Stacking Damage Issue Tamed Pets vs Shadow Creatures

1. Title: Stacking Damage Issue Tamed Pets vs Shadow Creatures
2. Reproducible? Yes
3. Blocker? No
4. Details: Zoning into Spindelskog (normal) and initiating combat with a tamed pet vs Vigorem Cavas shows hits on the pet starting within a range that appears to gradually increase from hundreds to a thousand or so depending on how long the fight takes. The mob creates a corruption effect that stays at 24.
   
   On the second fight against the same mob with the same pet, the pet begins the fight taking significantly more damage straight away. Anything from 1500-2000. I have waited until the corruption level leaves the pet and also afked for 15mins and the same pet continues to take increasing damage straight away if it has already fought a shadow creature. There is no effect on the pets buff/debuff bar before each fight. When the pet dies, I resurrect and initiate combat again but whatever hidden effect that is active remains and eventually my pet is taking 3k damage and these hits are happening often.
   
   If I unsummon the pet and then resummon it, this seems to reset things and damage is the same as the first initial fight. Then on the second and then third fight the damage increases again until it is not manageable. If I unsummon the effected pet and then summon a different one this pet then starts off ok but on fight 2 and 3 becomes afflicted with the same issue. I have tried 6 different pets: Polar Destroyer, Fero Black Arachnid, Nightmare, Lupine Destroyer, Light Unicorn and Razorback Destroyer.
   
   It looks as though an effect, that I cannot see and so cannot remove, stays on the pet between fights causing it to take more and more damage.
   
   
5. Steps to Reproduce: Summoned multiple different pets and all had the same issue.
   
   
6. User Specs: (RAM, CPU, GPU and Operating System only) AMD Threadripper 3960, 32gb, Nividia 2080 Super, Windows 10

 

What happens if you cast Purify on your pet?

 

I was going to test that. Will update.

 

Purify had no effect.

 

After further testing there is definitely some issue that is carried over between fights. Maybe the corruption effect is not really going away after the debuff timer runs out unless you unsummon the pet and summon it again and it just keeps stacking.

 

Any feedback on this? Are pets supposed to be left with a stacking invisible debuff that you cannot see or mouse over on the pet bar, that cannot be cleared with Purify, until they start taking thousands of damage per hit from shadow mobs? Then only unsummoning and resummoning them or summoning a new pet removes it. It's easily repeatable by taking a pet through a few fights.

 

After testing in normal difficulty mode I can confirm this at least feels buggy. It is not all of the hits the spider does to my pig that are high but the max critical hit definitely gets bigger over time, even with a rest between spiders. The first spider is a really easy kill for my pig but eventually the spider hit him for 2,761 points of damage. It seems like the maximum possible crit gets higher every time the spider hits my pig.

This is probably due to corruption but I assume it is not working as intended. Maybe Atos could clarify how corruption is supposed to work? Also the icon showing the debuff does not show properly or very long. It should show under our nameplate for the entire time this debuff is supposed to be active. RIght now it is invisible half the time (only shows stats if I mouse over the spot) and goes away entirely within 30 seconds even though some type of effect lingers. It always shows 24.2 corruption level on my pet (when the debuff shows at all) and never seems to show on me.

(If it is determined that this is working as intended then this area is not meant to be fought with pets, but I find that unlikely)

 

I did a little more testing on this as I would really like to hear from the devs how the 'corruption level' is supposed to be working on pets and whether or not they consider this a bug.

The different shadow creatures seem to cast different debuffs on my pet as shown in the image below, though they all seem to add corruption level. I believe my testing back in September was done entirely on spiders. I tested all three types a bit today but I did feel like the spiders may have started hitting harder sooner than the others so I recommend doing any testing with them.

To do my testing I would make sure my pet had aggro on a single shadow creature but I would also be attacking so my pet wasn't killed and so I could observe the damage differences over several shadow creature fights. I would make sure any debuffs icons had time to clear in between fights. (for the spiders I even waited 5 minutes between a couple times)

Over the course of several shadow creature fights the top damage done to my razorback destroyer pet keeps increasing. It is possible this has been adjusted since September since it felt like it was increasing slower, but that might also just be that because my pet skills are higher so my pet is tougher and I can heal him better. I also kill the shadow creatures faster now so the corruption level has less time to build during each fight. Neither resurrecting the pet nor waiting in between fights seems to stop this damage creep. It is not damage from all hits but it is the big hits.

If the corruption level that this debuff is affecting is supposed to be reset to 0 after some point in time (less than 5 minutes) then that is not happening and this is a bug. If the corruption level is not supposed to reset but supposed to increase with each shadow creature fought (even though debuff icon goes away) then this is working as intended but it is not pet friendly. I have gotten into the habit of dismissing my pet and then resummoning him after each fight or two which works around this problem but keeps me from using pet food.



examples of top hits on my pig (before I could no longer keep up with healing):

[3/11/2021 12:44:57 PM] [12:44 PM] Feram Cavas (T12) attacks Razorback Destroyer <Gwendolyn Obscuro> and hits, dealing 2,584 points of critical damage from Shadow Bite.

[3/11/2021 12:47:37 PM] [12:47 PM] Onus Cavas (T12) attacks Razorback Destroyer <Gwendolyn Obscuro> and hits, dealing 2,998 points of critical damage from Shadow Claw.

[3/11/2021 1:22:31 PM] [1:22 PM] Vigorem Cavas (T12) attacks Razorback Destroyer <Gwendolyn Obscuro> and hits, dealing 3,019 points of critical damage.


the debuffs shown on my pig: (spider debuff seems unnamed, wolf says +0 but seemed to still be working)