Hear Me Out - Invincible Sorcerer Pets

GrumpyDuckling

Instead of pets dying when taking too much damage, how about they instead become "silenced" and unable to move and perform their basic attacks for 4 seconds? A change like this would eliminate the need to re-summon pets and allows the caster to activate the summons' special abilities (second button press) at all times.

In their current state sorcerer pets and their special abilities are extremely difficult to use in content such as VMA or in PVP because they die (unsummon) quickly and frequently unless the caster focuses most of their effort on shielding and healing them - which makes game play more of a chore rather than an enjoyable experience.

By making the summon pets invincible the caster will at least be able to use the summons' special skills, which means pets aren't entirely ineffective in VMA and PVP. A change like this would be much appreciated by pet users.

ForsakenSin

i actually like the idea allot and we also need to have them only on one bar and not two or three ie overload

Alucardo

No, sorry. I'm going to sound odd to some people here, but good pet sorcs are annoyingly powerful. With unbreakable shields, great healing and high burst potential they are like trying to fight a tank, healer and DPS all at once.
They should have to recast their pet if you actually manage to finally kill it. But if you do try and focus the pet, you'll just end up getting hit with 10k curses and 12k frags anyway.
They aren't the easiest spec to play, but if done right they're one of the toughest opponents to come across.

Waffennacht

Alucardo wrote: »

No, sorry. I'm going to sound odd to some people here, but good pet sorcs are annoyingly powerful. With unbreakable shields, great healing and high burst potential they are like trying to fight a tank, healer and DPS all at once.
They should have to recast their pet if you actually manage to finally kill it. But if you do try and focus the pet, you'll just end up getting hit with 10k curses and 12k frags anyway.
They aren't the easiest spec to play, but if done right they're one of the toughest opponents to come across.

Maybe on PC where you can actually control your pet. On console they'll just chase some random out of view. If I could have my pets actually both attack a single player maybe they could be as you described. But on console (which is crazy they just don't attack the highlighted target) they are not tough opponents

GrumpyDuckling

Waffennacht wrote: »

Alucardo wrote: »

No, sorry. I'm going to sound odd to some people here, but good pet sorcs are annoyingly powerful. With unbreakable shields, great healing and high burst potential they are like trying to fight a tank, healer and DPS all at once.
They should have to recast their pet if you actually manage to finally kill it. But if you do try and focus the pet, you'll just end up getting hit with 10k curses and 12k frags anyway.
They aren't the easiest spec to play, but if done right they're one of the toughest opponents to come across.

Maybe on PC where you can actually control your pet. On console they'll just chase some random out of view. If I could have my pets actually both attack a single player maybe they could be as you described. But on console (which is crazy they just don't attack the highlighted target) they are not tough opponents

Agreed. I play on console too and pets are not worth using in a larger scale battle (like trying to take a keep). All they do is feed unto opposing ultimates by, like you said, running off and dying.

Alucardo

Waffennacht wrote: »

Alucardo wrote: »

No, sorry. I'm going to sound odd to some people here, but good pet sorcs are annoyingly powerful. With unbreakable shields, great healing and high burst potential they are like trying to fight a tank, healer and DPS all at once.
They should have to recast their pet if you actually manage to finally kill it. But if you do try and focus the pet, you'll just end up getting hit with 10k curses and 12k frags anyway.
They aren't the easiest spec to play, but if done right they're one of the toughest opponents to come across.

Maybe on PC where you can actually control your pet. On console they'll just chase some random out of view. If I could have my pets actually both attack a single player maybe they could be as you described. But on console (which is crazy they just don't attack the highlighted target) they are not tough opponents

Well, I'm not going to disagree with you and say the pet AI isn't stupid..

Aldul

intersting ...

pet sorc ftw.

with update 12 tho, they are messed up totally. unintended obviously. they dont recieve battel spirit scaling in PvE duels, which makes them waaaaay too easy to kill and not viable. this is so sad. please fix it.

