Pet damage bonus

[aeriform]

From patch last patch:

- Increased the melee damage bonuses provided by pet focus effects on level 66-70 pets.

Unless damage bonus for pets acts differently than for NPC's, I don't see an increase... yet. Or more likely what was changed isn't what they said was changed.

Level 70 pet with no gear, no buffs, from behind, no pet dps AA's, summoned with Minion of Darkness focii this week before and after patch. Parsed with EQCompanion 0.72
http://members.shaw.ca/aeriform/images/Pet70.withfocus(beforeChange).nogear.nobuffs.gif
http://members.shaw.ca/aeriform/images/Pet70.withfocus(afterChange).nogear.nobuffs.gif

But about a 5% increase in DPS (3 dps) for that one pet model, yay...

[Sarnath Creed]

it appears that it missed about the same amount of swings, but hit far more often after the patch.

340 more hits, and only 4 more misses....not too too bad.

[Xislaben]

Backstab:
112,210/470 = 238.74 dmg/backstab
123,078/514 = 239.45 dmg/backstab
(222 - 211)/222 = 5% less misses
(514 - 470)/514 = 8.6% more hits

Slice:
329,844/4,380 = 75.30 dmg/slice
351,568/4,676 = 75.12 dmg/slice
(2023 - 2008)/2,023 = 0.74% less misses
(4,676 - 4,380)/4,676 = 6.3% more hits

There are various problems with parsing pet damage, but here it looks as if the pet did about the same amount of damage per swing, but just got more swings in. Many things could explain this, one of them being the pet focii increases hits (not landed swings as the misses are about the same) but not damage per hit. So the focii, amost other things, partially hastes the pet. What's really odd though is that you would expect a proportional increase in misses with an increase in swings, which we do not see here, though maybe the level difference make up for that? It's almost as if the focused pet get an extra attack maybe 7% of the time that automaticaly lands for normal damage at least on normal swings

[Quezquotyl]

I didn't notice any significant increase in Pet Damage either. I did notice a big increase in Focused Pet AC though. :lol:

[kefkari]

For those of you that noticed a change....

YOUR CRAZY! You need to test with larger sample sizes, or you did something else wrong.

As the pet focus changes didn't go live:
http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/...essage.id=96774 (http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=Veterans&message.id=96774)

[Quezquotyl]

Increased the innate AC bonuses granted to level 66+ pets by focus effects

Strait from the patch message. I am not crazy, I played with my focused pets all nite in Veksar just for giggles. I noticed a substantial difference in AC, or my pet just felt like not being healed while I toyed with all the undead. :P

Didn't notice any change in DPS though.

[aeriform]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
naladini wrote:

There are reports that the Pet Focus item upgrades don't appear to have made it in with the patch (can't test this myself though).


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is correct these were left out by mistake. Currently there isn't an ETA on when it will go live as it would require all of the servers to come down. We will let you know when we have an update. We do apologize for this inconvenience...

*************************************************
Ashlanne Barefoot
Sony Online Entertainment
Norrath, where I kick off my shoes and run in bare feet.

It was late last night, and I'm just waking up now...

The main point I was trying to make was I wasn't seeing a db increase like was intentioned. 5000 hits is a small sample size (especially for melee) and as can be seen varies a lot. One main problem with parsing pet damage is that you need to be at the key board to continually press attack. Alt-Tab /pet attack Alt-Tab work on other stuff for 2 hours at a time (and one computer crash) is about all I can take in one sitting myself. Mainly looking for trends (eventually) in which case, the accuracy of individual parses will become less important.

[Quezquotyl]

I am assuming this is for the damage portion of the pet focus upgrades and not the AC, or both?

[Menaveru]

Any chance of redoing the test, after the patch? I would like to see the dif.

Thank you.

Menaveru FV

[Rikam]

They forgot to add the rog SoS see invis check last patch was added this one. They are getting lazier and more forgetfull everyday.

[Astroshak]

For testing pet damage bonus, I would expect 5k hits before and after to be more than sufficient.

Why?

Compare the min and the max hits, before and after, the after hits should all be higher than the before hits all by the same amount (the amount the damage bonus went up). Max hits only if the pets off hand is unaffected by the damage bonus (players have this limitation, it takes AA's to get a damage bonus for the off hand, enemy NPC's do not, dunno about pets, I assume they get the damage bonus for off hand).

[Brahman]

this thread should be deleted on principle >_<

WARNING LINK WITH POSSIBLE OFFENSIVE DISCUSSION IN IT!

http://www.eqnecro.net/board/viewtopic.php?t=927

has sissl's thoughts on the subject along with opinions of some light parsing / observations since the pet changes actually went live.

