Wait what!?...Who Castrated my Wolf while I was gone?

[DnD3]

Didn't play ddo for a month, just played my druid again and noticed the wolf does 1/3 of his usual damage, before he would hit for around 60, now hes hitting for 20 damage.

Is this just another one of the millions of druid bugs in DDO or did the pets get a massive "lol you're suppose to be THE pet class in DDO but your pets are doom to suck" nerf? Can't wait till I hit the epic levels, fear my 25 damage wolf!

[Dysmetria]

Didn't play ddo for a month, just played my druid again and noticed the wolf does 1/3 of his usual damage, before he would hit for around 60, now hes hitting for 20 damage.

Is this just another one of the millions of druid bugs in DDO or did the pets get a massive "lol you're suppose to be THE pet class in DDO but your pets are doom to suck" nerf? Can't wait till I hit the epic levels, fear my 25 damage wolf!I'm unsure how castration would effect the damage a wolf can deal, but yes, they nerfed the wolves.

Apparently they weren't supposed to be one-shotting stuff.

[Missing_Minds]

Your wolf was bugged pre hand. It no longer is bugged. The known issue is now "fixed".

[DnD3]

I see, ****! That being said having the wolf one shotting cr3 kobolds was a pretty big problem. Did they make it so it atleast scales well and the wolf is not absolute trash in higher level quests that aren't epic casual? or did they pull a turbine and half assed it and the wolf is just a mini mana sponge and sp drain death penalty beast?

[jortann]

I see, ****! That being said having the wolf one shotting cr3 kobolds was a pretty big problem. Did they make it so it atleast scales well and the wolf is not absolute trash in higher level quests that aren't epic casual? or did they pull a turbine and half assed it and the wolf is just a mini mana sponge and sp drain death penalty beast?

Did we mention he can pull levers?

[DnD3]

Did we mention he can pull levers?

But can you order "it" to run into the lava with a friends souls stone yet?

[Antiguo]

Did we mention he can pull levers?

Or carry your stone? and frankly, seeing at the tone of the OP posts surely he'll be pretty useful only doing that.

[MrkGrismer]

My Druid just made 15th level and the Wolf is still killing things quite happily, not being so squishy either since I took that enhancement (twice) that gets the doggie hit points back when it kills.

[jadedfate]

Sorry, he just wouldn't stop humping the monsters. Something had to be done.

[Buggss]

I'm unsure how castration would effect the damage a wolf can deal.....

It's an aggression thing... :D

[Diroctive]

Your wolf was bugged pre hand. It no longer is bugged. The known issue is now "fixed".

Ha! +1

[LupusVai]

Your wolf was bugged pre hand. It no longer is bugged. The known issue is now "fixed".

I don't think it was ever bugged, I think it was a very calculated sales attempt by turbine.

They uber buffed it for the free druid trial. To help hide all the glaring bugs and inadequacies with druids, it gave players new to trying the druid a feeling of worth and power at low levels where the amount of damage it did seemed pretty good. (even with being buffed it was still pretty rubbish later on)

Trial over, few more druid packs sold, easy quick fix (as they new exactly how they'd changed it) to tone it down again. Case in point they haven't managed to or bothered to fix any of the other druid bugs. Or maybe it was just an amazing coincidence that it got buffed just before the druid trial and then fixed before any other druid bug.

This bait and switch was called by other forum goers before the fix happened.

[Hendrik]

I don't think it was ever bugged, I think it was a very calculated sales attempt by turbine.

They uber buffed it for the free druid trial. To help hide all the glaring bugs and inadequacies with druids, it gave players new to trying the druid a feeling of worth and power at low levels where the amount of damage it did seemed pretty good. (even with being buffed it was still pretty rubbish later on)

Trial over, few more druid packs sold, easy quick fix (as they new exactly how they'd changed it) to tone it down again. Case in point they haven't managed to or bothered to fix any of the other druid bugs. Or maybe it was just an amazing coincidence that it got buffed just before the druid trial and then fixed before any other druid bug.

This bait and switch was called by other forum goers before the fix happened.

Time to loosen your tinfoil hat....

Cutting off your much needed blood supply.

[LupusVai]

Time to loosen your tinfoil hat....

Cutting off your much needed blood supply.

Lol. ;-)

[Dolphious]

Yeah, the pet was in danger of becoming useful so they nerfed it. Kind of an annoying slap in the face given that druids really aren't that amazing right now, but it's hard to get too upset by it given that the pet still wasn't all that useful (at lvl 25) even in it's supposedly OP state. It was still extremely squishy and needed a lot of heals to stay alive, and it messed with your ability to round up mobs to burn up in persistent AoEs (one of the few things druids do pretty well).

It's still nice for guarding "the base" while soloing crystal gathering challenges, and worth summoning when guarding an NPC (just as another warm body to keep aggro away from the NPS), but besides that it's more of a liability than asset so I leave it unsummoned 95%+ of the time.

[Missing_Minds]

This bait and switch was called by other forum goers before the fix happened.

*sigh* I see the main joke was missed by you.

But if it was actually bait and switch, why didn't the Arti dogs kill just as well? Oh wait, they didn't and never have. I think your collar is on too tight.

