Pets don't hold hate like they should: Copious amounts of EVIDENCE

[baalzy]

Decided to make this a new thread to draw attention to the insane amount of research I just did. We all know that pet taunt is weak on p99. We've all seen 1 spell casts taking our pets 5-6 rounds of attacks just to pull hate off us. Here is a giant list from casterrealms strategy guides which all backup what many of us remember. The simple fact that pets were hate monsters and it actually took some effort to get hate OFF of your pet.


You can solo some yellows and below now, and I personally used the following spell combination.

1. Clinging Darkness (If it resists just move on).
2. Poison Bolt. (If Both CD and PB resist start running, and kiss your pet goodbye!)
3. Send in the pet.
4. Keep an eye on your pets health, when its down to 40% start meleeing yourself. This takes the pressure of your pet for a bit. (Cloth armour helps here if you can afford it)
5. Once you’re down to 50% health, the mob should be just about dead, stand back, let your pet tank, and start chain casting Lifespike.
6. Retreat to the Windmills and start meditating!

With this method I have been able to solo yellows.

More evidence of pets holding agro like a boss, EVEN at low levels
March, 2001


24 - 29: you can head to an Outter PAW Spire group. Or you could do what I did and SOLO! .. Thats right .. head back to highkeep and right next to that guard room there is a small room where 2 Lookout spawns pop. EASY Soloing and GREAT Lewt! You may need help breaking this spawn .. so just ask the group next to you. They spawn on a 5 min count which is just enough to med to full and have the pet healed. Or you could just get a Breeze/ Clarity / C2 and it will be a sinch. This was the best exp I have ever seen in the game. It averaged to One bubble every 30 minutes and at lvl 24!! .. amazing .. simply amazing.

If you're using mana and have to med & keeping the same pet, that pet sure as heck better be keeping some agro.

Jan 2001


Your level 44 pets will tear these mobs up pretty fast, can almost solo them in fact, and your nice new level 44 nuke will drop them so much faster. These will be blue until level 47 or 48, which you'll be in no time. There are also often enchanters in the zone you could get Clarity from if you want it.
....
I can't recommend this at 43 or below, as your best nukes are fire based, and these kobolds are extremely fire resistant. Even with Malise, they rarely hit for full damage, more often being almost completely resisted. Between your 39th level pets and your most efficient non-fire based nuke (level 24 shock spell), you just don't yet have the firepower to efficiently take down these kobolds solo. It's possible, but downtime is significantly worse.

So, you're having to rely on your nukes & you're using a fire pet so you're also not relying on Snare and yet he makes NO mention of watching out because you'll get roflstomped by a 100 dmg nuke tearing agro away from your pet. He's even talking about using Malise!

March, 2000

If you are solo down there, you can break one or two corner spawns and solo the gobs as they pop. To break a spawn, let yer pet tank both with a barrier of combustion on, and finish the first gob with one blast, and burn the other one down then as usual. Swim thru your pet if one gob should aggro on ya too early to stick it on pet again. You might even have to heal your pet, mine got near death a lot while breaking the spawn... grouping is safer for sure. Don't expect to outswim the gobs.. they are faster than a sowed lvl 41 druid with 100ish swimming.



This seems to imply to me that using high damage nukes still doesn't cause agro to get transfered on to you very often and it ALSO makes it seem like the agro doesn't stay on ya long. Talking about healing their pet too to keep from using it. This seriously implies the mages are nuking (and not having much of an agro problem) mobs down fast enough that pet-chaining isn't required.

March 2000

Tuck youself into this corner, park your pet and pull to the pet.


At this level people would have to pet chain on p99 because they couldn't reliably nuke mobs to kill them before losing their pets.



Make sure you hit the snake with a couple of Shock of Blades so you get more then 50 percent of the damage for the maximum amount of experience. Your water pet has a very high poison resistance so it "should not" get poisoned. Monitor your pets health using /pet health report command, and heal it if required. Once the snake is dead the loot will be any of the following:

level 8 and talking about nuking more than 50% of the mobs health away and having to monitor their pets health because the snake is still hitting it.
May 2001


Dive in and start attacking the Pirana. Let you r pet tank while you nuke it, remember you cant attack it out of the water so you have to stay under. Be sure to keep an eye on your H2O bar. If things get out of hand, A.k.a you stary loosing, get out of the water! The pirana cant follow (duh) now you can rest up and try again. Just keep doing this for the whole lake, by the time your done with all six, the first one should have respawn for you to kill again!

