What's up with Piercing?

[Akiho]

Just playing around with a Unicorn, I wanted to get rid of it's magery ability and in this instance I gave it 'Piercing' to see how that would go. I trained it up, with exception of Resist and Tactics which are in the mid 90's currently, everything else is GM+.

On the Lore & Knowledge screen it has, as would be expected from 'Piercing', Paralyze, Armour Ignore, Bleed and Piercing of which the Piercing element contains the mastery abilities Pierce and Thrust.

Been out killing various things for a few hours today and yesterday and the following is very apparent...

It uses Armour Ignore once every 1-5 minutes if that.
It has never once used Paralyze.
It has never once 'Bled' a target.
There has been no indication of the mastery abilities being used atall.
It's mana with the exception of the very occasional AI remains at maximum (300).

What gives, is it utterly broken?

 

[SouthPaw]

Read this post: (the short story is, unfortunately the melee magics are no good)
Discussion: Melee Magic Abilities

 

[Pawain]

Same with bladeweave. Many pets were given that for a period of time.

I'm sure someone will come here and say how great those are.

 

[Akiho]

Read this post: (the short story is, unfortunately the melee magics are no good)
Discussion: Melee Magic Abilities

Why is this being brushed over and kept so quiet?!?! Everyone just accepting that AI/Chiv is the best and not going for anything else?

A quote from another player, no names mentioned but there is clearly a problem.

"I had Piercing on a Triceratops. Something is wrong with Tri's, in my experience they rarely use any of their abilities and almost always are topped of on mana. So not a lot of experience with that."

How did this even slip through test? Do people even care?

 

[Akiho]

It uses Armour Ignore once every 1-5 minutes if that.
It has never once used Paralyze.
It has never once 'Bled' a target.
There has been no indication of the mastery abilities being used atall.
It's mana with the exception of the very occasional AI remains at maximum (300).

Why was none of this picked up on test? I would love to help on test but test shard is always US, I can not function on US servers.

 

[Laura_Gold]

If wrestling and tactics are less than 90 each then it seems they just about never use those melee-magics.
...but you're right, even with grandmaster wrestling/tactics they (triceratops, sabretooth, lion) don't seem to use the abilities very much.
...and this is part of the reason why everyone's go-to pet is a cu sidhe.

 

[Pawain]

Why is this being brushed over and kept so quiet?!?! Everyone just accepting that AI/Chiv is the best and not going for anything else?

A quote from another player, no names mentioned but there is clearly a problem.

"I had Piercing on a Triceratops. Something is wrong with Tri's, in my experience they rarely use any of their abilities and almost always are topped of on mana. So not a lot of experience with that."

How did this even slip through test? Do people even care?

Since those are the only things Big Cats can get, of course we noticed. The devs were more interested in nerfing anything that we found useful. Similar to the thread I made about underpowered pets. Other posters kept saying I was wrong and Skrees, Rams, and Kirins are the best pets around, they are fine like they are.

Why was none of this picked up on test? I would love to help on test but test shard is always US, I can not function on US servers.

When I finally started telling people to go with AI/Chiv it was met with, "Stop telling people how to build their pets!" "I know more than you so stop telling others how pets work."

Still happens but I wont stop.

I got Inferno and Cold wind to do damage. So, we see what the devs think damage is.

 

[Pawain]

The devs also fixed Raging Breath after bug reports so I trusted them.



The Dog that nobody wants...

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

I tested Slashing when the Pet Revamp was first on TC. I saw the pet use Focused Eye (big mana hog), but never saw it use Onslaught, even with GM+ Wrest/Tact. Reported it back then.

 

[SouthPaw]

It sucks that there's a major discrepancy in damage output between AI/Chiv and everything else, but that's the way it is. I have a unicorn with magery mastery I use sometimes and a necromage dread spider, and while they're fun to hunt with, their damage output is nowhere near any of my AI/Chiv pets.

 

[railshot]

It sucks that there's a major discrepancy in damage output between AI/Chiv and everything else, but that's the way it is. I have a unicorn with magery mastery I use sometimes and a necromage dread spider, and while they're fun to hunt with, their damage output is nowhere near any of my AI/Chiv pets.

It does suck, but you know what will happen if you complain long enough? They will nerf AI/Chiv to be as useless as the rest.
I chose not to bring up imbalance to the attention of the Devs, because the fix is usually worse than the problem.

 

[SouthPaw]

It does suck, but you know what will happen if you complain long enough? They will nerf AI/Chiv to be as useless as the rest.
I chose not to bring up imbalance to the attention of the Devs, because the fix is usually worse than the problem.

Very true.

 

[Pawain]

It does suck, but you know what will happen if you complain long enough? They will nerf AI/Chiv to be as useless as the rest.
I chose not to bring up imbalance to the attention of the Devs, because the fix is usually worse than the problem.

Yes. Mervyn already has made a thread to do that a few weeks ago.

 

[Maker2014]

It does suck, but you know what will happen if you complain long enough? They will nerf AI/Chiv to be as useless as the rest.
I chose not to bring up imbalance to the attention of the Devs, because the fix is usually worse than the problem.

Bingo!!

 

[Pawain]

@Akiho
We have a new pet on TC. I'm fighting for this pet to stay as is. (any damage spread change or keep is fine with me.) Lets see where other posters here stand. I will do the new content to get one of these.

 

[Keith of Sonoma]

@Akiho
We have a new pet on TC. I'm fighting for this pet to stay as is. (any damage spread change or keep is fine with me.) Lets see where other posters here stand. I will do the new content to get one of these.

I will as well! As long as they will have the Chiv option when they "go live".