MP Pet Combination Choice

[Xtremtech]

With a ground up rebuild of pets announced in the balance changes - along with a complete redesign of the mez pet line into a utility pet line, it may be worth floating the idea again, of MPs being able to choose which combination of pets they can cast.

The idea is that an MP wouldn't be restricted to having one of each pets - but instead could choose any combination of pets up to a maximum of three pets. So an MP could sacrifice healing and defence by casting 3 attack pets - or they could focus more on healing by choosing 2 heal pets and a Utility pet that healed nano perhaps... or whatever combination.

This would enable MPs to tailor their contribution better as a 'jack-of-all-trades' profession. In raids, having 2 or 3 heal pets could make their contribution more real. In teams with little crowd control, going over to multiple mez/utility pets would be useful. And in normal teams, the ability to go all out DPS would give MPs a more clear contribution.

In the past, this idea hasn't really held water very well. In theory, it's a self-balancing idea... but in reality, with pets in the past and present, nearly all MPs would end up casting 3 attack pets all the time. But with all of the pets being completely revisited, there's an opportunity to implement such an idea in a more balanced way.

With the new 'Utility Pets' and the potential for several different and more useful effects being given to that line, there would certainly be more of a real trade-off involved in not casting them. Suggested ideas for utitlity pets like short-duration snares, nano heals, blinds, NR debuffs etc would make losing such a pet for an attack pet a real trade-off.

With Heal pets being rebalanced, the hope would certainly be that their healing levels would make them more compelling as a trade-off too.

With both other pet professions already having the ability to have more than one atack pet without trading off defence, there's less of a rationale that having multiple attack pets would be unbalanced in some way - especially when the MP would have to trade off their heal/defence pets.

Going over to such a new system at the time that the pets are all rebuilt, offers the chance to revitalise MP team contribution and flexibility while managing balance where necessary through the stats/effects on the new pets.

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[Nesja]

I really agree with that, have thought about it myself as a way to get MP in teams easier.
Also rhiwen plus 2 healpets (that heal better than they do now) might could become a way for rhiwen to tank some harder mobs than it can tank now, allowing the MP to really hide behind pets.

[Omutb]

It would make MPs quite a lot more versatile, a little like FP for agents.

[Moonbolt]

sounds like a realy kool idea.

[Waahash]

Shield MP with 3 Rhiwens? Or Shield MP with 2 healpets and a Rhiwen?

Or a Bow MP with 3 Rhiwens?

Even with a rework of the pets, that sounds over-the-top to anything without 40k HP and a ton of healing capabilities or an AMS.

[Xtremtech]

Shield MP with 3 Rhiwens?

But he loses his only real heal and the utility pet. Crat with weapon + carlo + charm has 3 damage sources with absolutely no loss of defence... 4 if you count nukes too... and they will have the ability to spawn their own charms after rebalancing too. Engineer with weapon + Droid + Dogs, also has 3 damage sources and still has blockers, reflects etc.

And keep in mind that FC have already said that Sacrificial Shielding is going to go - or at least be hit hard with the nerf bat.

It's a set-up that sounds like it should be massively overpowered... but actually when you compare it across, even with existing set-ups of other professions, it doesn't have to be.

Or Shield MP with 2 healpets and a Rhiwen?

Yep, great defence but blunted attack with no weapon. Like a doc having great heals in Def - but then more difficulty in attack.

Or a Bow MP with 3 Rhiwens?

But very little defence, no utility pet to help his attack pets to get in range of their targets and no heals. It's the glass cannon - loads of attack if he can get his pets in range, but easy peasy to kill.

There's really no reason why these options shouldn't be reasonable.