More talk from a low level of pet tanking the mage nukes it.

November 2000


First make a earth pet which will help with the root and such then buff your pet with burnout, use when you have full mana pull her with the level 8 bolt spell and put your pet on her, then keep nuking her with the bolt spell . You may have to take some hits when she cons red because she will hit for the high 30's constantly which will take your pet out easy.


Nuking but talking about having to get in and take some hits to keep the pet from getting killed. This either supports the pet holding great agro, or the earth pet reliably & consistently rooting.

March 2000


This is simple, at lvl 8, dervs are mostly red with some yellow ones once and a while. Just get an earth pet (for the hp's, youll need them) then back up, fire bolt them, usually you can just back up and get 3 off before it even gets to you, then have it hit you once then your pet will jump in. Then you just sit back and blast with bolt or blades.


3 bolts before putting pet on it then being able to back up and continue to bolt/blade? At level 8!
March 2000


cast both burnout and flame shield on your pet, and pull an orc. sit back and nuke his ass, and he will drop within 20 seconds, doesn't matter if he cons yellow or not. if you happen to accidently pull another orc and have low mana, use it up nuking it and then run in and melee while pet regains hp. this orc will also die if you don't screw up completely-don't underestimate your pet.


Nuke the mobs ass off (He's talking about using the Water pet for this, so no root) and then run up to melee so your pet can regain hp.

March 2000



I find that the water pet(highly under-rated imho) works great in this respect. Unlike fire that has no hp, but big dmg, water has decent hp(second to earth), and does more dmg than earth by alot because of it's spell. Using the water elemental I can take yellow cons with 50% mana. I usually pull, then send pet, then burn down to 20% or so, and start medding. Keep an eye on the pets health though, and if it starts to get whipped on, stand and throw a burn as needed. I normally start fights with 50%, and end with 20 or more, unless the fight goes bad, and I have to burn extra to keep the pet alive.

Burn the skeleton down to 20% and let your pet finish it off while you're sitting and medding. Using the water pet, so no root.
March 2000


For all you lvl 8 Magicians out there an easy way to get from 8-12 is hunt the Drakes/Earth Eles/Harpies/Rogue Clockworks out in front of the Mino Caves... don't worry about grouping since us Magicians have pets we can do it easily, what you do it use your bolt spell to pull, maybe hit it once or twice as it comes to you, then send your pet and stand back and blast. You might want to make sure you have a good pet (White con or Yellow con at 8.) Great Experience, also useful with Enchanter and Necromancer. Happy Hunting.

I'm really seeing a trend here. Nuke happy mage still = not pulling hate off their pet. Even chain-nuking a mob as it runs up to you and their pets are pulling hate right off them.
March 2000

[baalzy]

Reposting the evidence which kicked this all off from the other thread that started here:
http://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=105069


So here's how I beat up on the yellows and reds while soloing after level 12. Self buff everything you have. Shielding, siphon str, grim aura, vampiric embrace. At 16 add spirit armor and banshee aura. Now lead with life leech and let the mob hit you instead of your pet! Even with leach the mob is gonna beat you down, but no worries, cause you haven't loaded on the dots, meaning the mob will aggro your pet when you step back and start using your near full tank of mana. Step back, and let your fully healthy pet take a few whacks from the mob that's now down to half or 2/3. Lifetap a couple times and step back in there. When the mob is down to where your pet can handle it, back off and med up for the next one.

This isn't possible here. This guy is talking about using life leach & meleeing a yellow/red mob and instantly being able to lose agro to your pet by stepping out of range. March 2000.


RM. HG's are pathetic exp I think. But me at 42 and my 42 Mage made 1K last night there in about 4 hours, so money is hard to beat. Go to where the Giants spawn and camp on the side of the valley directly across from where the Guards in the tower are. When doing HG's an Ench or Mage is wonderful because of Malise/Tash (like we need slow Clarity). Pull the MOB's to you (best I've found is to have the other caster pull with Tash/Malise). Then you get a MOB that has lowered MR, yet the pets can taunt it off easy. Target the MOB and do a /pet attack as soon as you see it. Continue to sit and med. When your pet goes after it, it is within Darkness range. Dark and Fear it. It will go back towards the hill, then across the hill to your right. I generally will cast VoS on it, then go babysit the pets, moving/sitting/moving. If Fear wears off it is now so mad at the pet(s) hitting it that it will go after them as long as you are not too close. Refear. The worst things I've found is that if you cast Fear more then twice, you'd better nuke or the pets seem to take all the exp. You still get the loot though. And since you know exactly where he is going you can get ahead of him and sit and med while he is getting kicked to death by the pets.


