Sorcerer Pet Changes

UrQuan · February 2016

So the summoned sorcerer pets are undergoing some pretty major changes. They're no longer exactly a toggle - you hit the ability once to summon them, and then using the ability again activates a special ability for that pet. They still need to be on both bars for you to not have the pet de-summon when you weapon swap. I'm not sure how you would de-summon at all if you have the ability on both bars though...

So what do sorcerers think about these changes? Do they make pet builds more viable? At first glance I tend to think the answer is yes, but I'm curious to see what people with more experience with the pets think.

wayfarerx · February 2016

The special pet abilities sound cool and I'm looking forward to trying them out, but making them non-toggles and still requiring them on both bars... I don't even... I mean WHY?

found1779 · February 2016

UrQuan wrote: »

So the summoned sorcerer pets are undergoing some pretty major changes. They're no longer exactly a toggle - you hit the ability once to summon them, and then using the ability again activates a special ability for that pet. They still need to be on both bars for you to not have the pet de-summon when you weapon swap. I'm not sure how you would de-summon at all if you have the ability on both bars though...

So what do sorcerers think about these changes? Do they make pet builds more viable? At first glance I tend to think the answer is yes, but I'm curious to see what people with more experience with the pets think.

But none of them offer anything new for stamina sorcerers i'm disappointed i would like to be able to use my pets as a stamina sorcerer if they actually benefited stamina sorcerers but they ain't going to It's all about magicka players it seems

Nestor · February 2016

wayfarerx wrote: »

The special pet abilities sound cool and I'm looking forward to trying them out, but making them non-toggles and still requiring them on both bars... I don't even... I mean WHY?

We have always needed to have them on both bars to keep them after weapon swapping.

Now, should we need to have them on both bars to keep them up during weapons swaps, I don't think so. I have not used pets since Leveling ranks. Well, I tried them again a while ago as a VR, still kind of underwhelming then. I will have to try them out again.

But to use up 40% of the skill slots means they should do 40% of the overall damage my character does (or healing or protection), or something else will always get the preference. Using up 20% (two slots on one bar) makes the choice much more difficult.

Mivryna · February 2016

I'm really loving the new abilities. My only concern is the inability to desummon them. There ought to be a new hotkey for it or something. Maybe the Command Pet hotkey + block?

That aside though, this could really bring a lot of variety and utility to pets. The Twilight Matriarch could be brilliant for healers, the Clannfear could be great for tanks, and the others seem a lot more useful for DPS. It'll be difficult for me to decide on morphs now.

My only concern is that I still can't figure out a build I like. xD

UrQuan · February 2016

Umbranox wrote: »

I'm really loving the new abilities. My only concern is the inability to desummon them. There ought to be a new hotkey for it or something. Maybe the Command Pet hotkey + block?

Yeah, that's the part that really confuses me. Looking at the changes they seem to me to make using pets more dynamic, as they're much more under your control. Except that apparently you can't get rid of them

RoyJade · February 2016

I just asking myself one thing : does their special abilities also have a cast time ? If not, sorc will get both a great self heal (tank especially) and a very good healing spell.

Just hope their damage will now scale on both magicka and stamina, and we will able to de-summon them (or they become totally invisible even with detect pot in pvp).

wayfarerx · February 2016

Nestor wrote: »

We have always needed to have them on both bars to keep them after weapon swapping.

Yeah I know, I figured the entire point of making them non-toggles was to give sorcs some of their slots back, but that does not appear to be the case.

Nestor wrote: »

But to use up 40% of the skill slots means they should do 40% of the overall damage my character does (or healing or protection), or something else will always get the preference. Using up 20% (two slots on one bar) makes the choice much more difficult.

With a 1.5 second cast time I don't see myself slotting a pet on only one bar and resummoning it every time I swap.

Mivryna · February 2016

My biggest issue in playing a Sorc is not being able to decide between Magicka and Stamina. I love Stamina weapons and armor, but it felt so boring playing without any real Sorcerer abilities. I was thinking of doing a high-Magicka build for the Pet scaling, but using Medium Armor and Stamina weapons for most of my personal abilities.

But at that rate, I might as well just skip the hybrid stuff and go straight for a full Magicka build, eh? Especially since everything but the Clannfear seems to scale off of Magicka.