Natas013

The only way I'd agree they be invincible, like shades, is if they worked like shades. I laid out how that could work well in the seemingly ignored sorc Q&A at the top of this section.

GrumpyDuckling

Aldul wrote: »

intersting ...

pet sorc ftw.

with update 12 tho, they are messed up totally. unintended obviously. they dont recieve battel spirit scaling in PvE duels, which makes them waaaaay too easy to kill and not viable. this is so sad. please fix it.

And forget about taking pets into a CP campaign. They get 1 shot with ease by most players.

Transairion

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

In their current state sorcerer pets and their special abilities are extremely difficult to use in content such as VMA or in PVP because they die (unsummon) quickly and frequently unless the caster focuses most of their effort on shielding and healing them - which makes game play more of a chore rather than an enjoyable experience.

This really isn't true and makes me think that you're just summoning a Clanffer/Scamp/Twilight and calling that "job done", then are outraged when they die.

I'm at the Stage 9 boss (final round) of VMA with a Pet Sorc build, and throughout the entire journey I've never had problems with any of my summons dying to damage... outside that Argonian Behemoth, but an AOE 80k+ DOT is pretty unavoidable. In PvP yes they'll die if you just fight zergs, but in Imperial City or small scale PvP (or duels I imagine) they're fine... the biggest problem there is them getting stuck in walls!


I'm all for buffs to pets/summons, but when making them immortal is as simple as "press Empowered Ward" right now this seems the wrong way to go about it. The only content in the game where pets/summons die are the Overfiend(?) boss in Veteran ICP which has some mechanic that kills them instantly upon summoning, and Molag Bal's story fight (because they're not "buffed" like the player is). That's it. Veteran Dungeons, Veteran Trials, VMA, DSA you can go through every single with a pet build without them dying... if you take care of them.

GrumpyDuckling

Transairion wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

In their current state sorcerer pets and their special abilities are extremely difficult to use in content such as VMA or in PVP because they die (unsummon) quickly and frequently unless the caster focuses most of their effort on shielding and healing them - which makes game play more of a chore rather than an enjoyable experience.

This really isn't true and makes me think that you're just summoning a Clanffer/Scamp/Twilight and calling that "job done", then are outraged when they die.

I'm at the Stage 9 boss (final round) of VMA with a Pet Sorc build, and throughout the entire journey I've never had problems with any of my summons dying to damage... outside that Argonian Behemoth, but an AOE 80k+ DOT is pretty unavoidable. In PvP yes they'll die if you just fight zergs, but in Imperial City or small scale PvP (or duels I imagine) they're fine... the biggest problem there is them getting stuck in walls!


I'm all for buffs to pets/summons, but when making them immortal is as simple as "press Empowered Ward" right now this seems the wrong way to go about it. The only content in the game where pets/summons die are the Overfiend(?) boss in Veteran ICP which has some mechanic that kills them instantly upon summoning, and Molag Bal's story fight (because they're not "buffed" like the player is). That's it. Veteran Dungeons, Veteran Trials, VMA, DSA you can go through every single with a pet build without them dying... if you take care of them.

VMA with pets tagging along can be accomplished if you are melting enemies before they get hits on your pets. This tactic doesn't really make the pets all that useful, though. You're racing to defeat enemies while the pets just hang out.

scorpiodog

I guess the question is: are pets supposed to be an aid, or completely fight your battle for you?

In WOW you just sit back and let your pets kill everything for you. It is completely boring.

In ESO sorc pets are more like resources you have to manage. They can aid you but aren't supposed to do everything for you. You still have to manage your magika pool, and this is how it should be. Nothing should be "fire and forget".

But the AI - yes you should be able to adjust how they behave.

tnanever

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

Instead of pets dying when taking too much damage, how about they instead become "silenced" and unable to move and perform their basic attacks for 4 seconds? A change like this would eliminate the need to re-summon pets and allows the caster to activate the summons' special abilities (second button press) at all times.