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[Camar]

This would be the one time where such a move is possible. It would give MPs much more versality and maybe get them to be wanted in teams again. So big bump

[Soliartist]

I thought MPs were supposed to have powerful nukes soon. As to compare MPs with Crats and Engs ...
What for, sure they're all pet users, but. From what I have read so far, Engineers are going to lose Bio Cocoon, and that's only one single example. I don't know much about the rest tbh, but it doesn't seem appropriate to compare every pet Professions in that case. Weren't MPs supposed to see their heal pet act differently soon either ? Like a more efficient one or something. To me, and then again it depends of the way things are going to be changed so these kinds of suggestions seem a bit too hypothetical, a MP with two healing pets and a Rhiwen sounds a bit too strong. You were talking about weaponless MPs in that very situation, but (feel free to correct me) if MPs receive some good nukes coupled with a few Perks/Procs that they already have (ok, they would need to touch their opponents in order to land a Proc, true, but I think these Procs come from a Perkline) to boost their damage, considering how NR currently works ...

Of course it'd be very welcome for them when it comes to PvM sex appeal, of course they would rather deserve it when it comes to mass PvP. But as a former duel whore, I think it's too much.

Sorry if I made too many assumptions that turn out to be wrong, I don't remember previous content precisely and didn't check the new Perks and so on since a long while.

Klod, I'm waiting for your point of view on the subject by the way.

[-Klod-]

People will cry nerf. So... Ain't gonna happen.

They should just make AoC out of AO, so I can totally forget about the game and we are done.

[Soliartist]

Who cares about people's complaints really. Just wanted to know whether I was using correct arguments or not, since you're experienced when it comes to deal with suggestions concerning MPs.

[Xtremtech]

The MP nuke statement was "Increased viability across all level ranges, with possibly a greater functionality for creation weapon MP's". The base nukes are unlikely to get a major increase in damage overall... more likely to be an extension to the top of the line for top levels.

The focus will probably be on the creation weapon enhancement of nukes... but that of course means less damage anyway, especially since they're removing the option of dual wielding creations with normal weapons.

Crats are going to see Nuke improvements as a real damage alternative and apparently Doc nukes are to improve. Engineers may be losing Bio Cocoon... but then MPs are losing the special blockers from SS, if not the whole nano.

There's been nothing specifically said about improvements to heal pets - nor directly about the improvements to attack pets. So far, there's just been a general statement that all professions' pets will be rebuilt from ground up with adjusted stats to make them more similar to players (referring to things like AR, Def, AC and NR). I think there's an assumption that this will include some improvement to heal pets... but that hasn't been said specifically.

There's so little actual detail on what the changes will look like in the rebalancing, that it is indeed a little difficult to balance proposals and ideas. But the dev team seem to be very open to bringing in completely new ideas and will need to be changing so many nanos, pets and perks - that bringing up ideas like this is appropriate at this time. It should be possible for them to balance taking such new ideas into account, because nearly everything else is being adjusted or changed in some way or other.

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[-Klod-]

Who cares about people's complaints really. Just wanted to know whether I was using correct arguments or not, since you're experienced when it comes to deal with suggestions concerning MPs.

Well, the "worst" thing that can happen to us, if this hits live, is to make us act like pet necro in AoC. And that's bad. Effective but bad.

[NoGoal]

Would players ever cast 'utility' pet then? Doubt it. They would cast 3x Riwhen for absurd amount of dmg and complain about their lack of defense or cast 3x morti and complain about the lack of offense :P

Different pets in all lines would be nice for sure but allowing MPs to make any combination is not a good idea. Wasn't it the point of having an 'utility' pet instead of the mezz one? Extra damage, healing, mezz or any other suggested ability.

[Xtremtech]

Nobody's really sure about what the new utility pets would include. Most people seem to expect the Utility effects to be new things like Root, Snare, Nano Heal, NR debuff etc., rather than just another heal/attack. It could turn out otherwise though.

As to whether anybody would cast a utility pet... well it depends on what the utility pet does. For example, if there's an option for the Utility pet to do a nano heal then they could be vital for refilling after using a Damage-to-Nano capability or GTH (depending on how that turns out in the end)... then yes, I reckon there'd be good reason to want to cast it over an attack pet.

Similarly, if a utility pet effect turns out to be a decent snare effect that would allow attack pets to reach PvP targets reliably... then it may well be more effective to cast the utility pet than another attack pet.

