Thread: Pet changes we'd like to see

Hello LM community,

following the great success of the "Trait changes we'd like to see"-thread (many good ideas got actually implemented!), I want to point out some issues with our pets and some proposals to polish them the same way - hoping that some of those are discussed for the class-update polishing following Isengard.

General issues
Some pet skills have long cooldowns (Lynx/Sabercat) which can be reset by releasing and resummoning the pet out of combat. But constantly releasing and resummoning pets after fighting trash mobs is annoying.
Proposed change: All pet skills reset automatically when the pet leaves combat.

Small bug: The placeholder icons for the pet skills were not changed with the introduction of "Return to Master". Now the two last skills of the pet have the same icon (III/3), where the last skill should have a IV icon.

Pet changes
Raven:
Evasion: The armor value of this skill has not been adjusted with the patch that revamped all armor value ratings. Currently, at level 65, it provides an 195 armor buff, which is not much for a "survive" skill.
Proposed change: The armor value buff of the raven should be scaled to current armor values.

Bear:
Bear Hug and Roaring Challenge:
The skill order of these two skills got unintentionally(?) changed when "Return to Master" was added as new skill, resulting in Bear Hug being switched with Roaring Challenge when it is unlocked (thanks for the clarification, Anyelir)
Proposed change: Return those skills to their intended order: Roaring Challenge | Shatter Arms | Bear Hug when all three are unlocked.

Bear Hug: The damage of this skill doesn't seem to scale at all. Currently, at 65, this skill does 51-60 damage.
Proposed change: Increase the damage of this skill to be in the 250-300 range at 65.

Lynx:
Feral Strike has a very long cooldown compared to Slashing Claws (2m vs 1m) despite Slashing Claws being the superior AoE skill.
Proposed change: Reduce Feral Strike CD to 1m to be in line with Slashing Claws.

Sabercat:
The sabercat has very high cooldown/low damage skills which make this pet a poor choice for AoE trash fights compared to the Lynx, who may not have AoE auto-attacks, but high burst attack skills. This pet needs some love to make it a true sustained AoE DPS pet compared to the burst AoE of the Lynx or the utility of other pets.

Frostbite: A medium-damage skill with 2m cooldown and a 1m debuff, with the CD being too high for this skill to be of much use.
Suggestion: Increase damage from the 179-211 to the 250-300 range. Reduce debuff duration and cooldown to 30s, making the debuff sustainable and increasing DPS.

Fury of Winter/Throat Slash: these skills seem to have been designed to work in tandem, with the former applying a flank attack on crits and the latter using said flank for a chance to open a conjunction.
Because of the high cooldown and low critical chance of Fury of Winter, the flanks are very rare (I've seen this skill crit only once when farming Gauredain in Forochel, and it applied flanks to every target) and the 1m cooldown of Throat Slash messes up the skill queue when both skills are set to auto-fire, resulting in TS being always executed before FoW. Also, both skills do little damage.
So the only way to get an actual Conjunction is to wait for an (also rare) random flank and then firing TS manually, but TS has a low chance to actually open a CJ on a flanked target (still always consumes the flank though).

Suggestion 1: Remove the conjunction chance of Throat Slash. Reduce both skill cooldowns to 30s (FoW) and 32s (TS) and make these skills deal increased damage (300-400 range at 65). Fury of Winter has a 30% chance per target to apply a "Shivering" debuff for 10s which makes the next Throat Slash a guaranteed critical hit, along with a 50% critical magnitude boost on Throat Slash.

Suggestion 2: Reduce FoW cooldown to 1m and give this skill increased critical chance (instead of magnitude as it is now). Increase the cooldown of TS to 1m2s (to fix the skill queue) and increase the conjunction chance of TS to 50% on a flanked target. Increase damage on both skills.

Oh, and both skills should get their own icons.

Limrafn:
Issue: Skills are underpowered and provide less healing than using a high flanking pet with Improved flanking. Also, Limrafn are evil and don't fit with the theme of the class.

Suggestion: Replace Limrafn with a White Stag that does average damage (like the raven) and has no innate abilities. It has no random flank chance.

