Enchanter pet has too much HP

[azxten]

Enchanter summoned pets had low ability to tank. On P99 low level enchanter pets seem about as good as mage/necro pets. Level 4-12 enchanter pet should not be able to tank and solo an even con as they can here. They were extremely weak on taking damage and were almost a short "shield" spell which matches the chosen model used for it. Even up to level 30 I'm seeing my summoned pet solo blue mobs.

http://www.angelfire.com/rpg/whitewind/gtxt/guides/UChantGuide.htm

"Your first pet spell. Strategy and tactics with pets will be discussed later. Requires 1 Tiny Dagger as a spell component, and your pet is a rogue. Hits for decent damage with low delay, but has weak HP. They don't tank well--and can never be commanded. "

"I don't know the hit points of your pet, but it's never good, so don't rely on your pet to take damage for you very long."

"Summons new animation. 2 Tiny Daggers required, hits harder now, has some more HP's, still no tank. (Little hint... without help, it will never be a tank.)"

"This animation hits for 10 to 14 damage now, and I'm not sure what levels they summon as--anyone want to offer that--and Bashes. Getting to be very good at shelling out fast damage."

[cubiczar]

If you think they have too many hps you should find some in era evidence of how many hps they should have. I would guess p99 is close to the values on the wiki http://wiki.project1999.com/Pet_Guide#Enchanter_Pets

If you think those values are wrong then find evidence to support that. I would think if you spent some time with the web archive you might find an in era table of enchanter pet health somewhere. Otherwise you are just asking the devs to blindly reduce hps, how much should they be reduced? 5%? 10%? 30%? There is really no way to turn the vague quotes you have into a number.

Personally I feel like they are fine at least up to 24 as they fit with my memories from playing in 1999. Many people back then didn't know how to tell if they had a max level pet so a lot of those comments are just a function of how much worse low level pets are.

[Dolalin]

These are the HP values for worry wraith pets in fearplane from Zone-NPC-List-Level.xls, looks like 44th and 49th circles?

Telin or Nilbog can match these up against real pet hp.

Maybe there are other zones with enchanters / pets that I could get lower level pet info from. Not sure off the top of my head.

(This file also has hp values for necro / mage / sk pets, could be useful )

https://web.archive.org/web/20010614090653/http://www.eqic.net/downloads/Zone-NPC-List-Level.zip

[Dolalin]

Looking at that list Telin, I think I know why we see duplicate pets.

Whoever made this sheet was running an Excel macro to fold all the 00, 01, 02 etc NPC names into a single grouping. We can see the result in the worry_wraith pets up above: all the pets were folded into a single 'a_worry_wraith_pet' entry and Count was incremented accordingly. This worked fine for most NPCs, but macro kept the individual entries for pets though, because it was coded badly / broken.

In zones where there were lots of pets for a single NPC, you end up with an overall grouping with the sum count of all the pets (like here, for the glare lords).

In zones where there was only a single mob and a single pet, you end up with a 00 of the pet and a grouping for the pet, so two.

That solves the duplicate pets mystery I think.

[Dolalin]

Mynthi Davissi in Mistmoore had their 29th circle enchanter pet captured in the sheet. It was 25th level with 442hp.

Evil eye pets in beholder were also captured. A pet of level 15 had 229/230hp (interesting difference between Syrkl and regular eyes), and pet of level 16 had 249hp.

[azxten]

Mynthi Davissi in Mistmoore had their 29th circle enchanter pet captured in the sheet. It was 25th level with 442hp.

Evil eye pets in beholder were also captured. A pet of level 15 had 229/230hp (interesting difference between Syrkl and regular eyes), and pet of level 16 had 249hp.

From Wiki page above...

Uleen's Animation 29 22-26 675-850

Data shows 442, on P99 it's about twice that.

Shalee's Animation 16 12-16 280-350

Level 16 pet is too high as well going on the wiki vs this data provided.

Same for 44 or 49. Like I said, Enchanter pets are way too beefy on P99.

[axisofebola]

Data seems pretty sketchy.

Why does a level 7 froglok necro pet have 188 hp while a level 7 necro apprentice pet in befallen has 170?

There are goblin magician pets at level 14 in najena with 210 hp while level 14 necro pets in the exact same dungeon have 380?


How does that work?

