I know you are better than this xal...

[a_moss_snake_001]

Sorry, this game never has been and never will be balanced around your ability to solo. Oh sure you can expect a few "tweak nerfs" here and there if you solo TOO well but overall you will almost never see changes put in that are directly intended to make you solo better.

Honestly both heals suck, however i'd rather have the lower casting time and the longer re-cast to be honest as thats far more useful on raids when i want to snap off a fast heal to the pet when he is dangerously low.

Mages are in EXACTLY the same boat as Beastlords are when it comes to healing and they don't realise it. At a point a mage wishes to use a pet heal he can cast it fast but it heals a tiny and almost useless portion of the pets HP and he has to wait 10 secs to cast another, the beastlord on the other hand... by the time the Beastlord needs to use a pet heal, and casts it... and waits... and waits... and waits some more... its most likely too late, not to mention that 2100hp looks good on paper but realistically will heal around 1/3rd of my pet's HP (my pet almost always has Virtue and pet gear). So that leaves both classes stuck relying on Pet LoH AA as their primary source of pet healing.

Now if you made a case like this: Improve pet healing for *all* pet classes, lower cast times, lower re-cast times (and in the case of necros improve the healing amount) then you might get somewhere.

Imho a good start would be:
- Lower recast time on Mage pet heal to 5.0 (its currently 10.0)
- Lower cast time on Beastlord pet heal to 4.0 (its currently 9.0)
- Add 25% strength to Necromancer pet heal

That way both classes are getting a 5 second reduction in waiting time and necros get a much needed boost in this area. And btw, Beastlords get our superior healing abiilities from our Shaman parent, where do Magicians get theirs? (*grins* just messin with ya!).

[Jaytee Bushwacker]

So for Jaytee this has gone from "their pet heals are better!" to "they solo better than me!"

No, I was giving examples of the different perspectives give you different outlooks on the same arguments.

Imho a good start would be:
- Lower recast time on Mage pet heal to 5.0 (its currently 10.0)
- Lower cast time on Beastlord pet heal to 4.0 (its currently 9.0)
- Add 25% strength to Necromancer pet heal

That way both classes are getting a 5 second reduction in waiting time and necros get a much needed boost in this area. .

I don't see a problem with that but do necros really need a boost to defense when they are already the best defended caster out there?

[a_moss_snake_001]

Necros lub their pet also!!!! /sobs

Actually this is more from a raiding "keep my pet alive please" perspective than a solo 'defense' aspect. See? Generally when soloing a necro will pull aggro off his pet and kite the mob around or the necro will step in and take hits for the pet and lifetap the HP back.

Wierd how different classes view pet healing TOTALLY differently yet we ALL need to understand each others viewpoints before we start shouting up what is and isn't wrong.

[Ssolrak]

Xalmats improved pet heals are a way of allowing magicians to solo again (currently at level 65 we cannnot solo anything worthwhile for xp), with the kind of healing improvements Xalmat suggested it would be possible for magicians to solo decent XP giving mobs at 65, remember unlike you guys we do NOT have slow, and unlike all the other arcane casters when we fight mobs out pet gets hit, we cant snare them and run around kiting the mob, our pet has to get hit, and imagine what that is like when you dont have SLOW.

1. This isn't supposed to be a solo game anymore and I for one would feel a bit miffed if SoE started giving out upgrades for soloing....

2. A 65 Mage can't solo for decent xp? I got to laugh at that one, not only do mages currently solo better then a lot of classes but I have seen how fast mages can solo xp in places like Droga and it ain't slow.

[Gimrol]

So for Jaytee this has gone from "their pet heals are better!" to "they solo better than me!"

Necros solo better than all of us! Go whine about them being imbalanced. Oh wait. Everyone did. untill they realised, SoE doesnt give a flying misty thicket picknic about who solos best, so long as they are in check (ie the chanter charm nerf in hoh or tactics or wherever it was they were pulling down obscene AA's)

While I normally agree with Jaytee and Xalmat, for some reason they went a bit off the deep end with this one.  Magicians should compare themselves to other int casters, namely Necros and Wizards (enchanters to a lesser extent).  Magicians do come out a bit behind when compared to other int casters.  

