Curse

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 29, 2005, 06:41 PM // 18:41

There aren't enough threads on this type of build because 'pets suck' seems to be the general thoughts of the year.

But there's soooo many pets skills to use and I was thinking of trying out this build when my R/E ascends to R/W just for fun. And I wouldn't want to see ANet's attempt at a useful companion go to waste. [vs. all these other games where the pet is just there to 'look cool']

stats:

10+2 Beast Mastery
9+1 Expertise
7+1 Marksmanship [to wield the bare minimum req. max dmg bow]
10 tactics

Tiger's Fury
Ferocious Strike {E} ?? Not sure if it's elite but someone said it was.
Maiming Strike
Scavenger's Strike
Predator's Pounce
Call of Haste
Charm Animal
Watch Yourself!

Very pet centered. It deals the damage it needs to and behaves kind of like the "Offensive Tank" mentioned in the Guild Wars Preorder Manual.

Needs high powered attacks: Ferocious Strike and Call of Haste means you'll be dealing dmg, gaining energy, and adrenaline for Watch Yourself! Tiger's Fury makes yourself less useless at range ^_^ The other skills deal extra dmg as well as a variety of effects. All of which are more efficient than any warrior or caster can possibly keep up with.

A snare / speed buff skill: Maiming Strike combines well with Call of Haste as both an attack speed buff, movement buff, and snare. 3 effects for 2 skills is hot. If the enemy's not moving, it's still +17 dmg for low energy. No weapon snare can compete with that kind of energy/dmg.

Survival: Not just a self heal, Predator's pounce will be for those occasions your poor pet gets duped into an AoE spell and helps it live for that much longer. It can be substituted for Comfort Animal for massive fights like 8v8. In 4v4, I think Predator's Pounce helps it do more dmg. Ferocious strike keeps the energy going so you can do this skill many times when needed. Watch Yourself!! lets your whole team know you're there for them as well as your pet!

Some weaknesses I wouldn't need to hear of are Conditions and Hexes. There is nothing this build can do to combat those things. And there is no need to for the most part.

This build plays off the general thought: Pets are useless, ignore them and focus fire on enemy pcs instead. Placing the pet as the last target after the enemy's last warrior goes down. lol...

From what I can tell with this build: You and pet are both dealing a lot more dmg then would be realized at first. Both you and your companion have attack buffs that can render an enemy dead without some level of attention.

I was wondering if there's a way to augment this build without changing the secondary. This is a team build, not a soloist.

Scaphism · Jul 29, 2005, 08:42 PM // 20:42

Every single point you put into tactics is wasted.

You know what the difference on a 8s watch yourself is vs a 5s watch yourself?
Nothing, because by the time your 5s watch yourself is running out it will already be recharged to use again.

Spend those points elsewhere.
Ideas: Earth Magic, Illusion, Monk- they all have defenses you can use, unless you insist on an adrenal defense.

Also: You need a minimum of 9 in Marksmanship to use a max damage PVP bow, but you weren't talking about bringing this build to PvP, right?

Oh yeah, I almost forgot:
Tiger's Fury will disable all your other beastmastery skills. Blame that one on the devs.

jesh · Jul 30, 2005, 02:33 AM // 02:33

Yeah.. TF shouldn't be in any beast build. I went r/mo for mine for the Judge's Insight and Strength of Honor. Pet builds are really really fun. Went into random 4v4 at level 17 in LA and took down 2 level 20 warriors and almost a necro before they realized my pet was kicking ass. Their whole team tried to kill it, and couldn't. So they went for me. I died. But still, it was funny. I was a little more defensive than you, though, I took Call of Protection, Otyugh's Cry, and Symbiotic Bond. That's 200 AL...

Tuna · Jul 30, 2005, 02:43 AM // 02:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

Tiger's Fury will disable all your other beastmastery skills. Blame that one on the devs.

Thats conveniant :/

Also, I would reccomend 15 or 16 beastmastery as it increases your pets dmg and the dmg on the pet skills. 12+3 beastmastery 9+4 expertise 9+? whatever is what I would suggest. That does mean using 2 superiors but it probably is worth it. You can probably tweak it a bit depending on what you want your last attribute to be by switching around runes/hat and +/- attributes.

edit: I would suggest taking something to burn the energy from ferocious strike. If you don't, taking less expertise wouldn't be a bad idea.

