Xalmat

If it was a swarm pet, then +CA damage wouldn't affect it. It is affected by a mob's physical mitigation, much like our heat/cold/magic spells are affected by a mob's elemental/magic mitigation, but nonetheless it has the same properties of a spell, it just does piercing damage instead of magical damage.

Laodaron

And its affected by +CA damage, not spell damage.

Xalmat

How bout we just make the damn thing do Magic damage instead? We can debuff Magic, thus increasing its damage even further, and it would fix the +spell damage problem at the same time.

Laodaron

Sounds like a perfect fix.

Terra

Since necros share the spell, I don't see it becoming magic damage any time soon.

Khylan

Good Point

__________________
Khylan - 80 Conj
Abraahms - 80 Guard
Khylanius - 80 Trouby

We few, we happy few, we band of Casters; for he today that cast his spells with me shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition; and gentlemen in EQ2 now-a-bed shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Raid Day.

Xalmat

Bug: Plane Shift and Fire Pet

I just discovered that the fire pet is not getting the full benefit out of Plane Shift that it should be.

Plane Shift M1 (unmodified) states that the fire pet should gain 64% crit rate and 64% faster casting speed. Combined with the AAs, it should be something like 76% casting speed (the pet's 1 second spells would be 0.24 seconds, the 4 second spells 0.96 second cast).

Instead: the 4 second spells are 2.26 seconds, 3 second spells 1.7 seconds 2 seconds spells are 1.13, and 1 second spells 0.57 seconds. This is regardless of whether you have AAs into the fire pet or not, and regardless of if you have AAs into Plane Shift or not.

This is only 43% spell haste, not the 64% spell haste advertised.

I don't know that it matters, since the pet still has long recast times.

Issue: Enhance: Air Pet

Enhance: Air Pet does absolutely nothing for Wind Sensei. While previous tier pets either hit for slashing or piercing, Wind Sensei seems to melee for cold damage (Adept III), or at best Crushing Damage (I'm guessing Crushing is the skill used, since the M1 uses a staff). Meanwhile, the AA increases the pet's Slashing and Piercing, of which it does neither.

And while we're at it:

Air Pets in General, especially Wind Sensei vs Inferno Golem

Air pets are supposed to be the king of single target damage, and they were once upon a time. They were also supposed to be a nice alternative to the tank pet for soloing, which they were once upon a time (all the way up to level 70 in KoS/EoF). Well, they aren't anymore. Without parses to back me up (someone help me out here?), here's what seems wrong with them.

(Please correct me where I'm wrong on any figures and such)

1. No Dual wielding/Double Attacking.

It has two weapons, it ought to use them both. That alone will bring the pet's single target damage where it should be. (Even if it's a 50% boost, like a player equipping two identical weapons is over a single weapon, it's a big enough boost).

2. Poor survivability.

Consider the Following.

With Minion's Barrier 8 (+16% Defense towards cap, which I believe is 19 defense at level 80), Geotic Seal M1 (+20 defense - I haven't found Geoticism M1 for a decent price yet), and either Exasperate M1 (-30 Defense) or Defensive Haven M1 (0 chance in Defense):

Earthen Avatar M1 - 9130 HP without HP modifiers. Offensive avoidance: 42.5%. Defensive Avoidance or no-stance: 50%.
Wind Sensei Adept 3 - 4065 HP without HP modifiers. Offensive avoidance: 26.5%. Defensive or no-stance Avoidance: 34.4%.
Aery Hunter M1 (Caps at Level 72 btw) - 3324 HP without HP modifiers. Offensive avoidance: 28.6%. Defensive or no-stance Avoidance: 40.1%.

Where the hell did all that avoidance go? Even checking older pets using level-appropriate buffs (but same AA build), the lower level scout pets have far more avoidance than Wind Sensei relative to their level.

I tell you where it went: Deflection. Monks rely on Deflection to boost their avoidance. We can't boost Deflection, we can only boost Parry and Defense, neither of which gives the boost that Deflection gives. But not only that, Deflection is treated like another form of Parry/Block, etc. If you look on the pet's Persona page when you possess it, you can see that most of its avoidance is now split between Defense, Deflection, and Parry. Pets beforehand had only Defense and Parry.

