Yeah, agreed. I had a sinking feeling about these pet speed nerfs and I anticipate they will end up being a total disaster. Better to revert those nerfs and general damage buffs and just focus on making Ember Claw et. al. a lot better.
literally unaffected by speed because all taunts are on cooldown based skills
i don’t see how this will change even for mono pets, why? - because even during levelling, way before you get to speed stacking; mono pets has 0 issues proccing devos or maintaining decent uptime/proc rate
not really significant in terms of CC, aoe aggro is, and supposedly this change will help with just that (most pet attacks being single target thus not have aoe threat CC effect)
this is only significant in terms of movement speed, attack speed/dps wont be a factor, and is easily separately compensated if attack speed dps is an issue for this overhaul
“which is the very point of this change”; Z straight up states that in the notes… Grim Dawn v1.2.1.0 Playtest Changelog - #15 by Zantai
Take a Briathorn with no attack speed and a Briathorn with over 100 % attack speed, put Bull Rush on them, and tell me there’ll be no difference in proc rate. Again, even if the net dps, on both the pet and the Bull Rush winds up being the same, given that those Bull Rushes will often overkill swarmy mobs, proccing them less means killing fewer of them per unit of time. Killing fewer enemies per unit of time means taking longer to clear the pack.
I wasn’t talking just about CC, I was also talking about horde clear. That’s why I typed the words “horde CLEAR” not horde control. Assuming you’re one-shotting every white mob, proccing your AoE devos half as often and attacking half as often means taking twice as long to clear the pack. And given that clear time is so often used as a performance metric, that means just making that build’s performance worse, at least in the horde clear aspect of it. The hero/boss kill time might stay the same because the net DPS stays the same, but shard completion isn’t just about killing the heroes/bosses, it’s about thinning out the horde so you can focus the heroes and minimise threat to yourself.
proc rate is more limited by cooldown than it is pets attack speed - because you’re ignoring the current insanely superfluous attack speed v cd pets have
^repeated it for you since you seemed to totally gloss over what i stated re speed stacking mono pets
you were also talking about CC “which i am then too”
which also factors in for horde clear; if the horde is controlled clearing it faster is less significant re aggro
*you’re also assuming lots of stuff again re dps/aoe clear; if aoe/abilities are increased it means the 1v1 speed killing gets shifted to higher rate of aoe killing
which means not only did you not read Z’s notes the first time, you also still bothered not to read them the 2nd time when mentioned
allow me to highlight for the people missing key aspects to this update and making preemptive assumptions contrary to said statement
we starting to get the gist of Z’s notes/this overhaul intentions yet?
(and let me toss in the earlier mention too since that was probably also ignored the 2nd time/no one in this thread seems to read what Z bothers to post)
“idea being making pet skills worth vs just stacking auto attacks” - literally the very thing you complained about/thought to assume being detrimentally missed
Yes, please explain.
read the quoted parts i just highlighted…
or let me post the link for a 2nd time, since apparently nobody clicks anything
If by gloss over you mean I directly responded to it, yeah I guess I glossed all over it indeed.
Guess I have to say it again: you will NOT maintain the same proc rate with less attack speed unless devo proc rate is also adjusted to compensate. Bull Rush has a 0.4 s cooldown. A Briathorn attacking twice a second will not maintain the same proc rate as one attacking four times a second. That point is inarguable. Even if you maintain the same DPS by doubling the damage of Bull Rush on pets, reduced proc rate will mean the Bull Rush will hit fewer mobs within a given period of time. If those mobs are one-shottable trash mobs, which is where AoE coverage is quite relevant, you will have gained no damage (one-shot vs one-shot twice over) and lost half your proc rate.
Speaking of assuming a lot of stuff, wondering where the hell that assumption is coming from, given that I specifically mention that
and yeah, clearly Z’s trying to address that by boosting pet damage and pet skills. Point is, me and other posters in this thread don’t agree that it will have the desired effect, because net DPS doesn’t cover everything that loss of speed affects. If you superbuff the pet skills but take away the speed, you end up in a situation where you’re poking at enemies slowly one at a time just waiting for the pet skill cooldowns to get some actual clear going. Contrast that with the current situation where pets are attacking so fast you don’t need to wait for cooldowns cause their autoattacks/devo procs take care of the AoE through sheer speed. Those two things are not equivalent. Hence the numerous mentions of chase, horde clear, crowd control, proc rates. So would you oh so very kindly stop assuming people didn’t read the notes and didn’t get the point of the changes? There’s a difference between not getting the point and disagreeing with the point. Everyone here is clearly doing the latter. Well, except you, cause you don’t seem to be getting our point at all and prefer to assume everyone just doesn’t bother reading.
