Nahz wrote: »

Over the weekend, I submitted bug reports regarding the stealth mechanic of the sorcerer's summoned pets while in PVP. Right now, the pets are not going into stealth; meaning that enemy players are able to see them even when the sorcerer is invisible. I relogged just in case there was a bug causing the pets to stay in combat, which then prevented them from going into stealth; but that did not fix the issue.

When can we expect to see this bug fixed? This bug cannot wait for the next major update. It's hard enough to play the way I want (using a pet-based build) due to the fact that pets have poor AOE utility, and had their already low damage reduced further by the 50% damage reduction in Cyrodiil. I am not able to be effective in groups while using pets, so I've had to stick to only using them when running solo. This bug makes the pets a huge liability. I either have to give away my position, or cast them before engaging an enemy.

These challenges, coupled with the problem of pets not benefitting from champion points, need attention.

On that note, when can we expect pets to benefit from CP? With the CP system, enemy players will continue to gain resistance to the primary attacks from my pets (the twilight's lighting bolt, and the scamp's explosion), yet my pets cannot grow to challenge those stat increases. This issue also affects PVE, as my group members will continue to increase their damage as they build CP, but my pets will only benefit from the tiny amount of magicka I gain from 1/3rd of the CP I've acquired. If pets cannot benefit from the CP system due to technical limitations, when can we expect to see them buffed?

Nahz wrote: »

I cannot tell you how excited I was when I saw additions to the pets mentioned in the notes (from my previous forum posts, and my signature, you may be able to tell that I really enjoy pet builds). Being given a more active role in controlling the pets sounds like it will be very fun. The changes to the winged twilight pet are welcomed additions, and I'm honestly having trouble deciding which morph I want considering they both seem great.

However, the changes to the volatile familiar are going to be extremely detrimental for my PVP build. When using my pet build in PVP, I depend on combining the damage from the scamp's explosion with some of my other abilities to burst down opponents. This burst is not quick. It takes me at least 8 (and usually more) seconds to set up, and competent players are able to recognize and counter it.

The pulse ability of the scamp will not provide the necessary damage to make my build, which is already struggling, competitive. Considering the pets need a tremendous amount of TLC, it doesn't seem unreasonable for the scamp to have the death explosion, in addition to the pulse ability. This would allow it to be useful in both PVE and PVP, as the pulse will help it deal consistent damage to groups of stationary enemies (either monsters in dungeons or enemy players stacked on keep flags) and the explosion would allow for a quick burst of damage against more mobile targets.

Below are a few suggestions that I think will improve the pets, particularly the volatile familiar:

- In addition to giving the volatile familiar back the explosion effect, decrease the amount of time the assigned skill button must be held in order to dismiss the pets from 4 seconds to 2 seconds. This would allow players to make better use of the explosion without being vulnerable for a whole 4 seconds, but would still prevent the pet from accidently being dismissed. This just seems worthwhile all around considering 4 seconds is a long time to wait, especially in a fast-paced PVP scenario. When pets were going into stealth properly after 1.5 went live, I would dismiss my pets in order to help myself hide. Even though they were invisible, the fact that they were always slightly behind me meant that I had a larger detection radius.

- The stun from the volatile familiar's pulse should be applied at the first pulse, not the last one. Applying the stun on the first pulse would help ensure that enemies remain in range for the second pulse which does not occur until a whole 2 seconds later. Enemy players would still be able to break free and move away from the scamp, assuming they were not already moving out of range due to CC immunity.

- On that note, decrease the time between pulses to 1 second from 2 seconds. There are DOT abilities which tick faster and for more damage than this ability. This would make the pulse ability more useful against enemy players which will be constantly moving around. Faster ticks means the pulse would have more chances to actually hit them.

- An alternative to applying the stun to the first pulse would be applying a snare effect to the first pulse to help keep enemies in range of the subsequent pulses. A better option would be to have each pulse (except maybe the final because it applies a stun) apply a snare. That would allow the volatile familiar to have an added debuff utility.

- Before 1.6, I found the damage from the explosion to be adequate (there were, and still are, plenty of other abilities which hit much harder; but we made it work). With the 50% damage decrease introduced with the Imperial City update, I found the explosion damage to be lackluster. I wouldn't mind it being buffed, but I think a better option would be to scale the damage off of the familiar's missing health. Base damage for the explosion would still be 20% of your max magicka, but that damage would increase as the familiar's health dropped. However, if the explosion was triggered by the death of the familiar (not the dismissal), it would only cause the base 20% damage.

This would introduce a new degree of strategy to the playstyle, as you would have to attempt to monitor your familiar's health (more on that below) and detonate the scamp at appropriate times. If you got too greedy, and kept pushing the familiar's health for that extra bit of damage, you would run the risk of losing all that extra effort. This would also mean that a horde of sorcerers couldn't just send their familiars into a blob of steel tornados and watch the fireworks.

- With regards to monitoring the pets' health, we could really use health bars for all of our pets added to the UI. Other players in this thread have mentioned this, and agree that it would be a great addition. In could be expanded upon so that it indicates the strength of the shield on your pets, and the twilight tormentor would even have a glowing health bar when under the effect of its empower ability.

EDIT:
btw, brace for a wall of text

Nahz wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Sorcerer

• Daedric Summoning
  • Summon Unstable Familiar: The pets summoned from this ability and its morphs can no longer be dismissed by holding down the button. The pet can now be dismissed by removing the buff from your Active Effects window.
  • Summon Winged Twilight: The pets summoned from this ability and its morphs can no longer be dismissed by holding down the button. The pet can now be dismissed by removing the buff from your Active Effects window.

What just happened here...

I thought reducing the amount of time for which the skill button must be held from 4 seconds to 2 seconds seemed like an appropriate method of dismissing pets. Can we just have the 4 second button-hold back if this is going to be the alternative?

If I'm trying to quickly go into stealth to evade enemy players, I don't have time to leave myself completely defenseless by going into a menu, scrolling through a list of active effects, and picking out the two that need to be deactivated. Not that leaving myself defenseless for 8 seconds is any better, but at least I would still be able to move around.

@Wrobel, does this mean that we're definitely not getting the volatile familiar's death explosion (i.e., the feature which made the unstable familiar skill even remotely worthwhile for pvp) back; and that ZOS is not open to discussion about that feature?