Why we need some dev love

[Elektra34]

Firstly, please no flaming here, I would like all conj's to be able to describe how they are currently finding playing conj without being attacked.

 

Ok, so I have now done several T7 raids since the launch of EoF last week. I was disappointed to see I have slipped out of the top 5 on the raid parse. This got me to thinking as to what might have changed. The pure casters in the raid actually seem to have improved in dps at the same time. Then I realised, the way the new cap increase is applied is totally unfair to summoners.

 

Lets say a wizard ahs 900 INT and I have 900 INT, similar gear and all masters, all sounds good so far, until you realise that 900 INT for a wizard is going to be much more useful to them than us. All of their spells will be affected by that INT whereas only the ones I cast myself will be affected. Now considering as a summoner our pet is our main source of DPS that leaves us at a huge disadvantage. We have no way to increase our pets INT cap or any other of its stats. Its like our pets are stuck in some pre EOF time warp where their stats never change and never can be changed.

 

My first suggestion would be to make the aggresive stance back where it was before we suffered our huge nerf earlier this year, that would be a start as it would raise its INT to a more acceptable level. Then maybe look at ways we could actually use aa's that would be useful to buy stat buffs and mitigation for our pets.

 

This is no way intended as a whine about how my DPS has been nerfed, although after the big nerf we suffered earlier this year and now these cap changes, I do feel summoner has become a totally unbalanced and underpowered class.

 

I would appreciate feedback from other conj's on their experiences so far.

 

 

[Banditman]

Any buffs that affect your group affect your pet . . . use possess minion to see this in action.Even before you get well geared, your pet should only be accounting for about 65% of your DPS, and as your gear improves that falls off to about 50%.I'm not saying we don't need some tweaks, we do, but they are really just that . . . tweaks.

[Elektra34]

I agree that group buffs affect pets. I do have very good gear too, its all t7 fabled and all master spells.

 

But if, even as you say the pet is only 50% of our DPS thats still 50% unaffected by the cap increase and can never be affected, unlike a wizard or warlock who have 100% of their dps affected.

 

 

[Dextera]

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Elektra34 wrote:

Firstly, please no flaming here, I would like all conj's to be able to describe how they are currently finding playing conj without being attacked.

 

Ok, so I have now done several T7 raids since the launch of EoF last week. I was disappointed to see I have slipped out of the top 5 on the raid parse. This got me to thinking as to what might have changed. The pure casters in the raid actually seem to have improved in dps at the same time. Then I realised, the way the new cap increase is applied is totally unfair to summoners.

 

Lets say a wizard ahs 900 INT and I have 900 INT, similar gear and all masters, all sounds good so far, until you realise that 900 INT for a wizard is going to be much more useful to them than us. All of their spells will be affected by that INT whereas only the ones I cast myself will be affected. Now considering as a summoner our pet is our main source of DPS that leaves us at a huge disadvantage. We have no way to increase our pets INT cap or any other of its stats. Its like our pets are stuck in some pre EOF time warp where their stats never change and never can be changed.

 

My first suggestion would be to make the aggresive stance back where it was before we suffered our huge nerf earlier this year, that would be a start as it would raise its INT to a more acceptable level. Then maybe look at ways we could actually use aa's that would be useful to buy stat buffs and mitigation for our pets.

 

This is no way intended as a whine about how my DPS has been nerfed, although after the big nerf we suffered earlier this year and now these cap changes, I do feel summoner has become a totally unbalanced and underpowered class.

 

I would appreciate feedback from other conj's on their experiences so far.

 

 

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Being a Wizard, just figured I'd throw my thoughts in. While you are correct in the assumption that INT increases do indeed provide more benefit to other mages, rather than you, there is a flaw in the amount of benefit that this actually provides. With the cap increase, there is also the diminishing returns curve, meanin that the closer to the cap you become, the less each point of gained intelligence will help. Therefore, the amount of increased DPS from just the mere fact of increased intelligence is almost neglible.

[Traxor789]

    With other class's buffs being upgraded as well , adding to my dps.I have found my dps to only have went up rather then down , and I can still lead parses.

