EZ Server

Pet Scaling In Progress

I've got the numbers roughly where I want them. I need a reboot to totally confirm. At this point, the damage will be goofy as the pets have been slowed down but the new values are not applied yet.

Changes:

• Pet attack speed was HEAVILY lowered and white damage range increased by ~60% on minimum strike damage and ~135% on maximum strike damage.
• Pets now gain 100% more spell damage and 200% more healing per UC Rank (+100/200% for UCv1, +200/400% for UCv2, etc).
• Pets now gain 50% of the player's resist level, in addition to it's own base resist and OWS.
• Mana Necklace proc damage will be equivalent to Icestrike on reboot.
• Summoner's Bags this coming week (hopefully).
• UW cloning on pets also coming this week (pending Summoner's Bag completion).

The pet's spell damage (innate proc and Mana Necklace buff) WILL scale off of the new values. The healing value may be adjusted as I don't want the necromancer pet to become invulnerable and future healing addins for pets to be tank-makers.

The Mana Necklace adjustment will hurt for pet users but if you just spamming something to trigger pet buff, you were only using half of it anyway.

The Summoner's Bag will be an unlockable quest chain that allows players to give pets ANY weapons (including UWs) so long as the player owns it. Placing the items in the Summoner's Bag will clone the weapons (ignoring augments...) on to the pet. For those worried about the HP/Resist loss of the OWS, I'll likely create a junk item with mirrored stats to autoequip if the player has completed the Summoner's Bag quest.

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I understand that for most, this will mean drop in damage as a good many of you made the Mana Necklace, cheaply spammed something (usually via macro or BCC hotkey) and rode off AFK damage. If you want to continue that route, whatever. I do not care for that play style but I'm not going to block you from doing it. You will need to put in similar efforts to obtain a UC like pretty much every other character in the game to truly maximize the damage.


-Hate

parsed out a little bit today, I think this will balance out pet classes nicely, nice job, thanks! (numbers are not accurate atm due to mana neck still having ns proc till reboot, or so i'm told)

I'd like to apologize to the whole server for breaking down and making my first mana neck 2 nights ago.

I never meant for this to happen, and so soon.  ::)

And pet level was lowered? My 7.0 mage pet went from level 82 to level 76. Chanter pet dropped from 81 to 75. Unsure whether or not that will effect resists, casts or attack on higher end mobs....just wasnt sure if this was intentional or not.

Ponzi, no need to be sorry. Mana neck still gives pets a NICE dps boost.

Have you thought about adding some kind of pbae proc for pets Hate? Either on UW or weapons?

anyone want to buy a mana neck 9 cheap?

Can you explain another way to play a caster? they all have 1 nuke that is level effective at a time to cast and they cast it over and over to "try"and keep up with melee damage. Now we are reducing the damage output that they have even more. Yes pets spam attacks but they also die almost every fight and have to be recast/rebuffed and at some point we stop casting them because its to much a pain in the ass...


Will we be able to hand our clone UW to another players pet?
Now I need to do UW on pet classes as well?
If we can hand them to other peoples pets Wont people be able to just hand them out en-mass in nexus so we can all have UW10 weapons on our pets?


Only using half of the mana neck? I dont understand.. Even chain nukeing with my wizzy or enchanter I never run out of mana (t7) why would I ever click the mana necklace? (I have a bard)

I wrote a bunch more but it turned into a bunch of prissy whining and I don't think that you deserve any of that so I will leave it at this and hope that in the long run the things I don't understand will make sense.... GOOD job overall so far and I am curious where this will take us.

The return on mana neck was too high for what it cost to make, this actually balances it with other dps classes pretty well. not sure why you are bitching about it - the play style didn't change, you just need to uc the pet classes to get the full return on pets, which makes sense

What I should have more clearly stated is players getting Mana Necklace, no UC, and then spamming whichever nuke would cause the pet buff (First Mate's Gift) to trigger. With the way the pets are currently composed, they should be more functionally similar to players. Slower attack speed, high proc rate barrage type of melee.



The pet owner MUST own the UW to clone. If a player wants to improve his/her class, they should expend effort to do so.