HOWEVER, the answer is not to give magicians a 10000 hp pet that quads for 100 and pet complete heal.  If this were the case, nobody would ever want a plate class tank for an xp group.  A realistic approach would be to :
1.  Increase the number of summoned mobs in the game (magician crowd control and charm).
2.  Give mages summoned-only slow (like necros get undead-only slow and there are lots of undead mobs, at least through tier 2 pop/LDON/LoY).
3.  Give mages a nuke that has a resist check other than magic/fire, or a nuke with a modifier to the resist check (again like wizards/necros).

I personally think that this would fix 99% of all PERCEIVED magician  issues, without nerfing anybody, or creating further imbalances.  Some of the most fun groups I've been in were magician charm groups in Tak LDoN or BoT.  This would only increase the number of places where that is possible.  

As an aside, I hope they make OoW completely impossible to solo in.  Every mob should hit for 600+, mitigate slow, summon, and have a lure-based DoT proc.  That way nobody can solo and everyone can STFU about classes that can solo.  Everquest is a grouping game and asking for class improvements based on soloing ability is counterproductive.

The cut and dry of this is, take my pet heal, please!

I couldn't agree more.  Take  my pet heals.  I never use them anyway.  In exchange I'd like something useful, like a poison based nuke.

[Goretzu]

The point being that if our pet dies we have a mob eating us...you have a fighting chance more often than not to finish off that mob and recover.

I think you're overestimating BL melee prowess a bit there, defensively it's pretty ok, offensively not so much.


Buy the time you get enough AA to up the offense you're fighting things where it doesn't matter so much anyway.

Hell pure melee's don't last so long solo at that level, nevermind a petless BL.

[Bengali]

You people really need to lay off Xalmat, he is not some whack job out to get beastlords nerfed and when he says something it should definately be looked at with more then a glance because it usually has a lot of truth to it.

Xalmat was not asking in any way for beastlords to be nerfed and if any of you read that into his post then you all are a bit paranoid really.

Xalmat wrote, in bold 24+ point lettering:

The Bottom Line
Magician Pet Midigation [sic] does NOT justify weak heals. Beastlord heals are too powerful given that they have near-magician strength pets, AND slow.

Saying that another class has an ability that is "too powerful" is really just another way of saying that it should be nerfed.  If Xalmat didn't mean that, (and I'm willing to go with that thought) then he should focus on why mage heals aren't powerful enough for them to accomplish what they need them to do, and to explain why it is they need to do that, etc.

That was Tastian's point, really, and why the whole post from Xalmat was just sad.   If mages need better heals, they need them because their current heals aren't up to snuff.  It really makes no difference what beastlord heals are, particularly since beastlord heals aren't up to snuff either, although the reasons are very different.

Sometimes, making class comparisons is appropriate to explain why your class needs something.   This is particularly true when we're talking about a "role" that one class has, so it's fair for the priests to look at one another with respect to healing because they are competing for that role from time to time.

But mages and beastlords aren't competing for the role of "pet healer," so it's pretty lame to have treatises dedicated to inaccurately depicting beastlords to build a case for something mages want.   All you need to do is ask questions:

Can mages keep pets alive in a particular situation?  If yes, then there's no problem.

If no, then you ask if mages should be able to keep their pets alive in that situation.  If the answer is no, again there's no problem.

If yes, then you ask what changes can be made so that mages can keep their pets alive in that situation.  You brainstorm your ideas; you come up with your proposals.  Period.   You don't have to use chicanery and drag other classes through the mud to do it.

[mrowrr]

Wow talk about a misaligned post from the mages! /sigh

I dont' think I've ever seen such a class envy post like that before.  It's so skewed that its' not taking in the entire picture of what a beastlord is.

