First of all, let me say that this is a new for me. I almost never call for nerfs. But anyway, recently a certain someone brought to my attention that Zantai doesn’t really like builds that do 6 min Crucible and that he prefers 7-8 mins atleast. I do not know if there is any truth to it or not. But that doesn’t matter much.
I am sure that most if not all of you reading this knows about Sigatrev. We have opposing ideas when it comes to pet builds. I build for defense and superbosses while he makes the fastest Crucible wrecking machines possible.
Most of you already know of the clear times Witching Hour builds can achieve in the Crucible. They were nerfed in FG, but still do under 6 min Crucible Clears.
5 min clear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbEHJQ4Er4o
4 min clear with consumables, Banner and 3 Beacons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-071AY53Q4
Now, I will come out and admit that the reason why I am making this post is because I “don’t want pet builds to be nerfed” simply because the ones at the top are breaking crucible records. Personally I would say “who cares, it is just crucible?”, but since people do, I can’t just give a flimsy excuse either.
I can however tell you that the build in question requires quite a bit of skill to pilot if you want such numbers. So it is kind of the opposite of lazy pet build. Losing Skeletons hurt and you need to kill bosses as fast as possible and cannot afford to lose skeletons in the process.
But at the same time Offensive oriented pet builds other than the WH ones or skeleton based ones can also get to the 6 min mark. Again, I do not know where Zantai’s sweet spot is. But if 6 mins is too low, it is only a matter of time before pets get nerfed again.
Now here comes the thing. Pet builds don’t really show any such absurd times or even survivability in the SR or against superbosses. Atleast not when compared to any other good build. They might be able to go up against every superboss in game without needing to drug up on consumables, but that is because consumables don’t really do much for pets against Celestials. So if we are going to make Celestials harder for pets, there needs to be something else in in return. And I don’t think and I hope no one is complaining about their performance against superbosses and I would like to be as bold as to say that no nerfs are needed in that part.
Now, SR. I um… passionately protested against changing the aggro mechanic on SR. Some called the current method of luring bosses one by one as cheesy and that it shouldn’t be allowed. If you are wondering why I am bring that up in here and why it is relevant, well… pet builds don’t really fare that well unless you lure the bosses one by one. In that regards and also taking into account the amount of time it takes to reach higher shards, I would say that their performance in SR is not outstanding either. Unless you count running for your dear life like a chicken on fire, hoping that you don’t get rooted and that your pets somehow kill stuff on time, to be indicating of outstanding performance.
So that brings us back to Crucible. If you have ever done a naked crucible run without using blessings/banners, you’d know that there are much better builds out there than pets for that. Again if you are wondering why it is relevant, what I am trying to say here is that pets themselves are kind of in a good position for now. If their Crucible performance needs to be nerfed, it can be done without nerfing the pets themselves by simply reducing the effectiveness Blessings and Banners have on pets.
Before you say that it will affect weaker pet builds. That is technically true, but so will any other form of nerf. You’d still be able to complete the Crucible, just not in the same amount of time. Meaning, it shouldn’t affect any build in any drastic way in the Crucible and outside it, there will be no change at all.
Now, since there are others beside me who play the game, thoughts?