Curse

sister morphyne · Nov 29, 2006, 12:04 PM // 12:04

Occasionally I give in to my delusions and today is one of those days. The particular delusion that I refer to is the one where I believe that ANet reads these forum and actually gives a @#$* about what the paying customers would like to see (and as a member of a household with 3 Tyrian accounts, 2 factions accounts and 1 Nightfall account + several character slots, yes, I am a paying customer.)

I am not going to ask that aged, creaky old request for a simple “stay” command for pets, after witnessing literally hundreds of pleas from the BMs for well over a year I realize that this is definitely on the ANet “We don’t give a stuff” list.

Moving on.

The question that I wish to address today is why, apart from that totally useless, time wasting, DP robbing piece of cosmetic twaddle called “brutal mauling”, are there no adrenalin based skills for pets?

Surely, if one were to consider this question from the point of view of internal consistency and credibility, clearly an animal would generate more adrenalin than a human?? Even if one takes a mesmer which is probably the last choice for a warrior, and puts a sword in his/her hand adrenalin is generated?

So why not pets?

I even have a few suggestions for adrenalin based attacks…

How about;

Festering fang.
6 adrenaline
Pet Attack. Your animal companion attempts an attack that causes disease on the target foe for 5 – 21 seconds.

Critical puncture
6 adrenaline
Pet Attack. Your animal companion attempts an attack that causes bleeding on the target foe for 5 – 21 seconds.

Goad
15 energy, 3 secs preparation, 30 secs recharge
Pet Preparation. For 5-15 seconds, your pet attacks at 33% faster and all other pet attacks are disabled. 50% chance of attacking own party member with BM of 9 or less.

Winding spring
6 adrenalin
Pet attack. Your animal companion attempts an attack that knocks target down and foe loses 4-8 energy.

Aggravated assault
6 adrenaline
Pet Attack. Your animal companion attempts an Aggravated assault that deals 5-45 damage.

And now for something completely different….

Ambuscade - Beast Mastery
25 energy, 3 preparation, 20 recharge
Trap. Pet lies in wait unseen. When ambuscade is triggered, all nearby foes take 20-80 damage, become dazed for 5-19 seconds. Trap ends after 90 seconds. While activating this skill, you are easily interrupted.

Don't be too critical of the fruit of my humble cogitations guys, but think about it, wouldn't it be nice....

anshin · Nov 29, 2006, 03:22 PM // 15:22

i agree with you on the adrenalin issue...

what i don't agree with is your attacks...

disease for 21 seconds???? for 6 adrenalin??

that would be nice...possible? no...

second one... dazed for 19 seconds???

dude... i am noob because i don't know anything... but i think that even i know dazed is too good to be putted on a skill for 19 seconds!!...

attention...i am not calling you a noob... because after all you did come up with this... and i would never come up with such things...

another thing... the adrenalin would be gained by me or my pet?

Sir Mad · Nov 29, 2006, 03:36 PM // 15:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by anshin

second one... dazed for 19 seconds???

dude... i am noob because i don't know anything... but i think that even i know dazed is too good to be putted on a skill for 19 seconds!!...

BHA and concussion shot can daze for up to 21 secs. However, the extra AoE damage suggested for the skill you're refering to is insane.

I'm personally ok with the current pet attacks. I'd rather have a better pet AI (good news btw, Gaile mentioned it last time

).

Mad5cout · Nov 29, 2006, 03:59 PM // 15:59

I concur with the spirit of your post. I believe pets to this point have remained mainly cosmetic. This is unfortunate because this was probably one of the coolest game concept additions from games like Diablo 2. I very much looked forward to this game concept and was severely disappointed when I realized how overlooked it had been.

The thing that probably pissed me off the most was when I got my BM to Dragon's Lair and it took ANet over a year to make it so my pet would actually come through portals with me. This seems just ridiculous to me.

In regards to the OP, I think adrenaline makes sense but also think that the skills would obviously need to be balanced. I also still think it would be nice to have a pet stats window that would show its HP, base damage and AR, etc.

Also, wouldn't it be nice to control your pet with a flag or set a aggro level just like the heroes? Wouldn't it be nice to have "upgrades" for the pets. I can buy my dog a little sweater for Christmas if I want. Why can't I buy my Stalker some friggin armor? I tamed it didn't I?

This seems it would be a rather simple transfer of game code from the heroes to the pets... They simply choose not to.

