Curse

infamous16 · Apr 08, 2008, 08:52 PM // 20:52

Why use a spear instead of a bow? That is confusing.

otherwise, thanks for all of your help!

Pyro maniac · Apr 08, 2008, 09:02 PM // 21:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by infamous16

Why use a spear instead of a bow? That is confusing.

otherwise, thanks for all of your help!

spear is better in auto-attacking. Bow is better in savage + d-shot. With a beast master you're going for damage so a spear seems better.
You could use a bow tho if you like the interrupts.

Cebe · Apr 08, 2008, 09:33 PM // 21:33

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Originally Posted by SnipiousMax

Tiger's Fury disables all non-attack skills and add's fuel to Enraged Lunge...

I figured that out tonight. I am ashamed to say I'd not used that skill before tonight. Wow. I love it, and with Enraged Lunge, it's beautiful.

Tyla · Apr 08, 2008, 10:09 PM // 22:09

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Originally Posted by Orange Milk

Though Tigers has a 10 sec recharge to Enraged 5 sec, and the disable is only 5 sec so your then looking at being able to use enraged at full bonus 1 time ever 10 secs, with CoH and CoP you can pop off a full bonus attack on the recharge of Enraged.

But atleast it makes use of Comfort and Charm.

Add barbed Spear and Posion bite in there and a Rez and a self heal and your all set I guess

Enraged is an attack skill. Pet attack to be precise. So it won't get disabled.

SnipiousMax · Apr 09, 2008, 01:23 AM // 01:23

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Originally Posted by tyla salanari

Enraged is an attack skill. Pet attack to be precise. So it won't get disabled.

You misunderstood him.

Tiger's Fury disables skills for 5 seconds and recharges only every 10, Enraged Lunge recharges every 5 seconds. He was saying you could only use it once in that five seconds. Which is technically true, but due to the fact that pet skills aren't instant use (they are cached) it really works out much better than you'd expect. And even in those instances where you only have Tiger's fury recharging, you'll still get a 2x multiplier. Tiger's Fury is nice because it adds a near constant Speed buff, and that can add up to some significant damage.

Orange Milk · Apr 11, 2008, 03:02 PM // 15:02

Yeah what he said. CoH and CoP are automatically disabled for an extended period of due to their own recharge times where as Charm and Comfort on only down for 5 secs a pop every 10 secs

So you go TF> Enraged *5secs recharge on enraged* boom charm and comfort are no longer recharging *wait 5 secs more for a TF recharge* TF > Enraged. So your cutting it really close to get off more than one FULL power Enraged every 10 secs You can still hit enraged every 5 secs, just not at full power.

Prolly poorly explained, I'm hung over.

Chthon · Apr 11, 2008, 03:48 PM // 15:48

1. For general purpose PvE, splinter/barrage is the dominant build. The core of the build is really just 2 skills, so you've got some freedom here. Toss a couple of interrupts on. Maybe needling shot. You've got room for a pet, but that's not really the best use of space.

2. For big, ugly caster bosses (read: EotN dungeons), broadhead arrow + splinter/volley. Most PvE foes don't really need dazed, or at least not so badly that concussion shot isn't up to the task, so there's no point in changing to volley (which really is quite a bit weaker than barrage) to free up your elite. But, when you know you'll be facing a foe that absolutely cannot be permitted to get a spell off, it's time to pull out broadhead.

3. Pets... I love pets. I really do. I've got a rainbow phoenix. I brush his feathers all the time. And if the game mechanics allowed it I'd sell phoenix rides to small children for 10g a pop. But I have to admit that they suck in GW.
The only time where a pet is anywhere close to being an optimal choice in PvE is on a barrage/pet team. Other than that, if you're bringing a pet, it's always because you're choosing the fun and happiness and unconditional love that a pet gives you over a more effective build.

4. Enraged Lunge is not "meh." Nor is it only "pretty decent." It is without question the best beast mastery elite, and best beast mastery skill, available.

5. I've never seen a beastmaster run spear attack skills and end up better off for it. A pure beastmaster dedicating those slots to improving pet damage always ends up with better DPS. Of course you should still have 9 weapon mastery so that you can auto-attack. But the spear attacks don't really measure up to the brutal strike or call of haste/feral aggression or other pet skill that they'll be replacing.

