Additional Family Passive Updates

In my previous post I mentioned that Blizzard was considering altering how a few pet family passives function, and the elemental family was specifically named as one on that list. Crithto has an update that includes additional pet families that are being considered.

"Indeed, as well as Critters and Magic! Here's what we're thinking and working on at the moment, and again, please share your thoughts and feedback:

Aquatic: Harmful DoTs reduced by 50% (up from 25%)
Aquatic-types currently reduce the effect of harmful damage over time abilities by 25%. Because few creatures have more than one DOT, this ends up being a less than steller damage reduction over the course of the battle. We feel increasing the effect to 50% should help aquatic pets benefit more from their passive.

Critters: Immune to CC completely
Critters currently reduce the duration of crowd control effects by one round, which makes fast critters significantly more powerful. We'd like critters of all speeds to benefit equally from their passive, so we're considering making them immune to crowd control effects completely. This would include stuns, roots, and other incapacitating effects.

Magic: Cannot be dealt more than 35% of total health in one move (down from 40%)
Magic-type creatures currently cannot take more than 40% of their maximum health as damage when struck. When balance changes were made to reduce the damage of some very heavy-hitting abilities, this passive was indirectly nerfed. We're thinking if we buff the effect to 35% of maximum health, that should compensate for previous adjustments.

Again, everything is subject to further adjustments, but our ultimate goal is to bring all passives up to the power level of some of the current favorites, such as Undead."

These are interesting changes, and since I'm not a pet theorycrafter, I can't really comment on how these updated passives will affect gameplay. It does seem that if all critter pets are immune to CC, they will probably come in handy in PVP.

Currently, I don't really use ANY critter type (other than a snail) in PVE, as there are just too many pets and attacks that are strong against most in general. However, if CC's are useless against this type, perhaps I should start thinking of trying to work in more critters into my routine. But to be honest, CC isn't as punishing or as abundant in pet PVE as it probably is in PVP. So it might still not be worth it for me.

For magic, I already thought these pets had a really nice passive, but with the changes to accuracy, perhaps this buff was needed. Most magic pets are pretty squishy (somewhat like glass cannons), so the buff will likely balance things out nicely. We'll see.

The change to the aquatic passive, again, sounds like it will be most useful in PVP. As Crithto mentioned, many pets don't really utilize more than one dot (except for maybe oozes) in PVE, but in PVP there's a lot more room for a person to stack dots up.

Much like critters, I don't think I actually use too many aquatic pets, and even with this buff to their passive I can't say that I'll make room for more aquatics on my teams. I'll likely give them a shot, especially if I know I'm going up against a pet that's dot heavy, but I don't think this change will really alter when/how I use an aquatic pet.

Pretty interesting ideas for buffs/changes to a few passives, and we'll have to test them out (if they're implemented) to determine if they actually help balance things or make a certain type too strong. Ideally all the passives will be on par with each other, but we have to keep in mind that there are still some situations where one will probably be stronger than another and they can't be all 100% equal. If we wanted complete pet passive equality, they'd all have the same one... and that's no fun. :P