Why don't the pet tamers PAY you for the pet you give them? You went through A LOT of trouble charming it and training it and it merits money when you sell it away. Price would vary on level, rarity of animal type, etc. Heck you could have a "Pet Trader", where people buy and sell pets and pet items and expand the economy of the game in this way.

There are so many thing that would make the pets a more interesting and worthwhile part of the game. Right now the only thing they are actively used for is creating corpses for an MM. Too bad such an AWESOME game concept has been left unattended and made this aspect disappointing if not LAME.

anshin · Nov 29, 2006, 04:51 PM // 16:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sir Mad

BHA and concussion shot can daze for up to 21 secs.

don't know what BHA is and... concussion shot costs 25energy...

don't compare...

Earth · Nov 29, 2006, 05:03 PM // 17:03

You do realize that, with expertise Concussion Shots energy cost goes dramatically lower, right?

anshin · Nov 29, 2006, 05:51 PM // 17:51

dramatically?

lol... no.... with expertise 13 it probably sticks at 15 energy a shot...

so... it doesn't drop dramatically... and i rather have 2 interrupts whose whole cost is lower than 10 energy than just one interrupt whose cost surpasses 10 energy...

Epinephrine · Nov 29, 2006, 06:00 PM // 18:00

Pets are good as is. Your skills are ludicrously overpowered.

Things that could be nice to see Re: pets -

A way for non rangers to run beastmaster more effectively; perhaps a "Handler's Stance" or something, reducing the cost of beastmastery skills by 5..35% (0..15).

Pet controls, even if it's just a flag and aggression level.

Ability to have pet storage (at least 3) for your character. There are times when I want a Hearty pet, other times when I want a Dire. It's pretty sad that I have to choose my evolution and stick with it. After all, I can change my character from a fully offensive spiker or Enraged Lunge beastmaster to a tanking wonder with healing skills, able to hold aggro for a party - but my pet is stuck on Dire or Hearty (or Elder, if you decide to compromise).

As for adrenaline skills for pets, I would be 100% against the pets getting their own pool of adrenaline from which they use skills. Brutal Mauling is already like that. I don't feel that a pet should be much stronger than it currently is, they're already very useful, and giving free skills for them is way too much. If a few adrenaline skills were used that drew on the player's adrenaline pool it could be interesting, especially since Ferocious Strike builds adrenaline, and R/W, R/P and W/R, P/R are perfectly reasonable combinations. There can't be many, and they should be weaker than energy based attacks - after all, a pure ranger doesn't need adrenaline for anything, so it's like getting free skill activations - they MUST be weaker then energy skills, but perhaps they could be used to amplfiy effects of other pet skills. Maybe if they use all adrenaline, like Hammer Bash does it would be reasonable to have a bigger effect, since it does reduce the effectivenesso of the player (in theory). Or it could have an adrenaline draining effect by being of small effect but frequently used, e.e

Howl of Rage (shout) (2A) Your pet's next attack strikes for +4..12 damage. By costing an adrenaline off all your other skills that frequently it is troublesome to use with too many adrenaline skills, but adds a decent amount of damage over time for no energy cost, you get a free 3 DPS or so, at the cost of the ability to use too many adrenaline skills.

SnipiousMax · Nov 29, 2006, 06:36 PM // 18:36

Give me fetch, sit and heel, and I think pets would be fine! (ie... flagging and aggression level)

AuraofMana · Nov 29, 2006, 09:05 PM // 21:05

Quote:

Surely, if one were to consider this question from the point of view of internal consistency and credibility, clearly an animal would generate more adrenalin than a human?? Even if one takes a mesmer which is probably the last choice for a warrior, and puts a sword in his/her hand adrenalin is generated?

Quote:

The question that I wish to address today is why, apart from that totally useless, time wasting, DP robbing piece of cosmetic twaddle called “brutal mauling”, are there no adrenalin based skills for pets?

Except the fact that your pet generates adrenaline for itself and using YOUR adrenaline to use a pet attack makes no sense at all.

Unless, of course, you meant that the pet gains adrenaline while the skill is on you. If Anet does impliment something like this, most Rangers would cry because they rather have an easy energy skill deducted by Expertise than having to wait for their pets to hit 20 times to get a skill fired up.

sister morphyne · Nov 30, 2006, 09:07 AM // 09:07

Quote: