Want to Fix Pet Jobs? A Simple Solution.

[Safiyyah]

I like how pet jobs have gotten lots of attention in the last year. But there are two areas where pet jobs are still lacking:

1) Pets aren't scalable. Player characters scale with buffs, to where the ideal setup for most high-end content is fewer highly-buffed DDs popping off skillchains, with more support.
2) Pets aren't resilient enough. The abilities focused on keeping pets alive are not effective enough to let them stand up to the high AoE abilities in Delve2 and many high-end battlefields.

There is a simple solution to these issues. Allow player buffs and heals to affect pets directly. Even having them affect pets at a reduced rate would be a huge buff to pet jobs. Regarding heals, if that causes balance issues, then reduce AoE damage taken by pets when they are not atop the enmity list.

Right now pet jobs don't scale well to high-end content. BST/PUP/SMN are masterful solo or lowman but if the goal is to seriously have pet jobs contribute damage at end-game then pet damage MUST be increased. Allowing buffs to affect pets increases pet damage while not making solo pets too overpowered.

[Alhanelem]

Every other game with pets does this and it's not broken. It's really as simple as that. Get rid of the need to have special buffs just for pet users.

[Edyth]

{{Yes, please.}} {{Can I have it?}}

[Alhanelem]

I highly endorse the meaning behind this thread, but as a matter of record, the pet jobs have improved greatly in the last several patches, especially PUP, and are not THAT far behind anymore. But even saying that, the restrictions placed on pet jobs are archaic and no other MMO puts such heavy, arbitrary restrictions on pets. In both WoW and FFXIV they are treated (almost) like just another party member in terms of how you can interact with them (in XIV there are a few effects that don't impact pets (specifically Protect, probably because they have massive AoE damage reductions already) and a few effects that specifically impact them, but all heals and most buffs affect them the same as any player)

[Selindrile]

Bst is pretty stronk now at the moment, with the new gear and newest updates... they're pretty darn competitive.

[Glamdring]

I highly endorse the meaning behind this thread, but as a matter of record, the pet jobs have improved greatly in the last several patches, especially PUP, and are not THAT far behind anymore. But even saying that, the restrictions placed on pet jobs are archaic and no other MMO puts such heavy, arbitrary restrictions on pets. In both WoW and FFXIV they are treated (almost) like just another party member in terms of how you can interact with them (in XIV there are a few effects that don't impact pets (specifically Protect, probably because they have massive AoE damage reductions already) and a few effects that specifically impact them, but all heals and most buffs affect them the same as any player)

I think the reason so many pet users are upset is because we used to be AHEAD of the other jobs, at least soloing. in parties pet jobs have always had issues, slow reaction times, excessive TP feed, etc. the exception was Drg, they didn't suck soloing but they were out-classed through most of their nerf/buffs by dnc, blm and rdm so certainly by the rest of the pet jobs. And smn was welcome in parties because of AoE buffs, but mostly as a back-up healer. but unless the beast or pup was good friends with the leader they were not getting party love for the most part, and then usually to solo any adds.

but now, even with updates we are still playing catch-up. what happens when they add the next tier of higher level mobs and our rise to 129-139 ilevel? will we be left behind again? note, it's taken 2 years since the addition of ilevel for us to get fixes, they still aren't done and they've been doing them for 8 months of updates. so, some skepticism by players is not just right but purely logical as well.

[Safiyyah]

Bst is pretty stronk now at the moment, with the new gear and newest updates... they're pretty darn competitive.

I highly endorse the meaning behind this thread, but as a matter of record, the pet jobs have improved greatly in the last several patches, especially PUP, and are not THAT far behind anymore. But even saying that, the restrictions placed on pet jobs are archaic and no other MMO puts such heavy, arbitrary restrictions on pets. In both WoW and FFXIV they are treated (almost) like just another party member in terms of how you can interact with them (in XIV there are a few effects that don't impact pets (specifically Protect, probably because they have massive AoE damage reductions already) and a few effects that specifically impact them, but all heals and most buffs affect them the same as any player)

What differentiates a beastmaster and a warrior wielding axes? How about a puppetmaster and a monk? The answer is "the pet". While the pet buffs so far are nice, it's a stretch to say that beastmaster, summoner, or puppetmaster are competitive with equally-geared non-pet damage dealers.

Allhanelem, you're right on the money regarding the arbitrary restrictions on pets compared to other MMOs. It would be like summoner in FFXIV having pets that didn't scale... instead, pets scale and the job is useful at all levels of content. That's what we need in XI. It's the ultimate "fix" for pet jobs.