Flashing Flanking: Cooldown too high to be useful against high-flanking pets. Also allows getting flanks of CC-ed targets.
Suggestion: "Coordinated Strike" Reduce Cooldown to 20 seconds. Add very small damage component (50-60 at 65) to break CC.
20s Cooldown along with possibility to be BPEd/missed and no random flank chance balance this pet against Eagle and Lurker flank chances and utility.

Nature's Light: Damage return too low to be of use in 3-mans. Also benefits high-DPS classes more than low-DPS classes, and is more useful in raids than 3-mans, which should not be the case.
Replacement suggestion "Grace of Nature": All damage dealt by the stag is returned as healing to the attacked targets' target instead (heals the player the mob has currently aggro on). Duration: 15s. Cooldown: 30s. Still breaks any CC on attack.

Nature's Gift: Morale return is too low to sacrifice the pet for it.
Suggestion: Instead returns 40% of the pets current Morale to all nearby fellows - sacrificing an almost dead pet does little, so the pet should be healed first.

Bog-Guardian:
Issue: The innate guaranteed flanking attack is only available from melee range. The proclaimed "ranged" pet suffers a significant drop in flank rates from range because of this, so we have to force the Lurker into melee in order to get an acceptable flank rate.

Suggestion: Make the guaranteed flanking attack available from range to equalize melee and ranged flanks per minute.

Issue: Bog-Guardian DPS is very low compared to other Pets, especially Bear. See this thread.

Suggestion: Buff Bog-Lurker auto-attacks to grant the legendary, 5-traits+capstone requiring pet to have comparable damage to the Bear, both from melee and from range.


Buff food
Issue: Besides the Bear food, all other buff consumables are extremely underpowered and not worth the materials and bag space. The buffs are almost unnoticeable and need a big bump. Some buffs should be replaced by others that are better suited for the pet.

Bag of Crumbs:
Adds +7% melee critical in rating instead of melee offence, to enhance the Raven's ability to apply the Dizzy effect.
Evade Rating increased to 7% rating as well.
Fire and Acid defence is removed. +7% (in rating) tactical mitigation added.

Cut of Meat:
Buffs melee offense by 7% in rating.
Buffs melee skills critical chance by 7% in rating. (Enhances Lynx Surprise Strike and Sabercat Fury of Winter)
Adds 5% (in rating) physical mitigation.
Other buffs are removed.

Pot of Honey and Oats:
Fire and Shadow mitigations are replaced by tactical mitigation.

Bowl of Water:
Adds 7% ranged offence in rating.
Max. Power buff is replaced by +240 ICPR (at level 65), as the Lurker runs out of power in longer fights.
+ Tactical mitigation added.

Ranged items
Announced in the last Month of the LM, but forgotten as it seems.
So the LM still lacks equipment for their ranged item slots.

My proposal would be two different Sigils that buff some of our pet's abilities noticeably, and fit with the theme of our pet buffs: Rage and Protection.

They would be available as crafted item starting at Level 40, and a new one every 10 levels and the cap (65/75).

Sigil of Rage
This sigil increases the power of your companions as well as enhancing some of their abilities.
+ (Level*4) Companion max. power
Raven:
+50%: Dizzy proc chance on criticals/dev.criticals
Bear:
-20s Shatter Arms cooldown
Lynx:
+20% Critical chance from Stealth
Sabercat:
+3 AoE targets
Stag:
-5s Flanking Attack Cooldown
Eagle:
-20s Fan the Flames Cooldown
Lurker:
+5% Root Strike Ranged Critical Chance

Sigil of Protection
This sigil increases the morale of your companions as well as enhancing some of their abilities.
+ (Level*4) Companion max. morale
Raven:
Improved Shield of the Raven's Wing (increased tactical mitigation)
Bear:
-30s Roaring Challenge Cooldown
Lynx:
-20s AoE Skills Cooldown
Sabercat:
+10% Fury of Winter Critical chance
Stag:
+10s Grace of Nature duration
Eagle:
Improved Nobility (increases ICPR)
Lurker:
+10% Bursting Root Conjunction Chance


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That would be all from my part - thoughts and ideas as always welcome.