Artificer Issues

[Baahb3]

Are Augments not working on Pet equipment going to get looked at?

You have the tech in place to give minions access to the characters spell power (Frostlight Improvement II: Share the Light). It is about time there is an enhancement/feat/built in ability for Artificers to share their spell power with their Iron Defender.
--Couple with this, we should be able to pick what element the breath attack does. Fire, Acid, Electricity at least, since Cold and Sonic are pretty void of their spell repertoire.

Can we get a toggle to show our Pet's buffs below our buff bar? I would like to see how long they are without having to examine them.

On the above note, can we finally get timers on Artificer specific spells in the buff bar? (Example: Armor of Speed, Adamantine Weapons)

Incorporeal creatures are a problem for your pet. Yes, I know you can create a collar with that ability out of handwraps, but they will be worse for every day use than the named Pet Collars out there. And it is not exactly a quick flip to change it. It would be nice if there was an enhancement in the Arcanotechnician tree that added Ghostly to your Pet's attacks. Core 2 or 3 would seem like a good place given they are pretty weak on their own.

I would like to petition an increase in the Threat modification you can set for your pet. The Reduction is not a problem given how little damage they do, but the Increase should be 500% or more given their damage potential. It would be nice if they could hold agro for at least 2 attacks from me.

 

[The Blonde]

Hopefully they'll revamp pets before 2030.
Hopefully.

 

[NightHiker]

I would like to petition an increase in the Threat modification you can set for your pet. The Reduction is not a problem given how little damage they do, but the Increase should be 500% or more given their damage potential. It would be nice if they could hold agro for at least 2 attacks from me.

Are you primarily a caster or a ranged Arti? Either way, at least for the threat issue you can solve it by improving your own threat reduction (in case you're not aware). If ranged, you can get the Steel's coffee from the Anniversary event.

I have 95% threat reduction on my Stormsinger and even when nuking the hardest I can the hires and summons still can keep the mobs' aggro for the most part.

Cheers,
NH

 

[Baahb3]

Playing a caster Arti.

Just in the leveling process and will work on threat reduction as I go, and that will help for sure. Still, I have 3 druid PL, taken all the enhancements so far (level 13 right now) and the defender is still only doing around 45 points of damage per hit with a 59 Strength. I still feel that they should bump either the threat modifier or the base damage of the defender to help out with tanking. They only can tank 1 mob at a time so I cannot imagine it would be game breaking in any way.

 

[NightHiker]

Playing a caster Arti.

Just in the leveling process and will work on threat reduction as I go, and that will help for sure. Still, I have 3 druid PL, taken all the enhancements so far (level 13 right now) and the defender is still only doing around 45 points of damage per hit with a 59 Strength. I still feel that they should bump either the threat modifier or the base damage of the defender to help out with tanking. They only can tank 1 mob at a time so I cannot imagine it would be game breaking in any way.

Oh, sure, it would be great if they got buffed, both on damage and threat, as well as survivability, because right now they're pretty irrelevant in the leveling up process - I don't use mine (hires + summons, since I don't have a pet) much before cap because most of the suport to the playstyle comes from Epic Destiny enhancements. So I have no intention of taking away from your plead to have them buffed - it's very much a plead of mine as well.

At least, as a consolation, it's not usual for people to run quests on higher than r1 while leveling up, so they're not that necessary in order to still mow down most content on the way to cap.

But at the same time, while I'd love for them to get more support throughout all the leveling proccess, pets/hires/summons can be a lot more effective than most people give them credit for, at least at cap.

But it does take some niche choices. One does pretty much need to use Primal and Magus as at least second and third trees to make it really work, as well as the Primal mantle, so not all casters can pull it off without otherwise gimping themselves. For a Stormsinger it is the perfect fit, with the Sky mantle matching all my three elements, but an arti would have a harder time to fully utilize any of the options (they tipically have only one of each mantle type's elements featured on their spells, so that's a dps loss on the mantle procs compared to DI).

I take discipline at 18 so Imperceptible Casting will be doubled at 3 ranks, and together with Fatesinger's 35% reduction I already get to -95%, without even taking gear and filligrees into account. Artis have lots of feats, so if you can fit Magus as the third tree that would be an easy way to greatly reduce your threat, at least. But unless you start to use other hires/summons as well, it's probably too much investment for just one pet. I run around with a full party of them, hehe.

Cheers,
NH

 

[Ying]

Pets will get fixed right after summons are revamped to be worth a damn.

 

[NightHiker]

One thing they could do regarding summons is maybe go the "strength by numbers route" we already have with some summoning abilities, like the oozes effect. Have each summon use a different channel instead of all being exclusive, and allow a player to summon as many as they want up to some limit they can work on thru enhancements - maybe start with only one at a time but being able to increase to whatever number they see fit for the max, like 5 or so.

