History, analysis, questions and recommendations:
As many veteran BD players may have noticed, several BD pets on Phoenix behave very differently than they did on live and this has completely altered the spec sub-population breakdown of this class. This has happened for several reasons.
To explain, lets start with Supp: on live at this patch level, BD healer pets were not interruptible. Likewise, their cast times were around 3.2-3.5 or lower vs. 4s on Phoenix. Obviously, this was very powerful, however this represents a very significant undocumented deviation from OG 1.65. In fact, many pets on Phoenix have different behaviors, and it's worth asking if these are bugs or features, and what the design + implementation process is. Here, just two value differences for the pets have nerfed them to the point where high Supp has almost been wiped out as a spec. (It's still good. Side note.)
My guess is that incomplete or faulty documentation from ZAM/Prima may have been referenced for mobs that did not have their data well-documented in the working sourcecode. I think it would be good to see the source documentation for pet behavior so players can double check and submit suggestions.
Now for something more interesting, the Darkness Specline:
In OG 1.65 and beyond, the Dark line was widely considered a joke: this is how BD TL Sheena described them in her 1.70 report:
"Both of the pets in this spec line, the fossil mystic and fossil seer, perform miserably in PvE and RvR. They are green con, have high resist rates, break mez/root and are a trivial threat to the enemy. "
They had cast times of 3.5s+, and pet casting/pathing on live is and always has been spotty. Not only did Phoenix fix these long-standing bugs, but all caster/seer cast times are wildly different - not only from OG/Live, but from other casters within the same line themselves!
For example, Bone Warlock takes 2s to cast snare and lifetap, while Warmage takes 2s to cast LT and 3s for snare. Diviner, the level 39 pet, requires 3s for LT and 4s for snare - making it one of the worst pets! Regardless, the end result is that Darkness caster pets have seen a massive DPS increase vs. live. In fact, the Ellyl sage here uses a 2.8s DD which hits for low 100s, vs. the spam bolt for 250-280 depending on target on Live. So due to altered delves and improved caster code, BD caster pets are in fact quite strong - their DPS on paper has been increased by over 100%. They outdamage any caster pet Mentalists/Minstrels can charm in the frontiers, and each of them deals more DPS than an Amber Sim or Underhill.
Likewise, I remember that debuffer pets used to also cast quite slowly. Here, they are blazing fast, shooting out diseases at around 1 per second. I use them to interrupt multiple casters per second.
And this isn't the only intricacy: the warlock's snare is Cold type, while it should probably be body - the snare line for several other pets including bonecaster and warmage is body, fitting the debuff. And while BD caster pets use a lifetap, the lifetap value is apparently assigned 0. However, I believe these idiosyncracies were also present on live. In the end, all of these small, hard to notice differences from Phoenix vs. OG have led to absolutely massive shifts in player behvaior - players remembering OG even still recommend BA as the leveling spec, when Dark pets out-DPS BA pets by 200% or more! On OG, almost all BDs were heavy Supp with the blue debuff - here almost all BDs have high Dark.
So this leaves me with several important questions for Devs, on core Phoenix design philosophy:
1. When the original game had buggy/inconsistent design (Caster pet cast times and damage types not lining up), is this a feature to be preserved or something that should be changed to match what would likely have been designer intent at the time?
2. What is the method for duplicating OG 1.65 mob/pet behavior? I assume the two main sources are sourcecode and ZAM/Prima documentation, with memory/surveys to fill the gaps.
3. Changes to pets like with BD healer pet - balance feature, or needs more documentation/submit bug report? I've seen varying perspectives on this.
Anyhow, I think BD pets should be normalized on design principles with a view to live and history.
1. BD caster pets should all do Body damage type, consistent with OG designer intent.
2. BD caster spells should line up with class equivalents: 2.5s for lifetap, 3.0s for DD/Snare, 3.0s for Disease, which seems to line up to Phoenix pet design standards. This would require a lowering for bone diviner, slight rise for lifetaps.
3. BD caster lifetap should have a health steal percent written in. Standard would be either 50% or 80-90%. Although I believe Mythic had a brain fart on this, I think they were supposed to be LTs and not just DDs.
4. BD healer pets should have OG behavior restored if we are going for consistency. Cast time would be about 3.2-3.5 seconds, and healers would not be interruptible.
However, it should be noted that BD Dark on live was much too weak and Phoenix's version is far superior in terms of overall balance, even if it treads slightly on the side of being too strong. That said a consistent lifetap at 2.5s would significantly alter Phoenix Dark BD pet DPS. The class might need some internal balancing to partially compensate.
