86+ pets very underwhelming...

[Failcon]

/nod Calebe

[Daiou]

The problem as i see it is the Rk3s are not used by groupers because when they are to date they are not attainable and when they become attainable they aren't worth it since the newer spells at Rk2 are better.

What was a really good idea turned out to be our crux, PET FOCUS. If we were to drop em and get Rk1,2 and 3 pets instead we could avoid most of this, i would think.

[svenalo]

Lets stop with raiders need a raid only pet focus that groupers will never get.

No one is seriously suggesting this as far as I can tell. What was suggested was that the devs may not want to give mages something to boost the raid game DPS because that would unbalance the group game of mages, so based on that premise some ideas were offered that could be done to deal with that if it indeed was the problem the dev's had in granting us a DPS boost. Whether the dev's have that view or not is supposition - it would be difficult to know given that getting one to comment here is like getting a two year old to not say the word no.

The only change needs to be that the focus is easily to attain, and early on. Think how it is now, you get to the last tier to get the very best pet focus, meaning you never needed it in the first place to get there or enjoy the expansion. This is counter productive. It should happen early on so the increase is felt and needed.

This we all agree on, and in HoT the focuses do seem to be dropping more frequently even though technically my results is a tiny data set and not going to rigourously prove anything statiscally (see where I am keeping stats on drops in the pet forum).

[svenalo]

What was a really good idea turned out to be our crux, PET FOCUS. If we were to drop em and get Rk1,2 and 3 pets instead we could avoid most of this, i would think.

I seriously doubt that that would solve anything...and the dev's would absolutely hate doing it because that would be even more mage pets to roll out each release than they currently have to do. And a pet's DPS is really a red herring when it comes to talking about mage DPS as a whole and why they can't or won't do something for us. We are asking for a boost...but it does not have to be tied to the pet at all, doing so is just one of many many options.

Personally I think something like this would work: If a mage has a fire pet (pet focused or not) out, and casts a fire based spell, then give that fire spell a chance at an additional damage boost over and above anything it would get out of 7th, focus from the sleeves, damage boosting aa's, and so on. Then raiders would get an additional boost automatically from groupers because the effect of RK3 spells in and of themselves would provide the raiding mage with a bigger boost as all the different effects are all added together. *Yes, I know this has a pet component to it, but it is just one possible idea.*

[Voragath]

The problem people are having with pet focus is that they don't understand how our class functions relative to others. Calebe missed alot of points. Our damage is split by our pet and us. You can throw RS in there if you want but it is really only improved on by pet focus. We are talking focus effects here.

Wizards do have a gap. They have a fcous that groupers NEVER EVER get and if they do, by that time, the focus won't work on their spells.
Melee DPS: usually, the raid weapons don't get touched for two expansions. Meaning, the HoT raid ratios won't be seen for 2 years. Their focii on gear works the same way but there may be some overlap if you count the ferocity fiasco.
Warriors: Their raid ac is much higher than group and will be higher than the highest group gear when the next expansion comes out. Their hps are way out of whack as well. They'll have defensive clickies that groupers won't see for 2 expansions.
Mages: Small gap in dps. We have two focii: pet and gear. The gear is just like wizards. The pet focii works differently and will be seen by groupers next expansion.

Or, like this:
Wizards: dps improved by gear focii. Will focii be attainable by groupers next expansion? No.
Melee: dps improved by weapons and gear focii. Will these weapons be attainable by groupers next expansion? No. Will these focii be available to groupers next expansion? maybe.
Mage: dps improved by gear and pet focii. Will gear focii be attainable by groupers next expansion? No. Will pet focii be attainable by groupers next expansion? Yes.

Do you mean to tell me that a raid rogue is parsing close to a group rogue? A group zerker close to a raid zerker? Wizard? There's no way. I'm not advocating for a large gap. But we need to realize the devs made a gap between raider and grouper. I don't like it anymore than the next person. Even the "elitists" realize how bad this is. EQ is not gaining a population so when a guild loses people, they have to pull from groupers which will be a huge hit to dps for awhile. Some of the top 10 or so can probably burn hard enough and fast enough to get someone to step up but that noob will need serious gear, and possibly training, to catch up. This is detrimental. If the gap was minimal, then a grouper could easily be swapped in without being a sandbag.

When we talk dps, unfortunately, our pets are a sizable chunk of that and we can't ignore it. If you want pets to be the same for the raid and group mage, then you hurt the raid mage. A synergy is the best idea, sure, but we need others in case that's not feasible. If you want raid mage dps to be that of groupers, then you can say goodbye to raid mages and to the class. We nearly died out awhile back because we had no desirability for raids. Also, who cares if there is a gap? There is NOTHING except augs in the group game that raiders want so it's not hurting the group game. Raiders have their half of the game and groupers have theirs. There is no elitist thought in trying to bring the raid mage up to par with the other classes. Any way it's done is, in the eyes of a few here, going to create an "elite" gap between grouper and raider. If you want raid stuff, raid; if you want group stuff, group.

Drop those arguments, please, as they belong to eqlive. We have a situation with our class and we need to work together. As a tip, if you find yourself using the word "elitist", your argument is failing or wont for stronger evidence.

[Voragath]

Regarding pet focii for raiders.

AFAIK, I'm the only one to bring it up with all seriousness and I know it's unpopular and why it isn't happening. When I talk about it, I'm talking about a gap larger than what we have. We get 3 new focii that are barely an improvement over the group focii. The system is set up to make it easier for the devs to make a linear progression in pets and not have to worry about cross-referencing pet abilities.

What I'm talking about is a better dps-only overlap than what we have. Make it like the rest of the gear in that our pet dps gained by the 3 raid focii will be attained by groupers in 2 expansions. This is where the heavy work comes in for the devs and making so many pets is already tough enough. This makes this part of the idea the weakest.

Pet dps isn't even 50% of the dps for a raider but that boost to RS makes a serious difference. The overlap for that pet can be less if necessary or keep it on the same path so they'd overlap in one expansion as they do now. Also, since the dps gain is smaller from the pet, a big boost won't create an enormous chasm between the raider and grouper in terms of dps. It also is the easiest way to give something to raiders only.

[Gnomeland]

Just a note, groupers cannot obtain raid pet foci until two expansions down the line, which is roughly around the same delay as melee weapons. EM 8 is not supposed to be the last expansion's raid focus (it's supposed to be SoD's). UF covered EM 9-11. It is because UF was so smurf hard that less than a dozen guilds actually had it on farm before HoT's release, that everybody (raiders and groupers alike) are running around with EM 8 in HoT.

In my opinion, a huge boost to pet DPS from focus effects is not entirely inappropriate. If we follow the argument of melee weapons, pets (both our RS and our base pets) should gain a similar % increase in their DPS from raid focus as melees do from raid gear. We can agree that the 3% scaling of DPS per focus level is undesirable from both the perspective of group and raid mages since group mages will obtain raid focus two expansions down the line.

The same scale need not be applied to the tanking ability of pets. Since a pet that can tank group content is supposed to be a feature of the mage class we should ask for it to come with the base package of an expansion's group gear. In this case raid pets will not tank so much better than group pets so as to make tanks obsolete, but will do much better DPS so as to keep mage DPS competitive in a raid setting.

[Failcon]

Now this I agree with.

[Shardin]

I think it is a good idea.. raid pet focii.. now what can we do to make this happen.

[Pyraxis]

I've been gone for over two years. Nice to see we still have the same problems we always had. And I love someone saying to Eandori "I don't know how long you've been playing, but I was around when...". That's awesome.

Oh, and hey guys. Thinking about coming back. Worth it, or not really?