Patch Notes, Sunday April 17th, 2011

[Kraftwerk]

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

[*]Kanras: Pets will no longer automatically dual wield at a certain level.

Does anyone have the source for why this change was made? Anything I've ever read anywhere lists Magician Pets as always being able to innately dual wield at lvl 39 spell and up. Did they remove the ability for a bit then give it back to Mages?

[yaaaflow]

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

Does anyone have the source for why this change was made? Anything I've ever read anywhere lists Magician Pets as always being able to innately dual wield at lvl 39 spell and up. Did they remove the ability for a bit then give it back to Mages?

Welp guess it's back to having a spare backpack to fill up with summoned daggers. Tougher to do whilst chainpetting now that you can't give your pets stuff while they're fighting though.

Back to getting bugged by other pet classes for weapons on raids too, weee.

[Kraftwerk]

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

Welp guess it's back to having a spare backpack to fill up with summoned daggers. Tougher to do whilst chainpetting now that you can't give your pets stuff while they're fighting though.

Back to getting bugged by other pet classes for weapons on raids too, weee.

Well I'm more curious where the source for this change is. I'd like to read about it. I played a Magician from 2001 - 2003 and only remember giving my pet weapons for procs, never to necessitate a dual wield. And everything I find on Allakhazam, EQSummoners, random other forums all list Mage pets as innately dual wielding post lvl 39 spell.

Now shaman pets are another story....

[Knightmare]

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

Well I'm more curious where the source for this change is. I'd like to read about it. I played a Magician from 2001 - 2003 and only remember giving my pet weapons for procs, never to necessitate a dual wield.

One aspect to remember is that what we remember may be from 1 point in time and not fit with the current time frame from this patch. Also, I "remember" a lot of things that research has proven me wrong about lol.

There's also a list in another post (I'll look for it) and this link where the pet abilities were listed on these forums (for Necro pets) and dual wield was not among the innate abilities until the higher lvls.

Thanks for all the fixes guys, massive amount of stuff in here.. and all while you held an event in Gfay and got annoyed by some fool Necromancer [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Jify]

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

Does anyone have the source for why this change was made? Anything I've ever read anywhere lists Magician Pets as always being able to innately dual wield at lvl 39 spell and up. Did they remove the ability for a bit then give it back to Mages?

I remember insta duel wield after lvl 39 as well. I don't think this change was warranted, however, I do trust that the GMs did proper homework prior to renerfing magician pets.

That being said, it's been confirmed by developers that they are NOT going to increase pet power despite classic timelines and patches. This was evident in things like the "pets use weapon delay", "sword of runes procs on all mobs", etc. not being implemented on this server.

Pets are incredibly strong as is I agree that developers shouldn't be going out of their way to increase pet power over other pressing matters. However, a 40% blow to mage DPS is quite substantial....

Anyway, let's ride it out and see where it came from! Like I said earlier, the GMs do their homework prior to nerfs and patches. I'm sure Nilbog will follow up shortly with a quote from a reliable source. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Kraftwerk]

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

I remember insta duel wield after lvl 39 as well. I don't think this change was warranted, however, I do trust that the GMs did proper homework prior to renerfing magician pets.

That being said, it's been confirmed by developers that they are NOT going to increase pet power despite classic timelines and patches. This was evident in things like the "pets use weapon delay", "sword of runes procs on all mobs", etc. not being implemented on this server.

Pets are incredibly strong as is I agree that developers shouldn't be going out of their way to increase pet power over other pressing matters. However, a 40% blow to mage DPS is quite substantial....

Anyway, let's ride it out and see where it came from! Like I said earlier, the GMs do their homework prior to nerfs and patches. I'm sure Nilbog will follow up shortly with a quote from a reliable source. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'm totally fine with pets using weapon delay, and the sword of runes thing. I supported that. All I am curious for is the documentation supporting this change so I can view it as I do not remember it happening ever when I played. It affects Magician soloing tremendously to the point where I may have to *gasp* go LFG.

[Jify]

Also...

Kanras: Mistwalker pets will now depop after one round of combat.

Translation: Zilo is now nerfed.

[Trystych]

Pets do need to be nerfed, both summoned and charmed versus raid targets, their performance against creatures you would xp on is far more on par.

I think the issue has to do with AC and level difference calculations not performing as they would be expected to. During kunark the AC advantage of the statless armor pieces were sufficient for players to equip and use them, where here players are going with planar armor for the hp/stats.

The NPCs are suffering from this too. When fighting a raid target they generally have significantly higher AC, and in the case of some targets a level advantage over players. The combo effect of say trakanon, who is 20 levels higher than most pets and 12-15 higher than charmed pets, with better AC than your standard xp target should not be getting hit for anywhere near moderate damage by low level entities (pets and players).

Instead of seeing several misses, hits for 1's, and 10's, we are seeing higher damage than that on the case of summoned pets.

I have no easy answers on how this could be fixed, but it would be a more targeted approach to nerfing pets where they need to be nerfed. We currently have pets holding agro worse than they should, and now not dual wielding which affects the xp scene in order to nerf their raid usefulness.