Magdalina · February 2016

I'm still confused as for how this is supposed to work. Cast #1 summons pet, cast #2 makes pet do its thing, cast #3 does what? Make it do its special thing again? Is there a cooldown if so? Or does it just desummon the pet? Or if it doesn't desummon it, HOW would you desummon the pets then?._. You NEED them off sometimes, have to stop them doing damage beyond certain health % for certain bosses' mechanics.

Waffennacht · February 2016

I can tell you right now it sucks.

The only way to keep any Pets alive is Trinimac set (try v16 without and see how quickly they die)

So making the Clannfear heal an ability, without clannfear's death granting the heals, that means more often than not you WONT use his ability. (As he will die during battle with you at high health) The recast to use them again is the same, but now without our control of when that pet dies.

They are still toggles, I don't see any freakin difference except we can't unsummon at will?

Sorc healer with Pets??? Wtf build is that? Groups will hate you dedicating so much space to still subpar dps and with abilities that heal better why waste a slot?

Dps was not addressed for Pets, control for console was not addressed, daedric prey was not addressed.

Pets are only really viable for soloing which I have been doing all possible dungeons and world bosses with, this makes it even more difficult. Try to time a clannfear ability when you need to, before he dies, while facing down a mob of 10 and a boss, way too much.

Ive been a pet build in 1-50 and v16 and I hate what I read.

Edit: Oh the abilities heal themselves? Whoopie freaking do! Seen a pet fight? Yeah, that 6k heal will allow them to take maybe ONE more hit (they have horrid resist) I've spent time kiting in WGT while healin my Clannfear, for survival it takes a 6k heal every 2 seconds to keep him alive for AWHIlE, the ability will help him None!

Matriarch was only good if you were busy spamming streak or ward and happened to get hit low on health and didn't have time to use an ability, she would heal you right up while you were busy... no longer the case, btw Matriarch almost never aggros over Clannfear, herself heal is a mad waste.

Magdalina · February 2016

Waffennacht wrote: »

I can tell you right now it sucks.

The only way to keep any Pets alive is Trinimac set (try v16 without and see how quickly they die)

So making the Clannfear heal an ability, without clannfear's death granting the heals, that means more often than not you WONT use his ability. (As he will die during battle with you at high health) The recast to use them again is the same, but now without our control of when that pet dies.

They are still toggles, I don't see any freakin difference except we can't unsummon at will?

Sorc healer with Pets??? Wtf build is that? Groups will hate you dedicating so much space to still subpar dps and with abilities that heal better why waste a slot?

Dps was not addressed for Pets, control for console was not addressed, daedric prey was not addressed.

Pets are only really viable for soloing which I have been doing all possible dungeons and world bosses with, this makes it even more difficult. Try to time a clannfear ability when you need to, before he dies, while facing down a mob of 10 and a boss, way too much.

Ive been a pet build in 1-50 and v16 and I hate what I read.

Their surviveability is actually weird. Twilight dies from a direct sneeze with the lawl amount of health she has, but she can survive some AoE damage, like she hardly ever dies at Nerien'eth in vet CoH even without being shielded. However she pretty much vaporizes upon cast in vet CoA. Right now she's actually a not bad, though very situational, dps buff. Plus their surviveability gets buffed heaps by our Ward.

Clannfear, Idk, too many slots for this still, Twilight does sound kind of interesting though. Still confused on how it'd work though.

Merkabeh · February 2016

I was just starting a suicide imp build...now sad panda...

Now to figure out what to level this sorc into...

Xendyn · February 2016

Guess we'll just have to try it out and see what they do now.
I doubt I'll be impressed tho. I came from LOTRO where the class with pets had a whole bar of commands for them and I've never cared for the auto-pilot ones here.

UrQuan · February 2016

I know for sure this is one of the main things I'm going to be trying out on the PTS starting tonight...

SmalltalkJava · February 2016

Not viable until they can stealth.

daemonios · February 2016

wayfarerx wrote: »

The special pet abilities sound cool and I'm looking forward to trying them out, but making them non-toggles and still requiring them on both bars... I don't even... I mean WHY?

This. I thought the review of toggles was to address the fact that they take up 2 slots at a time. If you have 2 pets, inner light and bound aegis, you're left with 1 skill on each bar. Disappointed.

UrQuan · February 2016

daemonios wrote: »

wayfarerx wrote: »

The special pet abilities sound cool and I'm looking forward to trying them out, but making them non-toggles and still requiring them on both bars... I don't even... I mean WHY?

This. I thought the review of toggles was to address the fact that they take up 2 slots at a time. If you have 2 pets, inner light and bound aegis, you're left with 1 skill on each bar. Disappointed.

