Pet tanking info from live

[vsab]

Again I'm posting some info from the live boards. Partly as it gives some insights on how live works, but also in this case as a cautionary tale....

Link is here:-
https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/i...fix-it.212513/

"The Pet Tank Problem and How We Plan To Fix It"

Pets have become very capable tanks in recent years. Much of this gain was intentional, as pets had not kept up with NPC damage before and we wanted to bring them back in to relevance. The problem is that we have been too enthusiastic when we were scaling up pet AC and defensive AAs over the years and we're currently at a point where we don't want to be.

Pets are now mitigating damage at a rate far greater than we would like, granting them better survivability than players in nearly any situation. In extreme cases pets are taking minimum melee damage on 80% or more of incoming NPC attacks. We want to keep pets powerful and useful but they also need to take more damage than they are. To this end we're lowering both their base AC and some of the AC gains granted by Sturdy Companion.

We understand that pets have fewer active defenses than player tanks, so they will continue to mitigate on a per-hit basis better than players can, but they will also continue to be hit more often than a player tank would. Our goal for these changes is to reach a place where normal creatures in current content will hit pets for minimum damage in between 35 and 40% of the time.


The following post will share more specific information regarding these changes, including additional changes that go beyond AC.

In addition to AC changes, we're looking at avoidance and secondary abilities for pets as a whole. A few months ago we increased pet class direct heals in anticipation of these changes. We are also planning to examine changes that may need to be made to other active abilities such as Aegis of Nefori or Groundswell stance. We have already had this data present on Beta for two test cycles, but when this data reaches Test and you're able to try them out, we will need your input on them.

First and foremost, though, is AC, which directly translates to mitigating incoming melee damage. To illustrate the problem, here's a graph of pet AC. Each point is a different pet, ranging from an unfocused level 94 pet to a level 99 pet with Enhanced Minion 21. While the data in this chart is based on the earth pet, all focusable pets followed this same pattern.

[IMG]

As you can see, the level 91-95 pets gained AC on an exponential curve. Initially the level 96-100 pets followed this same curve. While we did catch that before launch and changed it to the flatter curve you see in the right half of the graph, the starting point we chose for the unfocused level 96-100 pets was still too high -- more than twice the value of an unfocused level 91-95 pet.

We were incorrect in estimating the effect that Sturdy Companion applied to pets. Rather than a continually scaling value that needed large gains to keep up with NPC attack as documented, it is a flat value that essentially adds directly to AC. When we discovered this, we applied the effect of that AA line to pet AC and found this curve:

[IMG]

Combined, the gains in base AC and AA-based additions pushed pet mitigation far beyond where they should be. We're pulling back both the gains in AC via Sturdy Companion and the base AC on pets in order to bring them back in line with the game as a whole. We will need your help in determining whether we have found the point where pets are strong enough to hold up in current content but still require some effort to maintain.

