Curse

TwinRaven · Dec 01, 2005, 05:56 PM // 17:56

I've tried all sorts of beastie-builds with primary and secondary professions being ranger...Necro/Ranger minions and spider my fav so far. My biggest issue would have to be the "wasted" Charm Animal slot. I can even deal with the quirky AI and have found that other than blocking my path occasionaly, or hanging up minions in tight spaces, I'm OK with it most of the time. Once in a while I use a choice explitive a little too loud and get a glare from my wife...other than that I rarely suffer any great hardship.

After reading several folks say "combine Charm Animal with Comfort Animal" I got to thinking this was a bit of a fix, but seeing folks also suggesting modifiers AND reading previous threads about rangers lack of off-hand items it occurred to me:

REPLACE CHARM ANIMAL WITH AN ANIMAL CHARM!!! An off-hand item with modifiers for your pet (it can be a bracelet or glove for purists who consider bows strictly two-handed)...If equipped, you have a pet at your command as long as you have at least one Beast Mastery skill in your skill bar. No skills=no pet...If you have skills but don't have it equipped, your pet becomes an NPC and wanders off, re-equip and after a set activation time, your pet runs to your side. You shouldn't be able to un-equip and re-equip a dead pet to bring it back though...If your pet dies, it should remain dead until ressed or you go thru a portal.

A step further might be to have these Items be pet-specific and have BM reqs and damage types...Imagine: Gold Beastmasters Gauntlet of Poisoning req. 10 BM, Your animal has 10% chance to cause poisoning to foes when using skills OR Gold Milandru's Stalker Harness (shows up on pet)of Fortitude req. 12 BM...your Milandru's Stalker gains +40HP when equiped OR Insightful Bear Tamer's Collar...reduces energy cost when using pet skills for Black Bear pet owners...lots of variety possible.

Some may consider it to be a bit more of a buff than seems reasonable, but by making the items pet-type specific and having reqs, it may well be a good balance. I've read rumor that Rangers may get a new weapon: a whip. If this were to play out, the offhand item would make even more sense as there could be a whole range of off-hands for rangers to use for secondary skills...whip in one hand, focus item in the other? Dunno...maybe sacrificing the safety of long range attacks for more energy is a fair trade...but that's a bit off topic (appologies).

jesh · Dec 01, 2005, 07:53 PM // 19:53

Hmm that's not a bad idea, though for some reason I doubt that pets will be made any stronger than they currently are. If the AI is corrected, then I bet a lot more people will be using them, and having that accessory to buff your pet further might change the balance the game. I could see an offhand or whatever doing that, and maybe giving a little energy or something, though. Nice thought.

Draracle · Dec 02, 2005, 12:18 AM // 00:18

I think different pets should have different advantages (and there really needs to be a flying hawk) so that you can actually construct a build around the animals features. Maybe even make the evolution more interactive where you can "design" your pets growth through.... food maybe. The pet can eat up to 5 items which add to dmg, speed, defence, and special properties... so you can make a spider, slow attack, low dmg, high defence, and inflicts poison is vampiric (the last two would be gold foods). Just a thought, but it would make the pet class far more interactive

twicky_kid · Dec 02, 2005, 12:30 AM // 00:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by jesh

Just read all that, it was interesting. Nothing to do with my post though, really.

it gives you the dmg each animal can do. they are all about the same except the spider is does a fraction more dmg.

i love that idea of BM req off hands and weapons for pets instead of charm animal. i can understand why charm is there if you think about it the skill does do dmg via the pet.

main problem i see is the AI is really bad and all of your skills are disabled for 17 seconds trying to res the pet if it dies.

Zaklex · Dec 02, 2005, 01:33 AM // 01:33

For all of you complaining about Comfort Animal, I can see the need for this when playing with henches. However, when playing with a human monk I would suggest that you have the monk consider your pet as another party member and to watch it's health, I almost always do(when playing my monk and there is a pet or 2 in the party). Of course that doesn't do anygood if it dies, but the whole idea is to keep it alive and not let it die.

