They are ok for questing as for dungeons / pvp not worth the space on the limited action bar. Now if they had a separate action bar they may come in handy and be worthwhile to use in the later 2 instances ..

ADarklore wrote: »

I've always believed that pets were designed most specifically for solo players running solo content, not so much for players in PvP or in Groups. Logically it makes sense, if you're in a group, why do you need additional help? Everything about their design screams "solo player". Many of the skills in other classes/weapon trees seem more designed for solo instead of group content as well, still others seem more designed for group, and some are useful for both. I have always found pets to be more beneficial solo, and whenever I've run group, I'll ditch the pet for other skills that are more group centric.

idk about that. The fact they put a pet sorc set in AA, a 12 man "Trial" (you cannot do it with less than 12 people do to having to stand on switches to progress.) And not a craftable set that can be had while your leveling tells me something about where they "wanted" pet sorcs to be >once upon a time. I mean for it's time, the gear for it was set at the highest tier/cream of the crop end game content. Another issue I'm seeing here from posters is You guys seem to be posting from the perspective of a person who is specced spell power or specced stamina and swap pets in and out for different situations. which is fine, and probably the smart thing to do in the current meta. But there is "supposed" to be a alternative specc* that is competitive to those paths. Stacking magic (hence the necropotences 2,3,4 piece bonus to magic, and the 5 piece +10% to magic) and probably the reason staff damage is based of max magic, and pet detonation damage is based off your max magic, as well as the various other attacks from the pets.

Lets do some old school math so I can show you what I mean.
Lets say you have a spell power sorc with 3.5k spell power and 30k magic?
And you have pet sorc with 48k mana and 1.9k spell power?

Magic is supposed to contribute to spell power at a 1/10 rate.

48k/10= 4800 + 1.9k spell power = 6700 true spell power
30k/10= 3000+ 3.5k spell power= 6500 true spell power

Thus the 2 builds should have similar ability damage, and can compete.

However; such doesn't appear to be the case.
Every test I've ever done with anyone has shown that spell power has a 2-4k skill damage advantage. and Dps wise a 2-22k advantage depending on the sustain time. (since DLC. Times before that showed the damage of attacks where somewhat similar. the difference Was 1-4k dps difference at most, sometimes even in favor of the pet build, and the difference in ideologies lead to slight differences in utilities and bonuses to the group) however; Now... in my tests and social circles We're doing about 1/3rd of the current dps of spell power sorcs and stamina sorcs.

It isn't merely the pets I'm debating here...tho they are chalked full of their own issues. but the old balancing math that benefited this build immensely doesn't appear to ring true anymore.

Mush55 wrote: »

They are ok for questing as for dungeons / pvp not worth the space on the limited action bar. Now if they had a separate action bar they may come in handy and be worthwhile to use in the later 2 instances ..

I don't think they'll be adding bars anytime soon because this game was designed for the big money. Consoles. Not PC gamers which would have no problem switching between 6 different skill bars and adapting on the fly. So they either need to fix the true spell power issue and scale up the pet damage/survivability/bonuses for the loss of slots having them or make it so you can have toggles on one bar and switch between them and still have the pets active. all these paths would have balancing issues...

idk, it seems to me the math needs to be adjusted because there is either a massive error, or their needs to be some adjustments to the way it all scales.

Well I decided to keep the mana stack pet set in my inventory for if I have to Tank or heal. both of which it's good enough for any pre IC dungeon. For my Dps I've switched out to a 3,700 spell power set. and tho I feel the searing lack of utility I imagine I'll get used to it... dps was horrible at first tho lol... I was pulling like 6k when I started messing with it :P ...but I got into the groove a bit and now im pulling around 15k dps on average topping out around 30k in certain situations. I have a few tweaks I can make to it in mind. but thats where Zos has pushed me too x.x , just can't dps effectivly as a pet build. sure I could go from 6-14k single...but that was with ALOT of practice and specialized gear like necropotence, healer, kagnerac, will power, and it was VERY hard to achieve... Anyway' I hope Zos reads this board and considers some changes, and chooses to support this type of game play.

I don't even bother using pets in IC or Cyrodiil. I only use them for kiting bosses in PvE. It'd be nice if they didn't die to a stiff breeze but the re-summon does get me free crystal shards.

I get extremely impressive numbers with my pet build. Like what was said before its a dedicated pet build. It has to be dedicated, because what everyone said above.

If you add it up, you dedicate resto staff (heals them plus abilities effect them) you run them (4 slots IS huge), thankfully hardened ward is just awesome, all the perks help.

Do not run Daedric prey! I spent all the time doing the math and the only time Daedric prey does more damage is if you have both pets and atronach attacking, without missing a single attack (due to stealth, knockdown, cc, etc) its highly conditional.

The problem is, you have to dedicate everything to the pets just to be comparable to other builds. This greatly hurts your ability to counter multiple builds (pvp)

To the person whom said its set up mostly for solo, i absolutely agree. In vet dungeons I clearly see the difference, and they do make a huge difference.

About the attacks, that's very strange. Outside of Cyrodiil my pets do: Twilight approx 1550 per attack and Clannfear is approx 550. That's approx 2100 per attack. They attack every 2 seconds if unhindered, that's 1050 dps. I have only 30 attributes in magicka, have approx 19k magicka outside Cyrodiil. Your damage is surprisingly low is all.

Im running a more dps build atm. I dunno if you count one pet as a pet build or not, but getting good results in PvP.

Edit: oh and lets not forget about playstyle. An example would be casting hardened ward with your ward being full just so your pets' wards refresh.