[AndyI]

My guild didnt try the old T7 raids since EoF release (apart from the contested), so I can only speak of the new raid zones and cant say I'm doing less dps than before. I even manage to do a bit more having the Sol Ro cloak and the blessings/miracles.

[Elektra34]

Ok, my guild has now done several T7 raids and a T6 one, on all of them my DPS has definitely gone down since just over a week ago.If other people aren't noticing any differences I'm not sure as to why this might be.

I still feel that we need to be put back where we were before the severe nerf we had a few months ago in which all our spells were practically halved in dmg and scout pet was made worthless for raiding. The main thing I feel needs looking at is that we can't increase our pets stats or mitigation apart from any buffs that a group member might have.

I dont't want to be a wizard/warlock with a pet but I do expect as a tier 2 DPS to be in the top 5 of a raid parse.

 

[Banditman]

You're one of those "glass is half empty" guys aren't you?I certainly don't remember my damage being halved at any point in the past six months.  I think I would notice something like that.I just raided Lab last night for the first time since EoF.  Let me compare it to the last six months and see what is what.

[Elektra34]

One of the major updates in July I think did indeed halve many of our spells dmg. There was a comparison done at the time and also scout pet was nerfed severely.

 

I'm really not trying to be too pessimistic but with SOE's history its not easy, their so-called rebalances are nothing of the sort. We've gone from being godly to the vagrant of the caster world in a matter of months

 

Btw is that glass only half full

[laedyana]

Finally others are starting to get it too....

 

I've been saying this for over a year and this is one of the most important issues needing tweaking to help conjurers scale better.

 

Since half our dps comes from our pet, and there's down time associated with pet's regening (mainly a solo issue, not a raid one), then it's important that gear upgrades and stat food/drink affect both pet dps and pet health/mana regen. 

 

Otherwise there's only half as much incentive for a conj to have good gear or consume food/drink than it is for a wizzy or any other dps class for that matter..

 

I already have master 1 of plane shifft, pet dps buff, and master 1 conjurer pet and maxed out the summoner AA tree. 

 

That means no matter what I do, outside some mediocre conjurer tree AAs (got 10/50 of those now). I can't improve that half of my dps that's tied to the pet.

 

Any gear upgrades I get now only impact my DOTS which work ok in raids (but account for half my dps), but in a good exp group say grouped with tank, healer, asssasin, swash, wizzy - grinding out instances I don't have time to even cast all my dots before the mob dies. So in the exp group situation int is only really affecting 1/4 of my dps.

 

BTW - EQ1 had this issue too (but not so bad).

 

When mages first got their pets in EQ1 - they were over powered, but as they progressed in level, their pets stayed stagnant, and compared to other classes at the high end of the game (200+AAs), mages became relatively underpowered compared to wizzies.

 

EQ2 makes this tons better by making the pet scale with level, and this is a huge step forward.

 

but. gear needs to also impact pet dps somewhat - otherwise at the high end when wizzies are max INT they will significantly outperform conjurers - unless conjurers are tuned differently than they currently are - and if that happened it becomes unfair to wizzies that conjurers don't need to work on INT and wizzies do.

 

my suggestion.

 

in addition to master 1 vs of a mage pet having a higher +INT than a comparable app or adept level, a % of the casters int should also flow through to the pet and correspondinly affect its dps.

 

also, when a caster consumes food/drink, that should also affect the pet in some way (even if pet consumed food/water from casters pool).

[Loral]

Having my hate split in two, having 2 mana pools (one that I can fully refill by recasting the pet), having a choice of pet/stance to use to adapt to any situation is TOTALLY worth not having the "INT bonus for my pet" for me.

 

Currently, I am still in the top 5 DPS of my Guild constantly. The only thing that changed since EoF is that Swashbucklers seems to have an easier time beiing in the top with me than before. That will probably change once more and more casters get their "lower resist rate of spells" Achivements.

I very very rarely use food or drink, since I have sufficient ways to replendish my power pool by myself.