Tash a mob and have a pet pull it off easily.
March 2001


-ATTACK STRATEGY-

Find a victim, engulf darkness if it fails, pull it to pet and sick the pet on it. Back up and recast until it sticks. From here cast Heat Blood, Heart Flutter, and if you want, Disease Cloud. By this time the giant will hate you and start chasing you... run the giant around the outer wall (but not to close to the nearby hut, for a giant spawns in there) and once you get to the road follow the road to the outer door and then follow the wall up and around again. make sure you have your pet taunt off by typing /taunt. If it does stop to attack your pet, SoP it and it will start chasing you again.


This is more what I remember. Pets grabbed snap agro easily. If I had a string of darkness/fear resists it often became difficult to get the mob off my pet before my pet died.

Feb. 2001

Think I might look into Enchanter/Shaman guides too.

[Potus]

Please allow this Classic evidence from Mage's Compendium as well.

a) park your pet in a safe spot.
b) pull to the pet, so that the mob stops on TOP of your pet.

If you can pull with a DD spell from where you stand, be sure to have the pet right in front of you when the mob is incoming.

If you run to the mob, and pull with a spell, running back, be sure to run THROUGH pet, and stop right behind it.

This is a guide (9/28/00) that shows how Mage Pets can actually tank for groups with melee classes.

It shows two things: Pets have snap aggro, as the Mage can pull with a DD and have the pet instantly taunt it off, and two, that Mage Pets have such fantastic aggro that PCs can beat up on a mob and the mob will concentrate on ol' Jabober instead.


SHAMANS
Again pets are tanks, so you can buff them and heal them.

CLERICS
Pets are mini-tanks basically.
If the pet is acting as a main tank, treat it as a tpical tank, healing and buffing. Pets have enormous amounts of hit points at high level though (2000+ from the 51 level and higher spells). but they also regen fast.

ENCHANTERS
Alternatively just let the pet deal with the mob ,you don't have to mez every mob ;) The pet can tank quite well saving you mana and aggro

WIZARDS
With the pet to taunt off, or better still Root, a wizzy can have fun nuking!

DRUIDS
Again the ability to TP to good spots, have a tank and nuker is a great combo!

BARDS
Bard songs dont' affect pets, major bummer :( Also bards are HUGE taunts, so if partenring with a bard be very careful of taunting, only earth pets and probably air can stop mobs going after an incautious bard! Still, a bard's speed (for pulling), melee, and song skills make him a good partner for duoing with a mage.

This guide (2/9/01) shows how Mage pets work when duo'ing with other classes. For nearly every class combo the Mage pet is tanking and taunting well, enough that Wizards and Enchanters can nuke.

All of this is impossible on P99 as pet taunt isn't worth a damn.

[phacemeltar]

if pet taunt worked, this server would change substantially. no more need for tanks, i shudder at the thought *shudder*

iirc pet taunt being viable is the reason why shamans/sks get low level pets.. they are kinda useless as the game is now

[YendorLootmonkey]

Wasn't this changed when Sky bosses were killed by 30+ pets?

http://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?p=217428&highlight=pets#post217428

[baalzy]

Lets keep the ball rolling with some Enchanter stories of yore.


MAKE SURE YOU PULL you can use lull to ensure you pull only one skele at a time, lull tow of them, pull one, and then cast tashan on the one you want to pull in, now back up and let your tank, or allys pet melee while you cast enfeeblement, not cast suffocating sphere and go and melee as well, once you get the message 'your suffocating sphere spell has worn off' or when u get low on hp, back off again and cast suffocating sphere again or sit rest for a tick or two, by then the spell will need recasting and u can melee again

Suffocation sphere & enfeeblement? Being tanked by someones pet? Those are some nasty spells that pull gigantic aggro here.
December 2000


Cast Tashan on the wisp, back off when the pet starts attacking the wisp, and throw your 4th level DoT on the wisp. Then watch the health of your pet and the wisp. If the pet reaches 50% health, start blasting the wisp to draw it onto you. If you have a magic weapon (get a magician to summon a dagger for you, if needed), melee the wisp, too. If not, be ready to use up all your mana blasting the wisp.

Another post supporting pets hold great hate even against nasty DoTs. Side note: This is a fantastic guide in general for Enchanters & could provide a lot of insight into classic mechanics for enchanters (I didn't read the whole thing).

