Revert the Pet-Corpse Nerf

Revert the Pets-Have-No-Corpses

A lot of people seem to feel very strongly about this nerf. So here is a place to discuss it without having to slog through the off-topic mess that is the update feedback thread or put pet-related comments in the SR topic.

My personal opinion is that it should be reverted.

1. It makes no sense. Everything but pets has a body, wtf?

2. I cannot see any benefit to balance coming from this nerf. Can anyone explain the rationale behind it?

3. It screws PvE pretty hard, especially barrage/pet teams.

4. [edit: Blackhawk has verified that untamed pets do leave corpses, so you can still traversal. Doesn't that make this even stranger though? One minute a lynx can leave a body, but the next minute it can't?] I have a strong suspicion that it might make Tyrian Explorer totally impossible, since you need to corpse-teleport using untamed pets to reach certain places. Has anyone checked if untamed pets still leave corpses?

Discuss.

if pets don't leave corpses, why should they give energy from death? I guess you need to balance that as well. (right Izzy?)

1. It's an action fantasy RPG, realism has nothing to do with its mechanics.

2. It's a change to resolve PvP issues, you'd have to ask a PvPer for details (I play PvE pretty much exclusively, with a necro main).

3. No, it really doesn't. If you need a pet corpse that badly to make your necro build work, you should be using a different build in that area.

4. Anet's stated repeatedly (and I have no reason to disbelieve) that the transversal trick isn't necessary to 100% the map. If there's an issue here, though, the fix is simply to add a bit mroe leeway to the Prophecies map to resolve it.

I never had to do any corpse exploiting to get any of my gmc titles, and the only pve teams this nerf screws is The barrage/pet build, which in my opinion is not a big deal. But, I do have to agree that pets not having corpses does not make any sense. But like 99% of necro nerfs, its caused by pvp balance, and in return, pve gets screwed.

From the Wiki update:
So untamed pets should leave exploitable corpses. I do think this should be changed though, if a party member or ally leaves an exploitable corpse, why not Mittens the Melandru's Stalker? It doesn't make much sense.

Trouble is, I can see this exploitable nerf being escalated. No corpses from party members or allies is definetly NOT something I want to see, and I rarely run an MM build.

Went out and killed a few Lynx and they still leave an exploitable corpse, I also checked that foes can't exploit player pets corpses either which they can't.

My problem with it is that its a screwed up EXCEPTION to a existing rules of the game thats designed to patch up an inherent problem thats with NECROMANCERS and not Rangers.

1) All fleshy creatures bleed, they get diseased, they get set on fire, etc.
2) All fleshy creatures leave exploitable corpses.
3) Animals are fleshy creatures and therefore bleed, get diseased (see 1)
4) Animals are fleshy creatures and leave exploitable corpses (go kill the next lvl 5 wolf you run into)
5) Players pets are all animals

Now because of the PvP abuse, player pets (all animals) follow rule 1, but not rule 2.

So either: remove 3 and 4 to make it consistent or revert it, and fix the Necromancer instead. Or you can remove 5 and make player pets ethereal and exempt from rule 1 (fire/cripple/deep wound/blind is ok)

Tyrian explorer is not at all unreachable with this change, since there is a BIG leeway in that continent (a friend of mine got the 100% before even reaching Hell's Precipice, simply by careful wallhugging). The trick helped but is not really necessary.

And I think the only rationale after this change is that Izzy didn't like Barrage/Pet teams, so he nerfed the Barrage and the Pet corpses for MM. But personally I couldn't care less about this adjustment.

There were three places I used Necrotic Traversal to explore, but none of them used animals, feral or tame.

1) Dunes of Despair (exploit enemies)
2) Frost Gate (exploit Rurik)
3) The Wilds (exploit Evennia)

Turns out the third one was pretty worthless anyway; it didn't increase the counter. Only use it if you are desperate and don't know where else to go.

As did I. Judging by the size of that map, there's probably a full percent or more of leeway in the title.

