It’s interesting how they have been several dev replies on the subject of pets within dungeons and trials while scores of other issues receive no attention or response whatsoever. That’s an interesting approach to to prioritization, I suppose.

Transairion wrote: »

@ZOS_Finn

Thank you for taking the time to communicate with us, and while as a petsorc since I first started playing I do approve of the change but... it also feels like it clashes with the original design intentions.


For example:

Rebate: When one of your summoned creatures is killed or unsummoned, you're restored for X of your Max Magicka.

Obviously if pets become immortal in group PvE, they'll never be killed and rarely unsummoned by mechanics (like Hist-Sap vision in Ruins of Mattazun) so this passive won't function anymore. Arguably it's always been a kinda bad passive to begin with since it only restores a small amount and outside group PvE pets usually don't die at all if shielded, so maybe it should be redesigned entirely? I can't speak for PvP though, usually there once your lose a pet you never live long enough to resummon it.

Conjured Ward:Conjure globes of Daedric energy for protection, granting a damage shield for you and your pets that absorbs 3007 damage for 6 seconds.

The main reason Conjured Ward fits into the Daedric Summoning skill line at all is it protects your summons as well as yourself, but if group content has immortal pets there's need to shield them anymore (So people may drop Conjured entirely for something like Annulment instead).

Back in the old days one morph (Empowered Ward?) actually gave +pet damage while the shield held; so if immortal pets still take damage to their shields (but cannot lose their health) a return of this damage buff to one Conjured morph would allow the choice between Annulment/Hardened Ward for larger self-shields, or using Empowered Ward for a weaker, enduring shield that increases summon damage while their shield lasts.

Bound Armor:
Protect yourself with the power of Oblivion, creating a suit of Deadric mail that increases you block mitgation by 20% for 3 seconds. The armor also increases your Max Magicka by 5%.

This ability has felt out of place in the Daedric Summoning skill line since the game came out, since it offers next to nothing for an actual pet-using Sorc other than passive Max Mag increase while slotted (where Petsorc already has 3/5 of their bar for +damage Curse, melee pet and ranged pet). It's super meh, even more so after one morph became a Stamina Sorc morph (Sorc summons scale with Max Mag, no stamina variants) and they both gained the effect of brief block-empowerment... which really only something a Tank Sorceror would want to use (DPS/Healer Sorcs will just roll dodge something with that brief a window).

I honestly just want this ability reworked to something that makes sense in Daedric Summoning, as all the others skills benefit summoners and this one is just kind of... there. It would be great if one skill bar was like, 10 abilities long instead of 5 but with limited space it just feels like a slot-taking passive. I want a reason to slot this while using pets, I don't even know what to suggest... +pet movespeed? Instant teleport to owner button?

Summon Twilight Tormentor
Call on Azura to send a twilight tormentor to fight at your side. The twilight tormentor’s attacks deals 636 Shock Damage plus an additional 15% damage.
Once summoned, you can activate the twilight tormentor's special ability, causing it to deal 50% more damage to enemies above 50% Health for 15 seconds.
The twilight tormentor remains until killed or unsummoned.

Slightly on a tangent now, but I just want to reiterate how bad this morph actually is because it's needed proper buffs for years and the Murkmire cost-decrease doesn't make it anymore appealing than Live.

Winged Twilight's only attack every few seconds, and it's special ability gives it a +50% damage buff to those attacks. But it also ONLY buffs when the target is 50%+ HP, and after that the Twilight literally no longer has an active ability anymore. So for Group PvE, the Tormentor morph stops functioning entirely for half of any given boss encounter. The Twilight Matriarch morph however has the same base damage, and it's healing active is usable all the time.

The Twilight Tormentor morph desperately needs:

1) Higher Base damage
OR
2) To apply a debuff to it's target when the active ability is used
OR
3) To have the 50% damage amp active reworked to function at all HP levels, perhaps as a "reverse execute" (100% bonus damage at high HP, 1% bonus damage at low HP)?

It's been the inferior morph for years, even on pet-damage focused builds just because of how specifically limited it is so it could really use a buff.

Thanks for taking the time to read my input!

Agree with everything except Bound Armour. The theme is Daedric summoning. Not pets. In elder scrolls you can summon more than pets from the daedric plane. You can summon armor and weapons. The skill summons armor so the theme still fits.

