Pets nerfed??

[Umbrello]

Well Ive been out of the game for awhile, and I came back about a month or so ago...Now Ive decided to play a necro again(my favorite class)...

So I'm 31 now, and I'm noticing that my 29 pet is CONSTANTLY wiffing...I mean he lands maybe 30-40% of all swings on his target, which is higher level than him...but I NEVER remember anything like this. It definately seems like theyve nerfed our pet's chances to hit higher lvl mobs. He's almost not worth the exp he steals from me! :angry:

Anyone else noticed this, or have an answer as to what the deal is? I asked a necro friend of mine and he said "it happened a few patches ago". What is it? Did they announce a nerf to pets, or did it just start happening, any info would be appreciated.

[Emperson]

well this is my first necro, so I dont really have much to compare it with... but it does definetly seem like my pets bairly hit anything... but as i said, this is my first necro so i wouldnt know if it was nerfed

[nocto]

Couldn't really tag an exact date when this has happened but it did. Pets are nowhere near on the ball as they used to be some time ago.
There was a time when the dps from a pet would make most melees blush, but I think some subtle 'balancing' has been done.
Anyways, not complaining, just making an observation.

Noc

[Umbrello]

Son of a...

I mean i remember when pets used to be able to actually beat a warrior of similar lvl, but that was a longggggg time ago. Pre-expansion pack era if you get my drift.

Then they nerfed them, nerfed them again, and now they seem almost worthless to me in some cases....

They miss far more than they land hits, i mean they dont even land for minimal damage, they just wiff all day long. I guess it depends more on the lvl of your pet compared to the lvl of your target, but still...I'm pretty dissapointed to come back to this! Maybe I should just ditch my pet and go petless fear kiting? I have the mana with my gear...less exp getting stolen too.

Sorry to bitch, but I noticed a major change since I played my last necro over a year and a half ago heheh.

[nocto]

Yeah they do wiff like crazy, but they aren't absolutely worthless. If a pet is not tanking, think of it as another 2 dots (ok, maybe 1) you have landed on the mob without actually casting them. Now even though he does his fair share of missing, the damage still adds up with everything else you thrown on your mob.
Should you ever use your pet in a tanking situation, he is useful as a distraction while you layer icing all over that bad boy mob, and if the need should come up to haul ass if it gets too hot.
Pet is a useful utility for going the way of the agro-kite. Pick a nice phat mob, dark it real good, heck dark it again (used dooming up to 63) the point is to build up an indisputed amount of agro.
Throw on Cess of Corp if you have it, or any of the debuffing line nec spells (they work reeeeaaally good), and you have one pissed-off mob on your ass.
Have the pet wail on it from behind, but make sure to turn off his taunt.
If you keep the mob snared consistantly, and throw on a couple of choice dots (fastest ratio dps/time) you can use your rogue pets (53/63) 'stab stab stab' and never worry about them taking a single punch.*

*this does not exclude the possibility that you will encounter an add of some type, but if you watch and plan your kite path it should be as smooth as chocolate pudding.

This is probably old news but a little re-interation never hurt anyone, unless it has sharp pointy edges or fangs that bite. :P

Anyways yeah, keep using your pets, they've been nerfed, but if V really wanted to screw us over they'd get rid of our pets entirely.
'Class Balancing' at work, sux yes but all we can do is work with what we have.
<_<

Noc

[Emperson]

well i hit 44 and the new pet is pretty good... doesnt miss as much it seems, though i am fighting the same mobs i was fighting at 43 so its expected heh :rolleyes:

[Beltathor]

Aye.. I have played a necro for a long time.. 65 on one server (kid deleted.. kid still on the poo poo list) and now I am on the tribunal..

Just gonna ramble for a min here.. so bear with me /soapbox on

At lvl 44 I soloed in DL.. long.. booring.. but got the job done.. pull from the backside of the castle (far ruins on the right side as you face tward FV).. the feared mob will head tward the castle.. away from wanderers and such.. easy killing.

I spent form 50 to 55 in Ocean of Tears.. good exp and loot.. plus.. you can normally find a few people willing to help get the ring off the AC for the Jboots
Pull to the beach.. fear.. dot.. watch pathing.. etc..

Velks is my home.. started soloing there with the 56 pet.. had to heal him alot.. BoD combined with heal over time on the pet works great.. expect a few close calls, and avoid the ferocious blizzard spider for a while.. he hits in the 300's. I still solo there for loot and AA exp while looking for a group. Can make an AA about every 2 hours solo.

With the new(er) zone Veksar.. necros are once again at the top of the game.. Soloing is very easy there.. Necro undead slow tops off at around 78 percent in that zone, in a group.. the necro is the slower.

Saryrn's kiss to pull..
Slow
Heal over time on pet..
sit and count the cracks in the wall
Heal over time on pet

you gain exp!

repeat...

Some of the mobs summon.. some harm touch around 6 to 700 damage.
Dire charm works well if you are grouped (just dont FD, it breaks the charm and the group will be a little upset when you give them a buffed pet to deal with).. the DC pet puts out amazing damage.

/soapbox off

Hope that helped a bit in the lvling department.. Necro pets are still kick arse in my book.. I have tried about every char out there.. and still come back to my necro!

Lich Beltathor
63 Necro, Tribunal

[Xenoce]

Augh.... Don't people know that pets no longer take XP as long as you so SOME damage to a mob? That was changed a LONG time ago....

As for pets hitting, misses for some reason get reported from a greater distance than hits, and it is at a general concensus that pets are a great addition to you. Agro kiting or fear kiting without one is just stupid. The 63 rogue pet can dish upt anywhere from 35-50 DPS while agro kiting, don't complain. The 53 rogue pet can do 20+ DPS while agro kiting. That's a lot to miss out on because of going on outdated info that pets "steal" xp. Only charmed pets do. If you do just 1 point of damage on a mob, your pet damage does not matter.

