Pet balance has generally been very dependent on being able to consistently parry pets. There are however some issues with the animations and with latency which make parrying pets far less consistent than it ought to be.
Lag compensation for pvp is quite good and drastically reduces the effect of latency for pvp, however it doesnt currently seem to apply to either pve or pets which is somewhat problematic. For a high ping player such as myself, I frequently take damage before the attack animation of an animal begins. Other times, when i block in the appropriate direction it simply has no effect due to my 200ms latency and the quick attack animation of most animals. In effect a high ping player is significantly less effective against pets than a low ping player.
The second issue is that the pet attacks do not read directionally very well. Most of the wolf animations are difficult to discern and to try and figure out the direction of the attack is bordering on futile. The only method I've found for most animals in game currently are to memorize the animation and attack direction as it cannot be read at a glance.
Third, and perhaps most significant is the speed of the animations. Many animal attack animations happen incredibly quickly. This greatly increases the effect of the two aforementioned issues as once lag is factored in, the time to respond to the animation is nearing zero and the animations happen so quickly that telling them apart becomes more difficult. One of the wolf attack animations, for example, takes about a quarter of a second from start to finish. My ping is oftentimes around 200ms, giving at best just 50ms of time to respond. Even some of the slower animations like those of the campodon are notably faster than they should be. A campodon hits for approximately 120 damage on a naked, a similar amount of damage to a messing kallardian norse great axe. The kallardian norse great axe has a notable windup and slow release that is incredibly easy to block and is well telegraphed. The campodon attack animation takes seemingly less than a quarter of the time from start to finish. This makes blocking a campodon notably more difficult than somebody with an axe.
While I do think that the future pets will be notably overpowered if the current power scaling of pets is anything to go by, I think that if pets were more easily and consistently blockable that the current pets wouldnt be too far out of balance.
Lag compensation for pvp is quite good and drastically reduces the effect of latency for pvp, however it doesnt currently seem to apply to either pve or pets which is somewhat problematic. For a high ping player such as myself, I frequently take damage before the attack animation of an animal begins. Other times, when i block in the appropriate direction it simply has no effect due to my 200ms latency and the quick attack animation of most animals. In effect a high ping player is significantly less effective against pets than a low ping player.
The second issue is that the pet attacks do not read directionally very well. Most of the wolf animations are difficult to discern and to try and figure out the direction of the attack is bordering on futile. The only method I've found for most animals in game currently are to memorize the animation and attack direction as it cannot be read at a glance.
Third, and perhaps most significant is the speed of the animations. Many animal attack animations happen incredibly quickly. This greatly increases the effect of the two aforementioned issues as once lag is factored in, the time to respond to the animation is nearing zero and the animations happen so quickly that telling them apart becomes more difficult. One of the wolf attack animations, for example, takes about a quarter of a second from start to finish. My ping is oftentimes around 200ms, giving at best just 50ms of time to respond. Even some of the slower animations like those of the campodon are notably faster than they should be. A campodon hits for approximately 120 damage on a naked, a similar amount of damage to a messing kallardian norse great axe. The kallardian norse great axe has a notable windup and slow release that is incredibly easy to block and is well telegraphed. The campodon attack animation takes seemingly less than a quarter of the time from start to finish. This makes blocking a campodon notably more difficult than somebody with an axe.
While I do think that the future pets will be notably overpowered if the current power scaling of pets is anything to go by, I think that if pets were more easily and consistently blockable that the current pets wouldnt be too far out of balance.