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you responded without reading, since i’m 1:1 stating “before we get to speed stackin mono pets maintain proc rate because we are bound by devo CD more than pet speed because pets currently has more speed than necessary to proc”
so yes, must have glossed over that since you started a line to the contrary/“ignoring the very statement made”
A briar is not only attacking twice a second, not currently, nor after these speed nerfs, this is not rocket science - you’re pulling values out of thin air
not reading the notes because your assumption is the absolute contrary of Z’s direct statement
so not only are you assuming based on nothing; you’re assuming in the direct opposite of what’s put out, that’s how we know the assumption is utter horse nonsense
which is again, not only based on nothing
it’s based on assumptions directly to the contrary to statements made
^i even specifically showed you an example of one of said nonsense contrary assumptions re pet special abilities
most people here is clearly doing neither
NightDog, you
not only are folks making assumptions based on stuff untested, and things with no basis in mechanics; but also stated will be going to get multiple passes of fine tuning
you’re specifically, directly stating assumed outcomes in direct contrast to the current and future aim, re better value pet skills and faster overal performance
this can only mean the ones making these assumptions/knejeerks either didn’t read the overhaul statement goals, or it was ignored
when the aim is for faster clear speed; there is 0 rationale to assume the final outcome/“goal” is worse speed -it’s beyond ridiculous
So…
First things first, one of the reasons for the changes is this thing right here - 
I have been non stop complaining to Zantai on discord about how pets die so much more in playtest compared to before and how they have become more piano-ish to play while also losing their niche of being good superboss killers and deep SR climbers.
The upcoming patch is supposed to address that.
Cally kills pets too much compared to other superbosses? Cally is getting nerfed.
SR100+ means anything other than Reap Spirit struggles due to pets easily dying? Pets are being made sturdier, which should also help vs superbosses.
Pet builds lagging behind non pets regarding kill/clear speed? significant increase to pet damage to try and close the gap.
Pet builds piano-ish to play? Things like the beastcaller helm skill have been turned into procs and I finally managed to get my wish of permanent Wind devils, despite Z constantly saying no to that.
Now, let us talk about the “nerfs” -
Pet aggro - Threat generation by default attacks will be lower, yes. But, everything else is on a cooldown. The actual “Taunt” skills are not getting nerfed and pets shouldn’t really become any worse at holding aggro.
Devotion Proc - This is one thing that I do have some concern about. But, how it will play out, I can’t say without actually testing. As long as you can still reliably proc RR devotions vs single targets, I don’t really see any issues.
Movement Speed - Easy to fix by adding sources of pet movement speed or just straight up increasing their base speed. Also, only really an issue when you are kiting something, which already means a loss of dps.
Trash killing speed - I don’t think that really matters tbh. Yes, having low attack speed and high burst damage would mean you overkill most of them instead off clearing the screen faster. But, since when has that really been an issue in terms of actual clear speed? You will still have to go up against bosses, which should die just as fast as before or even faster and if the overall time required to clear Crucible/SR remains acceptable, then how long it takes you to kill a pack of trash mobs does not really matter.
.
Now, let us talk about the reason for the speed nerf. Pet builds so far have been like this in terms of DPS -
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Quantity > Quality, due to how flat damage and attack speed stacking works on pets. Z wants to try and even things out by making builds with fewer but stronger pets just as viable for DPS.
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Mogdrogen devo route being pretty much the default option for anyone who wants damage. Even for Vitality/Chaos setups, that has been the case for a good while even though Dying God exists.
Will the changes make Ishtak and Dying God just as attractive for damage focused pet builds? maybe/maybe not, but if it does, that would be a welcome change, imo. -
Atleast in theory, this makes further balancing easier since specific pets can be fine tuned better, rather than blanket pet nerfs/buffs.
TL:DR - Pet changes should be a buff rather than a nerf. That is the intention behind the patch, at the very least.
4 Likes
That’s quite right， 
I really can’t describe it well in English
Until now I didnt see 1 pet build in top 20 post. This shows the importance of AOE for pets build. The side effects of Reduction peed is very large. but we will see what change at last.
Z said he will give you better performance, so even if 1st round of changelog doesn’t immediately get pets there, we will get it eventually/after couple changelog updates
I guess this is the pet feedback thread?