March 2000


I've taken down 1 red, and had to gate from another one...if fear gets resisted or has a short duration twice, let it munch on your pet while you gate, you're not going to win that fight.


In this one the enchanter is suggesting you let your pet die while you gate if a red griffiene resists fear or your fear breaks early 2 times. At level 24 in p99 this would never work. 1 resisted fear and the griffiene is munching on you and your pet will never pull it off. This is also an animation, the weakest of the int pets

December 2000


1. Have pet up
2. Cast Choke to initiate the battle
3. let mob attack you once to engage your pet, then take about 5 steps back
4. cast tashan
5. cast chase the moon to send mob off running with your pet chasing it.

Do steps 2-5 as quickly as possible to reduce the amount of time your weak-kneed pet has to staand toe to toe with that mob.

6. Let Fly with the big dog nuke to take a big chunk of its life away

From here you can decide whether you need to nuke again or melee it a couple times, depending on the hp the mob has and the condition of your pet. if your pet is hurting pretty badly, you'll want to nuke and get the fight over as soon as possible. I have found that by casting the spells in this order, the choke seems to do decent damage, and as long as you take a couple steps back, the mob will attack your pet instead of you after your pet is engaged. Then you can cast tashan and the mob will stay on your pet! Casting chase the moon makes it run away for quite some time usually, so hate shouldn't matter at this point. If you practice using this strategy enough you should be able to solo mobs from blue to the occasional red in Oasis without problems.


Choke, Tash, pet holding hate.
Feb 2001

Okay at this point I feel like I'm beating a dead horse. If a developer wants to make a request for more information then I'll go dig up some more.

[baalzy]

Wasn't this changed when Sky bosses were killed by 30+ pets?

http://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?p=217428&highlight=pets#post217428

http://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29610&highlight=rule+of+4

Nilbogs rule of 4 (Even if it's not classic, but it also could be classic) would solve this issue and while not gimping pets in low-man situations.

[Iumuno]

Wasn't this changed when Sky bosses were killed by 30+ pets?

http://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?p=217428&highlight=pets#post217428

Until a patch mid velious, raid mobs and even some dungeon named, would entirely ignore pets. It was impossible to tank raid mobs with pets.

[Asap]

Again, thanks for the research Baalzy. I hope something good comes of this thread

[Yinaltin]

bumping for dev attention

[Velerin]

Great evidence Baalzy. I started on this server some 8 months ago and have been bumping these pet aggro threads every chance I get. I love pet classes, still play mage as main here, but they are so borked. Lousy aggro, don't cast nearly enough, etc.. I just wish some dev will address this one someday. Even if they just say "suck it, we don't like pets. We aren't changing anything." and I'll stop worrying about it and probably switch to the best p99 pet class, enchanter.

[Nirgon]

I do know my necro pal who solo'd on live until 50 had to use fear even with a compliment of dots because the pet would get aggro otherwise.

Dots for sure were Venom of Snake + Blood Boil + Dooming Darkness -> pet could still get aggro off, even without taunt.

Not sure how this applies to raid mobs.

Not sure how this applies to having a pet tank for a rogue... we just never tried to do things like that.

Not sure exact threat values but it appears pets need a significant aggro boost here from my clickings around on a few chars. How much? Should it be damage based? Numbers of attacks based? Dunno that either, sorry.

[baalzy]

I do know my necro pal who solo'd on live until 50 had to use fear even with a compliment of dots because the pet would get aggro otherwise.

Dots for sure were Venom of Snake + Blood Boil + Dooming Darkness -> pet could still get aggro off, even without taunt.

Not sure how this applies to raid mobs.

Not sure how this applies to having a pet tank for a rogue... we just never tried to do things like that.

Not sure exact threat values but it appears pets need a significant aggro boost here from my clickings around on a few chars. How much? Should it be damage based? Numbers of attacks based? Dunno that either, sorry.

Personally I think it's a combination of the pets not generating enough hate & spells generating too much hate. From what I understand spells generate a static amount of hate per type of effect (1:1 hate:dmg for nukes. 400 for any snare/stun/debuff effect type thing). The evidence of pets just snapping agro off people as soon as they engage even when multiple high-agro spells have been cast is too overwhelming.

I also feel like, given the number of people talking about turning pet taunt off to keep the mob from turning on the pet, that taunt (at least for pets) acted more as something that added to hate directly instead of the way it does with warriors . As taunt works now, it's useless if the mob is higher level than your pet (which is going to be most-cases when xp'ing until the mid/late 50s when DB range gets really huge). Remember, many of these guides are talking about fighting white/yellow/red cons.