I was actually just trying to think of how many toggles you could possibly have... Is there no way to fill your entire bar with toggles? I can't think of a 5th one that I could use.

Mojmir · February 2016

can you also run with pets on an overload bar?

UrQuan · February 2016

Mojmir wrote: »

can you also run with pets on an overload bar?

Hmm, I've never actually tried, but I think you should be able to...

ajwest927 · February 2016

When I use my sorcerer it's mainly for dungeon and pvp, since I'm a magicka dps I don't see any benefit adding pets to my bar cause I got a restro staff and wards to healing.

Mivryna · February 2016

ajwest927 wrote: »

When I use my sorcerer it's mainly for dungeon and pvp, since I'm a magicka dps I don't see any benefit adding pets to my bar cause I got a restro staff and wards to healing.

The new Twilight Matriarch is similar to Breath of Life, targeting itself and two players. That way you can heal allies for an instant heal without having to get them in an AoE.

ajwest927 · February 2016

Umbranox wrote: »

ajwest927 wrote: »

When I use my sorcerer it's mainly for dungeon and pvp, since I'm a magicka dps I don't see any benefit adding pets to my bar cause I got a restro staff and wards to healing.

The new Twilight Matriarch is similar to Breath of Life, targeting itself and two players. That way you can heal allies for an instant heal without having to get them in an AoE.

That's interesting

Waffennacht · February 2016

You must have pets slotted on overload bar or you will lose them upon activation of overload.

The not a toggle but still needs to be on every bar thing has me more than confused.

If I cannot spam Clannfear again, a loss in my book.

What I read is:

1. Even though you need to have pets slotted on each bar you can no longer "toggle" them on or off, but rather summon and either switch to bar without pets slotted or wait until their death.

2. Pets now have a "special" ability, and by "special" im sure they mean one time only.

Combine these and you can no longer spam pets and quickly gain their abilities.

Also, without the ability to toggle off a pet, the rebate passive becomes far less useful. As was, in a pinch you could toggle off a pet to gain back some resources. In a solo play through this can actually mean life or death. This passive becomes very unreliable.

If they had made it where you no longer need pets slotted on all bars this would be a different story.

Even using weapon swap is a loss of valuable time, can mean life or death in a solo situation.

Familiar suffers a huge loss in dps, over the course of 4 seconds is pathetic.

Twilight's heal will range from 7 to 8k, I can only use it once and the only other effect is it will heal Clannfear? Combat prayer or restoration will heal for equal or more hp, is instant and heals all 3 or more And has minor protection or buff... and is only one ability slot.

But whatever, maybe they want pets to be more group friendly and less solo friendly. They definitely achieved making solo play less attractive with Pets.

UrQuan · February 2016

So now that I've been able to get on the PTS and check, you can dismiss the pets by holding the ability key down for 4 seconds. But there's a bug when you wayshrine with a pet active - it doesn't arrive at the other end, and you can't re-summon it without first holding down the key for 4 seconds to dismiss it.

Peel_Ya_Cap_517 · February 2016

Mojmir wrote: »

can you also run with pets on an overload bar?

Yes, you can.. Just need to activate Overload and slot the pets there too

Overall the changes just seem like its going to take too much micromanaging. Its already enough to keep curse up, shield, resummon, etc

But we shall see, least they haven't forgotten about them!

MrDerrikk · February 2016

@Waffennacht

I think the special abilities will just be like a normal skill that costs magicka etc. or such? Although it would be strange to use your resources for the pet to do something...

All we can do at this point is hope someone confirms from PTS.

UrQuan · February 2016

MrDerrikk wrote: »

@Waffennacht

I think the special abilities will just be like a normal skill that costs magicka etc. or such? Although it would be strange to use your resources for the pet to do something...

All we can do at this point is hope someone confirms from PTS.

Yes @MrDerrikk that's exactly how it works. You hit the key, your pet uses the ability, and it costs you some magicka.

hrothbern · February 2016

Waffennacht wrote: »

2. Pets now have a "special" ability, and by "special" im sure they mean one time only.

You can cast the special ability as much as you want

But it will cost you dearly:

Without any buffs the Vet 16 base costs for the heal of Unstable Clanfear are 6577 Magicka

(base costs to summon Unstable Clanfear are 3251 Magicka)

Waffennacht · February 2016

Thanks for the info.

Duiwel · February 2016

They should have added pet hp & mana (magicka) bars to the side just below the champion exp bar.