Game Mechanics: Necro pets should not lifetap until January 2000 patch era

[Dolalin]

Following this patch in January 2000 where Verant nerfed necromancers giving their pets daggers to increase their attack speed, they made a few token additions to the necromancer class. One of them was to allow necro pets to proc their lifetaps.

Necro pets should not proc lifetaps before January 2000 patch era.

Date : 29/01/2000

Topic : Patch

January 28th, 7:00pm
Emergency Patch

The servers are currently being brought down individually for an emergency update. This update is being done to correct a bug in the server code that led to the instability that the servers have experienced over the past week. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Included with this patch are several changes that were not supposed to occur until the regular patch next week. These changes are inseparable from the changes required to fix the network problems, and as such are being implemented a little earlier than we would like. There will be additional changes in the next patch that we wanted to include with the current changes, however to reduce overall downtime and customer inconvenience, they are being postponed until next week.

Changes in Current Patch

Warriors

Warriors now have a chance to strike a "Crippling Blow" when berserk. "Crippling Blow" is much the same as a "Critical Hit" with increased damage and an integral stun.

Magicians and Necromancers

We discovered a bug whereby all NPCs will not utilize their "Dual Wield" skill unless they have a weapon equipped in their off-hand. This bug would not allow magician and necromancer pets to use their "Dual Wield" skill unless handed two weapons by their masters. Since magician pets could not wield weapons at all, they never used their "dual wield" skill.

Correcting this bug would cause all NPCs above the mid-20s to suddenly begin using their "dual wield" skill to attack players with their off-hand. This would cause a drastic shift to game balance, as most non-pet NPCs are generally considered balanced.

Magicians may now equip their pets with weapons. This will allow their pets to utilize their "dual wield" skill, thus increasing the number of attacks that the pet can make per round.

Since magician pets can now wield weapons, an ability previously reserved for necromancers, high level necromancer summons (44 or above) will now randomly cast spell effects upon the creatures they fight.

An additional change has been made to make it easier for necromancers and magicians to equip their pets. Previously, necromancers had to equip their pets with two *different* weapons in order enable them to "dual wield". This change allows magicians and necromancers alike to hand their pet two *identical* weapons, thus making it easier for them to get their pet to "dual wield".

These changes drew our attention to the disparity that exists between melee characters and caster pets. Both of these pets, after the initial round of changes, could wield certain weapons that would significantly increase their attack speed. We acknowledge that necromancers always had this ability, and apologize for our delay in addressing it, but weapons will no longer increase the attack speed (lower the attack delay) of a pet.

In the near future, several new spells are planned for necromancers of level 12 and above, including a new type of necromancer-only spell that is very group-friendly. We were planning to include these new spells with the changes in pet/weapon interaction, but those additions require downtime best restricted to the planned update schedule. We expect to implement the new spell effects in the next patch, tentatively scheduled for next week.

- The EverQuest Team

https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...&postcount=115

Another partial source for the patch message, so it's legit:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....s/gAd16SEdyBoJ

[DMN]

I find it interesting that it seems to intimate that the attack speed normalization of pets concurred with this patch?

Man, it certainly did not feel like we had it for that long. Maybe I took the high level pet stat nerfs too hard.

[Dolalin]

Yes this is the same patch that nerfed dagger delay on pets.

[Quinas]

Good job again Dolalin but you may want to look into witness protection.

[Dolalin]

I trust Europa to protect me. Wonkee is a crazy Scotsman.

[Quinas]

Originally Posted by Dolalin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I trust Europa to protect me. Wonkee is a crazy Scotsman.

[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Watch out for roving bands of disgruntled magicians!

I'm thinking I'll roll Necro!

[Dolalin]

I'm worried I'm finding so much stuff they won't be able to patch it all in in time for Green. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]