DoobZ69 wrote: »

Make pets immune to damage sometimes - this is what this change comes down to - idiotic.

This is such a stupid change.
First of all its inconsistent - some places the pets will take damage and in some instances it won't. The list is vague and ridiculous. Many players are still having to be told to stop using the Frost staff because they do not realise it taunts and now this.
Then you have the separation of pve vs pvp on top of that. The player will need to learn 2 playstyles for their pets - in 1 they keep an eye on their health and make sure they stay alive and in the other they don't. WTF. It goes completely against this BS idea ZOS puts forward where they don't separate PVE from PVP as far as skills are concerned.

Completely disappointed with ZOS this PTS cycle. The changes are erratic, not thought through, game-breaking and just downright childish. On top of that they're massive and has no consideration for any of the issues the players have/are putting forward. The current team clearly has no goal for what they actually want to achieve and are leaving actual concerns behind. Every change has a knee-jerk reaction which is even more inconsistent and shocking.

Get your *** together and take a deep breath and give a moment's thought before creating situational constraints on something as massive as that.

Maybe it's because I'm a petsorc main and have been for the past year or more (give or take a couple months where I was in a guild that had banned their use), but I'm going to have to disagree with much of your assessment.

First, I don't find the change remotely idiotic. As a petsorc, my familiar's pulse is easily in my top 3 sources of damage on almost every fight. For a sorc healer, it's one of the- if not the- main burst heal. In both cases, he takes up two bar spots out of 10 and take almost 1.5 seconds to resummon, during which you can do nothing else and your dps/hps drops hard. Particularly with the shield changes, they would die incredibly often, and then you have to spend the time resummoning them. It'd be like making it so that jabs or bol could be disabled with a 1.5s interruptable cast time before you could even cast and make use of it. Except worse because, again, they take up 2 spots. Silly, right?

But it's inconsistent! Not really. In group PvE content (trials, dungeons, group arenas), where the incoming damage is severe and you generally have a tank, the pets are invulnerable, so they don't die to a sneeze. In anything else, they aren't. It's actually quite simple to figure out. Are you in a 4 man dungeon/trial/group arena, or aren't you? What was truly difficult to figure out (and incredibly inconsistent, too) was which bosses/mechanics would kill/brutally maim the pet and which wouldn't. My familiar has died 5 times during one storm atro boss fight in vAA before, for reasons I still don't know. Meanwhile, in the Galchobar fight in vet Bloodroot Forge, he would stand there in the middle of the Weapon Throw, slobber, growl, and be perfectly fine. This actually makes it more consistent and easier to follow, and makes it so you don't have to keep non-pet gear and skills for some fights where the pets are dying too quickly or killing your team mates because of mechanics.

In PvP, where counterplay is king, an invulnerable pet is a horrible idea. "I'm going to take a mobile turret, send it into your midst, and, when I push this button, it starts pulsing AoE damage and emits a stun every 2 seconds for 8 seconds. And there's nothing you can do about it." is a very good way to get them nerfed into Oblivion. You have to be able to take them off the field and put the sorc on the back foot, or a 1v1 becomes a permanent 1v3, with a potential 1v4 every time they drop the atro and all you can do is either soak up that damage or run away. Sorc's using his Twilight to heal? Kill it and force a resummon. Scamp in your face? Kill it and force a resummon. Bonus points if you interrupt the sorc and drag it out.

I'll be the first to admit a lot of the changes this patch had me scratching my head and feeling like they were turning too many gears too far too quickly. This change here though, I think Finn and his team got right on the money and, as a petsorc main, I feel it absolutely addresses a major pain point without being overpowered. So, #F...UmmThanksFinn.

@ZOS_Finn Now, about that Yokeda Kai fight.... xD

Cronopoly wrote: »

It's a Trap...

It's a not so subtle message saying Play as a PET SORC and SHUT THE HELL UP. Yes it's knee jerk to the Shield Nerfs, and is simpler to code Immune to damage lol.

My fear as this will be the foundation justification for all Sorc nerfs in the future. I'm wondering if anyone asked for this, or does it make sense??... I can hear the cries now. SORCS are Soloing content no one could solo prior by some mechanism of invincible pets... then Nerfbat.