This could be added to some existing trees from caster classes or maybe worked into a universal tree, for example. They might still die somewhat easily, but can also be replenished on the fly and would at least form a good defensive tool for squishy casters, besides any small damage and utility they might provide.

And it doesn't seem like something too difficult to implement systems wise (since they already have things like the multiple oozes), at least not compared with a total revamp, though if they do go to that trouble might as well just do it too. Players would of course also need a quick and easy way to just unsummon all of them at once if they so wish.

Cheers,
NH

 

[Baahb3]

Is there a reason that Hierlings cannot have some buffs cast on them?

Example:
Level 16 Warforged Barbarian Kern Killer-of-All

Toughen Construct and Deadly Weapons work
Bull's Strength, Bear's Endurance, Shield of Faith, Armor of Speed, Thunder Armor among others do not work

Now, the first 3 you could say behind the scenes they already have these boni. But the last two?

 

[Baahb3]

Can Elemental/Greater Elemental weapons have a choice of which version to cast? I would like the ability to have the old version for buffing Pet/Hierlings, since they do not have Imbues.

 

[Dendrix Deathblade]

Pets should have your stats for HP, AC, saves, PRR, MRR etc. That would keep them competitive with content

 

[NightHiker]

Is there a reason that Hierlings cannot have some buffs cast on them?


Armor of Speed, Thunder Armor among others do not work

Those spells buff someone's armor (it's in the names ), so my guess is the pet's regular body plating does not count as an actual armor piece for that purpose.

Cheers,
NH

 

[Baahb3]

Ah, did not think of that. Figured the Shield Guardian and a Barbarian would have at least Mithral Plating. Thanks Night.

 

[l_remmie]

Hirelings, pets and summons are deprecated content.

SSG needs to do a complete overhaul for them. But that will cost time and resources.
They're ignoring hirelings etc until they can actually sit down and do a thorough job.
Right now it's just too much effort for no $$$.

Best chance we have is SSG working on some sort of summoner archetype. Then they can fix followers and monatize doing so.

 

[NightHiker]

Hirelings, pets and summons are deprecated content.

I beg to differ. I use hires and summons to great effect while soloing r8-10s at cap. It's just a niche playstyle that demands some specific builds and investiment, and good knowledge of how to use them. Needs more support, sure, but it's not "deprecated" either if you know how to use them.

Cheers,
NH

 

[FaceDancer]

Would love to see hires and summons get a pass (and they should!) They do seem deprecated don't they? A summoner archetype has been suggested before.... I think it could be a neat thing.

 

[NightHiker]

Would love to see hires and summons get a pass (and they should!) They do seem deprecated don't they? A summoner archetype has been suggested before.... I think it could be a neat thing.

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but if you're interested you can check some gameplay videos of me using hires on the page for my Storm Summoner build. Like I said, it IS niche and demands specific investments, including perma hires, but they can be used to good effect even on high reapers. So, in my view, while they DO need better support, most of it would be to make their usage more appealing in broader contexts (right now it's mostly just at cap), than necessarily making them more powerful:

https://forums.ddo.com/index.php?threads/storm-summoner-build-for-soloing-on-high-reapers.1525/

Cheers,
NH

P.S.: This short fight is a good showcase of hires helping tank two Dooms simultaineously on r10, plus healing me as needed:

 

[Baahb3]

Pets and Hierlings have issues moving past barriers that you break. The wooden barricades in Friends in Low Places (Wheloon Prison) is one such example. They are stuck there until you force them to teleport to you or you move far enough away that they do it on their own.

Can we look at the delay in activity when they teleport to you? It can be 5+ seconds before they do ANYTHING.

Ask: Can the Heroic Companion enhancement in Harper be upgraded a bit. Maybe to Heroic Companion-s, i.e. it affects all companions in an area, instead of just one. I also don't think increasing the duration to 1 Min would break anything either when applied to Pets/Hierlings. (Halfling enhancement too)

 

[YeeboF]

Are Augments not working on Pet equipment going to get looked at?

This so much. Three classes and a subclass are all being affected by this now. For the love of all that is holy make that a priority.

A serious issue with pets is that they do way too little damage for their damage output to be a build consideration past around level 6. Just the fact that you can get a straight +10 to the base damage of your pet in the most recent pet tree to me signals that at least one designer agrees. Having damage augments in collars actually do something would be a very straightforward way to help slightly with this issue, since you can put in bigger augments as you go.

 

[Almghandi]

I beg to differ. I use hires and summons to great effect while soloing r8-10s at cap.

My personal experience on a non-summoner (with an epic rodericks wand)...
Teal, Frogo, Darling, Satyr, Owlbear all kind of suck for R+ content.....
The Shield Guardian is like "WOW"... he can really tank stuff...

Honestly I run with the Shield Guardian and dont even bother summoning others (unless I need Elieri to let me do DDoor....)

 

[Baahb3]

@Tonquin , Great Summoner does not work with Iron Defender. No increase in Stats, Fortification or Health. Have not tested movement speed.