For Magicians, we also took this opportunity to look at the four pet types to try to reinforce their roles. Here's a brief summary of those changes:
Air pets - The "All-Around" standard - Decent tank, decent damage
Have much less AC than earth pets (but lowered the gap between them).
Increased the cap on their stuns from level cap to level cap + 3.
Increased bonuses to dodge and other innate avoidance abilities.
Increased minimum damage and lowered maximum hit slightly. Damage range was compressed. Average hits should be about 5% higher than before and maximum hits should be within 1% of their old values.
Water pets - Rogue pets - Can survive a few rounds, but should not be tanking
Have slightly less AC than air pets.
Do not have the active defense bonuses that air pets have.
Increased average and maximum melee damage. Damage range was expanded. Average hits should be around 6% higher and maximum hits should be about 12-15% higher.
Increased accuracy bonuses -- they should be hitting more often and at higher damage values.
Fire pets - Artillery
Have slightly less AC than water pets, and very few active defenses. They should not be your choice to tank.
They still stand still and nuke when sent to attack something. This spell damage will make up the majority of their damage and their melee will be negligible.
Earth pets - The best tank, but with lowered damage abilities
Have the most AC of any pet for any class.
Lowered avoidance based tanking skills, raised active defense tanking skills. They'll dodge less but parry more.
Lowered both minimum damage and maximum hit. Damage range was compressed. Average hits should be about 10-12% lower and maximum hits should be about 15-18% lower. This is the penalty they have for mitigating so much better than air pets.
Raging Servant line - Great vengeance and furious anger
Have a bit less AC than before but still most of any swarm pet. They won't stand up long (except when enraged).
Expanded damage range greatly. Max hits will be 10% higher and average hits about 5% higher than before.
Necromancers
Warrior pets (92, 97) - The best tank option for Necromancers
AC about equal to a magician's air pets.
Lowered both minimum and maximum hit, but not by much. Damage range was slightly compressed. Average hits should be about 1-2% lower.
Rogue pets (95, 100) - Do more damage, but take more damage, too.
AC similar to magician water pets.
Increased maximum hit by about 5% and lowered minimum hit. Expanded the damage range so there is more variation but average hits should be roughly the same over time.
Swarm pets
AC very slightly lower than magician swarm pets - again, these won't hold up as tanks very long.
Lowered minimum and maximum hit by about 6% at maximum focus levels, but increased them with low/no focus levels.
Beastlords
Warders
AC is between magicians' air and earth pets.
Active defenses are also between air and earth pets.
Increased minimum and maximum hit by 3-4% each. Damage range did not change.
Swarm pets
AC equal to necromancer swarm pets.
Lowered minimum and maximum hit at high focus levels, increased them at low focus levels. Damage range was increased slightly. Max hits were lowered by 3-4% and average hits by 5%.
We also looked at non-focusable pets for all classes and made the following changes:

Cleric Hammer pets:
Level 94 - Increased max hit by about 23% and average hit by about 18%, giving an expanded damage range. Increased accuracy.
Level 99 - Increased accuracy and damage as above.
Shadowknight pets:
Level 93 - Increased accuracy. Compressed damage range but increased average hit by about 40% and max hit by about 30%. Greatly increased AC (is now between the Air pet and Beastlord warder) and increased HP.
Level 98 - Carried accuracy buff through. Average hit is now about 50% higher and max hit about 40% higher. Lowered AC (to keep it between air pets and Beastlord warders) but increased HP significantly.
Shaman pets:
Level 92 - Greatly increased AC (just below Shadowknight pets) and HP. Increased max and average hits by about 15%.
Level 97 - Carried through damage increases. Lowered AC (to keep it just below Shadowknight pets) but significantly increased HP.
Necromancer Scapegoat pets:
Level 94 - Increased AC (now highest of all offensive pets but below Fire still) and HP.
Level 99 - Increased AC (still below the Fire pet) and HP.
Wizard swords:
Level 94 - Increased max and average hits by about 15%.
Level 99 - Increased max and average hits by about 5% since there was already a very large jump over the level 94 pets.
Magician Guardian pets:
Level 95 - Lowered AC (Now just below earth pets) but increased HP.
Level 100 - Slightly increased max hit. Lowered AC to below earth pet values. Increased HP a bit more than the increase to level 95 pets were.
Enchanter Animations:
Seronvall's Animation (Level 91) - Massively increased AC (now just above Shadowknight pets but below Beastlord warders) and greatly increased HP. Increased max hit by about 30% and average hit by about 25%. Increased accuracy.
Xorlex's Animation (Level 96) - Increased max hit by about 23% and average hit by about 20%. Increased accuracy. Lowered AC to place it again between Shadowknight pets and Beastlord warders. Increased HP significantly.
These are some pretty comprehensive changes and will need to be tweaked as they are tested out. Please keep an eye on the announcements forum so we can let you know when they are ready to be tried out on Test.
Roshen, Yesterday at 4:58 PM