SnipiousMax · Apr 11, 2008, 04:07 PM // 16:07

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Originally Posted by Chthon

5. I've never seen a beastmaster run spear attack skills and end up better off for it.

Then why do they run Pack hunters in TA instead of straight Beastmasters? You do not need 8 pet skills on your bar to make your pet effective, and spear damage is one of the more unbalanced elements of the game.

Chthon · Apr 11, 2008, 08:53 PM // 20:53

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Originally Posted by SnipiousMax

Then why do they run Pack hunters in TA instead of straight Beastmasters?

Because they are bad players. It is TA after all...

Tyla · Apr 11, 2008, 09:01 PM // 21:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by SnipiousMax

Then why do they run Pack hunters in TA instead of straight Beastmasters? You do not need 8 pet skills on your bar to make your pet effective, and spear damage is one of the more imbalanced elements of the game.

Fix'd.

@Chthon -- HaO Spears are actually quite strong. Condition pressure at range with the second most imba weapon in the game (I personally think it's the Scythe.), increases your survivability, aswell as things like Lightning Reflexes, which not only gives you 33% upkeep block stance, but an IAS aswell.

Pure beastmaster builds are poor and too flooded up, because you can't micro it well, regardless of skill level.

With the HaO spear, you also gain more versatility at ease. You get an easily applied snare.

SnipiousMax · Apr 11, 2008, 09:50 PM // 21:50

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Originally Posted by Chthon

Because they are bad players. It is TA after all...

: rolleyes :

They're a gimmick build, but they're frustrating to play against. Point is, if you see a pet in PvP, it's never the focus of the build.

In PvE you are wasting an ENORMOUS amount of energy hinging your effectiveness in its entirety on the cooperation of the Game's AI. There is always a lag when you use any pet attack skill, as they are cached and not insta-cast (like weapon skills are). This means that conditions, interrupts and the like are less precise than weapon counterparts. It is also rather difficult to switch targets with your pet, and the pet 'controls' leave alot to be desired.

Spears are the fastest attacking, most damaging ranged attack in GWs. Under a constant speed buff (like Tiger's Fury, or RaO, NRA) you are pumping out alot of damage just autoattacking. One or two spear attacks just rounds out your routine. I think you'd be hard pressed to find three pet skills that are worth more than a speed buff, and two attack skills.

Chthon · Apr 12, 2008, 04:19 AM // 04:19

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Originally Posted by SnipiousMax

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1. Where did you get this idea that I'm against auto-attacking with a spear? That's a great idea. What I'm against is adding spear skills in place of more useful pet skills.

2. Where did you get the idea that I'm advocating a beastmaster in PvE at all? With no AoE and no imba PvE-skills, they just can't compete with serious builds in PvE. The only reason to play a beastmaster in PvE is just for kicks.
And they're not very useful in PvP either. Except for the bunny thumper (which is only as good as its disruption ability), pets have no useful place outside of RA/TA.

3. Now, as for RA/TA, I do take my PvE ranger to RA as a beastmaster for kicks sometimes, and I often end up in TA with it once I get a winning streak going. (And, btw, I do run into pack hunters, and I routinely eat them from breakfast.)
And, yes, the BM skills are more useful than any of the spear attacks at 9 mastery. Let's break down your bar one skill at a time to show why that is:

first you need a rez. 1 skill slot used.
Now you need comfort and charm just to have the pet around. 3 skill slots used.
Enraged lunge. If you're not bringing this, no reason to even bother with a pet. 4 skill slots used.
Brutal Strike. That's +70ish armor-ignoring damage on a quick recharge. Do any of the spear skills come close to that? No. Brutal strike gets the space. 5 skill slots used.
Now we need some slow recharge skills to proc enraged lunge. And we're going to need 3 of them.
"What about bestial fury?" you ask. Can't you just use that to disable charm and comfort? Nope. It's only active half-time. You lose too much DPS off of enraged that way.
How about counting brutal strike as a proc. Tried it. It recharges too fast to reliably keep enraged powered.
So there we go. You've got to use 3 more skills to proc enraged, and that brings our total to 8 used skills. No room for spear attacks.
- Just for the sake of being thorough, let's look through what you can bring for those 3 procs and see if they are each individually worth more than a spear attack:
  - Call of Protection. Very popular among pure beastmasters, but kinda pointless in PvP because no one targets your pet. I wouldn't venture in to PvE as a beastmaster without it though.
  - Predatory Bond. Lots of self-heal, if spread out over time. I've used this in RA/TA and I find it more useful than a block stance some 80% or 90% of the time.
  - Feral Aggression. Pet IAS, which is worth more than IAS on you because pet at 12+X is doing a lot more auto attack damage than you at 9 spear. And then it adds armor-ignoring bonus damage on top of that. Better than an IAS for you, or a spear attack.
  - Call of Haste. Pet IAS, and pet speed boost. Again, pet IAS is more useful than player DPS. Moreover, it makes the pet permanently un-kitable. Truth be told, I prefer this to Feral Aggression in RA/TA just because of all the extra hits I get on kiting foes.
  - Otuygu's Cry. Almost constant block ignoring. This went from being the worst skill in the game to one of the best skills in a poor line. Goes right through Guardian (and Shield of Deflection, and, other block stances, and, funniest of all, that silly frenzied defense you see on RA monks sometimes). Landing two 100+ damage hits consecutively on a monk who thought Guardian/SoD/whatever was going to protect him is worth a lot more than anything you'll get from a non-elite spear attack.
  - There's more, but that's most of the popular/good options and we've already got 4 BM skills that are worth more than a spear attack, so we can stop there.

[Much belated edit: Now that I think about it, maybe beastmasters could make use of the imba PvE-only skills. I think I need to go play around with ferocious strike powering SY to see if you can make a sort of remote dragon slasher. Hmmm....]

StormDragonZ · Apr 12, 2008, 04:28 AM // 04:28

[skill]Prepared Shot[/skill] and [skill]Expert Focus[/skill] with [skill]Crossfire[/skill].

This is my favorite minor combination. It's good for testing and a leadway for whatever skills you'd like to add.

SnipiousMax · Apr 12, 2008, 11:06 PM // 23:06

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Originally Posted by Chthon

snip

Yea, I went back and read your first post, so I concede point #1.

You've pointed out a number of great skills, but I'd make a few more points.

1.) Charm Animal, Comfrot animal, Rez sig and Enraged Lunge. Sticking with those skils, it leaves us with four skills to play with. Without Tiger's Fury (I'll get to that in a sec) You need 3 more BM skills recharging to get the most out of Enraged (assuming around 13-14 in BM). Since attack skills are hard to sync with Enraged, that means were gonna have to depend on long recharging "Call" skills. So we now have one active skill on a bar of 8 skills. We autoattack, and punch one button for the duration of the match. If the match changes, you can't adapt, you have to stick to your one trick the entire match.

2.) You have no way of applying deep wound. Yes you are giving quite a shot every 5 or so seconds (assuming that the target is standing perfectly still) but without a deep wound, you aren't doing anything to affect the effectiveness of their healing.

3.) Otugyu's Cry is a great skill, but unfortunately it doesn't do anything for aggressive anti-melee. Since your pet can't make decisions about when/when not to attack it is especially vunerable to things like blind and hex-based anti melee.

4.) Having an attack skill that you can use at the same time Enraged is landing gives the opportunity for a nasty spike.

5.) Yes the recharge of Tiger's Fury has been brought up before. But despite this, it works really well. As long as you mind when things are recharging, you can still get a steady and constant full enraged strike, while freeing yourself additional burdening skills.

6.) Despite IAS and Speed boosts on pets, Kiting will screw up a pet's attack times, Pet attack skills don't trigger immediately, and a savvy kiter can easily disrupt your timing.

I'll grant you that there are any number of useful pet skills....But I'm not ready to give up on the utility and adaptability over a bar with one or two active skills.

Marverick · Apr 13, 2008, 02:58 PM // 14:58

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Originally Posted by Chthon

Brutal Strike. That's +70ish armor-ignoring damage on a quick recharge. Do any of the spear skills come close to that? No. Brutal strike gets the space. 5 skill slots used.