I don't feel I need any help at all.

[Elektra34]

I have to take issue with your statement you have a pet to adapt to any situation. The sad fact of the matter is for a raiding conj there is NO choice of what pet to use, Fire pet is the only realistic option. Believe me, I have tried to use scout pet and even went down the scout pet aa line for that reason. But the plain fact of the matter is it was nowhere near as good as fire pet even then.

 

Yes, you can split your hate between 2 but if your DPS is mediocre at best then I doubt hate would be an issue anyway, especially as you are probably getting hate reduction from a troubadour also. You say you are still in the top 5 DPS of your guild but just wait until the pure casters start to pull away from you as they get more and more decent gear that directly affects their stats and therefore their DPS and can never affect half of DPS as our pet stats can never be changed.

I have played conj for 2 years now so I have some experience with the class, I have all fabled gear, all masters and I cast my heart out when we are fighting , yet I am now struggling to keep up with classes I once out performed.

I did consider that maybe I suck at conj but all the summoners in my guild are finding they have the same problem now.

[JohnDoe058]

Yeah, I decided to come over here and troll.  I'll get flamed really good for this one, but here goes....

 

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Traxor789 wrote:
    With other class's buffs being upgraded as well , adding to my dps.

I have found my dps to only have went up rather then down , and I can still lead parses.

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To me, this is enough proof that your class is overpowered, and needs no help at all. 

 

I play a 70 zerker, 70 bruiser, 70 wiz AND a 67 conj, all of whom i've raided with numerous times.  I can tell you that conj DPS is easy/lazy, requires no talent other than button mashing, and uses less power and generates less aggro, than that of most classes.  And yeah, i beat out all the other summoners when i raid, so don't tell me that I don't know how to play it.

 

So...give me ONE good reason why you should receive even MORE help in making DPS-only classes such as Assassin, Ranger, Warlock, and Wizard, look like a bunch of clowns and hobos.

 

Seriously, conjurors (and necros) do TOO MUCH damage, to also justify their utility, lack of power issues, and reduced aggro issues.  So just let the other DPS classes have a bone already.  Stop asking for Dev time that you don't need, and don't deserve.

[Menthus]

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Crack Junkie wrote:

Yeah, I decided to come over here and troll.  I'll get flamed really good for this one, but here goes....

 

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Traxor789 wrote:
    With other class's buffs being upgraded as well , adding to my dps.

I have found my dps to only have went up rather then down , and I can still lead parses.

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To me, this is enough proof that your class is overpowered, and needs no help at all. 

 

Okay, pal.

 

I play a 70 zerker, 70 bruiser, 70 wiz AND a 67 conj, all of whom i've raided with numerous times.  I can tell you that conj DPS is easy/lazy, requires no talent other than button mashing, and uses less power and generates less aggro, than that of most classes.  And yeah, i beat out all the other summoners when i raid, so don't tell me that I don't know how to play it.

 

I guess you're not using the Stamina line on your Berserker if you think Conjurors are the most overpowered. And where exactly are you raiding with a level 67 Conjuror? It doesn't matter, I can tell you haven't actually raided from the clueless crap you say like "omg all Conjurors do is mash buttons" when they have to work harder for their DPS than any other class, except maybe Rangers.

 

So...give me ONE good reason why you should receive even MORE help in making DPS-only classes such as Assassin, Ranger, Warlock, and Wizard, look like a bunch of clowns and hobos.

 

Rangers blow, so there's really no point in mentioning them, sorry. Any decent Assassin will beat Summoners on the parse in most zones except places like Lyceum. And a decent Sorcerer (well, Wizard at least) will do around the same damage as a Summoner.

 

Seriously, conjurors (and necros) do TOO MUCH damage, to also justify their utility, lack of power issues, and reduced aggro issues.  So just let the other DPS classes have a bone already.  Stop asking for Dev time that you don't need, and don't deserve.

 

I'd love for you to tell me this amazing utility we get to make us below Assassins and Wizards in damage output. I do agree that this topic is dumb and that Summoners don't need any Dev love, though.