[Mirana]

Bump for great justice.

I know this doesn't serve as "evidence," but I remember playing a mage back on live in 2000 and would pull with my level 8 bolt spell, hit something 2 times before it got to me and never had aggro problems.

Pet aggro is most definitely broken.

[Haynar]

Bump for great justice.

I know this doesn't serve as "evidence," but I remember playing a mage back on live in 2000 and would pull with my level 8 bolt spell, hit something 2 times before it got to me and never had aggro problems.

Pet aggro is most definitely broken.
You bumped a thread that had the last post 20 min ago? Seriously?

Clearly you have a grasp on how to get us to revisit an issue.

Pet aggro was nerfed because they had become the prefered tank for raids. It might be possible to make some adjustments.

Haynar

[Potus]

Why did you break them 1-50 over raids?

Also that's not classic. Disappointed you'd ruin 2-4 caster classes over end game stuff.

[Asap]

Pet aggro was nerfed because they had become the prefered tank for raids. It might be possible to make some adjustments.

Haynar

While I understand something had to be done to prevent pets tanking raid targets, it sucks that pet classes were affected in regards to soloing, mages more specifically. I can't nuke a target unless the mob is at 40% hp for fear of pulling aggro off my pet.

I appreciate you addressing the issue and possibly working towards a fix in the future

[baalzy]

https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/pet-aggro.3227/ (2013 discussion after an aggro-meter was added to Live and people realized how much hate pets were generating)

To this day people are commenting on the fact that pet aggro is insanely huge. (theres 10 pages of discussion of tanks bitching pets stealing aggro). The discussion in this thread kinda puts to bed the rule of 4 stuff. At least, the rule of 4 no longer exists (or doesn't exist in new content).

Couple gems:

Yes, there's a reason...pets are used in more than just raid situations, and they actually need to hold aggro in some of those situations while players nuke from range. Can you imagine how well a mage would solo without a pet that could hold aggro over his nukes?


Pets follow different agro rules than PC's, so basically no, a warrior will never out-agro a pet, even if they are top agro.



It's funny bc pet aggro hasn't changed. It's just you can see it now.

How did we deal with this in the past? No1 brought it up and only pet classes knew the aggro issues.

Been in-game for quite some time, need to get over it by now.



As for aggro. We will continue to monitor pet aggro, but generally they are doing what they should for the sake of solo pet class play. This does lead to excessive aggro in group and raid play. As people have mentioned in this thread, there are ways that the pet user can deal with this aggro as they need.

This one is a developer response.

[baalzy]

You bumped a thread that had the last post 20 min ago? Seriously?

Clearly you have a grasp on how to get us to revisit an issue.

Pet aggro was nerfed because they had become the prefered tank for raids. It might be possible to make some adjustments.

Haynar

Thank you Haynar. I would suggest, if you're going to go with a non-classic implementation, you do something similar to the Rule of 4 that Nilbog posted. Maybe up it from 4 to 6 and have it only count actual PCs. This way a 6 mage xp party would still work, but it would make taking out OOA with nothing but pets impossible (pretty sure 6 mages, unless epic'd, couldn't summon fast enough/long enough to down OOA).

I can understand not wanting to let classic mechanics completely trivialize raid content, but the current implementation is hugely detrimental to all aspects of pet-caster play.

[Kazi]

So nerfs that hurt players are justified as classic, but stuff that helps players is nerfed in an unclassic fashion that breaks a whole class? Wut

[diplo]

i support this cause.

[Asap]

So nerfs that hurt players are justified as classic, but stuff that helps players is nerfed in an unclassic fashion that breaks a whole class? Wut

I understand the frustration, but let's not turn this thread into RnF

[Skydash]

Found this interesting in the patch notes here (http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20010627.html):

"Fixed the way that NPCs were treating pets. They were accrediting more hate to pets than they should have." - June 29, 2001

[Iumuno]

Found this interesting in the patch notes here (http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20010627.html):

"Fixed the way that NPCs were treating pets. They were accrediting more hate to pets than they should have." - June 29, 2001

That's actually fixing the previous patch. For a few days (weeks?), pets had insane aggro. That patch just reverted it back to normal aggro.