NativeJoe wrote: »

1. Pets taunt should always be prioritized lower then a players taunt.

That's kind of a silly suggestion don't you think, unless it was specific to group content... because in solo PvE, I most definitely want my pet to be drawing the aggro. If pet aggro was always prioritized below a player, then basically what you're saying is that they shouldn't draw aggro at all.

Derra wrote: »

There are builds where they´re useful. Sadly you have to tailor your whole build around pets to get the a point where they´re vaible. Considering this is a whole skillline of the sorcerer it should not work that way.

Also can you still not order your pets to attack your target on console? If that´s still the case my statement is only true for the pc version anyways.

You can't command the pets but you can target them on cast at an enemy which isn't much of a consolation prize. I run a destro staff pet build that is my crafter V15. My bars are all the daedric skills and a couple destro skills. It's a crafter that can run arounfpd and solo content.

Waffennacht wrote: »

I get extremely impressive numbers with my pet build. Like what was said before its a dedicated pet build. It has to be dedicated, because what everyone said above.

If you add it up, you dedicate resto staff (heals them plus abilities effect them) you run them (4 slots IS huge), thankfully hardened ward is just awesome, all the perks help.

Do not run Daedric prey! I spent all the time doing the math and the only time Daedric prey does more damage is if you have both pets and atronach attacking, without missing a single attack (due to stealth, knockdown, cc, etc) its highly conditional.

The problem is, you have to dedicate everything to the pets just to be comparable to other builds. This greatly hurts your ability to counter multiple builds (pvp)

To the person whom said its set up mostly for solo, i absolutely agree. In vet dungeons I clearly see the difference, and they do make a huge difference.

About the attacks, that's very strange. Outside of Cyrodiil my pets do: Twilight approx 1550 per attack and Clannfear is approx 550. That's approx 2100 per attack. They attack every 2 seconds if unhindered, that's 1050 dps. I have only 30 attributes in magicka, have approx 19k magicka outside Cyrodiil. Your damage is surprisingly low is all.

Im running a more dps build atm. I dunno if you count one pet as a pet build or not, but getting good results in PvP.

Edit: oh and lets not forget about playstyle. An example would be casting hardened ward with your ward being full just so your pets' wards refresh.

Mana stacked pet build... (which I still pack around with me because if it isn't a dps blow out spot like valk it's my prefered set) is just to low dps in situations that call for it. I was specifically putting myself into it. Not just a spell power build throwing up a atronoch and calling myself a pet build :P . but I'd find myself more often then not between 4-12k dps with it. (im not talking AOE...cuz with just pet explosion I could net quite a bit over 30k, and have had a few instances where the dps jumped over 120k) I'm talking single target, as in ...you and the boss. thats it. Idk, in my opinion the scaling with mana just didn't add up and since I'm still running 40k mana with my 3.7k spell damage build it seems pointless to recommend pets at this point. I got alot of work to do and gotta nail animation canceling so I can see the big numbers, but already I'm seeing 18-29k single target with it. tripling my said dps while losing 2 malfunctioning pets and 4-8k mana. I suck at math...but in my opinion the equations for mana to spell power just arn't working, and the scaling of the pets is way off to make up for it.

I want to play a staff wielding mana stacked Pet sorc. I am forced by mechanics, and the lack of support to play a dual wielding Spell power stacked sorc.

DannyLV702 wrote: »

Would be great if they got rid of pets and gave us some better aoe.

I'm glad you are only speaking for yourself... as for me, I chose Sorcerer on my alts SOLELY because of the Clannfear pet which draws aggro and allows me to range from safety. MANY Sorc players choose Sorcerer SOLELY because of the pets. Besides that, I think Sorcerer has some great AoE's, and in fact, the Destruction Staff has arguably one of the best AoE's in the game.

ADarklore wrote: »

NativeJoe wrote: »

1. Pets taunt should always be prioritized lower then a players taunt.

That's kind of a silly suggestion don't you think, unless it was specific to group content... because in solo PvE, I most definitely want my pet to be drawing the aggro. If pet aggro was always prioritized below a player, then basically what you're saying is that they shouldn't draw aggro at all.

I meant a taunt from a player shouldn't be cancled by a taunt from a summon. A tank was complaining about how the pets bounce back and forth tanking stuff and stripping Agro away from him. if they're taunted by him, the pets shouldn't break agro. thats all I meant. Not that we can out agro our own pets sheerly through damage or something.

My opinion: I think they should Ditch the idea of "balance" the next time they create a pet set...(perhaps the next trial!) and they go straight for the jugular and make us OP for half a minute. then try to balance from there...because as far as I know...we've never been OP...but occasionally matching the performance of a differently stacked build.

it is our turn after all? right? I mean we literally have a set (shield breaker) meant to kill us, we havn't seen a gear upgrade since vr 12, and every sorc out there has 40k mana compared to a magic stack of merely 44-50k mana which isn't enough to make up for the fact those sorcs have 1000 to 2000 extra spell power over us dedicated pet builds. WE are officially the bottom of the barrel build. we literally have a dedicated skill line to this ...and don't have support o.o its absolutely mind blowing and infuriating

CP5 wrote: »

I remember awhile back when Eric was on ESO Live frequently talking about upcoming changes and he said something along the lines that (after talking about the new skills the other classes were getting to replace old ones) that "we buffed pets so much on our internal testing server that they are op" and that they would be nerfed before making it onto pts.

I wish that was actually true and they were buffed. Id say they easily need to be doing double damage and have health doubled or trippled. On top of that they need sets and CP points to affect them as well.