Valerius · Dec 02, 2005, 03:03 AM // 03:03

Quote:

they are all about the same except the spider is does a fraction more dmg.

errm... sounds like u didn't read the thread either...

Dire Black Widow Spider = Dire Dune Lizard = Dire Moa Bird ( in terms of dmg )

Hearty Black Widow Spider = Hearty Bear = Hearty Lynx ( in terms of HP )

the spider is no different from any other pet

jesh · Dec 02, 2005, 03:10 AM // 03:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

it gives you the dmg each animal can do. they are all about the same except the spider is does a fraction more dmg.

i love that idea of BM req off hands and weapons for pets instead of charm animal. i can understand why charm is there if you think about it the skill does do dmg via the pet.

main problem i see is the AI is really bad and all of your skills are disabled for 17 seconds trying to res the pet if it dies.

I didn't test the bear very extensively, but it's pretty obvious just watching it attack that there's a fraction of a second that's wasted. Try it yourself.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zaklex

For all of you complaining about Comfort Animal, I can see the need for this when playing with henches. However, when playing with a human monk I would suggest that you have the monk consider your pet as another party member and to watch it's health, I almost always do(when playing my monk and there is a pet or 2 in the party). Of course that doesn't do anygood if it dies, but the whole idea is to keep it alive and not let it die.

I do the same, I know my fellow ranger will suffer from 8 seconds of nothingness if I don't keep his furry alive.

jibikao · Dec 02, 2005, 03:58 PM // 15:58

Last night I was doing random arena and since I've been using blood pet build so often, many warriors actually go after my pet now.

My pet is lvl 20 Elder Warthog with lvl 13 Beast Mastery. The axe warrior just kept going at it while I try to spam Comfort Animal nonstop. Guess what? My pet died in the end and I had no energy left even though I kept using Ferocious Strike whenever I can.

Conclusion:
1.) I don't think Comfort Animal heals enough. You can only heal +100 at lvl 16 BM. So technically if you don't have Call of Protection and a warrior is attacking your pet (or an Air Ele), you can't out heal their damage. You may out heal a little bit but your energy will be drained and you won't be able to do other things.

2.) My suggestion is to combine Rez with Charm and make Comfort Animal a a much stronger healing spell for Pet. This way those who wants to heal their pet can bring Comfort and still have Charm to rez the pet. I don't think it's going to be overpowering because you can only rez your pet, not others. And they can add Death Penalty on pet so that those who try to use pet with low BM will suffer more; whereas pure beast masters' pets can survive much better.

What do you guys think? I just don't think Comfort can heal enough and if you keep healing, you will run out of energy. (I had lvl 13 Expertise!)

CKaz · Dec 02, 2005, 04:53 PM // 16:53

The below is why my warrior/ranger will never bring his pet out.
Also isn't it odd a *ranger* can't have a *ranged* pet, but a necro has a ranged minion? Would make W/R and tank R/Ws a LOT more palatable with them. Problem in Pugs for other warrs, henchy warrs - someone/thing is more likely to get stuck.
Yay :b - that collision needs fixing in general.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dralspire

If Anet ever were to rewrite the pet code to prevent collisions of my warrior with his pet (you know, the warrior getting stuck against the pet, requiring him to walk in the opposite direction in order to release the pet and continue the attack), I would be enternally grateful.

jibikao · Dec 02, 2005, 10:47 PM // 22:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

the bears lose brutal mauling after they are charmed. the spider does not poison.

pets have no skills except for the pet attacks you use.

Actually, I wasin random pvp the other day and I tried to kill a Bear. I saw Brutual Mauling skill bar. I was trying to interrupt it. lol

Not that Brutual Mauling adds anything special... it should though.

Xia · Dec 03, 2005, 04:12 AM // 04:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

underpowered no. unreliable yes.

sometimes they are too dumb for my liking and never have the same results. consistancy is what wins battle after battle.