[baalzy]

Found this interesting in the patch notes here (http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20010627.html):

"Fixed the way that NPCs were treating pets. They were accrediting more hate to pets than they should have." - June 29, 2001

Following fixes have been added in the emergency patch of June 29, 2001:
Fixed the bug with feign death spells that was causing it to fail and sending a "Your spell has been interrupted" message.
Fixed the way that NPCs were treating pets. They were accrediting more hate to pets than they should have.

Patched on the 27th. Emergency patch on the 29th to fix the aggro problem introduced on the 27th.

[element08]

i support this cause.

edit: just so this isn't just me too-ing I appreciate the time you put into pulling that info together baalzy. I remember when mages would get yelled at in groups for not turning off pet taunt on live.

[Mirana]

You bumped a thread that had the last post 20 min ago? Seriously?

Clearly you have a grasp on how to get us to revisit an issue.

Pet aggro was nerfed because they had become the prefered tank for raids. It might be possible to make some adjustments.

Haynar

No idea why my post was met with such hostility, it's like you took it as a personal attack. No need to be rude and disrespectful. I meant nothing by it, just wanted to share my experience.

I appreciate all the hard work you guys do.

[Babayaaga]

This needs attention.

Easiest fix seems to be to disallow taunt functionality on pets for raid encounter bosses. Unless, of course, this is a shared value with player classes, I can't see why this would not have been a better fix in the first place.

I think it's ridiculous that 55+ "root rotting" and charming are among the top on the list of desirability for soloing, and spots where this can be done are extremely limited. I fondly remember going from 55-60 in Skyfire on Live, which without pet taunt is an exercise in rebuff frustration.

Fix this please.

[Tecmos Deception]

Bump cause this was almost off the first page and my newly-returned-to-p99 RL buddy wants to play his mage!

[Asap]

Pet aggro was nerfed because they had become the prefered tank for raids. It might be possible to make some adjustments.

Haynar

So H, want to discuss the adjustments that might be made regarding pet aggro? I understand you have a ton of stuff on your plate, but I'd imagine a broken class has high priority.

[Iumuno]

Pet aggro was nerfed because they had become the prefered tank for raids. It might be possible to make some adjustments.

Haynar

I missed that post.

Could you flag some mobs to ignore pets entirely?

[CodyF86]

Hi Haynar,

I think maybe the best solution in terms of a good middle-ground would be to allow pets to hold aggro like they did on live, unless the merb is lvl 53+, then they would just act like they do now. This way mages could actually have their pets hold decent aggro, but not be able to use a pet to tank 100% of raid merbs (unless it was only pets tanking to begin with...i.e., phinny), and prob most end-of-quest epic mobs.

This is just my drunken rambling / idea / whatever as I play my mage tonight! :)

Aaradin
Aaradone
The A-Team

[Haynar]

Since pets tanking raid mobs was the issue, that is what I think should be addressed. All raid mobs, pets generate aggro like now. This could include epic mobs.

Ideally, in a group setting, pets should hold aggro pretty well.

I still have to sell the idea. The decision is not up to me.

H

[Asap]

Since pets tanking raid mobs was the issue, that is what I think should be addressed. All raid mobs, pets generate aggro like now. This could include epic mobs.

Ideally, in a group setting, pets should hold aggro pretty well.

I still have to sell the idea. The decision is not up to me.

H

I agree with this. I, like many mages, only want my pet to have great aggro in solo/group settings, I could care less about how he can tank raid targets. I think the solution is grand, so close to a solution. Who had the final word, bog?

[Potus]

Since pets tanking raid mobs was the issue, that is what I think should be addressed. All raid mobs, pets generate aggro like now. This could include epic mobs.

H

Completely agree. This is a good compromise.

[baalzy]

Since pets tanking raid mobs was the issue, that is what I think should be addressed. All raid mobs, pets generate aggro like now. This could include epic mobs.

Ideally, in a group setting, pets should hold aggro pretty well.

I still have to sell the idea. The decision is not up to me.

H

Thanks for the update Haynar. I do want to point out though that the fact you have to 'sell' restoring classic mechanics is what causes people to make comments such as this one:

So nerfs that hurt players are justified as classic, but stuff that helps players is nerfed in an unclassic fashion that breaks a whole class? Wut

[nilbog]

Thanks for the update Haynar. I do want to point out though that the fact you have to 'sell' restoring classic mechanics is what causes people to make comments such as this one:

Will always choose to err on the side of underpowered rather than overpowered. Safest way to proceed until things are perfect, or near perfect.

Can blame me. But, I'd like pets to work properly. I played a magician for years, and I agree the aggro is not correct.