And again... would there really be a major balance problem with MPs casting 3 Rhiwen's or Heals? In PvM the defence capabilities of the MP are supposed to balance them... but in reality, they're 4th or 5th line healers, their nanoskills/nanodamage/heal efficency debuffs are largely ineffective, they have no team buffs of great use and their single mob crowd control isn't really that helpful. The only thing left is Damage Debuffs and those have issues alongside reflects/init debuffs, making them much less effective too.

When push comes to shove - if FC design heal and utility pets to be strong enough to have a real substantive effect on play, then MPs would cast them too and not just cast three attack pets.

And if FC doesn't design the other pets to have that real substantive effect.... then being able to cast three attack pets balances out the loss of strength in the other pets to some extent.

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[Nesja]

They could do a lot with the utility pet. If they work with nanos we give the utily pet to make it do somethng they could make it into a 2nd healer, maybe one that casts team HoT's or they could make it a 2nd damage pet with a nano that makes the utily pet a nuker.

They could make it do a lot:
Reflect aura
Heal aura
Nano heal aura
Damage debuff
Init debuff
Nuke and area nuke
Drain aura
Aao/aad aura
Mezz and area mezz
Blocker aura (regular, not special attack, like keepers have)
Snare and area snare
Root and area root
Nano damage efficiency debuff
Nano damage efficieny aura

And we could pick wat we want by uploading a nano into the utility pet. We'd be a real support prof than because we could take play the role of many support things.

[NoGoal]

As to whether anybody would cast a utility pet... well it depends on what the utility pet does. For example, if there's an option for the Utility pet to do a nano heal then they could be vital for refilling after using a Damage-to-Nano capability or GTH (depending on how that turns out in the end)... then yes, I reckon there'd be good reason to want to cast it over an attack pet.

Similarly, if a utility pet effect turns out to be a decent snare effect that would allow attack pets to reach PvP targets reliably...

Mezz pet already has a good root. Might need some twinking but it's already there. More after the quote.

They could make it do a lot:
Reflect aura
Heal aura
Nano heal aura
Damage debuff
Init debuff
Nuke and area nuke
Drain aura
Aao/aad aura
Mezz and area mezz
Blocker aura (regular, not special attack, like keepers have)
Snare and area snare
Root and area root
Nano damage efficiency debuff
Nano damage efficieny aura

mmh, no. It should be MP tools, not new ones. Definitely not auras/AoE. MPs already have a wide toolset, it just need to be made useful really.

My suggestions:
- nuke
- heal (with a special heal for riwhen)
- nano heal
- nanoskill debuff
- %heal eff/nano dmg debuff
- dmg + small inits debuff
- current version (mezz/root)

That should be enough to fit a lot of situations.

[-Klod-]

Mezz pet already has a good root.

If by good you mean 100% chance to break on debuff/hit/sneeze... Yeah. It's good (for the one on whom it landed).

Might need some twinking but it's already there.

Some?! It needs complete overhaul.

[NoGoal]

For some reason, 100% break chance is not 100%.

Changing it to a 10s unbreakable root with a grace period is not a complete overhaul. Unless you are suggesting to turn it into a double AS tigress creation weapon (or w/e your meme is)?

[Xtremtech]

There are also severe difficulties with landing the root in PvP. It seems that the pet tries to stop within range to cast it, but with synch issues etc never/rarely does so if the target is moving. Apparently running around the pet in circles is enough to stop it from actually casting its nano hehe. Then since the cast time is so long and the range so short, it's rarely in a position to be able to cast for a second try. It also needs to benefit from some more AR if it's to land the effect reasonably reliably.

I'd certainly agree that utility pet effects should fit with the MP toolset. Some of the ones you suggest seem reasonable to me too. I'd like to see their effects be changed to pretty much instacast perk specials, rather than using nanos - so that the movement and range issues can be addressed.

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[Waahash]

And we could pick wat we want by uploading a nano into the utility pet. We'd be a real support prof than because we could take play the role of many support things.

I like that idea. As it stands, there aren't too many things I'd want an MP in a team for (me being that shade thing that is selfish and can do without a lot of things). Letting them pick a utility from the outset based on their evaluation of the team, along with a wide role of utility choices should knock MPs up a few notches on the desirability list.

As for PVP, I'd still hedge some bets on a Shield MP with 3 Rhiwens.