Pet classes replacing Tank classes

Fell

Pets react very poorly to unexpected situations. They have one threat ability that has a flat value and no taunt. If Provoke is on cooldown when something unexpected occurs someone can easily before it's available again

Pets are controlled by their owners. And somehow its escaped your attention that pets DO have taunt, and a tank's taunt has a cooldown exactly as does a pet. You think a fighter can endlessly mash taunt whenever he wishes?

Mesh Guess we just disagree.

The difference is I'm a pet class honest enough to admit the problem. You're trying to avoid a well-needed nerf.

Mesh

Fell

You think a fighter can endlessly mash taunt whenever he wishes?

The difference is that Provoke is a flat threat value, not a Taunt. Taunt pulls aggro off your target immediately.

Provoke does nothing if the flat threat value it causes doesn't exceed the threat its current target has already caused.

Which is why if you try to switch your pet to a new target during combat it can take several Provokes to pull aggro off someone. If it ever does. As I said, pets are much worse at reacting to unexpected adds or other situations a tank could handle.

No nerf is needed. There's absolutely nothing wrong with non-tanks being able to off-tank to reasonable degree. In fact, that appears to be the intended design of those classes.

Ajjantis

Mesh

Surprised you haven't learned by now that its a waste of time to argue with him. He is present in almost every forum post and represents the fun police. Besides being pro enchanter, every stance is to nerf things, make things slower, or add more "friction".

Viyro

Greywulf

This isn't the case at all, also our tank is geared. No one is "crying" about pets. I specifically mentioned 2 pets that are not in line with the rest of the game.

Everyones "skills" are max, tank is essentially in near-max gear prior to raids.

Why are you so overtly aggressive for no reason? Forbid a guy has time off so he plays a videogame with his friends a lot. Sheesh.

Viyro

Velthorian

Been testing this game off and on for 4 years. Pets used to have a bug where if they were > 4 levels of any monster they essentially took no damage, it made tanks completely worthless. After a bunch of reporting on it, it was fixed. Overall pets are fine now, like I said its really only specifically 2 that are not in line with the rest of the game.

Nazgrimn

Ajjantis people will eventually learn to just put him on ignore and move on.

Doozle90

Fell You keep stating incorrectly that pets have a taunt. That is 100% incorrect information. Pet's have Provoke which is a flat threat gain ability NOT a Taunt. It is not max threat +1 ability like real tanks get. If you have enough threat on a target a pet's Provoke ability could still not exceed the total threat you have in that mob. As others have been trying to explain to you, as a result of this, pets do not have snap aggro and can't rip threat of a target as a real tank class because they do not have a taunt ability. It is enough on initial pulls when no one has threat on a target but once you get multiple targets in camp and people continue to use abilities/spells and generate more threat on extra targets on a multi-pull it takes pets longer to actually gain threat since they do not have a taunt.

An example is you pull 2 mobs and your group is killing one mob. You keep spamming root and maybe debuff the 2nd target. You've now built up extra threat on that 2nd target and when you kill the first target and start attacking the 2nd target it might take 2+ provokes (15+secs) for that pet to actually get threat because of all the threat built up from multiple roots etc.

I personally like that you can have unconventional groups with pet tanks and it feels good to figure out how to make unconventional group compositions work. Even if a tank is taking more damage today than a pet they do offer better tanking abilities, such as a real taunt, that allow them to actually hold threat better than pets. High DPS classes like Wizard and Spellblade definitely need to watch their threat when a pet is tanking a lot more than with a tank class.

Kirrund

Fell You don't need to let pets "build" aggro. You wait until one single pet gets off a taunt, period. Taunt is MAX_AGGRO+1. In a multi-pet group, that's usually within the first couple seconds of engagement. And if you rip aggro, you're not going to die -- not as long as you can root or kite. If you're in a dungeon fighting yellow and reds, the situation is a bit different, but not anywhere else.

Yeah, other guy was right, pets don't have Taunt.

Fell Pets are controlled by their owners. And somehow its escaped your attention that pets DO have taunt, and a tank's taunt has a cooldown exactly as does a pet. You think a fighter can endlessly mash taunt whenever he wishes?

Yeah, again, no.

Pets have Provoke, which produces a set amount of threat. Read the tooltop. For a guy talking about being a pet class and acting so know-it-all about everything, you're almost always wrong, even on things that are completely obvious. Just stop posting and go back to playing the game. Do your part to make the game better for everyone.

Viyro Overall pets are fine now, like I said its really only specifically 2 that are not in line with the rest of the game.

Yeah, what two? "the necro pet" and the earth pet? Which necro pet? Currently grinding 50+ content and our paladin is pretty geared and is a far more reliable and easier tank to heal than my Pact of Enduring Death necro pet. He takes way less damage. Maybe in your time being at 60 "a while" (2 or 3 days at most?) you aren't as well geared as you think? Have you tried getting some agility? Have you tried using a shield?

Pets should be able to tank, but you'd always rather want to get an actual player tank over a pet. Nothing about that has changed from my observations playing pet classes since closed beta started. Maybe you've been testing off and on for four years, but what is the quality of that testing? Did you ever even reach 60? Currently this will be my second 60, playing with people who have played for 2 years and who all have multiple 60s already, before their EA ones.

Mesh

Kirrund

Currently grinding 50+ content and our paladin is pretty geared and is a far more reliable and easier tank to heal than my Pact of Enduring Death necro pet.

Exactly.

The higher level and more geared your player tanks get, the more obvious the difference becomes between them and non-tanks, including pets.

If anything needs to be fixed it's that player tanks need earlier access to more AC. Why mobs only start dropping plate from 15-ish I'm not sure.