P.S.
So the "Rebate" Summoning passive doesn't apply in dungeons as pets will never die... Needs another adjustment or just do without it. Meh.

My thoughts are now we will see even more Pet Sorc builds running around with two active Pets at all times. Destroy shields and give em immortal Pets. Now that's balance! /s

There is already an invincible, untargetable pet on Live: the nightblade shade.

Even though pets have no taunt, they can still draw aggro (much to the consternation of a tank who finds that a melee enemy, instead of walking to the group, is hanging out at a distance in the back whacking on a Twilight), and now that they are invincible, any aggro that they do draw effectively becomes free damage mitigation. Making them untargetable similar to the NB shade would solve this problem, no?

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

Wolf_Watching wrote: »

CAN YOU PLEEEEEEEASE MAKE SURE THIS WORKS W/ WEREWOLF PETS‽

We can take a look at this. Werewolf pets should not be different than other pets so, if they are targeted by Chain Lightning since Update 19, that is a bug we will take a look at.

@Dagoth_Rac You bring up some good points, I'll pass it along to the combat team.

I strongly disagree with making pets scaling on spell damage and max magicka.

Actually you can build for max magicka and put the rest into sustain for PvP. (Necropotence + sustain set).

If you make pets scale on boths, it will sereverly nerf Max magicka build with low spell damage.

Pets aren't just a PvE thing. A pets already do good damage enough.

Also, balancing pets if they both scales with spell damage and max magicka will be very hard : Max magicka doesn't get increased by new set when patch comes, while spell damage is greatly increase the more the game become old. It's easier to increase flat damage than to nerf things when spell damage got mad on certain builds.


PvP pet sorc cannot both have great magicka + great spell damage while being able to sustain like in PvE. Don't nerf PvP pet sorcs.

@ZOS_Finn
Thank you for taking the time out to respond to inquiries/concerns over pets in PvE. I do have a suggestion to add to this discussion. Would it be possible or a beneficial thing to have combat pets scale to highest magicka/stamina and weapon/spell damage pools so that you could theoretically make a stamina pet build? Looking at Clannfear in Sorc that deals physical damage as a part of my reason. Also, this would include the spiders from Tangling Webs (which I can't still understand why stamina can't activate a stamina based synergy but that is another question no to the discussion), and potentially pets from proc sets, like Maw or Shadowrend.

Well so far I have mixed feeling about this change. My main is a sorc pet and I agree something needed to be done to make them viable in any PvE content.

But making Pets completely invulnerable ? Am I the only one expecting a quick cry for overpowered and a sudden nerf-back in a soon-forthcoming patch ? Unfortunately it wouldn't be the first time.
We already had the pets damage buffed a couple of patch ago, making them the must-have for sorc, before being nerfed in a following patch making them banned by some raid lead.
More recently we had run cage that experienced similar buff to nerf cycle.

I hope this is just not an immediate reaction to the "shield drama" and that we could expect a stable and balanced adjustment. But so far there is still side-effects that haven't been dealt with like the rebate passive.
Murkmire is drawing close and I would personally prefer a status-quo until a completely reworked solution, rather than a quick and dirty path delivered with Murkmire but already dead with the next patch.

They're never going to make sorc pets immortal in PvP and they never should. Stop asking for ridiculous stuff.

Also, making them untargetable like NB Shades would deprive pet sorcs of ability to LoS using pets so it would leave them way more vulnerable to enemy attacks than they are on live.

1) I have done hard mode AA and can confirm that "scamp" pet does not cause lightning discharges any more.

2) I am against making pets scale off spell damage, because the next day they'll nerf Necropotence to the ground (to keep the sum of 2nd / 3rd set damage at bay). It's the only "known evergreen good" magsorc set. Once nerfed to the ground, there SHALL NEVER be an improvement to it again, in case ZOS changes baseline mechanics again (happens pretty often).
However, now we'll have to have low health to keep that fat 60k magicka BUT shields won't scale with magicka any more. So, pet sorcs will either have to deal BAD damage (yes, even lower than now) OR have mediocre shields.

3) @ZOS_Finn Thank you for your appreciated posts! I wish the other developers were as effective and ready to discuss!