Where are these places that require untamed pets? I have my Legendary GMC and never NT'd into an untamed pet.

Me neither, in fact I never NT'd anywhere in Tyria and I still have GMC.



I'm not bothered about this to be honest, if you're a ranger playing with a pet (as I do) and not using it as a corpse factory then this shouldn't matter. However, from the standpoint of the internal logic of the game, it makes no sense whatsoever, see Lyra's post above.

So I am

/signed for pets leaving an exploitable corpse, as they are fleshy creatures.


But not because it ruins one cookie cutter Tombs team build.

I like and support Lyra's logic as well. And I do agree about the Tombs team build. Pet corpses don't make or break a trip through Tombs.

Well, if they insist on making this bad decision, I'd like to offer an alternative :

Have pets leave exploitable corpses, but have them also not affect SR.

That would, at least, leave B/P runs more or less intact (orders necro can BR/BiP the MM) while still closing whatever apparently unknown pvp exploit is waiting around.

It's still nice to play a game that's internally consistent. I've stopped playing other games when rules were added arbitrarily that broke the concept of cause and effect.

This is uncertain from my perspective. No one seems to know yet why this change was made.

Ever done a B/P run as MM?

The point is that minions die *really* fast there. Using pets as fuel was the way to keep enough minions up to protect the other players. I fully expect that until this change is reversed, the MM in the team just got bumped out of the roster.

Correct. I've also mapped tyria 100% and my main doesn't even have necrotic traversal in the first place.

/notsigned

It fixes a PvP issue (well of course it would be better to fix the Necro while not affecting other builds, but as long as we don't find a good way it's a fine nerf), and it makes PvErs think about a build. What's wrong in that?

Why did this thread, which is basically identical to the SR thread, get moved here from Riverside?

Oh, wait, one is being requested by pvp'ers and the other by pve'ers.

Sure glad no mods on Guru are biased.

What issue does it fix?

I haven't seen a single mention of a viable build that would be prevented by this fix in PvP.

Perhaps everyone here is forgetting that pet death outside HB/AB causes a skills blackout for at least 3 seconds. You can't expect to have 1 necro win the battle for you when all the other team-members are constantly being denied any ability to use their skills, especially when getting to those 3 seconds requires you to put 12 points in BM.

Well, nothing personal towards Chthon, but if this thread is going to be relegated to obscurity, I vote we return to hijacking the SR thread.

I can't say much for PvP given I only AB on occasion. But as for PvE farming, I think all this does is force more open-mindedness on the part of players. Love B/P? Fine, it'll still work but you'll just have to use the corpses you get wisely. If that doesn't work, try a different tactic. I've done ToPK with a balanced hero party (2 mes, 2 monk, 3 ele and 1 MM) and it's tons faster and more fun than your average B/P PUG.

As far as a rationale for game mechanics (disclaimer: this is just my theory, not Anet's official word): keep in mind having to res your pet is a joke compared to party members or enemy mobs (both of which still leave corpses). Skill names like Comfort Animal and Heal as One almost imply the pet isn't really dead as opposed to unconscious (i.e. not a corpse), and their cast times reflect that situation being easier to fix. On the other hand, skills like Resurrect and Restore Life definitely make it clear that your target is dead, and take longer to cast as if you're really in the process of bringing someone back to life. This also makes sense when considering that dead untamed animals never get up and walk around some more, so we can assume they're not just "unconscious" and their body is fair game for corpse exploit.

Heroway in HA/GvG.

As opposed to making pvp'ers thinking about there build. Let's see, your team would need to bring along 1 skill (consume corpse) to basically render useless a minimum of 4 skills (charm, revive, minions, shambling) from the other team.

This is a very good point Nuclfus.

However, pets are not party members, rather they are allies, so party res skills are not applicable them anyway. Under this theory, NPCs like Togo aren't really dead since we cannot res them anyway.

The names of the skills are irrelevant to the argument, but rather how they function. Resurrect and Comfort animal both return a character/npc back to action after they have lost all their health.