[Sokar]

im happy with upgrade. lost soul now hits for 104 vs 101 (max hit) before patch. (crappy time focus). better than base though and im not complaining at a free upgrade even if its 3dmg per hit more =p

[Jebasiz]

Heh...KB actually makes sense now. Which is kinda shocking. The pet upgrades are non-existent..and we (as a community) should not be pacified with what is nothing more then a "scooby snack" of an upgrade. Until they fix our pets ability to keep up with us and engage mobs when told to, and stay engaged on those mobs reguardless of terrain any dps "fix" isn't going to be worth a damn, when Jabober spends 20% of the fight not dps'ing at all.

This "upgrade" is an insult and nothing else.

..!.. >< ..!.. my double barrell salute to SOE.

[Hemotite]

Originally posted by Jebasiz@Jul 17 2005, 03:51 PM

This "upgrade" is an insult and nothing else.

..!.. >< ..!.. my double barrell salute to SOE.
You're starting to sound like Usul and the rest of those folks Jeb. Getting a bit jaded are we?

[chabeksis]

I think the frustration is that SOE is trying to fix a problem with a band aid approach and then they are trying to act like they are helping necros out. The fact is that without a means of giving our pet sow there are a ton of problems. The pet can't keep up with us, he gets stuck, lost, can't follow us up stairs et cetera.

The other problem is that the dps boost and the mitigation boost are negligible and do not really address one of the main problems necros have with pets. I know I was happy when I heard about the increased mitigation because I knew I was gonna be able to pet tank in Vxed and WoS really easily now <_<

I know I am frustrated because the pet upgrade is a tiny upgrade for me, and the problems that I have with the pet have not been addressed.

[Sathras]

Originally posted by "chabeksis"
I know I was happy when I heard about the increased mitigation because I knew I was gonna be able to pet tank in Vxed and WoS really easily nowI hope my sense of humor isn't fully gone but you meant that ironically, don't you?

But honestly I do have a problem with tanking necro pets. After all we aren't mages. I don't treat my pet as a tank - farming greens aside. I just see it as a speedbump and a helpful measure to allow me to deal with a mob. And that he does just fine.
What I do agree to is that it needs some tweaks for survivability during raids. Either a pet specific rampage mitigation modifier and/or spell mitigation mod - at least for AEs.

But if pets ever going to be tanks for current content we'll have lost to mages imho. Their spells are focussed on their pets. Our spells are focussed on us and trying to play a necro as a mage is just plain wrong.

[chabeksis]

Yes, that was sarcasm :P

The point I tried to make with my post is that the problems that necs have with their pets are in no way addressed with this "upgrade". We do not pet tank, and the dps increase means little. My kite times in Vxed and my other favorite haunts have not changed at all.

However there is still the pathing, pet speed, and survivability issues, and I think that those are the issues that the nec community really wants addressed. I about lost my mind when I was kiting in PoV. My pet was never around, he always got lost or stuck. I have similar problems in some of the raids I go on too.

I in no way want our class to become like mages or bsts. Sony can keep their dps upgrades and fix these issues and I would be thrilled.

[Rijak]

i think pathing will always be an issue, as it is a game-wide problem... but pet speed would be nice

[Xelgadis]

I don't think giving focused pets SoW speed would be out of line, and Rytan could implement that easily if he chose to do it.

Pathing will be an issue as long as it's an issue with NPCs. I simply click my Silverflank Belt (http://lucy.allakhazam.com/item.html?id=27834) if my pet gets lost... other than that, nothing will likely be done to address pet pathing as that would require reworking NPC pathing in every zone (let's just say, I'm not holding my breath). Since nothing is going to be done to address pet pathing, any whining/bitching/complaining about it pretty much falls on deaf ears, as far as the developers are concerned.

Overall, the upgrade was minimal enough that I barely noticed it, nor do I really care much (I've done just fine with pets as they were thus far, a minimal upgrade wasn't going to do much to make them any better, so in my eyes nothing's really changed). I didn't have my sights set on like a 30% increase in pet dps etc, that's absurd to even think that'd happen imho. I figured the increase would be 5% or so, at best, turns out it was around that. Sadly, it appears most necros had their sights set around 30%, whether or not they realize or will admit it.

If people (in general) continue to whine about not being able to pet tank in current content (when we have so many other ways available for us to kill things), my suggestion is to reroll as a mage and go whine about how much mage pets suck (in comparison to the grand misconception of how pets should be able to tank like a GoD/OoW geared warrior heh) on their boards. Point is: the pet tanking whine got old long ago, it's not going to change, so people should stop wasting energy on whining about that and find something useful to complain about... preferably something that the devs might care about enough to actually address.

Our pets were fine as they were, for the most part. The only thing that can really make them better is addressing their survivability on raids.