Players were just spamming spells to trigger the pet buff and ignoring the sympathetic proc (nuke) that actually TRIGGERS the pet buff. I said cheaply because they were not using high Sorcerer charms or UC ranks, but mostly Oracle or no-charm mages/necromancers smash buttons to get the pet proc. If you actually UC the pet owner and spam nukes, the DPS as a whole should be very nice.

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The pets should no longer be *smack* *smack* *die*. With the MUCH slower attack speed, the chance that they will instagib themselves is VERY slim. In addition, the pets with basic heals (which will become all pets to some degree or another...just on cooldowns) will heal MUCH more as the speed of procs has gone down significantly. Pet classes now have the potential to come close to NS users when geared appropriately (matching level Mana Necklace and UC to the NS DPS in your group). In addition, the pet owners will be able to UW the pet (in addition to receiving ANOTHER sympathetic proc on cast).


-Hate

(http://pubsecrets.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/satire-south-park-pitchforks-torches-mob.jpg)

I'll just leave this here.

The changes sound good though  :P

Tek er jeb!!

Pets can't equip more than 1 UW right?

LOL, that episode was pretty much gold.

Can we at least get sorc charm to scale with pet damage?  I'd like my mage to be at least as useful as my other dps with lvl 50 sorc charms...

it is. get uc's

Gotta agree with Groucho on this one. DPS melee requires UC and substantial investment in plat and other resources to be viable. If you want your mage to be viable DPS it shouldnt be any different.

If caster's are going to be close to NS class (if appropriate neck+UC) then the cost for a neck needs to
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The neck is nowhere near the cost of a NS (level for level)

I agree. The big issue before was that pet dps with mana neck 9 was greater than a UC2 melee with 2 x NS9, and at roughly 1/4 the cost (if you assigned SLS and essences a monetary value). Pet dps has dropped substantially, but I still think mana neck costs should go up. Perhaps make a secondary neck that adds the proc, made by combining a mana neck and an IS aug of the same level to go up one. Example: mana neck 1 plus IS1 = Masters Necklace 1. Mana neck 2 plus IS2 = Masters Necklace 2, etc.

You are overcomplicating this. By the time you actually gear a raid out, using a pet for dps is very inefficient, everything dies too fast. As is, pets are fine, they are very helpful early, and once you start gearing uc2's on melee, the usefulness of the pet fades.

The cost is still lower, the spells still need to be farmed/crafted, and the pets still rely on procs to get the damage going. There will not be a simple fix to balance this out as casters aren't simply STUPID expensive item to make them. Casters have to deal with spells, mana (enough to cast and high enough passive/group regen to sustain), and all the fun LOS crap that doesn't seem to affect melee through stick.

Also, not to single out, but you're aware that adding an Icestrike each rank is horrifyingly expensive, right? Rank 1 requires Icestrike, Rank 2 requires Icestrike->Icestrike II, Rank 3 requires Icestrike->Icestrike II->Icestrike III, etc etc

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Hopefully with this change, that will be less so. I'm still looking in to getting the Mana Necklace instant and (hopefully) DoT cast friendly.


-Hate

if that was for me, no, its not, the pet dmg does not scale with the other charms, only uc.  All my dps that has rank 50 sorc is much more dps than a mage rank 50 sorc.

Yes. Intended this way. Again, get a UC, issue is solved. It really doesnt take that long to UC a team anymore, with the changes lately.

so its intended for melee dps to scale with sorc charm upgrades but not mages?  I've uc'd 1 char and ALMOST my 2nd  I avg about 1-2 upgrades every 3rd clear of tofs 2-5 (each floor). 

Yes. Its intended to scale ONLY for UC. Seems fair, given that the cost to mana neck a mage is so much cheaper than making the augs (about half the price all in all).

I'd put money because those DPS have augments that you farmed up essences and spent tons of plat to create. Yet you expect the mage to simply match it because he has a matching charm and exists?

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It scales only with the UC because the scaling penalty is fair harsh. If I scaled it against Sorc50, the bonus would actually be negative, which would make your pet heal you.


-Hate

any news about bag quest?

Sorry, huge project at work involving over half of every team has kept me tied down harder than Fugitive ties down his nightly "dates". I am actually going to add numerous items to the DB tonight around 1am-2am EST (so expect potentially naked zone-ins from that time until reboot).


-Hate