In their current state sorcerer pets and their special abilities are extremely difficult to use in content such as VMA or in PVP because they die (unsummon) quickly and frequently unless the caster focuses most of their effort on shielding and healing them - which makes game play more of a chore rather than an enjoyable experience.

By making the summon pets invincible the caster will at least be able to use the summons' special skills, which means pets aren't entirely ineffective in VMA and PVP. A change like this would be much appreciated by pet users.

Yeah. Whatever the change is, something needs to be done about sorc pets dying too easily. This especially applies to the Winged Twilight, which seems to die in just a few seconds from dungeon/player attacks, or a few seconds longer from general overland enemies.

Maybe it could be a simple as increasing resistance/health/regen. They are barely useful as it is, due to needing skill slots on multiple bars.

If sorc pets really are meant to die so easily, simply upping their damage or activated ability would be good instead.

SirAndy

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

unless the caster focuses most of their effort on shielding and healing them

My Magicka Pet Sorc relies on the pet heals to stay alive, which also keeps them alive. Seems to work for me.

Dracane

Fixing the huge amount of pet bugs would be a good start.

Pets may gain battle spirit in pvp, but their health desyncs as soon as a battle begins and their health desyncs to what it would be in pve and they are unable to heal themselves above this once they have been desynced.

Pets still die one shot when hit by puncturing sweeps.

Pets still don't stealth properly and randomly vanish all the time.

Hardened ward's bonus % also affecting pets would be a good start, conjured ward could as well give them some minor buffs like minor protection. Which wouldn't change much though, because they can only take 45% of their health with 1 hit either way. I really don't know what to do with pets. Just fix them.

Solariken

I'm not a fan of the OP suggestion, but I agree that pet mechanics need to change.

For one, they should NOT be toggles. They should be instant-cast and the pet should fixate on the target you summoned it on, and it should only persist for a fixed period before it dies/teleports back to Oblivion.

STEVIL

my thoughts:

TOGGLE OR NOT: if it hangs around until killed - it stays a toggle. if it lasts for a short time - its a slot. Either way is fine by me.

CONTROL vs NOT: honestly, IMO, the key is not to have to worry about controlling your pets by making their abilities useful without precision management or a mythical godlike AI that will never happen. Reason i say this is in a busy fight a player doesn't have time/focus to micro-manage the pet(s) and their own character. besides from my own POV, summoned varmints should be more independent not just attacks with feet or wings or whatever.

So this means i want pets to be basically something along these lines:
1 - Pet provides a minor group buff when alive. gained on the morph so that means four possibles.
2 - Pet does its own light attacks... think of it as a meh DOT that hits one target and changes targets a lot. However, if the pet is below 50% health, it heals itself instead.
3 - A key-click effect that triggers like they do now, twilights have a group heal-over-time and a pet-sorc heal option with the morphs while scamp has an AOE burst pulse and clanfear has a aoe fear ability. While key-click abilities are in effect, the light attacks and self-heal from #2 are down.
4 - Setting check box for "pet will not go more than Xm from caster." where X is the radius of the AOEs the pets can do.

Mush55

Waffennacht wrote: »

Alucardo wrote: »

No, sorry. I'm going to sound odd to some people here, but good pet sorcs are annoyingly powerful. With unbreakable shields, great healing and high burst potential they are like trying to fight a tank, healer and DPS all at once.
They should have to recast their pet if you actually manage to finally kill it. But if you do try and focus the pet, you'll just end up getting hit with 10k curses and 12k frags anyway.
They aren't the easiest spec to play, but if done right they're one of the toughest opponents to come across.

Maybe on PC where you can actually control your pet. On console they'll just chase some random out of view. If I could have my pets actually both attack a single player maybe they could be as you described. But on console (which is crazy they just don't attack the highlighted target) they are not tough opponents

Never used pets when I played my sorc , but there is a simple solution for ps 4 console use the touch pad for pet targeting dunno about xbox.