1. Swap pet buffs between BA and Dark. D/Q would go to Dark, Str/Con to BA.
2. Supp, pet Ablative slightly increased and made AOE.
3. BA, raise DoTs to normal standards.
As many veteran BD players may have noticed, several BD pets on Phoenix behave very differently than they did on live and this has completely altered the spec sub-population breakdown of this class. This has happened for several reasons.
To explain, lets start with Supp: on live at this patch level, BD healer pets were not interruptible. Likewise, their cast times were around 3.2-3.5 or lower vs. 4s on Phoenix. Obviously, this was very powerful, however this represents a very significant undocumented deviation from OG 1.65. In fact, many pets on Phoenix have different behaviors, and it's worth asking if these are bugs or features, and what the design + implementation process is. Here, just two value differences for the pets have nerfed them to the point where high Supp has almost been wiped out as a spec. (It's still good. Side note.)
My guess is that incomplete or faulty documentation from ZAM/Prima may have been referenced for mobs that did not have their data well-documented in the working sourcecode. I think it would be good to see the source documentation for pet behavior so players can double check and submit suggestions.
Now for something more interesting, the Darkness Specline:
In OG 1.65 and beyond, the Dark line was widely considered a joke: this is how BD TL Sheena described them in her 1.70 report:
"Both of the pets in this spec line, the fossil mystic and fossil seer, perform miserably in PvE and RvR. They are green con, have high resist rates, break mez/root and are a trivial threat to the enemy. "
They had cast times of 3.5s+, and pet casting/pathing on live is and always has been spotty. Not only did Phoenix fix these long-standing bugs, but all caster/seer cast times are wildly different - not only from OG/Live, but from other casters within the same line themselves!
For example, Bone Warlock takes 2s to cast snare and lifetap, while Warmage takes 2s to cast LT and 3s for snare. Diviner, the level 39 pet, requires 3s for LT and 4s for snare - making it one of the worst pets! Regardless, the end result is that Darkness caster pets have seen a massive DPS increase vs. live. In fact, the Ellyl sage here uses a 2.8s DD which hits for low 100s, vs. the spam bolt for 250-280 depending on target on Live. So due to altered delves and improved caster code, BD caster pets are in fact quite strong - their DPS on paper has been increased by over 100%. They outdamage any caster pet Mentalists/Minstrels can charm in the frontiers, and each of them deals more DPS than an Amber Sim or Underhill.
Likewise, I remember that debuffer pets used to also cast quite slowly. Here, they are blazing fast, shooting out diseases at around 1 per second. I use them to interrupt multiple casters per second.
And this isn't the only intricacy: the warlock's snare is Cold type, while it should probably be body - the snare line for several other pets including bonecaster and warmage is body, fitting the debuff. And while BD caster pets use a lifetap, the lifetap value is apparently assigned 0. However, I believe these idiosyncracies were also present on live. In the end, all of these small, hard to notice differences from Phoenix vs. OG have led to absolutely massive shifts in player behvaior - players remembering OG even still recommend BA as the leveling spec, when Dark pets out-DPS BA pets by 200% or more! On OG, almost all BDs were heavy Supp with the blue debuff - here almost all BDs have high Dark.
So this leaves me with several important questions for Devs, on core Phoenix design philosophy:
1. When the original game had buggy/inconsistent design (Caster pet cast times and damage types not lining up), is this a feature to be preserved or something that should be changed to match what would likely have been designer intent at the time?
2. What is the method for duplicating OG 1.65 mob/pet behavior? I assume the two main sources are sourcecode and ZAM/Prima documentation, with memory/surveys to fill the gaps.
3. Changes to pets like with BD healer pet - balance feature, or needs more documentation/submit bug report? I've seen varying perspectives on this.
Anyhow, I think BD pets should be normalized on design principles with a view to live and history.
1. BD caster pets should all do Body damage type, consistent with OG designer intent.
2. BD caster spells should line up with class equivalents: 2.5s for lifetap, 3.0s for DD/Snare, 3.0s for Disease, which seems to line up to Phoenix pet design standards. This would require a lowering for bone diviner, slight rise for lifetaps.
3. BD caster lifetap should have a health steal percent written in. Standard would be either 50% or 80-90%. Although I believe Mythic had a brain fart on this, I think they were supposed to be LTs and not just DDs.
4. BD healer pets should have OG behavior restored if we are going for consistency. Cast time would be about 3.2-3.5 seconds, and healers would not be interruptible.
However, it should be noted that BD Dark on live was much too weak and Phoenix's version is far superior in terms of overall balance, even if it treads slightly on the side of being too strong. That said a consistent lifetap at 2.5s would significantly alter Phoenix Dark BD pet DPS. The class might need some internal balancing to partially compensate.
1. Swap pet buffs between BA and Dark. D/Q would go to Dark, Str/Con to BA.
2. Supp, pet Ablative slightly increased and made AOE.
3. BA, raise DoTs to normal standards.
