Mage Pets Hardly Ever Cast.

[gortimer]

Am I the only one to notice that mage pets never cast spells? Im using a lvl 51 earth pet and it can solo a mob and never root it. Live pets casted allll the time. So much so that they made the /pet nocast command because pets could never keep up with running mobs because they casted all the time. It seems as if they have a "proc rate" on this server that is sadly lower than the default proc rate of weapons.

[Swish]

Necro pets proc lifetap all the time (when you get high enough to cast one that can), not sure what the deal is there. If you can find some credible evidence of a certain proc rate on the old live servers back in 2000ish I'm sure they could be adjusted to be more accurate.

[Kesselring]

I can't speak for mage pets, but when i charm a mob with an innate proc (like in CoM, the lifetap procs on wraiths) it casts quite frequently. Do mage pets actually cast a spell that takes time to cast or is it all procs?

[Bristlebaner]

I agree. I want to say earth pets castes the most frequently. Fire and water middle of the road and air stun was less frequently.



If someone can find a video of a mage pet fighting from 199-2001 that would be ideal. Then we could time it.

[Jauna]

Maybe your memory might be confused with someone who used Ranger root weapons with an earth pet? Probably same with Necro pets and lifetap weapons

[Yoink1986]

Earth pets are definitely off cast wise with root.

[gortimer]

I played a mage on Tallon Zek and have very fond memories of how often earth pets would root elfs and gnomes.
I believe that pets might be more powerful on this server, like their defense is higher here, but they don't cast nearly as often. Like every 5 or 6 rounds. Here its like 50 rounds of attacks per cast.

[Bristlebaner]

Calling all way back machine experts!

[Dolalin]

Mage Compendium Library:

http://web.archive.org/web/20030607004443/http://forum.magecompendium.com:80/tower/viewtopic.php?t=3239

Mage pet HP values, spells cast, regen and ability levels:

http://web.archive.org/web/20030607164136/http://forum.magecompendium.com/tower/viewtopic.php?t=3191

These are probably valuable in themselves but I'm not seeing anything specifically about casting rate...

[Dolalin]

Looks like this has been reported before, with some people going off and parsing mage pets in EQ Mac.

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=107938

Wasn't fixed though.

[Dolalin]

Here's a post stating that the Mage epic pet should cast its stun every 12 seconds:

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/spell.html?spell=1936#m104689327012456

So that's the epic pet at least, I'll keep digging.

[Baler]

Mage pets do have a recast/cooldown on their abilities. (On p99)

[Dolalin]

Looks like that other bug thread has a lot of good research in it, I bumped it up.

[gortimer]

Ripped this out of another post in bug forum. your pets Nukes mattered. On P99 your pets spells casted enough that it decided what pet you would use for certain situations. Earth pets kept things rooted. Water nuked. Air Stunned. Fire Burned.

Originally posted by Baalzy

http://web.archive.org/web/20010911115249/http://eq.castersrealm.com/playguides/VIEW.ASP?ID=854
I find that the water pet(highly under-rated imho) works great in this respect. Unlike fire that has no hp, but big dmg, water has decent hp(second to earth), and does more dmg than earth by alot because of it's spell. Using the water elemental I can take yellow cons with 50% mana. I usually pull, then send pet, then burn down to 20% or so, and start medding. Keep an eye on the pets health though, and if it starts to get whipped on, stand and throw a burn as needed. I normally start fights with 50%, and end with 20 or more, unless the fight goes bad, and I have to burn extra to keep the pet alive.

-Air pets with 2 gnoll hide lariats would keep things stunned so much that they could tank just as tough of a mob as an earth pet(was doing this at lvl 29). They always sucked without stun weaps. I never found them useful except for when fighting caster mobs.

-Earth pets could be send in to attack and then pulled back repeatedly to keep a mob rooted, but be unable to attack you or your pet most of the time. Earth pets were only necessary when you for sure wanted something rooted while you burned nukes as fast as possible.

-Water pets just wrecked shit. They were honestly the most reliable methods of tanking while nuking there was.

-Fire pets really were the beez kneez. I remember while breaking the Miller camp in Qeynos hills, i'd bolt the brother and just run, send pet on him, then run back toward the undead camp and before i'd get halfway there the dude was now attacking the pet. i'd run back and by the time i passed him the man was almost dead, maybe do 1 more big loop. then kill the sister. loved that camp for some reason. (lvl 24-29ish i think)

anyway, i forgot what i was talking about.

[Delfofthebla]

Man everywhere I go on these forums someone seems to have a huge amount of data pertaining to how the P99 magician is completely gimped compared to classic.

It's a shame, as the developers never seem to chime in positively. It always appears to be dismissal, excuses, or silence.

Really makes me sad, as I was thinking about making a magician as my next character.

[Boyblunder]

Maybe they should just give Mages root, there is no point in using the gimped earth pet, root breaks and you get pummeled.

[fan D]

OP is right, mage pets need buffs, wish the staff would listen to this and do something about it

[Dolalin]

Go to the bug thread, that's where this discussion belongs:

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=107938