[Dolalin]

Why does a level 7 froglok necro pet have 188 hp while a level 7 necro apprentice pet in befallen has 170?

Good question, I've seen these slight differences across zones too with the same pet types and same pet levels. It could just be a data error, but it's also possible that different zones might have had different NPC HP scaling settings (a per-dungeon difficulty setting perhaps?). Going to look at this a little deeper.



There are goblin magician pets at level 14 in najena with 210 hp while level 14 necro pets in the exact same dungeon have 380?


How does that work?

Because they're fire pets.

[axisofebola]

Good question, I've seen these slight differences across zones too with the same pet types and same pet levels. It could just be a data error, but it's also possible that different zones might have had different NPC HP scaling settings (a per-dungeon difficulty setting perhaps?). Going to look at this a little deeper.




Because they're fire pets.

They might be, but it doesn't explain the necromancer pets. If the wiki is to be trusted, a level14 necro pet shouldnt come anywhere near 380.

[axisofebola]

The data also shows glare lords summoning level 20 pets.

And forsaken revenants summoning level 21.

[Dolalin]

They might be

They are:

https://zam.zamimg.com/images/i/d/id2147.png


but it doesn't explain the necromancer pets. If the wiki is to be trusted, a level14 necro pet shouldnt come anywhere near 380.


Well the wiki is most likely wrong.

peq database has skel_pet_16 at max 456 hp. It's not p99 but staff can see the real numbers. It's not out of the bounds of reason.

[Dolalin]

Here are all Enchanter pets I found in the sheet.

Within the same spell circle, pets increase by 20hp each level. Each new circle there is an extra boost in the base hp, then it continues to scale by 20hp from there.

It all looks pretty linear/consistent except for two curiosities:

1) Linara Parlone's level 21 pet hp is a few points different from the same level ench pets in northkarana, rathemtn, and lakerathe. Her 20th pet is the same as the others though.

2) The GM pet, Reania Jukle's, breaks the curve a little bit.

[Dolalin]

The data also shows glare lords summoning level 20 pets.

And forsaken revenants summoning level 21.


It looks like this was the case for awhile until it changed:

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/npc.html?id=682#m6382

[axisofebola]

I find interesting if you look at entries 2472-2474 that enchanter pet and shaman pet seem to have the exact same hp scaling. Then just below that same level shaman pet is about 400 points higher.


Hmm I wonder if it's simply the case that the shaman are often getting buffed with altuna + stamina and their data has been mined afterwards instead of when they spawn. Might also explain variations from zone to zone, especially and pets lucky enough to spawn near a cleric and shaman friendly NPC.

The previous example of necro pet in guk and necro pet in befallen for example could be explained by an innerfire buff.

[Dolalin]

I find interesting if you look at entries 2472-2474 that enchanter pet and shaman pet seem to have the exact same hp scaling. Then just below that same level shaman pet is about 400 points higher.


Hmm I wonder if it's simply the case that the shaman are often getting buffed with altuna + stamina and their data has been mined afterwards instead of when they spawn.

I think that is EXACTLY what is happening. I just had exactly the same thought after staring at the data for awhile.

Discrepancies are about pets being buffed/debuffed etc.

[Dolalin]

The extra 120hp on Reania Jukle's pet can be explained by Kron here, a level 30 cleric, casting Daring on it.

Here they are on P99. Perfectly within range. :D

[axisofebola]

I wonder if the visting priestess would be close enough to buff that necro pet in najena? Would also explain that.

[Dolalin]

Maybe.

Here's another very clear example. The revenant earth pets in hate are buffed with Resolution (+250hp), while the glare lord earth pets in fear are not.

I'm going to try to normalize all these for mages and necros too, looks like the data is consistent enough to be useful, just have to be conscious of pets being buffed by other NPCs in the area.

[Dolalin]

Excellent post from the newsgroups. Apparently Cynthia's pet was bugged and on a 17s respawn timer, people were killing it over and over:


Dec 15, 1999

Not sure if who knows this or not, but there is pet that spawns that you can
kill over and over and over again. The respawn time on this pet is roughly
7 seconds. It's level 21-25, doesn't run, has around 500 hp's, and is
currently camped by groups for hours on end, for the above reasons. It's a
level 29 enchanter animation.