Also, be prepared to curse at the animal for being sooo freaking stupid. I've seen better pathfinding in DOS games...

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 30, 2005, 07:32 AM // 07:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

Every single point you put into tactics is wasted.

You know what the difference on a 8s watch yourself is vs a 5s watch yourself?
Nothing, because by the time your 5s watch yourself is running out it will already be recharged to use again.

Spend those points elsewhere.
Ideas: Earth Magic, Illusion, Monk- they all have defenses you can use, unless you insist on an adrenal defense.

Also: You need a minimum of 9 in Marksmanship to use a max damage PVP bow, but you weren't talking about bringing this build to PvP, right?

Oh yeah, I almost forgot:
Tiger's Fury will disable all your other beastmastery skills. Blame that one on the devs.

Hmm, good info to modify the build with, btw, still curious. Is Ferocious Strike still an Elite skill? The website here has it as a normal skill but for what it does I think it is elite...

Try not to chomp my head off so fast because it was just something in theory and I missed some details. Live and learn right?

Hmm, looking over warrior skill list again, that extra adrenal gain seems kinda pointless now... hmm... Frenzy? Nah, I'm against a skill that has me dead 2x as fast.

I was thinking of using this in pvp since nobody goes after the pet btw...

R/E then I suppose [saves time and effort]

Beast Mastery: 10+2
Marksmanship: 7+1 (yes there are bows that are max dmg req. 8 marks) though you won't be doing max dmg since it's not 12, you're still wanting to be able to at least wield it at good potential vs. 1/3
Expertise: 9+1
Earth Magic: 10

Disrupting Lunge / Melandru's Assault?
Ferocious Strike {E} ? [still unanswered]
Maiming Strike
Brutal Strike
Predator's Pounce / Comfort Animal
Call of Haste
Charm Animal
Ward Against Melee

After careful consideration, I figured having a stronger defense for the team's zone would be decent defense. Ferocious Strike should fuel Ward Against Melee and all of the other skills quite well. Decided to use Brutal over Maiming since it resembles a minature [very miniature] Final Thrust. And is easier to strike with since after some viewing, more and more people are just going to stand there and not move next to a pet, negating Scavanger's Strike + Maiming Strike combination.

Unsure about the first skill slot now realizing that Tiger's Fury nerfs the build. I'm leading toward a little disruption but I get the feeling Enchant smashing would be more beneficial. Especially since it strikes a mob. In 8v8, most maps don't have that much room to spread out and even if not, the enchanted target is gonna hurt. Do pet skills crit similar to warrior crits? As in when the pet's victim runs, do pet strikes 100% crit? [that'd be fair if it did in my opinion]

But yes, the idea is to let the pet do all the work. The R/Mo Zealot's Fire build seemed quite strong if it does what it says it does. [cooks enemies each time a pet skill is used. Quite devastating if you watch it get spammed.]

I was wondering if R/Mo is the only pet build for pvp using Zealot's Fire. If that's so, then pets really need an update of some sort because then we'd end up with only R/Mo Zealot Fire Pet builds in pvp and that'd be dull.

Scaphism · Jul 30, 2005, 08:17 AM // 08:17

I didn't mean to come across so negatively.

I've been playing a R/Mo beastmaster in PVE for a few weeks now and it's a blast, but there aren't that many things you can do with it.

It's the same story it's always been with Pets: they take up a LOT of skill slots, so many that you can barely fit anything else on your skill bar.

I think the R/Mo smiter is one of the few things that works well with pets (which is what I'm currently doing in PVE) because Zealot's Fire will trigger every time you use a pet attack. However, the fire will trigger around YOU, not your pet, so it limits the usefulness.

I've also tried acting as a backup healer using Ferocious Strike to fuel spells like Heal Other and Infuse Health + Heal Area. It works fairly well in PVE, especially once enemies strip enchantments all the time, making Smiting Builds very difficult to pull off well. Can't say I'd want to try healing with a R/Mo in PVP however.

