lol mine too, if so and pets have always been broken, then all the nerfs on them since the bug happened would pretty much be pointless after the bug that made them better than they apparently should have been was fixed. Heal nerf, apparently runeguard nerf (from what I heard, but I was away if this did happen), seems like there was a reduction in hps too, but I'm not certain.
Most of the complaints on necro ones being worse I always figured was by people who wanted mages who dotted and lifetapped instead of nuking. Which would be pretty massively unbalanced. I'd also go so far as to say that necros are far better at soloing than mages at a base level of where things were before last night, seeing as I've seen necros take mobs that would wipe the earth or airpet hands and then me down with snares, etc.
Really pets max out in their feasibly attainable effectiveness pretty early after you reach the raidgame. The extent of the upgrades available for pets are
1) Focus items, CPS & CPH (droppable easily buyable IV and V respectively, after those not a whole lot except that which drops off of raidmobs, and even then there's very few)
2) Ancient burnout blaze (as most ancient mobs are easily 1grouped I dont see many mages remaining without this long.)
3) Better pets: After the 63 pets, only upgrade is the relic pet. As relics are not exactly easy to obtain, and mages/necros are among the last classes that will get relics in most guilds due to most classes having far more beneficial relics this will be a veerrrry long time in coming for most people.
4) Pet armor? As it poofs not really worth the investment at all. I've also never seen it make a difference.
5) Bop & Sop: Useful, 2 hour recast, though I've seen very limited amounts of difference from popping these on pet anyways, the daggers are just about as good, and have no recast + no reagent needed.
6) Pet affecting aa's. These are pretty much limited as the only ones that are supposed to really have an effect are the lines of Fury of magic (pet crits procs occasionally) Unerring precision (pet hits more often) and Lightning reflexes (better avoidance for pet) once you have elemental mastery of course. These are easily maxed by 100ish aa's and as they provide quite a bit more benefit than most aa's are generally gotten pretty quick I'd think.
They also don't gain hps from buffs, which are pretty significant in terms of tanking.
Soloing really always seemed the reason to pick a mage or necro over other intcaster classes. With this in effect I really don't see how there's any reason to pick one at all. True we get summons. The most requested of which being searfire, dots, and rods. Mostly in that order. However a mage summonbot can easily do this before a group sets out, and not take up a group slot with the exception of rods. Oh we're forgetting damage sheild. Relic Ds goes around 45/hit w/out any help from the ds rings, worn effects, bardsongs etc. It also adds fire resists which are pretty nice granted...in specific situations. Now I'm mostly unfamiliar with how much damage the druid relic ds puts out. Though I do recall there isnt a huge difference. Druid ds also adds ac iirc. With this in mind I would think the extra ac owns the extra bit of fire resist in most situations. The pet procs seem to be the other benefit to being a mage.
Airpet => stun
Earthpet => root
Firepet=> DD
Waterpet=> max 25% slow
In that particular area the earthpet in groups is mostly useless from what I've seen. Sure it has more hps, but it does the worst dps, and the rootproc is a pain for anything other than soloing. I'd go so far as to say it's the pet that I see the least out of all of them. Firepet I've seen quite a bit, but being as the other pets no longer hold up very well soloing, I highly doubt the firepet who has the least hps is going to be very useful any more at all outside of groups. Airpet seems the best overall because of the free stun. Verrry handy against casting mobs, but all in all just a slight perk. While waterpet procs can just as easily be matched by a fairly easy to get clickyrobe. Lets not forget rampaging mobs either, where pets (even the relic, as tinkaa mentioned) are pretty useless, being a drain on healer mana, and not holding up very well at all in the first place, on most rampaging mobs that I've seen in grouping areas people just sit their pets back anyways. With all that said I fail to see any reason why anyone would pick a mage over any other dps or hybrid class capable of decent dps(wiz, rogue, monk, pally, sk, necro=>less pet reliant for reasons stated above, druid, shaman) for a group whatsoever. Not trying to be inflammatory or seem whiny here, but I see far more benefits for choosing any of these in a group (at an equivalent level of gear, equipment and aa's) than a mage as it stands at the moment.
Being that I wouldnt like to be relegated to having a substantial amount of my mana spent healing my pet (as if I wanted to heal + do dps I would have played a druid or shaman.) something other than just healing recast reduction seems to be warranted.
To summarize mages are for:
DPS=> at the moment other classes seem far superior in this regard
Summons=> easily accomplishable by bot.
DS=> pwned by druid ds except in very specific situations
Pet=> procs (1 annoying never used, 1 useful if you can keep it up, 1 very useful, 1 easily accomplished by clicky and worthless in groups with a slower already present, 1 relic very useful upgrade of airpet it seems), offtanking (pretty rofl as an idea now on most xp mobs), extra dps (mostly on nonrampaging mobs) provided one can keep it alive.
Did get a little off topic at some points in this, though I am just trying to point out exactly how important pets are to mages, I would point out how important they are for other classes such as beastlords, who heavily rely on their pet as well, but seeing as I've never extensively played one, I'd have little to say.
nah you express yourself just fine tink
and a hell of alot better alot of people I've seen post on the forums even in a tired state lol.