I'm new to these forusm. WAs justlooking around. But this is a good topic to post on.
What is said above is very true.
Pets get stuck on spirits, other players, ETC. This makes them unreliable.

Pets are not underpwoered themselves.. just their AI is.
I also agree with BM weapons, charm animal+comfort pet combining. Needng one to have the pet and one to heal it is NOT viable.
More than the AI, weapon, and combining those 2 skills would overpower pets. Seriously.. Ferocious strike can be made to do over 100 damage so having 4 beastmasters in a group is powerful.

I might as well say the build..
You have 2 r/mo, 2 r/n, a smiting monk, 2 healing monks, 1 protect.
Smiter casts Strengh of Honor on all 4 pets. Uses blessed signet. Any other skills don't matter.
The R/N carry pet attacks and weaken armor. The R/Mo use judge's insight and balthazaar's aura. You don't carry charm animal because well.. read the begining of the post. It's a waste of a slot and needs improvement.
You select a target and attack. Judges insight pets on the way(just 2) and balthazaar's aura(just 2)
The pets will be doing 40-50 damage per attack with weaken armor and depending if they have judges insight. Also the 2 balth's will add 44 per second. Ferocious strike will do over 100. Other attacks will be doing near that.
(EDIT) I forgot to include you MUST have snazzy names like "nerf pets plz" and spam the all channel before starting to make sure your enemy is humiliated. Right now a pet build is alot like hamstorm.. HAmstorm sounds shitty right? hamstring+firestorm. But if you get GOOD PLAYERS using it it can win alot of games.

The advantage of pets is very high DPS and they can outrun anyone.. They end up doing damage faster than 3 monks can keep up with heals. Problem is they are easily blocked, stupid, and it can take a while to kill bu they should eventually do it. This means you just need good monks to keep people alive.(and the pets! :/)
There are other builds.. that's just a sucessful one i've found.
I'd be interested to see what you could do with ferocious+echo.. that's alot of energy with how fast it recharges. I like the balths and weaken armor is like +38% damage, though.

But anyways, in short, pets are good. They just need better AI, weapons for BM to use that are simular to casters items so one could go all exp/bm(currently you are rather forced to have a caster secondary. That's not fair), and charm+comfort merged.
Any more than that would overpower them.

Wessels · Dec 03, 2005, 05:02 AM // 05:02

Quote:

*Make pets rezzable with normal monk skills, but less effective
*Make Charm Animal have some beneficial affect
*Make Comfort Animal have some beneficial (active) affect
*Combine Charm and Comfort Animal
*do something

Amen to that!! Especially the fact your skills get disabled so long to revive animal is a nuisance ( also when it dies , so that's 2 times you're at a serious disadvantage when a beastmaster) . And the fact you have to take two skills to maintain a pet is just nonsense , so combine charm/comfort and reduce the skill-disable for ressing pet . Also useful: make animal ressable by monks ( I have a monk and when there is a ranger with pet in team I heal animal as well, so why shouldn't I be able to resurrect it ?? It is after all a party member and is in the party window ) .

Charm animal- as it is now- is a 1-use skill ( to get the pet ) , after that you have to have it in skillbar just to bring your pet along . That's like a warrior having to have a "bring sword " skill in his bar , this isn't the case either.

Xia · Dec 03, 2005, 08:48 AM // 08:48

The disable is fine.. the 6 second cast time coudl be 4-5 but ti's really fine at 6.. You people underestimate hwo strong pets are.
But yes normal revive skills should work on them like the monk ones.

-Loki- · Dec 03, 2005, 11:12 AM // 11:12

Personally, all I think needs to be done is lift how much comfort animal heals the pet for, since it really doesn't heal enough to be worth bringing as a heal pet ability, and fix the AI. Beast mastery itself could use a weapon of it's own, since juggling in 12 marksmanship means you are going to have to choose between expertise, wilderness survuval, or another attribute from a secondard class, and expertise is going to win every time.