What I gathered from reading the notes is that Ghol’s & Lost Souls lost a bunch of pet Total speed bonuses (and Beastcaller’s didn’t have any Total Speed in the first place, which is odd considering how much better it is than the other sets) and various other gear lost specifically % Attack Speed. I personally wish some Total Speed bonuses were kept on (losing it on Bysmiel & Typhos will hurt), but I don’t think the changes are going to be as drastic as people are letting on.
Typically in SR people just ignore the White mobs and group different packs together to wipe out more mobs with one big attack, so while I understand conceptually what people are talking about, I’m not seeing how that’s going to be a big deal here. Most of these changes involve Legendary items and end-of-Mastery skills like Manipulation, so maybe it will affect players around mid-game when they don’t have access to a lot of gear tailored towards pets.
I personally love maximizing multiple pets (like having multiple item-granted pets, especially the Salazar pet), and I’d rather have a build that super-emphasizes a different type of item pet, but the ease of conversion in this game makes it so that you can round up multiple pets simultaneously and have all of them function well, which creates a design headache. After all, why make multiple item pets if you don’t want players to be excited about using them?
I’m generally excited about the changes, though I’m wary that having 3 TDM multipliers for Hellhound are going to constrict equipment use and make all of them seem mandatory instead of being comfortable using specific gear as needed (the medal that grants 100% Slow resistance, for example, it’s not needed all the time, but amazing when you do need it).
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Community crying at patch that isn’t deployed yet and has a stated goal of buffing, never gets old. Pets and retal bring out the biggest shitlords around.
I’m pretty excited to redo all my pet testing from 1.2pt from scratch to see how things are performing with these changes. And then, you know, give actual feedback rather than pointless bitching from afar. Pets improved quite a bit in 1.2. Not completely sure if this will be the continued path to glory but buffing aoe skills is needed for pets, and auto attack spam being better than their skills was p silly.
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Two things really holding back pets on the top 20 list. One as you mention is AoE. Blight fiends have strong aoe, then rest are pretty meh. If the patch helps solve this, great. But there will still be QoL (and to a lesser point, tank, due to the player having a relatively thin buffer) scores holding them back. Mainly the ridiculous amount of buttons needed in most builds. The reason I didn’t even bothering putting up a Ghol build for testing is the amount of buttons required for RR, summoning, and devo procs. When the competition is as tight as it is, that will sink top 20 chances alone. Nofika put up lost souls but that has the same button madness problems, even having to use dash skill as a proc to prevent going to a second bar. Z took a look at our devo proccing concerns to reduce pet button needs but it’s a no go, so perma wind devils is the consolation prize.
That said, pet times and performance are not miles behind everything else just because they aren’t on the top of the list. With the button “issue” they’d have to overperform to make it into the top, which doesn’t make sense either. Any random player could pick up a pet build and still have good performance, with hopefully the last few issues being addressed in this patch.
Can we…wait for the build before all the doom and gloom please?
Here I was thinking about how pet timers will probably blow up, how Ghol is likely going to need nerfs after effectively getting two big rounds of buffs, but here’s napkin math coming to save the day!
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Just release the patch to save the people from drama !! Please !! Do not let us suffer !!
Truer words have never been spoken, from chains of anguish, sunder, pets, etc. in a PTR. Sad really.
So since there is all kinds of caving on design decisions… @Zantai can I have my lvl 94 badge of mastery, with a recipe for each mastery? I 100% thought I would see this before perma devils. The rng is painful and I doubt +5 mastery badges will break anything.
To be on topic, how does threat work in regards to character proximity while doing nothing? That’s my only concern. Applying rr via auras and just standing there doing nothing seems to still make you the prime target, which I guess does kinda make sense but /shrug…makes it hard to play off meta builds that have to rely on auras to apply rr (such as a nightblade).
Pet movement speed is the only concern I had after reading the notes. There are already good ideas mentioned above so I am sure they will be looked over.
My hope is I can play a birb focused off meta build once patch hits and not have them die every other second.
You aren’t doing nothing if debuffing/damaging enemies 
(even if doing so passively through auras)
That fact, for some reason, totally escaped me 
. Don’t know why I forgot that there is some dps output by certain auras.
I guess the more appropriate question would have been how much threat am I actually causing compared to the pet(s) based upon standing there with just the aura on and doing nothing else. It “seems” that I out threat them.