will always target the creature closest to them? Maybe it would be a good idea to increase their melee/spell range so that they don't get auto targeted?</p><p>I would like to see more suggestions and some reds posting in here please! I believe the majority of the player base have wanted a change to these for 2 or 3 years or maybe longer.</p>

[Hardain]

<p>AOE immunity alone won't help since the damage they deal is pathetic at best.</p>

[Daggster]

<p>I'm quite content with the dumbfire pets as they are. Let's me concentrate on my rotation with the soulburn/ET/Consumption here and there. Ofc I could adjust my rotation, if the dumbfire pets were worth casting, but I highly doubt any change that is going to be made will have any effect on dps on casting-dumbfire-pets vs not-casting-dumbfire-pets. The latter will probably always have as high or higher dps than the other one, at least looking at it from a necro POV <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/136dd33cba83140c7ce38db096d05aed.gif" border="0" /></p><p>I think all but one dumbfire pets could as well be removed from the spellbook, at least on necros. Just leave one that has as short or shorter reuse than bewilderment (sp?).</p>

[Banditman]

<p><cite>Inglip@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Perhaps this is also due to the fact that an enemy will always target the creature closest to them?</blockquote><p>That is not how mobs work at all.</p><p>Mobs will *always* target the entity that is highest on their hate list first and try to hit that enemy.  If that enemy is within range to strike, they will try to hit them.  If that enemy is not within range, the mob will attempt to get close to that entity in order to begin hitting it.  If the mob is rooted and unable to move at all, the mob will THEN start cycling through any target it has on it's hate list, looking for something close enough to hit.  If it finds something, it will try to hit it, if it finds nothing, it will just continue to cycle through everything on it's hate list until it can move, until it finds something it can hit, or until it dies.</p>

[Gaealiege]

<p>In DoV beta dumbfire pets like Acid Cloud were doing 15k damage.  So they were fixed damage wise, but not survivability wise.   SOE decided to revert this change and never gave any reason why.  There was an enormous post about it on the beta forums at the time.</p>

[Fitz]

Bump.

[feldon30]

<p><cite>Daggster wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I'm quite content with the dumbfire pets as they are. Let's me concentrate on my rotation with the soulburn/ET/Consumption here and there. Ofc I could adjust my rotation, if the dumbfire pets were worth casting, but I highly doubt any change that is going to be made will have any effect on dps on casting-dumbfire-pets vs not-casting-dumbfire-pets. The latter will probably always have as high or higher dps than the other one, at least looking at it from a necro POV <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/136dd33cba83140c7ce38db096d05aed.gif" border="0" /></p><p>I think all but one dumbfire pets could as well be removed from the spellbook, at least on necros. Just leave one that has as short or shorter reuse than bewilderment (sp?).</p></blockquote><p>The point of a conjuror is to summon elemental entities which aid in battle. It's sad to see that conjurors have been turned into wizards with a twin, basically an enchanter with a few stoneskins but lacking power regen. I'm not saying we have to go full Final Fantasy with summoning Ifrit, Leviathan, etc. (although I wouldn't complain too much, since that was my start in RPGs) but let's bring back some elementals.</p>

[Eugam]

<p>I that regard i would want to ask to change the wardens wolves into a single wolf with the damage of the whole pack. They stack anyway.</p>

[Fitz]

There are a few options: 1) Turn the swarm pets into a DOT or debuff; the former if summoners will be T1 in the long term, the latter if they will return to support. 2) Make them invulnerable or AOE immune with massive hp adjustments. 3) Allow limited pets to share stats of the summoner and/or damage rating of the caster's weapon and deal legitimate damage. Oh, and make Communion worth casting again! I used to love casting that thing in groups way back when, but then the temp earth pet received a positional taunt, and everything went downhill from there. I'll suggest again that a Communion temp buff would be cool. Allow the summoner to cast this buff and evoke an element; fire could be a damage proc, water a heal proc, etc. Anything to make that ability worth casting. It would be nice to have options in a spell rotation.