I play a sampire usually, which may slight my perspective of the tamer, but even mystics fare better vs. most situations. And yes tamers are strong vs certain mobs as well. I also farmed a lot of Greater dragons with a bard tamer...The disco would usually land when the dragon was already at half health ;x IMO they should implement partial resists, but that's another issue.
I do think your experience as a sampire is going to carry over to what you expect with a tamer, I think the sampires have changed what a lot of folk expect from their tamers, just as GDs have. Mystics are also a relatively new skill and in UO's history, new skills have often had advantages over older ones. I personally don't mind having other professions stronger than mine, because I know I can train one up if I'm bothered (which I never have). My only current concern is that the devs seem to be building our game around these strong templates. Rather than nerfing the strongest so we have a wider range of templates with roughly the same power. I don't want more power, only a game where I can go to normal spawns and not have my butt handed to me by uber mongbats.
People seem to be hung up on whether greater dragons are capable (albeit very low dps), and forget about the other 20 pets that die the moment a stray mob looks at them. Then the painstaking task of rezzing the pet while keeping yourself alive...
Some tamers forget there are other weaker pets, but we don't all do that. I don't. My GDs are the pets that never get used, can't stand the things lol. Smaller/older pets certainly need some love, as do reptalons and newer pets like the skree. But these pets depend a lot more on the pet handling skills of the tamer: their own limited power leaves us little margin for error. I always tend to have 2 or more pets out at a time. If one dies, I vet rez it while I look after the surviving one. Then send that freshly rezzed pet in to support its friend while I heal both of them up. So unless I know I'm totally screwed, I don't move or stop pets fighting if one dies. I just have 1 more thing to focus on
And there's lead vetting. Where you tell the pet to stop and follow you, then vet it while leading it slowly away from the monster. Stops the monster(s) melee damaging your pets and saves you having to recall out or deal with a dead pet.
Shrug, I really wanna play my tamer. It's one of the most unique things about this game. I want to be able to use my rune beetle and reptalon and a slew of other pets vs. different types of situations without feeling like i'm gimping myself. *DIVERSITY* But it's a hard balance to maintain when you have to think about pvp as well (and I know most pvp'ers hate tamers) A rune beetle with more survivability or g. dragons and dread mares with more damage would definately be overpowered in pvp. (And I don't want to lug around even more slayers for my pet)
I don't think anything is really stopping you from playing and enjoying your tamer, except perhaps your own expectations of what you think you should be capable of. I agree some pets need love but they certainly aren't at a level where I don't feel like playing with them. Many tamers got all GD obsessed when they arrived, so I guess the devs figured all tamers just used 1 pet and left well alone.
Balance is important for Tram as much as in Fel. An overpowered tamer can make a nuisance of themselves anywhere. You don't need to be fighting one in Fel. In Tram players have to try sharing resources and spawns at times. If one template can wipe the floor with all the others, they're a problem in that situation.
Rune beetles, dreads and greaters have all been nerfed to be ok for Fel. I really don't think any of them should be boosted up significantly for any facet. I'd rather see much older and lesser used pets given attention first.
At the same time, make real skill required for full pet damage/survivability and you instantly pull back PvP tamers - committing to 3 skills in a template just for the pets leaves less room for other skills. That brings some of the PvP templates down a few notches.
And as far as making too many rules confusing for the new player... I think balance is more important. They already have different rules for melee, spells, healing, etc. in felucia. Besides, a lot of players dislike how the gaming industry is simplifing everything. I quit UO around '99 when they gave dread lords stat loss, and came back around 2007. It was definately a lot of studying to figure out what has changed, but planning a character is a great thing about this game.
I love balance too. And complexity, especially in taming - something I've been hoping we'd see with real skill actually counting more than item-boosted skill, or some enhancements to skills like vet. But changing pets so they don't have so much power in Fel isn't adding any interesting depth and intelligence to the game. It's simply reining back tamers in Fel and giving us another thing to remember. Also, it's going to deter tamers from visiting Fel. Besides, Fel players need to just deal with tamers being part of their game too. I don't want tamers overpowered in PvP, but I don't plan on rolling over and becoming an easy target either.
Wenchy