[Jebasiz]

Xelgadis,

Have you turned on 'pet misses' during raids? You'll probably friggen LD, but it goes way beyond comical and into borderline depressing. I don't even bother with a pet anymore on raids, and since I don't group much, Jabober gets lengthy vacations. It's sad that once such a viable tool is all but useless now.

Attitudes of pets haven't just changed from our point of view, but the rest of the raids' as well. It used to be, if you didn't summon a pet..buff it, and sic it on every named..you were being lazy and not contributing as much as you could. Now, noone even notices the lack of pet on raids, and in fact if anyone other then a beastlord makes one, they wonder wtf you're doing.

The simple fact is, up until pop our best dps dot was Fpok..which is around 216-219 dmg per tick(I forget which), and our pets would hit 3 times around for around 60-70 then(approximately the same total dmg as our best dot per round). Now our best dots do 600(approx) dmg per round, and on raid content out pet will hit 2-3 times(tops, the rest WILL miss) per round for around for 20-110(60-330dmg per round)..that's a huge decrease in relative efficiency/usefullness of our pets.

I'm not asking for or expecting our pets to have a minimum hit of 150, which is what they'd need to come inline with out better dots..what'd I'd like is, more survivability. It could be something as easy as our lifetap heals hitting us and our pets...or every heal and cure that lands on us, lands on Jabober. An hour long pet buff, and maybe a pet heal like the death peace aa that would save a freaking spell gem for something more usefull then maintaining what is essentially about a 200-300 dmg per tick dot.

[Xelgadis]

I gave up on using pets on trash clears in Anguish (and most raid zones) long ago, mostly I just save them for named that don't AE rampage anymore, and even then I give them about a 50% chance of survival.

As far as the pets missing hits on raids; melee player classes experience the same thing, just not quite as bad as there are mods available to help compensate for that somewhat. But this is what always will happen as long as you fight content where the average named is 5-20 levels higher than you, it's even worse for the pets as they're a few levels lower than players. Even the trash in Anguish is yellow to red con at 70, so it's already an uphill battle from the start.

Ultimately, pets fall under the same category of other player tools, as I see it... they aren't scaling at the same rate as the content is these days. A perfect example of this would be to look at resist rates. Very few events in Tacvi gimp us down to a couple spell lines, whereas alot in Anguish do. That's a difference of one expansion. I don't exactly see SOE jumping at the opportunity to rework the resist checks on spells so they're on par with the content, instead we're working with a spell lineup (resist-wise) that's still on par with Planes of Power. Pets, I feel, are in the same boat. Pet scaling, versus player scaling, is vaguely in line. However, both pet and player scaling are falling way behind how new content is scaling.

When looked at from that perspective, this isn't so much of an issue with pets anymore. Now it's falling into the broader category of player scaling versus content scaling, and unless SOE decides to address some of the more pressing player issues (in general), I see this problem only getting worse as new content continues to roll out.

[UsulDaNeriak]

Originally posted by Xelgadis@Jul 19 2005, 06:53 PM
I gave up on using pets on trash clears in Anguish (and most raid zones) long ago, mostly I just save them for named that don't AE rampage anymore, and even then I give them about a 50% chance of survival.



/fully agree to your analysis of the uber game.
ubers are complaining about pets since years. most of them even advised to not use them on raids, since ntov times. like ubers have a big issue with mob resists.

well, in a non-uber but raiding guild, pets are a decent dmg faktor and even more.
just today with 12 guys our only tank died on a primal in yxxta, rangers stepped in with ws and tons of pets around the mob helped. it looked strange. and i parsed 120 dps pet dmg incl. epic in 3 min)

i guess, since lady vox and nagafen, the issue of the ubers with pets (and other issues) are different.

perhaps a new AA, which makes pets mostly immune to ae spells or rampage, would help, dunno. cant see, how this would unbalance the game, honestly.

but yes, i would appreciate, if sony would have a plan, how content and players should evolve in eq1 from now on.

Usul

[KB1]

Jeb, wtf you mean "starting to make sense NOW", make me sad face :(..

Turn on pet misses like jeb said, put in another window cause you will ld from it, and don't anyone say anything about standing far away and only misses showing up, stand right with him.

[Jebasiz]

I turn on pets hits on tantho the tormentor(jelvan event). What I saw partially surprised me...but then again, it was debuffed to holy hell(the mob). There were ALOT of 20-60dmg hits, no backstab was higher then 285(this is a long fight)..and very few hits with triple digits, unless they were a crit. I didn't parse it..I'm afraid to find out how trivial he truly is..but at the same time, I almost want to know. He'd flurry, and still only hit twice a round, it was almost comical(even buffed with champion and ranger buffs..he's still impotent.