[skill]Merciless Spear[/skill]
+100 armor-ignoring damage on the same condition as Brutal Strike. 20% less healing too.
[skill]Merciless Spear[/skill] -> [skill]Enraged Lunge[/skill] will kill anything below 50% health, and since one is a spear attack and one is a pet attack, you can land both in a much shorter interval than two pet attacks (Brutal Strike, Enraged Lunge).

arrowpainmaster · Apr 13, 2008, 03:21 PM // 15:21

Hmmm Look up splinter barrage for the mass AoE in missions/mobs

Voodoo Rage · Apr 13, 2008, 04:17 PM // 16:17

I used to equip a pet just for fun on just about any build. It was only later that I was realizing that for some reason all of my skills would suddenly decide to recharge for 5 seconds in the middle of a fight. I finally figured out that that's what happens when my pet dies. Not good, especially if you have a very skill intensive build.

I've been running around PvE with a modified bunny thumper build and it's really been a blast.

Marverick · Apr 13, 2008, 07:07 PM // 19:07

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Originally Posted by arrowpainmaster

Hmmm Look up splinter barrage for the mass AoE in missions/mobs

/sigh......

First of all, never put Splinter Weapon on a Ranger primary. A Rit/x can get much higher mileage out of it, and even an N/Rt or E/Rt will have the energy to spread it on multiple party members rather than just one (yourself).

Secondly... Volley > Barrage in almost every place in GW. You will RARELY find more than 4 guys in one clump.... now, yes there are exceptions like Vloxen Excavations, where 4-5 Barragers with GDW, EBSoH, and OoP just tear Stone Summit mobs apart. But, for everywhere else, you will find that BHA or BA or another elite will serve much better and that Volley is just as good as Barrage.

Chthon · Apr 14, 2008, 02:02 AM // 02:02

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Originally Posted by SnipiousMax

Yea, I went back and read your first post, so I concede point #1.

thanks.

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1.) Charm Animal, Comfrot animal, Rez sig and Enraged Lunge. Sticking with those skils, it leaves us with four skills to play with. Without Tiger's Fury (I'll get to that in a sec) You need 3 more BM skills recharging to get the most out of Enraged (assuming around 13-14 in BM). Since attack skills are hard to sync with Enraged, that means were gonna have to depend on long recharging "Call" skills. So we now have one active skill on a bar of 8 skills. We autoattack, and punch one button for the duration of the match. If the match changes, you can't adapt, you have to stick to your one trick the entire match.

Well, 2 skills with brutal strike, but yeah, it's a one-trick pony. Fortunately, it's a pretty good trick.

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2.) You have no way of applying deep wound. Yes you are giving quite a shot every 5 or so seconds (assuming that the target is standing perfectly still) but without a deep wound, you aren't doing anything to affect the effectiveness of their healing.

1. Doesn't matter if the target is holding still. Call of Haste pretty much ensures the pet attacks hit.

2. Deep wound is nice, but you have to weigh that against the high DPS of brutal strike (and decent DPS while the target is above 50%). I don't really think it's worth it, but just for the sake of being open, I'll go try out [merciless spear] in place of [brutal strike] like Marverick suggests and concentrate on paying attention to the effects of the change.

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3.) Otugyu's Cry is a great skill, but unfortunately it doesn't do anything for aggressive anti-melee. Since your pet can't make decisions about when/when not to attack it is especially vunerable to things like blind and hex-based anti melee.

1. Passive anti-melee is the largest threat to victory in the low-end PvP that beastmasters are suited for. It's the monk hiding behind guardian that you must kill or lose the match; and OCry kills him.

2. For some reason most players are just too dumb to apply active anti-melee to the pet. Inevitably, I draw the first blind/hex, then I stop attacking and lock the pet's target, and the pet kills them before their shutdown recharges. Heck, most of the time, even when they get rezzed, they go right back to putting the anti-melee on the master instead of the beast.

3. You can direct the pet to stop attacking if it draws something truly awful like SS on it in the middle of your teammates. However, most of the time you can just let the pet attack right through hexes, since you can out-damage the heal on IP, and you lose nothing but some near-meaningless pet DP if the pet dies.