Kirrund

Mesh I would like to add that he is even tanking 3-4 mobs at once for 10ish seconds on the occasional bad pull combined with respawns, and his life dips but he's generally OK and has lay on hands to fall back on, while we get things rooted/mezzed. It's surprising how little damage he takes sometimes.

If my pet had 3-4 mobs hitting him like that he would be ground to dust extremely quickly. It's not even close.

Viyro

Kirrund

I've played since original FNF, have had quite a few 60's, if you have access to that you can find my original AC testing spreadsheets and results which lead to a bunch of changes you have now. Mostly AC being useful against white con mobs or higher, players hitting for 1 frequently, pets being hit for 1 frequently from monsters > 4 levels lower than the pet itself etc. Previously, at 60 soft cap AC wasn't reachable because the curve was extremely aggressive for any mob that was white con or higher. AC Hard Cap was a 40% Damage Reduction over extremely long periods of time. These things have changed for the better. Our tank is extremely geared for 60. He is 4 items short of bis, prior to raids that were removed from the game (to be restructured for triggering), and BC / Ga'duuz etc, and about 4 items from City/Top in FW. (from our currently known gear, which should only exclude small parts of FW / GCS 55+ mobs (being added likely, there are already some) / AV 55+ Mobs (being added likely, there are already some).

I suppose its time to do actual data analysis again when my group is done smacking monsters.

I agree pets should be able to offtank in groups. 0 Problem with that. I would much prefer pets to actually scale with gear rather than having the scaling by default. Encourages horizontal gameplay etc. There is SOME Scaling (Int Ele) etc. Would feel pretty great to equip an item and feel the difference in your pet, just like a player should feel a difference equipping an item.

SilverSkyway

Semi easy fix. Pets.

Lower healing receive by 50%, other then by owner of pet.
Lower dps of pet/s by 10%. Give 5% back to Pet owner.
Increase pet/s taunt cd by 1 sec.

Fell

Mesh Which is why if you try to switch your pet to a new target during combat it can take several Provokes to pull aggro off someone.

Only if that person has built an enormous amount of aggro in the first place. If you're fighting in a tankless group and some player tries to nuke or melee the wrong mob for a considerable period of time, why do you think a single taunt should solve the problem? Still, the player has a large number of options, starting #1 with root, a spell most classes in the game have, even some pets.

And none of this changes the facts. Countless groups are using pets to tank without anyone getting killed -- and killing mobs as fast or faster than the same group would with a tank. That's a problem for the tank class. You can scream, shout, and wave your hands to try to hide this fact, but fact it is.

Mesh The higher level and more geared your player tanks get, the more obvious the difference becomes between them and non-tanks, including pets.

Except that isn't the case. Even in the high 50s in Upper Sama and Giant City, pet tank groups do just fine. They struggle on 60+ named certainly -- but if that's the only place tanks are needed, that's a real issue.

Fell

Kirrund eah, other guy was right, pets don't have Taunt.

Functionally identical, for any pet group above the IQ of a boiled carrot. Yes, if someone in a tankless pet group decides to ignore that every pet is on mob A and instead walks up and begins max-DPSing mob B, he's going to have a problem that a pet won't solve -- but root, snare, or SoW will. Just don't do that, wait till the pets are engaged on the mob, and provoke does indeed equal taunt. It's not rocket science.

Kirrund

Viyro I have access to alpha, yes. I have long pushed for pet scaling mechanics, but it doesn't really matter, as none of that stuff has ever been taken into account.

But I don't see a pet of any type tanking a Merciless Murderer quadding for 800+ for more than about 5 seconds, but a tank certainly can because of his cooldowns.

Kirrund

Fell You were wrong. Admit you made a mistake. Say "I was wrong, and other people were right."

Fell

Kirrund This isn't a high school debate club. I often call elementalists mages and greater enlightenment clarity; and the fact that the pet taunt is renamed "provoke" and generates less aggro than a fighter taunt doesn't change the fact that it IS a taunt, and that it generates ENOUGH aggro for a group to easily replace a tank with a few pets. That's a structural issue with class design.

BTW, what pet class do you main?

Fubsy

Fell

Monks are "too tanky"? Are we playing the same game sir? Maybe pre AC patch/monk rework changes but now we get absolutely torn up unless you happen to have stone stance and mend up you aren't tanking anything as a monk.

Fell

Fubsy Maybe pre AC patch/monk rework changes but now we get absolutely torn up

I'll give you that point as it's been a good while since I've had a monk tanking. A few rangers though since EA started, and they do unexpectedly well.

Viyro

Kirrund

Surprised you've never seen my stuff if you were active there (Original and Second FNF, prior to alpha that lead to closed beta). Anywhos, best of luck on your endeavors. I'll just do the same thing as prior eventually when I have time. Current findings, both of those pets are significantly easier to heal on any monster that matters over long periods of time. They do fall short in overall hp, but avg hit is lower, and you are correct CDs do make a difference, as well as paladin healing, sk self healing, overall tankiness of Fighter. We may disagree on how useful a pet overall should be or that Player AC and Pet AC formulas should change, possibly both.

I did tank the first Ga'Duuz kill that ever happened, with an earth elemental. At the time the pet was lvl 57 (Lvl 60 Spell) to prove a point. (in FNF) Game has changed in a very positive way in my opinion since then.

When you are an assumed authority on something its best to try to educate rather than belittle, people don't learn when you do that. They get angry, and you have an odd back and forth where no one wins. The person receiving information isn't going to learn, and you won't feel good for teaching someone something. Unless that wasn't the goal in the first place I guess.

For now I suppose we agree to disagree and we're both going off of feelings in our gameplay rather than numbers. I'll do the math and record data when there is time. 👍️

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