And like other posters have said, I find it incredibly difficult to heal my pet during a raid with a long cast time and maintain my own dps.  I've found myself going to the lower cast lower yield heals just to give my pet a foot up during some AE fights.   I've even found chloroblast to be a far much better heal in some aspects until I'm able to get calliav to land on the pet.  Calliav, short duration heals, regen, and lay hands are honestly my only combatative measure to heal a pet on most raids and I think my fellow guildmates handle their pets similarly.

[Lorathir]

Who wrote that Lorathir?

http://forum.magecompendium.com/viewtopic.php?t=15714

Scroll down towards the bottom of the page.
Look for the guy who's avatar is that of The (ex) Iraqi Minister of Information.

I swear, I wish I made it up.  :shock:

This whole episode has got to be a joke, right? Are there hidden camera's here or what?

[Thoar Nametaker]

Let the BSTs keep healing and slowing the mob, we'll burn it down mage style. The bst heal is just fine as it is, its slow casting, but with slow its less critical, not to mention bsts can step in and tank if necessary

This right here sums up why Mages totally don't get it.  A beastlord isn't stepping in and tanking when neccessary, because it's neccessary from the start.  The only time I ever use my pet heal is when myself or my group gets adds, and if I am offtanking, I hardly get it off because it takes so long to cast.  

I am meleeing the mob from start to finish, with perhaps a second stepped out to chloro myself.  If they nerfed Beastlord pet heals, it would change very little about my ability to solo, group, or otherwise.

In order for us to use our pet heals we have to
a) not be dealing ANY melee dps so that our pet is taking the damage.
b) not be dealing ANY melee dps while we are casting the heal.

How about this, mages can get our pet heals, under the condition that thier spell bar is greyed out for 30 seconds after each heal.  That might gimp them the way pet clericing gimps us.

[mrowrr]

The whole article is based on the premise that "Soloing" is the normal way a mage gets experience in the game which is "bullshit".  Unfortunately Sony wants this to be a grouping game and their magician heals suffice in healing their pets far better than our pets during raids and in group situations.  I sure would take that 3-4 second cast heal over my 9 second cast heal any day.

[Tastian]

I've been able to get some sleep now (yay 3 hours most I've gotten all week), and I went back and re-read the entire thing.  Sadly, I still stand behind what I said.  8(  Xal has done a lot of great work, and is a good guy, but his frustrations or something simply got the better of his.  The writing is wrong, it ignores basic facts and even if the conclussion were to be right the means in which he tries to reach it is so flawed and wrong that it does more harm than good.

-  You cannot compare class skills from one class directly to another without any frame of referance.  Let me give two little examples...

A)  Beastlords get a 10 second casting time 500 damage nuke that takes 50 mana.  Would this be useful to some other classes?  Sure the mana efficency on it is amazing, but a beastlord would almost never use this.  The casting time stops the beastlords damage, it stops the beastlord from healing, debuffing, etc.  However, another class that is sitting on a horse could easily open a fight with this or even use a few times depending on the situation.  This is a clear example of something that is balanced around one class (beastlords) and is all but useless for them (like our current pet heals), but would be too good on another class.

B)  Healing.  Right now beastlords direct player healing is lower than most feel it should be.  (Bare with me on this and please don't misquote me people)  Imagine if beastlords made a post asking for sweeping changes to our healing because of shaman heals at the high end?  Clearly shaman heals would be great for beastlords, they'd be a huge upgrade and they'd even be over powered.  However, shaman are already having issues with their healing at high end.  We'd simply be using an example of something that may look good on paper, that does help our class, but for the class it's designed it already has flaws.  This is no different than what xal's post attempted to do.  The fact that most beastlords wouldn't even notice their pet heal gone is a pretty clear indiction how flawed the arguement is.

-  Xal's written has things in it that make no sense to me.  Even he states that he wants mages back to the power they used to have.  At 50th level they were great imo, the 51 earth pet rocked seafuries, I think most would say mages were doing alright then.  Yet his "mages need more healing" calls for across the board mage healing changes.  Even at the lower end, even at levels there weren't previously issues.  