[Shiftin]

Those of us who played in late 2010 - early 2011 and were around for DA bringing 16-20 mages to sky to pet down isles 6-8 with zero risk understand the reason things are this way. I'd love a better implementation, but a quick fix had to be done at that time.

[Nirgon]

Pet stealing aggro in groups.... pretty much any warrior during the classic era could chime in an verify if this was indeed possible.

[koros]

I think the pet tanking raid mobs is a pre-kunark era issue. Taking out stuff in sky was possible because of chain petting with lots of pet casters, something that was always possible technically, even in clasisc. Mobs with legitimate AEs would tear pets up.

I could see the concern considering 10 mages could probably down the AoW, even if he was 1 rounding pets 80% of the time.

Also pets were kinda OP here pre-kunark, even more than live a bit I'd wager. My damn shaman pet was parsing 35 dps in sky when given 2 weapons and buffed. That was more than rogues for the most part.

[Wrench]

Pet stealing aggro in groups.... pretty much any warrior during the classic era could chime in an verify if this was indeed possible.

either ur misunderstanding or i am

is anyone in this thread actually advocating that in classic a mob in melee range of a pc would chose to hit a pet?

[koros]

It's also worth considering that classic EQ was incredibly not balanced. If the max level cap was still 50, people would still be able to drop Trak here by bringing a bunch of enchanters and just killing him with level 45 charmed pets. There's more time/knowledge/willingness to experiment here. The content was beaten 14+ years ago. It's still fun even if things are OP sometimes.

[koros]

either ur misunderstanding or i am

is anyone in this thread actually advocating that in classic a mob in melee range of a pc would chose to hit a pet?

That was the case in classic yes. Pets could tank with melees in range. It was changed after LoS dropped AoW with charmed pets.

[Velerin]

Pets always will seem OP at earlier timelines and/or pre-twinkage, since out of the box a pet tanks pretty decently. Once real tanks start getting some gear they far surpass a pet. With kunark gear (and soon Velious gear) that gap gets wider. Thus maybe during classic 20 mages (plus support classes im sure) taking down a raid boss was OP but in this timeline 20 of anyone can probably do the same.
Kind of like the big tado about wiz manaburn teams back in the day. They nerfed them about the same time when people were killing them with even less people.

I'm just so happy pets are finally getting some attention. Even if not much gets changed it's good they are at least bring evaluated. Please make sure to take a look at mage pet casting not enough as well (splorfs post)

[baalzy]

I think the pet tanking raid mobs is a pre-kunark era issue. Taking out stuff in sky was possible because of chain petting with lots of pet casters, something that was always possible technically, even in clasisc. Mobs with legitimate AEs would tear pets up.

I could see the concern considering 10 mages could probably down the AoW, even if he was 1 rounding pets 80% of the time.

Also pets were kinda OP here pre-kunark, even more than live a bit I'd wager. My damn shaman pet was parsing 35 dps in sky when given 2 weapons and buffed. That was more than rogues for the most part.

Yeah pets were OP in other ways. One thing being the high lvl pets shouldn't have been auto-dual wielding during Vanilla, they had to be given weapons. Pet chaining should have been less effective because of the drop in DPS from not dual-wielding. Melee damage tables during the 'vanilla' era of p99 were also off and melee damage was operating in the higher-end of the spectrum than it should have.

So a couple things that were unclassically overpowered compounded with things that were classically possible and resulted in actions taken to address the end-result, which were pet-zergs.

[Asap]

Will always choose to err on the side of underpowered rather than overpowered. Safest way to proceed until things are perfect, or near perfect.

Can blame me. But, I'd like pets to work properly. I played a magician for years, and I agree the aggro is not correct.

Thanks for your input, bog. Glad to finally have a dev agree

[diplo]

i played a mage on live and mage on both servers and i'm sure everyone can agree that the nerf's and non-classic mechanics to the mage class are egregious. it's like they beat us up, spit on our face, and then proceeded to smash our significant other. I mean mage's are the weakest caster class bc we are so reliant on our pet, but if you nerf what makes a mage so much, it defeats the purpose of playing the class at all if you're not 60.

1. pet exp nerf - OK I kinda get it
2. aggro nerf was way too nerfed imo, not SO much I notice since I only use an epic pet, but i can see how leveling mages would complain.
3. Bolts move at a snails pace and rendered useless pvp.
4. pets don't proc the way they should on classic (loraen's consolidated bugs).


i'm just hoping we get thrown a bone someday..