4. While it's true that a pure beastmaster can't remove blind/miss hexes from the pet, neither can a spear attack or two. And it's not like a spear attack at low mastery is going to be enough to force a kill without the pet's help any better than a pure beastmaster with a blind pet.

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4.) Having an attack skill that you can use at the same time Enraged is landing gives the opportunity for a nasty spike.

This is a good point.

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5.) Yes the recharge of Tiger's Fury has been brought up before. But despite this, it works really well. As long as you mind when things are recharging, you can still get a steady and constant full enraged strike, while freeing yourself additional burdening skills.

No, you really can't. The disable is 5 out of every 10 sec. The recharge on enraged is 5 sec. You will miss half of your enraged. There's no way around it.

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6.) Despite IAS and Speed boosts on pets, Kiting will screw up a pet's attack times, Pet attack skills don't trigger immediately, and a savvy kiter can easily disrupt your timing.

Savvy kiting doesn't help a bit against call of haste. Also, you seem to misunderstand how pet attacks work. When activated they are applied to the pet, and then the next attack that the pet begins will be the pet attack. Kiting will only work if (1) they can stay out of range long enough that the pet attack skill wears off before the pet even attempts another attack, or (2) you're dumb enough to overwrite it with another pet attack because you're not watching the pet's bar. (1) is very hard to do given the short duration of most player speed buffs, and (2) is easy to avoid by not being stupid.

SnipiousMax · Apr 14, 2008, 05:58 AM // 05:58

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Originally Posted by Chthon

snip

Okay, Call of Haste will ensure that your pet is keeping up with your target. But surely you've noticed how your pet can sometimes get stuck on a corner, or on other members of the kiter's team.... Granted I'll give you that most RA monks do not know how to kite and that it is certainly less effective when the melee monster has a speed buff, but it is possible to render your pet less effective even with a constant speed buff by using the environment. And it is a pain switching targets when your pet has been body blocked. Again I'm describing a level of coordination that isn't normally found in RA, but a speed buff is hardly infallible. There isn't a very large window of opportunity, so anything the kiter does to throw off your pet will most likely be entirely accidental, but it does happen often enough.

I understand perfectly how pet attacks work, and I also understand how that can be exploited. Because the attack isn't instant, getting caught on a corner, the target shadow stepping away (think Return), cripple, knockdowns, etc can all impact when or if the skill actually lands. This can be the difference in a fraction of a second, or it can mean that enraged recharges before the first actually lands.

Your scenario trashes Guardian (and similar skills), but even a poor monk can keep up with enraged DPS. Now you'd be right in saying that the Ranger could keep it up longer than the monk can, but spikes will kill monks faster than sustained DPS

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For some reason most players are just too dumb to apply active anti-melee to the pet.

This is, unfortunately, a good point. Not unfortunate that you brought it up, but that the state of the game leads lack of skill on one side to increase the viability of certain builds.

But then it should also be brought up that your own team is less likely to remove hexes and conditions from your pet than they are you.

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No, you really can't. The disable is 5 out of every 10 sec. The recharge on enraged is 5 sec. You will miss half of your enraged. There's no way around it.

So you don't think I'm stupid, let me explain my reasoning. Tiger's Fury changes the nature of Enraged Lunge, as you can no longer use it every five seconds. Instead you use Enraged Lunge during a spike. The combination of your spear damage and the pet's damage is pressure until your team is ready for the spike. (In the event you are playing RA, I guess you just spike whenever YOU'RE ready.) You begin your spike by using Tiger's Fury, then attack with Enraged and Merciless spear at the same time. You can easily follow with Disrupting throw which will interrupt whatever after-spike heal your target attempts (deep wound acts as the condition.) Can you pull that off every Five seconds? No, you cannot. But having the ability to combine Enraged, Deep Wound and an interrupt potentially every 10-15 seconds is every bit as devestating. You spike is only limited by how quickly you recharge Merciless Spear (six strikes).

You are definately right in saying (and since I've tried it earlier) that a pet with a constant speed buff and completely unblockable is very difficult for an inexperienced or ill-prepared monk to handle, but I think the build falls apart when faced with a coordinated team or a monk that is both prepared and experienced.

On an unrelated note, I really like the idea of using Ferocious Strike with Save Yourselves.