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[Dextera]

/agree Crack Junkie

[JohnDoe058]

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Menthus wrote:

 

I guess you're not using the Stamina line on your Berserker if you think Conjurors are the most overpowered.

 

I agree that zerkers are more overpowered (or were pre-EoF, dunno about now).

 

And where exactly are you raiding with a level 67 Conjuror? It doesn't matter, I can tell you haven't actually raided from the clueless crap you say like "omg all Conjurors do is mash buttons" when they have to work harder for their DPS than any other class, except maybe Rangers.

 

I knew that comment wouldn't be appreciated, and it isn't true anyway.  But it sure felt good to say  .

I'm able to put up good DPS on my conj (T6 raid zones) without sweating on aggro and power...but the cast sequence is still rather important.

 

I do agree that this topic is dumb and that Summoners don't need any Dev love, though.

Thou hast said.

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[Loral]

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Elektra34 wrote:

I have to take issue with your statement you have a pet to adapt to any situation. The sad fact of the matter is for a raiding conj there is NO choice of what pet to use, Fire pet is the only realistic option. Believe me, I have tried to use scout pet and even went down the scout pet aa line for that reason. But the plain fact of the matter is it was nowhere near as good as fire pet even then.

No issue there. Firepet when raiding, I totally agree. Problem is, the game is not solely about raiding, and the non-raiding Conjurors out there play the same class. Even I often tanked for groups when no fighters were available. I doubt a wizard could claim the same with the same level of effectiveness.  

Yes, you can split your hate between 2 but if your DPS is mediocre at best then I doubt hate would be an issue anyway, especially as you are probably getting hate reduction from a troubadour also. You say you are still in the top 5 DPS of your guild but just wait until the pure casters start to pull away from you as they get more and more decent gear that directly affects their stats and therefore their DPS and can never affect half of DPS as our pet stats can never be changed.

I do not consider my DPS as mediocre, but let's look at a very specific scenario we all encounter multiple times daily: pet dying. Quite often when that happens, aggro immediately shifts to the Conjuror. Does that mean I generated enough DPS to steal aggro while the wizard did not? Bonus point for split hate. My guild only has 1 raiding troubador, and his attendance level is sparse, so more or less an option in my paticular case.

Also, with the diminishing return curve for a high stat score, I doubt the bonus will be enough for the sorcerers to cover the remaining ground between us. And, even if it does, I will still keep my own advantages stated in my other post.

I have played conj for 2 years now so I have some experience with the class, I have all fabled gear, all masters and I cast my heart out when we are fighting , yet I am now struggling to keep up with classes I once out performed.

I did consider that maybe I suck at conj but all the summoners in my guild are finding they have the same problem now.

If you managed top parses, and are fully fabled, with 2 years of experience, I doubt you would suck. I can even venture to guess you are a knowledgable Conjuror.

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You bring in very valid points, but I would wait until the situation truly happens before crying wolf. We don't know just how "curved" the return curve is on the INT bonus, neither how will all the EoF achivements will affect spellcasters. If it all stacks, the Firepet will gain bonuses from Unabate, Enhance:Fire and Uproar(KoS). Next to unresistable?. Just how effective it can be translated into? No clue. Just how added effectiveness will our new casting speed be once we fill out the Evocation line? Maybe the pet will only be 35% of our DPS then... Again, only time will tell.

And, as I said, mileage will vary. Maybe I just have extremely lazy (or over-careful) sorcerers with me, giving me a false impression of beiing on the top.

Also, keep in mind that, technically, Sorcerers are supposed to out-DPS us, given the (althou debatable) "utility level" each class has. *cough*. That thou has a huge door open to interpretation as to what is really utility and what is not...