-  Mage dps...

Firebolt of tallon is (base) - ~216 dps when chain cast
Strike of Solusek is (base) - ~267 dps when chain cast

Mages also have a pet throwing out upwards of 100dps in various situations.  And the pet dps is completely sustainable in a very low mana maintance.

Mages are a dps class and they do it extremely well.  They can burst to levels most classes can't even dream of and they can sustain at levels other classes have no shot of attaining.  I'm not going to make up a bunch of fake situations and run a bunch of numbers, it's simple fact that mages do a LOT of dps and that alone has them highly disired in several spots.  

-  Mage utility...

Mages have malo and they have mod rods and they have damage shields and CotH.  Everyone one of these has situations that make it great.  Sure in some spots they loss something.  I would like to see CotH used in more zones, especially in places like air where summon corpse is allowed but Coth isn't /boggle.  However, you can't just ignore how powerful those abilities are.  Malo alone get's people groups believe it or not.  I don't know how many times there haven't been any shm/enc on and I'm main slowing in a spot like earth and running up 5+ resists on slow at times.  I guarantee you malo alone will get the mage a group over a wizard or rogue or some other dps class.

-  I am NOT calling mages overpowered, and I don't want to see them nerfed or anything of the sort.  However, mages are simply asking for far too much atm.  They do VERY nice dps and do out dps others in various spots/situations.  They CAN solo.  How many monks that solo'd 1-60 do you know solo now?  How many SKs went from fear kitting to now aggro kiting and taking 10+ minutes to kill a single mob?  Seriously, mages don't solo as well as they did, almost no one does!!  If mages seriously want substantial dps boosts, want their pets to be even further ahead of beastlord pets than they are already, and want even further increased soloability then I've just got nothing for ya.

-  Slow isn't always on!!  I just have to mention this one more time.  Shaman will know this, beastlords know this, and so do most others that pay attention.  A beastlord doesn't pull a mob with a nuke and the mob goes "woah that was a beastlord nuke I gotta swing slower now".  They bounce, they get resisted, they cost mana!!  Slow is very powerful, especially solo I absolutely won't deny that.  However, I'm sick and tired of people talking about shaman and beastlords like just having the class in the group means mobs are slowed 100% of the time at no mana cost or time cost.  

-  You can make points without involving another class.  If mages need more healing then explain it.  Pet mend is definitely the best pet heal any class gets.  Beastlords don't use our heals and we were trying to get them looked at, not just our heals but ALL pet heals.  All the comparisons and then the huge call for sweeping changes such as AAs, focus, etc are just crazy though.  The devs have said several times recently they want to try to shift peoples focus from class "balance" to class "definition".  Lot of different ways to bring up the issue of pet heals and AA for pet heals and the like, but this just wasn't it.  I want the post over and gone.  I honestly don't think anyone will ever understand just how much that post got to me.  8(

[thukthuk and gator]

Speaking for myself, as a beastlord that rarely heals his pet (outside of pet mend), I could really care less if mages want/need a better heal.  If I was given a bigger heal, even near Complete Heal for the pet, but still had that ri-cock-ulous 9 or 10 sec cast time, I still wouldnt cast it outside the rare emergency.

Between Calliv, mend, and a back up pet in suspension, if you cant keep a pet up on a mob, I dont think a bigger, slow as a snared orc pawn, pet heal is really going to further your cause.

[Hereki]

Mages already get a 10 sec, 400 mana pet CH.  It's called chain casting.

[BloodCelt]

I'm of the same opinion...  take our damned heal if it'll get the vocal minority over there to stop the hissy fit.    I think I've actually used Sorsa two times in the last few months.  

I tell you, the monks finialy stop crawling up our backsides  (They are too busy screaming in terror at bards Fading Memories AA) and the Shamen get off our back (They are just too busy hoping the nerf bat doesnt come down on them right now)  and the radical mage front erupts.

BC