Pet Defenses

[Luth]

Aza is talking about the low base stats (particularly defensive stats), that made any encounter with a "lifetap" healer a joke.
In bombing situations the pet was also useless.

[Azarael]

Give me some credit, I've been implementing this stuff.

Let's take the example of Trained to Kill from the White Lion. Passes Str and WS bonus from items and talismans to the pet. This is all very well and good, but unfortunately:

- No Initiative
- No Toughness
- No Wounds
- No Armor
- No Resistance

The result? Total cockup.

[Sulorie]

Yes, the basestats have to be fixed. I think they exist but they are very low. There were endless discussions on the old Bioware forums about pet stats.

All lion pets might get the same base stats but squigs have to be handled differently. Some squigs are classified as weaker against magical attacks.

Pets just shouldn't be as durable as their owners, unless it is a SH and his horn squig (? the tank-ish one).

I would miss lifetapping pets.

[Azarael]

Of course they shouldn't be as durable as their owners, but this is what the Wounds value is for. A pet with the same HP and defenses as the master would be stupid.

And yeah, I've read the tooltips. The Horned Squig has a resistance penalty for this reason.

[Bozzax]

Pets just shouldn't be as durable as their owners, unless it is a SH and his horn squig (? the tank-ish one).

Why as there are "core" abilities tied to them I fail to see the logic in that? From my viewpoint they need to be durable enough to make the class viable in PvP. Even in war band environments with plenty background AOE.

We aren't talking about increasing pet damage here we talking about making the pets not be a hindrance for the owner in PvP. Having abilities fire from the pet is a handicap by itself even if they were immortal simply since pets are elsewhere most of the time.

Different pets and types of pets (melee, medium, long, turrets etc) ofc needs to balanced separately but in all honesty this is 95% a WL problem.

This isn't creating the super duper MDPS class. Slayers still will outperform WLs using 3 abilities

[Tesq]

For a gameplay perspective pet neet to have better defensive stats than player. But aoe heal would keep them alive 100% time, there must be a way to kill them or we end with unkillable pet.
I think 1 good start would set life of pet as 2x of the player, thta way you give them more time under focus or random aoe to stay up. Second would give them the same armor and resistence.
But there is a problem in step 2, this would make pet more resistent based on the player build.
So this is something that could lead to some problem. I find that if you want scale properly pet defense you need to give them either a ammount based on renow + an ammount from player + set a cap for all his stats, like a player would have.
That way ppl cannot have god pet, either ppl will not have weak pet. Also pet like white lion or squig are designed to be able to little tank on pve. so their armor need to be set taken that in account.

I justify the x2 wouds as pet are animals/machien/daemon so they should be able to take more hit than humans.
I justify the def meccanic by a gampley perspective. Also these things need to be tested on a 24 vs 24 eviroment.

I would suggest as max set of armor a pool of 50%. The game would always reduces pshysic damage at "max" of 50% but after any other armor debuff or amor penetration.
The base rank armor should be "based" ( not equal) on the type of pet, for exemple : white lion would be a MDPS, so it should get per renow level a similar armor value to that of white lion.

melee = mdps armor
Mid range = medium robe (maybe a little more should be between mdps and robe)
long range= robe

The ammount of armor recived by pet should be around 25% of player total armor to ensure some kind of buff/personalitation.

Resistence should have a different metod. There are no dedicated value of resistence in game based on armors sets but each classes decide them on hiw own build and magic damage are the higher damage in game.
I would suggest to take that class sov jew mutliply his resistence value x 4 ( edit: if the jew have 3 different value add all of three, then divide by 3 then do x4) and then divide the ammount for 80 levels.

That way the x ammount would be added each renow level to pets indipendently by pet type. Also auras/bo and sm buff would buff their resistence normaly with the same cap of 40%.

I dont think is required to have a resistence % from player but if that would be necessary i would take in consideration a lesser value of the 25% of the armor. Because magic damage do not have resistence penetration and debuff magic resistence on a pet would be a waste of ap.

EDIT: those numbers seems high but remember pet do nothave guards 50% damage reduction.

[Bozzax]

It gets so complicated so quickly. A flat % of owners stats dependent of stat and pet type* including parry, dodge, disrupt, armour and resistances scale and is easier to get right. The pet stats would be capped as the owners stats are capped.

As long as the pet damage is controlled there isn't even a problem in making them immortal. Having a reliable fetch would simply be good as TE already is. I do think they should be killable though especially ranged ones

* melee, medium, long etc

[Tesq]

It gets so complicated so quickly. A flat % of owners stats dependent of stat and pet type* including parry, dodge, disrupt, armour and resistances scale and is easier to get right. The pet stats would be capped as the owners stats are capped.

* melee, medium, long etc

As i said before this way player build it's too much prevalent into pet stats, pet need to have a different and separate stats exept a % taken in account for personalization.

[Bozzax]

Personally I think a def build toon should field tougher pets that do less damage. This is an opinion though and there other ways that may be better over all

[Tesq]

Personally I think a def build toon should field tougher pets that do less damage

Yes that's why i said 2x wouds, similar base armor but got 25% of the player armor,

if armor have a def build that 25% is higher than an offensive player 25%
Also this make pet still durable even if owner have a glass cannon build. But not gody with the right armor cap

if the 25% armor value it's too low that could be change it's an exemple %, it can be adjusted.
But this way to approach pet, make it more easy to balance it's range of durability while make it not too much strong or weak.(edit: if with these % pet it's too much durable lowering armor and resistence make pet better suit with the 2x wouds also makinh him different from a player. Still prevent pet to be too weak or too strong)

If i left out toughness that can be put equal to 100% of the player stat. You can't go wrong with toughness. Also tough do not influence the balance of class for me .

Edit: initiative is relative useless at the current state of the game, animals like squig and white lion should be able to find hide target by deafult with their noiose. That's make it only good to reduces crit chance on them while not damage.