In simple terms, the inclusion of Deflection, along with the class change to Monk, completely fucks the air pet's avoidance.

As if that weren't enough, RoK mobs are just plain harder for their level. RoK mobs just plain shred pets faster than their non-RoK equivalents.

And due to mob AEs, the pet is a pain to use. At least the mage pet stays at range all the time, making it easier to avoid AEs with it. The scout pet? No such luck, you need to call it back to avoid getting raped by AEs, and pray that it gets back to you fast enough (or use Call Servant, but that's just a pain even for the mage pet).

3. It's a melee pet.

In addition to the mage pet just plain doing more damage these days (what with mob avoidance/hit rates what it is, among other factors), Conjurors are usually grouped with other mages (on Raids at least) for the benefits: +INT, +Disruption, Spell-based Procs, etc. It makes no sense to buff a melee (in this case, Air pet) with caster-oriented buffs. And likewise it makes no sense to buff a caster (in this case, the Conjuror himself) with melee-oriented buffs. It just ain't happening if it can be helped.

Standard groups it's a different story, where group makeup varies wildly. But it's been a pretty long time for me where I busted out the air pet because it does more melee damage than the fire pet's spell damage. Especially after the pet nerf way back when.

Being a melee pet, you will need to worry about positioning, or it's attacks will be parried/riposted/blocked, etc. Smart tanks will position mobs correctly anyway, not so smart ones won't, either way it costs us a lot of damage output if you need to position the pet, or if the mob is positioned wrong and it's not corrected.

4. Air Pet's AAs suck.

Remember when you could AA spec for scout pet crits? Yeah, me too. The crits were a LOT nicer than the current doubleattack AAs. Not only do crits make the pet's combat arts do 30% more damage, but would make the pet's standard auto-attacks do 101-130% normal damage (assuming NPC crits behave the same as player crits). Ask any melee type, and crits are basically king because of this mechanic.

Instead, we get a retarded double-attack AA. At most it's something like 20% doubleattack, which is 20% more auto-attack DPS, but 0% more combat art damage.

Then you look at the mage pet's AAs. It casts retardedly fast as it is. Throw in the mage pet AAs, and it blows shit out of the water. Not sure on what dps boost it is exactly, but it's way more than whatever percent the AA is. (and let's not forget our epic is specifically geared towards the mage pet).

5. The Graphic for Air Pets, in general.

Wind Sensei is a gay ass ghostly monk that's hard to see. Aery Hunter is a gay ass leather wearing wood elf. And so on.

Need I say more?

6. The Pet scales poorly with level relative to the Conjuror.

This affects all pets, not just the air pet. Pets scale up pretty good on their own, relatively linear/exponential for the pet as it levels (as long as pet rank stays the same, ie Adept 3-Adept 3, or Master-Master). But with all the +crit, +spell damage, +int, etc., floating around that increases the Conjuror's damage, less and less of our total output is coming from the pet.

And with very few exceptions (Masters, Master Offense Stance, Fabled Epic, Mythical Epic, and a couple Avatar loots maybe?), there is simply no way for Conjurors to independently increase our pet's damage output.

Is it right for it to be this way? I don't know. But it sure would be nice as hell if +spell crits and such affected all pets, regardless if they're earth, fire, or air.



That is all I have for now. A little long winded.

Jiraiya

plane shift and fire pet works fine. 100% haste means recast is cut in half so 4 sec spell will be 2 sec. so 2,26 with 76% casting speed sounds alright. Some goes for us.

Xalmat

I disagree, I've observed that 5% spell haste for us = 5% spell haste, up to the cap of 50%.

Not only that, but I've tested the difference between Plane Shift (64% Spell Haste with Master 1), and Plane Shift with 5 points into the AA (77% Spell Haste with Master 1). There is no difference at all.

Even if it were working correctly, the pet should be 50% Spell Haste, which is the cap.

bigron

Check again on that....with 5 points into ps and summoner AA haste = casteing time on searing flames of .53 seconds.

I need to look for that fomular again for buffs aplied on top of constant haste.......i believe there is a curve applied.

But it would still be 100 = 50 pct .............witch is max of haste and recast haste