[Nirgon]

Can I get requested threat values on the following spells/actions:

Spells:
Dooming Darkness
Venom of the Snake
Boil Blood

Per hit threat by lvl 34 necro pet (Invoke Shadow ) <- Esp if threat is just per swing or by damage too.

I don't think any effort can be made to find an exact formula or exact threat values per spell / per swing. What can be done is we can put our heads together and post situations where we know that a pet would or would not get threat over performing certain actions. The end result here is pets generate a to be determined amount of threat greater than what is generated now. Perhaps pets need to pull additional threat based on damage (like spell damage). I know that a lvl 49 pet should pull threat from a lvl 39 pet very easily. I think their attack speeds were the same on live, but they just did more damage hence more threat.

[wwoneo]

Was this issue ever resolved? I saw that Nilbog wanted to do something about it, but have not heard anything since 02/24/2014...

[wwoneo]

bump

[wwoneo]

This 100% needs a bump.

[wwoneo]

Im not sure how often these bug forums are read anymore. So, I just wanted to keep this bumped once a week so that it isn't missed.

[wwoneo]

Proven Classic mechanic that slightly helps players? You will be waiting 4 years like the DA agro thread just to be told "nope, We don't care if it's classic".

Well, it's been three years; so I'm hopeful! :D

[wwoneo]

^

[Bristlebaner]

.

[Daldaen]

Hop on live EQ.

You will find the hate code is directly dependent upon the HP of the mob. The lower the mobs HP the more proximity to the mob factors in.

Because low level mobs have no HP, proximity is mostly all that matters. Which may be why all those posts confirm pets could hold aggro. Many of the stories mention backing away or getting in corners etc. Not simply get out of Melee range.

[Nirgon]

I mean I watched necros solo Travis Two Tone and it would almost never come off the pet despite them spamming shock of poison but.. doesn't mean if someone attacked in melee that he wouldn't switch to them and smash their lvl 5 troll ass

[Tazok]

bump

[wwoneo]

never going to give you up

[Bristlebaner]

.

[wwoneo]

^

[Adron]

Bump. Screwing the pet classes out of their ability to tank properly narrows the game down to too few viable classes in the endgame. Making fewer classes viable in the endgame is not more fun. It isn't classic. It isn't the right way forward.

[bwe]

Why is this taking so long

[wwoneo]

Why is this taking so long

4 years is too long? you have no patience! :D

[wwoneo]

^

[AbstractVision]

Any thought been given to revisiting classic pet aggro for green?

[feniin]

Pets should be able to hold agro with PCs in melee range. Blows my mind that it's gone on this long without a fix. Fundamentally changes so many classes.

[Danth]

Pets should be able to hold agro with PCs in melee range. Blows my mind that it's gone on this long without a fix. Fundamentally changes so many classes.

They can in the right circumstances. Just a couple days ago the wife and I were dorking around on some low level characters and I noticed that a Necromancer pet could and often did hold aggro over Shaman melee. You might argue they should be better at it, but they can do it at least in terms of having the raw capability.

Danth

[soronil]

They can in the right circumstances. Just a couple days ago the wife and I were dorking around on some low level characters and I noticed that a Necromancer pet could and often did hold aggro over Shaman melee. You might argue they should be better at it, but they can do it at least in terms of having the raw capability.

Danth

On my SK and mage, I have noticed just walking into melee range causes mob to focus me. I assumed the behavior currently on blue was that it was not possible to a target a pet when a player was in melee range. I actually use this to save my pet at low levels. Even if I have not attacked, and the pet has been taunting and dpsing 50%+ of the mobs hp, I can take aggro by walking up

[Danth]

On my SK and mage, I have noticed just walking into melee range causes mob to focus me. I assumed the behavior currently on blue was that it was not possible to a target a pet when a player was in melee range. I actually use this to save my pet at low levels. Even if I have not attacked, and the pet has been taunting and dpsing 50%+ of the mobs hp, I can take aggro by walking up

Could be just Necromancer/skeleton pets perhaps? I was under the impression on P99 that monsters would always favor a player character in melee range over a pet as well so I was surprised to see it happen at all, but it happened numerous times and once I got used to it I was able to control it to come extent. Given I was on a Shaman, any proper melee class would presumably out-aggro the pet easily.

Danth

[Baler]

I've heard rumors of this bug since I started full time on p99

But this fix would benefit the players. So we have to find a holy tablet of gold written in the blood of virgins with proof for the staff to consider fixing it.