Upcoming Pet Improvements

Taryth

Administrator
Staff member
We've all seen the horrors of trying to drag a poor pet along on a group or raid encounter. Almost invariably, especially if you are a ranger bird, your life is about 3.6 seconds long until the first AE or whirlwind, then you've transformed into something akin to the dead parrot in that Monty Python sketch.

No more!

In an upcoming patch, we will be greatly improving pet survivability. There were a few considerations taken into account:

1) Many pets don't live long in higher-end raid or group encounters due to mechanics like whirlwinds or massive AEs

2) We don't want people to start using pets as tanks because they can ignore or mitigate substantial amounts of damage

3) Some encounters are deliberately designed to have mechanics that kill or severely punish. "Oops, you didn't get out of line of sight, enjoy your 30k nuke."

To that end, this is what we've come up with:

1) Pets will, in general, ignore most "AE-style" mechanics. This includes spells and melee effects like whirlwind, etc.

2) If a pet becomes first or second on a given mob's hate list, those benefits vanish and the pet returns to its normal squishy-state against that mob. The survivability bonuses will kick back in once the pet drops down on the hate list.

3) Some mechanics are, as mentioned, designed to be punitive and WILL affect pets. This is up to the designer (or us if the designer is long-gone). They will be specifically coded to have these mechanics affect pets. For those familiar with the Fer`din "get out" mechanic, think of something like that as a good example.

4) We will probably need to do some tweaking of encounters based on these adjustments. Some encounters will just be different (for better or worse), so please be patient and understanding while these changes occur which will likely take place over weeks or months as we find them.

5) Swarm-type pets WILL NOT have this mitigation. They are designed to die quickly, and thus will function as they always have. This includes quick-summon pets (like Wake the Dead) as well as clickies like Crate of Pissed Gnomes.

6) WE ARE NOT CHANGING OTHER PET THINGS WITH THIS! Please don't tell us how necro pets need more mana, or mage pets should do more DPS. These are unrelated to the survivability fixes being made here and while they may be legitimate concerns or things that require attention, that is not the purpose of this change. The purpose of this change is to make groups/raids easier on pet classes and allow the proper contribution of a pet's DPS to classes that rely on it.

The changes will hopefully roll in during the next few patches. If anyone has any suggestions or concerns, this is a good time to bring them up, subject to #6 above please.
 
That sounds great!

Thank you for explaining how it works (fix item #2) so we can know how to utilize pets correctly.
 
As a ranger I thank you. Pretty great change. Will the fights intended to be punitive be mentioned or is it up to us to find out? I can kinda guess some considering the Fer`din fight, but just curious.
 
I think by and large it will be obvious (if you know the fights I guess). Future fights who can say. I think "hitting pets with AE" is likely something to be used sparingly.
 
Have you considered of using/installing the suspended minion AA mechanic that was available on live for most pet classes?
 
Yes. I would say it's likely to make it's way in (though not for sure). There are a few considerations that we want to hash out first, such as cooldowns, is it an AA, etc.
 
Very nice, for sure a needed change, thank you :)

... and the pet returns to its normal squishy-state ...
I don't recall pets always being as squishy as they are now, I may be wrong, but where they at some point in time balanced around Animation Blades?
How about removing Animation Blades from the game, and make pets less squishy in general?

Keep this change in regardless, even with generally less squishy pets, this change would most still be needed to raid with pets.
Sorry if this was to OT, just delete the post if it was.
 
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1) Pets will, in general, ignore most "AE-style" mechanics. This includes spells and melee effects like whirlwind, etc.

2) If a pet becomes first or second on a given mob's hate list, those benefits vanish

Just a heads up, Rampage doesn't care about who has the most aggro ect., it cares who was first added to the aggro list and is not #1 on aggro.
 
Very nice, for sure a needed change, thank you :)


I don't recall pets always being as squishy as they are now, I may be wrong, but where they at some point in time balanced around Animation Blades?
How about removing Animation Blades from the game, and make pets less squishy in general?

Keep this change in regardless, even with generally less squishy pets, this change would most still be needed to raid with pets.
Sorry if this was to OT, just delete the post if it was.
They used to be bugged and mitigated way too much damage, that was roughly halved (don't quote me on that) a couple of years ago. I also agree that Animation blades are way out of line, but others see them as cool flavor.
 
Thanks Tink, yeah I seemed to recall mage and necro pets tank kinda ok, where today they usually dont even out tank their master (atleast thats true for my 1400 ac necro heh)....

Hm, flavor, I guess heheh. Very strong flavor though.
But if any pet balancing is made because of those, well the blades are the one that needs balancing imo, not all potential pets.

Anyway, this is OT; the topic rocks, Animation blade or not, nerfed pets or not :)
 
+1.

I forget the first tribe in Turruj, but the first pull there, the low hp AE of the... Soldiers?... is so hard, even boxing a cleric, I couldn't keep my necro pet alive.
 
the Tar'loc soldier aoes hit everything within range regardless of being on aggro if i recall correctly
 
Oh yes, recall minion was tried.

The only thing you can do, is use that new AA before aggro, to store away the pet, and then bring it back when all soldiers in that wing is dealth with.

Or bring someone who clerics better than me, and pays attention to pets :p:rolleyes:
Or sit OOR, till all Soldiers are dead. But the way we pulled them out, I couldn't run far enough on the first pull, or I ran to slow, I forget. I just remember an other dead pet.
Tried recall minion and FD too.

This suggested change would ofcourse just flat out fix this problem, and many others like it; probably why the OP got 11 likes ;)
 
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Oh yes, recall minion was tried.

The only thing you can do, is use that new AA before aggro, to store away the pet, and then bring it back when all soldiers in that wing is dealth with.

Or bring someone who clerics better than me, and pays attention to pets :p:rolleyes:
Or sit OOR, till all Soldiers are dead. But the way we pulled them out, I couldn't run far enough on the first pull, or I ran to slow, I forget. I just remember an other dead pet.
Tried recall minion and FD too.

This suggested change would ofcourse just flat out fix this problem, and many others like it; probably why the OP got 11 likes ;)
Regarding these specific mobs, when I couldn't box a healer to heal my pets, I'd just park them at zoneline with pet hold, easy.
 
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