Where are the (Pet) Defensive Parses?

[cougerofeq]

Saying we got nerfed is kinda weird.  This is a single item people are talking about, which isn't even specific to the Beastlord class.

Furthermore, in spite of the fact that it did lose hit points, it gained a level, which makes it resist spells better, hit harder, land more procs, and get hit less.

Given that our pets don't generally need to tank for us very much, I think those more than cancel out the hit point difference.

But its an item that is specific to us in that it effects mages necros and us differently and it changes our warder(pet) which is a vital part of both of our classes. Its not like one of many breastplates you could wear - these are set up to allow our warders/pets to progress(per the patch message) one per expansion level. It would be the same as getting new pet summon spells for each expansion(lodn, time, god), it just in a different form.

Its has been stated here often that hitpoints are king  - so I think its a big jump to say one level or a few ac are a fair trade. The message said they were improved not given a maybe fair trade.

Also as a former mage = I had heard giving phantom plate helped and always did - its free and is a mage summoned item. So it is just as valid as any buff or slow we would cast if you are comparing the pets performance. I always gave mine summoned weapons and the haste mask too - they are summoned and free too.

But if you look at my post above, I stated that my worst fear was that some BST would be content and so it seems.  Mages dont need us to argue their cause - they do it better than any class I know.

[cougerofeq]

oh and dont forget to add the damage shields to the mix as noted by a mage...

Tezron told me about this and I tested it myself.

Rathe's Son-- DPoC focused
Girdle, Mask, Kedge x2, Plate Armor
45pt DS, BO5

send pet on random PoI mob
/pet hold
watch as pet takes damage, but regens it back
30 years later, pet still is at full health, and mob is dead due to DS

[Choppin]

The DS made the mob just die faster, the numbers above are that of the mob. Since a DS on the warder or mage pet would not change the DPS of the mob it seems irrelevant.

[Lheo]

why in hell Soe wrote in patchnotes that bst pets GOT a BOOST, when it was a NERF....THAT suckes hardcore(not the boost for the magepets) :evil:

[TerjynPovar]

Hit points are king is a vast simplification.  In reality, levels are king.  There is no power boost you can acquire bigger than an additional level.  But levels cap in a way that hit points do not.

[Bengali]

Also as a former mage = I had heard giving phantom plate helped and always did - its free and is a mage summoned item. So it is just as valid as any buff or slow we would cast if you are comparing the pets performance. I always gave mine summoned weapons and the haste mask too - they are summoned and free too.

Yep, it's valid, but I didn't put an AC buff on my warder for these tests either.  Ideally the pets should have had the same buffs/equipment (I know this is impossible, but it would be ideal if it could happen) -- we aren't testing who can buff their pets better, we are just testing how they mitigate damage.  Maybe if I had given the warder a set of phantom plate the average hit numbers would have been closer.

But if you look at my post above, I stated that my worst fear was that some BST would be content and so it seems.  Mages dont need us to argue their cause - they do it better than any class I know.

Dunno why your worst fear is that some people may not care about something.  Not everyone agrees on things.  Some people think it's a bug, others don't care even if it's not, and others think this is a sign that SoE wants to nerf us and it's the worst thing ever.  For any problem that exists there are going to be *some* people who are apathetic.

From my perspective, we have info suggesting that we need to do some more tests to figure out what might be going on.  Whether that happens is a separate question.  Spending hours parsing when I could be doing something more interesting isn't the best way to spend my time ... ;)

[Konji]

To be fair now lets compare our tanking ability vs the mage :)

[Mahes]

Honestly, how can we really do defensive parses right now to see a change?

Unless someone's been parsing and keeping it private, we really have nothing to compare to.  As said before, we rarely let out pets tank consistantly at high levels, so no one really bothers to parse it.  To me, my pet is about DPS and overall hps.  HPs only being an issue when it comes to raid mob AEs.  How it mitigates is rarely an issue to me.  This isn't to say that I don't appreciate boosts to mitigation because I'm sure it benefits some players.  Just illustrating why we don't parse it and can't really compare it.

Heck, for that matter I can't even compare DPS parses to the ones I did a few months ago on Sorsha, DPoC, and SoAS.  The new pet AAs have made it impossible to get an accurate idea in changes.

[Bengali]

Honestly, how can we really do defensive parses right now to see a change?

There's two things.

1.  We don't know whether beastlord pets got an overall mitigation boost with this patch, although the patch wording itself suggested that we probably didn't.  We have no way of figuring this out without pre-patch pet tanking parses that probably don't exist.  You're right that we can't see a change in this area.

2.  Supposedly, however, ALL pets mitigate better when they are focused.  This we CAN test.  There is some preliminary, unscientific data suggesting that warders focused with summoner's boon do not receive a mitigation boost over unfocused warders.  

IF this is true (and I can't conclusively say that it is) then it may be unintentional and need fixing.  Whether we tank better than a mage or don't care because we don't use our pets to tank much or whatever else, it still is the case that our warders are supposed to get better when they are focused just like everyone else's.

Mage pets focused with summoner's boon do recieve a mitigation boost, according to the parses they have done *post-patch*.  We have yet to compile enough *post-patch* parses to do the same.

Even if we establish that our focused warders received no mitigation boost, it's possible that it's intended to be that way.  The patch message said that some pets might have been boosted in some ways but not others.  The example given was that a Minion-focused earth pet did not get an hp boost but did get a mitigation boost.

So far, it looks like a boon-focused warder LOST hps and may mitigate exactly the same as an unfocused warder.  It doesn't seem likely that was intended, but I don't know.  We can't even find out whether it was intended until we find out whether that's even true.

Whether anyone cares is a different issue. :P

[Xuthaz]

To be fair now lets compare our tanking ability vs the mage

sure while we are comparing irrelevant data, lets compare burst DPS at range outside of AE DD/rampage range of beastlords and magicians as well, want to make sure we're getting accurate numbers here :P

[Hrann]

Not to put down Bengali's efforts, which I (and I'm sure others) greatly appreciate, but I don't think the results shown above should be counted for anything.  Parsing for under 4 minutes is way too short a time to show anything meaningful.  I've had streaks longer than that where my dps was literally double what it normally is.

[Tastian]

It's a start hrann.  He's not calling it fact or using it as proof, but it's definetly a start and gives you some idea  Although the margin of error is high it's something.  I always welcome other people to parse stuff, but it just doesn't get done much and this particular thing is something that really won't get a lot of bst attention imo for reasons that have been discussed.  Still happy for mages, still want my focused warder graphic back.  The End 8)

[Bengali]

Not to put down Bengali's efforts, which I (and I'm sure others) greatly appreciate, but I don't think the results shown above should be counted for anything.  Parsing for under 4 minutes is way too short a time to show anything meaningful.  I've had streaks longer than that where my dps was literally double what it normally is.

Nah, it was just a quick parse just to see if I'd notice something dramatic.  I agree 100% that we need a lot more data to reach any conclusions, and I hope no one got the wrong idea from my post.  In fact, I said:

This is only two fights, so more data is needed.

So no one should take what I did as final by any stretch.  It's just a jumping off point for someone more motivated to parse than I am.  This is much harder to parse than say, pet damage, because you have to sit there and let the pet tank, and it takes forever to kill those golems that way.   I sped it up by casting damage spells as I could, but those buggers are resistant.