[Xarrix]

It depends on alot

At 52 I see my pet sometimes make 90% of his hits and then sometimes I see him make 50%. It really depends on the mob. But also at lower levels I know the pets suck and miss alot. But I also do think they nerfed it some.


Xarrix Zha`Linth
52 Dark Elf Necromancer
Luclin Server

[Muse Noire]

Our dearest darlings (read pets) don't steal any hunting experience from us as long as the creature is hurt by us (1 point of damage is enough).
I have notice that they have a hard time to land many blows on their target but the Shadow Knight hunting with me yesterday had the same problem :lol:
Even if they weakened our minions many times over the years, they are still very powerful if used correctly. I am very low seasonned and only slightly equipped with mana items (family heritage) and I can hunt without too much trouble hard opponents (yellows), praise our fear spell! That said, I think we are very well balanced.

[Xarrix]

Originally posted by Muse Noire@Nov 20 2003, 02:14 PM
Our dearest darlings (read pets) don't steal any hunting experience from us as long as the creature is hurt by us (1 point of damage is enough).
I have notice that they have a hard time to land many blows on their target but the Shadow Knight hunting with me yesterday had the same problem :lol:
Even if they weakened our minions many times over the years, they are still very powerful if used correctly. I am very low seasonned and only slightly equipped with mana items (family heritage) and I can hunt without too much trouble hard opponents (yellows), praise our fear spell! That said, I think we are very well balanced.
God bless fear kite ;)

[Maihem]

Yes, they have been nerfed. Too bad too, they are an essential piece to our domination of Norrath.

Maihem
55th Level Heritic
Innoruuk Server

[stevcoll]

Yeah the necro pets up to 44 are just pathetic nowadays.. You can't count on them to do crap damage.

Scorpon
49 Iksar Necro
Seventh Hammer

[Doomfir]

44 pet is the first decent pet, though the 49 pet is a light year ahead of him. While they might have nerfed the pets a bit, they are far from sucky. My LoZ pet is very very nice. He might not straight up tank allot of mobs, if handled correctly he can at least do allot of dmg in an agro kite or fear kite situation. I just look at it this way.. our class by the nature of who we are and what we do is the most self sufficient class in most situations and therefore dont have to depend so much on our pets (like mages do). I just hope CoB is a nice step up from LoZ even. B)

[Beltathor]

From what I have read, the only realy advantage for CoB over LoZ is quad hit (and it runs in the 60 to 100k price range). I read somewhere (think it was eqclasses) that the pets have about the same HP, put out the same damage, and the self casting DS is laughable on CoB.

I'll keep my plat for a Zheart!

[Lyndark]

Not sure when you stopped Umbrello. But yes they have been nerfed. Quite a bit too.

APPARENTLY (doesn't seem so) The pet no longer uses the delay of the weapon its using. But if damage is higher than max... will hit for a few hp's more. Sony never changed AI on pet, meaning they will still take fastest weapons over more damage.

EDIT: By the way, Beltathor, if you have Windows XP, make 2 different profiles/users. And then make sure when you install/re-install you check/uncheck option for installing on all users. (Not sure exact wording and if you need to check/uncheck.) Then set password request for your profile/user on startup.

[Beltathor]

Eh? Um.. did I miss something?

[Lyndark]

You said that your kid deleted your 65 necro. Discard what I said if you were joking.

[Beltathor]

Heh.. sorry.. little slow here...

[Lyndark]

No problem.

[Mixylplix]

1. Farther away the more they APPEAR to miss. They are hitting more than you think.
2. Are you equipping him or making him fight barehanded. Find a nice Mage to load you up with no rent pet armor and weapons and he becomes much better. If you are not dragging along a few "junk" weapons for him then you get what you pay for. Hell using Shiv's from Dulak changes his performance and these stupid things only sell for 6 silver anyway.
3. You keeping him Buffed? I mean the "Pet Happy Dance" with Augment Death (I love the animation they added for that recently) is worth casting just to watch your pet get all excited.
4. You making the pet tank head-to-head or using fear and positioning (while in groups) such that the pet is attacking the back of your mob? Remember pets do better work when they are working from teh backside (not just talking about the Rogue pet either). Get your puller to pull just past where you have your pet on /gaurd so that when you engage him he is already on the mobs back. Or you can send him a tad early if the puller is doing REAL damamge such that the pet will not stop the pull. (this may not be the best). But get the pet setup and you get better performance.

It is a lot of things. You can treat your pet like that or a Mage or Beastlord or realize that a necro pet requires a bit more finesse to get teh most out of. They set up up to be able to fear kite and they set our pet up to take advantage of that. When grouped you have to realize you loose some of those advantages and a bit of skill will get many of them back. :ph34r:

[vbcypher]

Two things to note here.


#01 - Pet messges lie....sorta. You will get "Your pet missed" messages from anywhere in zone. You will only recieve "Your pet hit for XX" if you are close enough to reach the battle spam (as if it was another player and you were far away from them, you would stop seeing their hit msg's)

#02 - Somewhere along the line, in one of my sabbaticals away from EQ, they seemed have "upgraded" the AI for pets so that they checks and hit/miss rolls work exactly like real player checks and rolls work. The main difference is that every pet you use will be about 50% max skill for it's level in whatever weapon you give it.

So a LVL-39 Player could have 200 in H-2-H, but your Skele will only have 100 in that skill. That means it will fail the rolls a lot and wiff a good deal...but still has enough skill to almost always hit for max damage when it does hit.

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Most of the above is observed theory since I stopped looking at memory when playing when EQ cracked down hardcore on it and implemented the code that "detects" listeners.