Artificer pet improvements

[Baahb3]

Pulling this out of the Artificer form and putting here, and adding a few since I finally got my Arti to 30.

Enhancements:

Fearsome Tactics could use an extra large bump. I would say 100% or 150% per tier would be good.

Adamantine Plating could use a bump. Perhaps, the first one gives Adamantine Body (allowing for bigger armor bonus from docents) and then each additional one adds 10 AC, +2 MDB and 5/Adamantine DR, so +30 AC, +6 MDB and 15/Adamantine DR along with Adamantine Body for all 4. This would exclude you from taking the Evasion capstone. You could then add Mithral Plating, granting Mithral Body, AC Bonus (less than Adamantine), X/Mithral DR and bigger MDB bonus. Mutually exclusive like the alignment enhancements of course.

Reinforced Armor could use something else along with the HP increase. Maybe a +2 Deflection or Natural Armor bonus per tier or even better, some MRR, maybe 10 per tier. I also would not say no to +1HP/Level/Tier instead of a flat 10 HP. So if you have 20 levels of Artificer, you would get 20 HPs per tier.

I don't see a need for the 2nd ability enhancement to have a cost of 4 APs. This should be dropped to 2, just like the first one.

Bluffing/Intimidation needs a major bump to be useful in Epic/Legendary quests. Especially without equipment slots to bump that. A +15 Diamond in an augment slot just is not cutting it. I don't know where these need to be to be honest. My level 30 defender has a Cha of 46 (+18). With a +15 diamond and all 4 enhancements (+16), that gives me +49. I am not sure that gets us out of Giant Hold. Sounds strange but maybe +20 per tier? Or if you add additional item slots +15 per tier?

Sundering/Tripping need a big boost in the DC area as well. First level should grant the basic feat, then the 3rd or 4th should grant the Improved version of the feat and then the other two need to add +20 or more just to have it land occasionally.
--Example, at Level 30, with Sundering IV right now, my defender's DC is 53. [Str: 85 (+37) + 6 (Enhancement) + 10 Base]


Other things:

First and foremost, some work needs to be done to address the no-action bug for Iron Defenders. This usually happens when you don't stop/summon them when ladders are around. They become inactive. They run up to things but do nothing once they get there. I have had this happen in other instances where it gets hung up on quest terrain and I don't catch it for a while and then summon it to me as well. The only way to fix this is to dismiss and re-summon. While not really too much of an issue, they do loose their buffs with the re-summon.

To Hit value. We need some way to increase it, either through enhancements or by additional equipment slots. If enhancements, it needs to be a % increase and not just +X. For Equipment, a ring or 2 makes the most sense, perhaps a belt.

Iron Defender should share spell power/crit chance/crit multiplier with the Artificer to make their acid/fire breath more potent. It also should have a no save feature or at the very least use the Artificer's Evocation DC as its own. It would be super difficult to manage these into a usable range on their own. I also would not mind an option to just turn these two 'skills' off and just have them do physical attacks.

We need a larger UI option for its health bar. The little one below our own is small and sometimes difficult to click on in the heat of battle. A larger UI option would be very handy.

Can we get a UI option to show a pet's buff/debuff bar? This should include work to show timers on all spells, like Deadly Weapons or more to the point Armor of Speed.

A UI option to change your Pet's damage color would be useful as well. With all the numbers floating above an enemy's head, I would like to be able to better see what my pet it doing.

The Pet's character sheet does not have intellisense fields like our characters do. It also is missing things like Attack Bonus box and the Weapon Power box and the MR box. The abilities on their action bar do not show their DC either, Trip/Sunder DCs for example.

Wish List:

It would be nice to update the Iron Defenders 'enhancements' into tree form instead of the old (very old) enhancements of ages past. Keep it simple, tank and damage trees. But it would give you an easy way to buff the pets as well.

It would also be interesting if you allowed a small set of Feats to be chosen for the defender.
--Combat Styles: TWF: Simulate Bite + Claw attacks | THF: Simulate Bite only attacks | SWF: Simulate smaller Bite only, just quicker | Shield Feats: Bonuses could be determined based on body feats, i.e. Adamantine Plating would be Tower Shields, Mithral Plating would be Small Shields.
--Defensive Feats: Save/Skill, Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Toughness
--Martial Feats: Improved Critical, Power Attack, Combat Expertise, Precision
--Racial Feats: Improved Damage Reduction, Mithral Fluidity
--Epic Feat: Construct Exemplar, Bulwark of Defense, Epic Damage Reduction, Epic Save/Skill Feats, Epic Toughness, Great Ability Feats, Overwhelming Critical

For those that want them, pet cosmetics.

Thanks for your consideration.

[Baahb3]

Doing some more testing with the pet and the Combat Log shows almost nothing for the pet's actions. Just 'pet' hit 'x' for 'y' damage. That is it. No numbers shown, nothing. Not if the hit was a grazing hit, or if a critical.

It would be nice to see the same level of information for our pet as ourselves.