[Squall Leonhea]

First the thing that our int should affect pet has a big flaw. What about our melee pets? I run around with less than 100 str , pets have solo 240+ so that would be a downgrade.Second Conji is fine as it is. We got some "nerfs" in the past but that was ok, we are still top dps, one of the best solo classes and have nice specials like manashards, coh... So before we were overpowered.And with EoF we get some nice things to improve pet dps: bubble, unabate...What would be nice is an achievement to increase int bonus and add str to the offensive buff but the way it is is also ok, lot if nice things.And how is conji easy/lazy dps? We have a lot of fast casting spells (at least for mages), you always have to watch your pet and joust or it will die in an AE...

[Thmy]

we need BPS added to the parsers  ( buttons-pushed  per Sec) _ my hand is very sore after a deathtoll raid,

OUR guild is looking very hard at who is doing DPS and who looks like thay are slacking.

and just looking at DPS doesn't tell the full story   SO NOW I  ::

 

I no longer debuff using hex dolls - it lowers my dps

I no longer put a fire shield on main tank - i put on the fire pet - that 5 damage  goes to ME

if the fire seed buff make other look good - DON"T use it.

never save Stoneskin for times when things go bad - use it and run in and fire off a out of combat aoe.

The object now is not how fast you clear the instance - it is GETTING to go in the first place.

 

 

[Feodore]

armor for pets would be a good solution

Message Edited by Feodore on 11-24-2006 03:49 AM

[Squall Leonhea]

hmm just had an idea for armor.Using our gear brings too much problems, we have to pay double, others get angry when we want to use good items for the pet...So pet specific gear would be an option. a handcraftet version, a mastercraftet and maybe a raid version. They are like adornments, give stats, hp/power, resis, maybe a proc on the weaponslot...And since every class can now have a pet, everyone can get them.

[Rizga]

Summoning stuff to give to our pets is a good idea and makes since (we are conjurors ftr). I do not care to top the parse though I do enjoy high dps out put. We are not wizzy's assassins and what not. Its not a big deal to me that they can out DPS me though that has not been the case in the past. IMO a wizard should be the top DPS and if that is what I wanted I would have rolled one on launch day. I instead choose the class I loved in eq2 a mage aka conjuror. Why did I love it you may ask? (specially you dps junkies out there who only rolled a conj after you found out that we could do high amounts of damage) We were just fun to play back then and we were wanted for our utility skills not our dps though that was not shabby just not the highest in the game. We could summon useful things and that made sense for a sommoner. Now what do we got a CoH great but 8 min recast is way to long if there was an in combat version it would make sense but just to get people to me I don't get it. We also get a manna shard not to shabby but why does the necro get the same thing? As for the water pet being an AA that silly. As a master of the elements my control over water and its creatures should be natural not an alternate advancement. If the devs need to give us attention it is not for DPS it should be a make over on what we are all about to begin with. All you DPS junkies please feel free to bash me at will I don't mind again remember I did not role to class for DPS and my life does not revolve around it.
Mori

 

[Elektra34]

I like the idea of adornments for our pets to boost certain stats very much, or perhaps as suggested as we are summoners we can summon items to temporarily aid our pets or party. No I don't mean mana shards

I definitely didn't roll summoner thinking it would be top DPS, as i said I made my toon 2 years ago and we were pretty average back then. I rolled a conj because I loved pet classes in other games, i like that bond you have with a pet lol (yes I know that sounds funny). I do think that our 'utility' is somewhat over-rated and certainly not a good enough reason as to why our DPS should never be high. Both wizards and warlocks have utility spells themselves, especially with the new portals.

I don't agree that conj is lazy DPS (surprisingly ). Anyone who has ever played a raiding conj knows that especially at T7 you have to have your wits about you at all times. Not only are you casting spells on the mob yourself, but as many of the mobs cast one shot aoe's, you have to take alot more control of the pet to keep it out of harms way. It's certainly not a case of sending the pet in and standing back to watch. Do wizards have to control themselves and another individual all at once, I don't think so. This in itself actually makes conj more complicated than your average caster.