The last good option I see for a Beastmaster is going pure ranger. You have the attribute points to work with- just make sure your Beastmastery is maxed (or nearly maxed). You need a minimum of 9 to use a Collector/PVP bow, which ends up being 8+minor rune. You'll want a minimum of 9 expertise as well (for your pet attacks). The next good break point on expertise is 13, possibly 14, so if you stop at 8+1 you can free up a lot of attribute points, and Ferocious Strike will still be bringing in a lot of energy.

Still, if you've loaded up on pet skills you don't have a whole lot of room left, so I'd suggest something like Wilderness Survival for a long-lasting Preparation (apply poison or ignite arrows most likely).

Proposed Attributes:
12+hat+superior Beastmastery (16) (97 attribute points)
8+minor Expertise (9) (37 attribute points)
8+minor Marksmanship (9) (37 attribute points)
7+minor Wilderness (8) (28 attribute points)

You can play around with those attributes a little as well. It would be a very good idea to take a superior Markmanship rune as well- the difference between 9 and 11 marksmanship is large. Additionally, you can drop 2 levels in Wilderness Survival to increase Marksmanship by 1. Apply Poison has a "dead" spot at 8 wilderness survival, so dropping it from 8 to 6 only causes you to lose 1 second on your Posion Duration. With a Poisoner's string that would hardly matter in the slightest, and it would get your Marksmanship to 12 (which is ideal).

No other combination would benefit nearly as much from all the runes you can get within your own class, and you don't have to worry about pesky counters like hex or enchantment removal messing with your build. You don't have to get into melee range to use Zealot's Fire or run around trying to use Watch Yourself/Ward Against Melee to your advantage.

Sit back and let your Pet Attacks and Bow damage work together. You don't even need to use any bow attacks, but it would be a good idea to have at least one (to spend energy on and to retain some usefulness if your pet goes down).

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 30, 2005, 08:47 AM // 08:47

There we go. Only around you Zealot's Fire works? Sounds like a sword slinging Ranger to me. [though the sword will do no dmg, it forces you to be next to your foe making Zealot's Extreme]

I'll now go by the assumption that Ferocious Strike isn't elite cause I looked on other websites with skill listings and it seems it either used to be elite or was never elite to begin with. Ok...

R/E with Water and Pet

found a good cheap energy skill to keep enemies from moving and when they do, they'll get crippled, knocked down, and then just hammered repeatedly.

Water Trident {E}
Ferocious Strike
Brutal Strike
Maiming Strike
Melandru's Assault
Predator's Pounce / Comfort Animal
Call of Haste
Charm Animal

Still keeping focus on "Offensive Tank". The knockdown idea for Gale caught my eye, but Water Trident seemed much more efficient to me. Combined with Cripple, I should be able to defend myself from the off warrior chasing me down.

Neat trick, I can run and do whatever and not stop due to animal strikes being animal skills which don't force me to stand still. So moving around while being chased is fine by me.

High powered attacks which slam enchanted people and people below 50% energy and heal the pet too. Attack speed buffs are good

Speed buff and Snare, always good to have

Pet's self heals [one or the other depending on situation ^_^]

And Water to Knockdown the pesky runners who are either the last one standing, or who think you're actually a worthwhile target instead of the pet.

*edit stats doh!

10+2 Beast Mastery
7+1 Marksmanship
9+1 Expertise
10 Water Magic

This way my current R/E powerhouse build only has to change just a little to become this Pet Beast

Tellani Artini · Jul 30, 2005, 02:55 PM // 14:55

Ferocious is elite.

DeadxxEye · Jul 30, 2005, 03:12 PM // 15:12

I think Comfort Animal is a must for any beastmaster build if not once your pet dies...you are basically useless right?

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 31, 2005, 05:34 AM // 05:34

I think it just depends on the situation.

Most if not all players I've seen just ignore a pet. My Minion Master goes after pets with a passion due to easy corpses... ^_^

But Pred's Pounce spammed will deal good dmg as well as heal somewhat. I was thinking of bringing Call of Protection alongside Pred's Pounce but then just said bah* to it because seriously, who will willingly attack a pet?