[azrael4h]

Spay and neuter your pets. Think of all the lives you are saving by not allowing your wolf pets to breed indiscriminately, creating huge numbers of wolf pet over-population. Please, think of the puppies! Spay and neuter your pets! This has been a message from the Stormreach chapter of the ASPCA.

[bartosy]

they boosted the damage for the free druid tryout for everyone..

now everyone fell for it and bought the class and think druids are omg overpowered with wolfs that can solo quests its being toned down 1/3 of its original power again..

ah well what can you do ? i specced out of the druid class and upgraded to an artificer, druids are without a doubt the worst money i ever invested in the game.. at least i can justify an adventure pack by gaining some favor and earning tp rewards but the druid class money ill never get back..

[HalfOrcBeautyQueen]

*sigh* I see the main joke was missed by you.

But if it was actually bait and switch, why didn't the Arti dogs kill just as well? Oh wait, they didn't and never have. I think your collar is on too tight.

It was a bait and switch. I was leveling up my Druid life at the time, and noticed on the forums people talking about how Druid wolves seemed OP. I was confused because my wolf, up to that point, was not doing absurd or even noticeable amounts of damage. At first I thought it was because I was in Delera's and my wolf didn't have the right collar on, then I took him into a different quest to let him eat some fleshies. Yes, he did bite harder, and it was right before the Druid Free Trial happened, and he was not hitting that hard previously.

They didn't need to boost the Arti Dogs because Artificers brought so much more to the table, fresh out of the box, than Druid did/does.

Oh - and no, the Wolf wasn't really overpowered. I said it then and i'll say it again, even when the Wolf was hitting for around 60~70 damage he still didn't kill things faster than I could, unless I was standing still and watching him, which was only fun for around 2 minutes and then I got bored. As it stands now the Wolf is just a negative SP potion who can hit levers.

As someone above mentioned though, he is generally more useful in Challenges or escort/guard NPC quests.

[ThreeEyedBob]

Nerfing the Druid pet is rubbish pure and simple. The only acceptable solution would be if they removed the loss of hp/sp when the pet died. It is so squishy I simply stopped using it because it can eat up sp in crucial situations.

The only use for it is to summon and leave at the entrance. And if you need it to recover your soulstone you better pray to higher powers that it will survive the pickup.

After playing Druid across 2 lives pluss a second druid as pure caster I have found it to be really underwhelming in terms of power. You want a really good solo class? Get the artificer. Druid is really either a weak sorcerer/wizard or a weak rogue/fighter in terms of power. I play it purely for flavor and have lost a lot of the funfactor after playing it extensively.

Nerfing the wolf pet after the promo stinks really really bad of "bait and switch". It was completely unneccessary as the wolf pet did "ok" damage but was a LOT more squishy than for example the artificer pet. If you wanted it to be busy you really had to put some sp into healing it, so the damage came at a cost in sp.

[wolfy42]

The wolf was insanely over powered in early levels before....to a rediculous point of doing 3x the damage of the character on average and one shotting many enemies early on even on elite difficulty (especially with a collar that boosted his crit range).

Many of us pointed that out, and also pointed out that people would be unhappy when it was changed after the free trial....since they would be expecting a super powered wolf...and end up with a mostly worthless one.

Even with the high damage the wolves were only really useful till mid levels due to being so squishy. If the damage had stayed the same, but instead progressed steadily (20 base + 2 per level....without factoring in strength bonuses etc)...that might have been semi ok. The change though is fairly drastic and people who picked up the druid class partially due to the wolf companion are going to be dissapointed.

Saying it was a bug that needed to be fixed is not enough. When something like that happens you should at most slowly decrease the power of the wolf. Instead of doing 60 base damage, have em do 40 base....still decent but not quite as sick. Then later, once people have gotten used to the reduction, you can change it again (but not like in a month....an update down the road or so...after you fix other druid bugs etc to balance out the loss a bit).

I've moved on from druids for awhile now.....so it's not a loss to me at all, but I'm sure it will upset at least some players who purchased druids after the free trial.

[tralfaz81]

I believe the update notes said something along the lines of 'fixing' the wolves to do more 'realistic' damage.

I'm just the messenger btw.

[DnD3]

I am wearing a tinfoil hat, trying to start a trend that's all.

1.Where arties supposed to be the class that specializes on pets the most, not big on pnp but aren't druid THE pet class as in they have the strongest companions?

2.Did they have as many bugs as the druids at launch, maybe giving them something to get people to redirect the attention elsewhere perhaps? I complained that Animal form pre druid was buggy when people asked me about the druid, first thing people said was "atleast your wolf is doing 50 damage at level 10".

3.Did they have as high sale expectations on arties compared to druids? makes sense they will make things useful early on to boost sales so people are encouraged to buy the class.

4.But this is the most important one for me and why I would never ever dismiss a bait and switch: They knew the wolf was useful at something other than pulling levers, getting stones and dying before the expansion went live, why not tone it down in Lammania? And why conveniently comment so much later about it? One would think they knew about it (and I guarantee you some employees talked about the pet being strong), they decided to let them in live because a Druid with a strong pet will help sell the $50+ deals more than a druid with a useless weak pet, and in the end its all in making money, not to mention they could always use the excuse and say "but its because its a new class, we didn't know", some people will buy that excuse.

That being said once I got earthquake I told the puppy to pack and leave.