You may not think so but I do enjoy playing conj very much, or at least I did until recent changes, in 2 years I've seen us nerfed in numerous ways but I think we are a resourceful bunch and thats why we draw such envy from certain other classes, we have to remember that our biggest nerf's came about thanks to sorcerers constantly whining about us

[Dextera]

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Elektra34 wrote:

I like the idea of adornments for our pets to boost certain stats very much, or perhaps as suggested as we are summoners we can summon items to temporarily aid our pets or party. No I don't mean mana shards

I definitely didn't roll summoner thinking it would be top DPS, as i said I made my toon 2 years ago and we were pretty average back then. I rolled a conj because I loved pet classes in other games, i like that bond you have with a pet lol (yes I know that sounds funny). I do think that our 'utility' is somewhat over-rated and certainly not a good enough reason as to why our DPS should never be high. Both wizards and warlocks have utility spells themselves, especially with the new portals.

I don't agree that conj is lazy DPS (surprisingly ). Anyone who has ever played a raiding conj knows that especially at T7 you have to have your wits about you at all times. Not only are you casting spells on the mob yourself, but as many of the mobs cast one shot aoe's, you have to take alot more control of the pet to keep it out of harms way. It's certainly not a case of sending the pet in and standing back to watch. Do wizards have to control themselves and another individual all at once, I don't think so. This in itself actually makes conj more complicated than your average caster.

You may not think so but I do enjoy playing conj very much, or at least I did until recent changes, in 2 years I've seen us nerfed in numerous ways but I think we are a resourceful bunch and thats why we draw such envy from certain other classes, we have to remember that our biggest nerf's came about thanks to sorcerers constantly whining about us

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Actually, balancing occurs when a class is overpowered, not from people "constantly whining."

[Crim001]

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Everglow wrote:

Actually, balancing occurs when a class is overpowered, not from people "constantly whining."

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You sure about that?

[pubear]

got to admit i just about choked from laughter when i read that my class was lazy dps.  I am on the exchange server, the place where anybody with a credit card can just buy a fabled out necro.  Funny thing is that I haven't seen anybody buy a fabled out conjuror, but that's something different.  They do it because they think its easy to play a summoner in a raid and get top dps.  hahahahahahaha.  They usually last maybe a few minutes before they bring out the tank pet and abandon all hope at meaningful dps.  They never raid with that toon again.  Had a person do it the other day, brought the toon in for a item and since it was only labs, they let him stay in with it.  After having his pet die a couple of times the first fight and not parsing, he managed to parse about 580 the next one and generally did not do very good.  The next fight he was back on his main and i've never seen the toon in a raid again.

[Loral]

You have to play one to the fullest to appreciate the nuance and subtilities to manage a high DPS score. The difference in playstyle from the other caster classes is also very notable.

For fun, I played a friend's low 40s wizard recently, and marveled at the ungodly amounts of damage each of the spells did. Yet, I discovered a wizard really didn't have the same casting methods a Conjuror has to prevent aggro-stealing. A crit at the wrong time on a big nuke, and no more finger-wiggling bathrobe-wearing halfling.

[Braw]

Conjurers are number 1 in most parses and you are asking for dps boosts?

 

Wow........just...wow

 

Oh, and every dps class needs to work hard for his dps, not just conjurers.

 

Press "pet back" is a thousand times easier than judging if your 4k nuke is going to over aggro or not.

Message Edited by Brawly on 11-24-2006 10:13 PM

[DobyMT]

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Brawly wrote:

Conjurers are number 1 in most parses and you are asking for dps boosts?

 

Wow........just...wow

 

Oh, and every dps class needs to work hard for his dps, not just conjurers.

 

Press "pet back" is a thousand times easier than judging if your 4k nuke is going to over aggro or not.

Message Edited by Brawly on 11-24-2006 10:13 PM

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hahahahahah

[Daeloq]

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DobyMT wrote:

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Brawly wrote:

Conjurers are number 1 in most parses and you are asking for dps boosts?

 

Wow........just...wow

 

Oh, and every dps class needs to work hard for his dps, not just conjurers.

 

Press "pet back" is a thousand times easier than judging if your 4k nuke is going to over aggro or not.

Message Edited by Brawly on 11-24-2006 10:13 PM

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hahahahahah

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QFE