Comfort Animal is for sure going to be needed in more hectic fights where AoEs can be seen thrown left and right like chump change.

edit* need to change the build again I see if what you say is true...
boss check* Thul the Bull - Spearhead Peak - Grawl

Guess I've been corrected! ^_^

I guess staying close to the pet is an advantage to have seeing it's a 2v1 setup so I'll be using close range skills...

R/E

stats: 10+2 beast mastery, 9+1 expertise, 7+1 marks, 10 water magic

Point Blank Shot [I love the icon, it's funneh]
Ferocious Strike {E}
Maiming Strike
Brutal Strike
Predator's Pounce / Comfort Animal
Call of Haste
Charm Animal
Ice Spear (bah, someone give me a hand here ^_^)

Scaphism · Jul 31, 2005, 09:32 AM // 09:32

Changed my build slightly, been having a blast with it.

10+3+1 Beastmastery
8+1 Expertise
9+3 Marksmanship
9+1 Wilderness survival

Levels 15 and 16 in Beastmastery aren't terribly important, especially not to Ferocious Strike, so drop it down to get a boost to Marksmanship and Wilderness Survival.

The skills I'm currently running in Arena:
Charm Animal
Comfort Animal (might drop this)
Ferocious Strike
Predator's Pounce
Distracting Shot (could easily be disrupting lunge, has better recharge but slower activation)
Apply Poison
Troll Unguent
Rush

I use a Poisoner's Shortbow of Defense and a Vampiric(5) shortbow of defense, +15% while in a stance.

Rush is a beautiful addition to the build- you can keep it up almost indefinitely and it gives you a bit of extra defense and the ability to chase people down.

I'd strongly consider picking up Choking Gas to free up space, but it's hard to argue against Apply Poison in the arena.

I'd really like to get Call of Haste in there somewhere, and another Pet attack maybe, but as it is the wolf rarely dies and I can pick my targets- spread poison or babysit a caster with Distracting Shot. Energy is NEVER a problem.

ratatass · Jul 31, 2005, 12:36 PM // 12:36

Your build is identical to mine Scaph , he he. I brought expertise to 13 though to get more benefit of 5 energy skills.

An just for fun since I have a good energy regen and just cycle preds/ferocius, I added concussion shot just to get some experience in timimg my attacks and see how succesful I can be dazing targets. I sometimes bring Call of Haste to get the DPS from the per(12) up to about 11...without Fer/Pred...again just for fun.

Its been a lot of fun. My guild is in disarray at the moment, but just for the heck of it...if a PUG would let me I would just bring it into the Tombs, not for performance, but for fun.

In the Tombs I bring the usual ranger stuff needed and it is NO fun with the current state.

Ratatass

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 31, 2005, 12:40 PM // 12:40

Rush definitely sounds good ^_^

blackbird71 · Aug 15, 2005, 05:19 PM // 17:19

I disagree with the idea that Tiger's Fury has no place in a beastmaster build. It may not work well in a build that is purely full of beast skills, but I play an archer/beastmaster and find it quite effective. My build looks something like this:

Marksmanship 11 +3(superior rune)
Beast Mastery 11 +1(minor rune) +1(mask)
Expertise 8 +1(minor rune)
Wilderness Survival 3 (just because I had extra points, and it gives a slight boost to troll ungent)
Major Rune of Vigor

Power Attack
Tiger's Fury
Ferocious Strike(Elite)
Feral Lunge
Comfort Animal
Charm Animal

I'll usually fill the remaining two slots with at least one bow attack, and possibly troll ungent or another beast attack, sometimes symbiotic bond, whatever is needed for the given situation.

Strategy is this: I open with Tiger's fury and a couple of bow attacks. This takes place while my pet is running from me to the target, so nothing lost there. By the time my pet reaches the target, my other skills have recovered from Tiger's Fury, so I hit Ferocious Strike for some energy, bleed him with Feral Lunge, at the same time spamming bow attacks as energy permits. If I have the energy for it, I'll hit Tiger's Fury again immediately after using my pet attacks, that way the disabling caused by Tiger's Fury has worn off well before my beast skills could be used anyway. It's all about the timing - you only disable your other skills when you don't need them or can't use them. Once you get further into the fight, a simple spamming of ferocious strike and bow attacks works fairly well, you keep a constant supply of energy and deal increased damage from both you and your pet.