Spiritual Line Duration Increased (Stealth?)

[hakaaba]

Im almost 100% sure ive seen a dev quote somewhere saying no content was intended to prevent pets from being used.

[Tastian]

Devs have also said that they don't want pets being automatic or givens on several occasions.  I really think "pets" need a major looking at (progression, damage absorbing, focus, utility, raids, etc).  *shrugs*  I do hate having my warder hiding somewhere just so I can use it as a battery for growl.  8(

[Iskandar]

Pathing is a big reason why some raids are pet-killers imo. I'd love to know how to keep Blinky alive on a positioning-intensive raid like Rikki when he winds up running laps back and forth across the zone just to move over two feet. It just seems to get worse and worse with each expansion -- and Rikki isn't the worst of them by far. :-( If pathing would actually work in a semi-reasonable manner, Blinky wold get to come out of his kitty cage on more raids.... maybe then I'd stop getting tells mid-fight like "WTF is your warder going?"

[tacyttik]

Not being a given I can understand. Having little to no chance of use in probably half of DoDH raids, I dont. I'd be fine if there was a boss or two that ate pets, but I dont think I've had my pet out on any raid from Vule on up. Pets really need to mitigate and avoid quite a bit better, have some shielding from spells and dots, and do more damage than present. Pets are supposed to be a low mana maintenance way of DPS, but when you have to resummon it every 15 minutes, it stops being low maintenance and low mana. When you cant use it, they arent dps.

With our pet having such poor mitigation and avoidance, is there any reason that pets summoned with high end focii (txevu+) couldnt have at least more HPs?

[Bengali]

I think part of the explanation has to do with the fact that it's easier to overlook how gimped we are when we can't use a pet.  Obviously pets are extremely important to necros and mages also, but the truth of the matter is that if they can't use their pets, they aren't crippled as much as we are.  If our pet is dead, we can't use our new disc, and we can't use growl, and so on.  Our dps without the pet isn't particularly good, because our melee/spell damage is limited by our attack rate, recasts, etc.  So when a dev designs a zone with AE rampaging mobs that are extremely resistant to cold and poison, they might not realize what a soul-crushing experience that can be, because most other classes will still have something worthwhile to do.

[Essant]

Yeah, Demi-plane has kinda stalled my mana usage as well. No pet most of the time due to being on bridges or extremely soft walls. Also stops Bestial empathy. No growl of the panther with no pet. SV gets wiped by trash mobs. Leaves me with nuking and SA. Granted we are just past Zi-Thulli, maybe after we get past the ae every 15 second spiders and exploding zombies, I'll find a place were I can use my pet.

Outside of raids I love the duration of SA. Makes me wish I had a 30% buff ext aug so it'd last even longer than the 104mins it does now.
In raids I'm ok with it. Its hard after a wipe to buff everyone, but really nice on raid destinations where you'll go the entire night without much risk of a wipe.

(Slight de-rail, but didnt sony say they designed raids to be pet-friendly? At least to the point where it was viable to use pets?)

I'm using my pet(s) on Zi-Thuuli, but for clearing to get him to pop, I don't.  I guess it depends on where you do the event, but generally I tear into his arse with everything I have once he pops.  Bridges and stuff like that, yea .. generally I don't use my pet as much, I still use him and keep pet rune on him for the exploding zombies but general pet usuage is cut down by abot 50% over concern of push.  And really, it doesnt matter all that much .. trash doesnt require a lot of dps so its better overall to be concerned with control.  Sister's I am using my pet on, but again its going to depend on your location you do the event, and the overall strat.  Hatchet .. can't tell you yet .. we haven't tried him but will this week sometime.

[Polanski]

I didn't really care about the mana increase on SA,  and I'm usually the last guy to care about balance issues. I do, however, find this somewhat amusing:

http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spellhistory.html?id=3384&source=Test


Tribunal duration increased 150%, mana cost was reduced by 50. It's test so all subject to change.

[Tastian]

What you have to remember though is that trib was a BS "upgrade" since it came out.  The previous version is...

http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=2529&source=Test

had the 2.5 hr base duration.  The 62 version had a much lower duration at first and is just now being changed back.  Since the buff only adds 10 more to each save and now keeps the same duration the mana cost seems about right.  It was always a low mana, long duration type of spell for shaman.

[Skratz]

Also now in line with Seasons mana/length ~ http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=3444&source=Live
Still different resist values though

[Tastian]

Yeah I was going to mention that too, but had already submitted before I realized I hadn't lol.  Seasons is 72 to both saves(fr/cr).  8)