---

The respawn time is
like 17secs. The zone, while seemingly pretty dangerous, isnt that bad. If
you med IN the gypsy camp, you are safe, as the cyclops' who frequent the
area dont wander over into the camp unless trained. Also, as long as you
make sure you dont hit the pet until it is clear of tents, Cynthia wont
come.

https://groups.google.com/g/alt.games.everquest/c/euoa2nRaMVM/m/id9gbkaB1T8J


The level 25 Cynthia's pet in the sheet has 442hp which is in the ballpark.

[Dolalin]

Here are the necro and mage pets I could find in the sheet.

What's very interesting is that there is not a single NPC mage pet in Vanilla everquest higher than level 23. Even the guild master Perkon Malok only had a level 23 pet.

This would explain why glare lord pets were so gimpy.

There was something going on here, which I think goes back to EQ release and mage pets not being in the game any higher than level 24 for a few months.

Just an interesting piece of trivia.

Look at the difference between level 44 and level 49 necro pets though, almost doubles in hp. Invoke Death was a beast.

Edit: here's a OneDrive link to the doc in case you don't like squinting, I added these extracts as extra sheets.

https://1drv.ms/x/s!Av68XbooqaptkgfWBuPeMbkPAsoO?e=l8xkwx

(Usual disclaimer applies: pets that were near other buffing NPCs will have more hp. Most obvious for mobs in the planes. Also, as mentioned, some of these mage pets were fire pets. The rest were earth though I think. I don't think NPCs had water/air pets? Edit2: I'm wrong, Bindlegrob and Findlegrob had air/water pets)

[Dolalin]

My bad, bindle and findle were necros. Fixed in the sheet.

[Dolalin]

Going to post this one here as well, since the sheet data has exposed that pet ranges were wider on live than on P99 for several spells.

Level 36 (pet's actual level) was a special level for pets, they began quadding. Originally, Level 44 pet summons could summon pets that were both below and above that, resulting in the 44th pets' power being rather different depending on which level of summoned pet you got. This was changed in December 2000 such that 44th tier pet summons would always summon a 36+ pet.

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=346531

So when looking at the sheet data, pay this in mind, if it's possible to allow for this in the era rules.

Summon Dead (lvl29) is another pet spell whose range was wider on live than on P99 as evidenced in the sheet. I'm sure there are a few others.

[Dolalin]

This one is also kinda related if discussing pet levels, the highest Haunting Corpse summons (>= Summon Corpse) would dual wield. They may already do that here, I'm actually not able to test it.

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=325528

[Danth]

Going to post this one here as well, since the sheet data has exposed that pet ranges were wider on live than on P99 for several spells.

Level 36 (pet's actual level) was a special level for pets, they began quadding. Originally, Level 44 pet summons could summon pets that were both below and above that, resulting in the 44th pets' power being rather different depending on which level of summoned pet you got. This was changed in December 2000 such that 44th tier pet summons would always summon a 36+ pet.

This is interesting because on P1999 ALL versions of the level 44 pet will innately quad. So will the top summon from the level 39 pet, which is the same level as the worst summon from the level 44 spell (level 33 summon). Both spells have a 5 level range, the level 44 spell summoning a pet from level 33 to level 37. On P1999 there is no substantial difference in power between a level 35 and a level 36 summon--the level 35 summon hits for a couple points less and has a little less health than a 36 summon (43 vs 45 max hit, 47 for the level 37 summon), but it's nothing dramatic. Granted, EQ patch notes were frequently kept purposely vague, and it's possible what they called dramatic, we might not.

How much wider do you feel Summon Dead's range is supposed to be? It already has a 5 level range, summoning pets that hit from 20 to 28 points maximum damage--or at least it did last time I used the spell, admittedly awhile ago. Pets have been tinkered with on occasion on P1999 so maybe I'm outdated?

I believe the top level of the level 24 summon should dual wield when equipped with weapons. As a SK I do not have that spell, but since the pet level overlaps with the pet levels from the level 29 spell, it's at least a fair assumption.

Danth

[Dolalin]

I see Summon Dead giving 21-25 pets in the sheet. Wiki says 22-25 but might just be a case of the wiki being unreliable again.

The change to 44th tier spells to always give 36+ pets I don't think was ever in a patch message, I only learned about it when reading the magecompendium news archive.