Curse

LifeInfusion · Jun 24, 2007, 11:46 PM // 23:46

Introduction
How can you make a pet useful on a Paragon was the dilemma...Ferocious Strike seemed nice. Then I looked at Leader's Comfort. 2 second cast is pretty bad.

Utility edition

Paragon/Ranger
Level: 20

Leadership: 12 (10+2)
Spear Mastery: 9 (8+1)
Beast Mastery: 12

- "There's Nothing to Fear!" (Sunspear Skill)
- Merciless Spear (Spear Mastery) <-- deep wound
- Wild Throw (Spear Mastery) <-- stance breaker
- Enduring Harmony (Leadership) <-- 100% Uptime on Otyugh's Cry
- Otyugh's Cry (Beast Mastery) <-- +24 armor for pet, cannot be blocked
- Charm Animal (Beast Mastery) <-- pet
- Heal as One [Elite] (Beast Mastery) <-- better heal than Leader's Comfort
- Signet of Return (Leadership) <-- res

Considerations
- Poisonous Bite (Beast Mastery) <-- instead of enduring Harmony, swapping in Call of Haste (Beast Mastery) <-- instead of Otyugh's Cry giving more DPS from the pet

Thrown out
- Predator's Pounce (Beast Mastery) <-- 5 energy every 5 seconds on 2 pips of regen...with no utility
- Disrupting Lunge (Beast Mastery) <-- hard to use without Call of Haste
- Maiming Strike (Beast Mastery) <-- 10 energy cost
- Predatory Bond (Beast Mastery) <-- instead of Otyugh's Cry (both are shouts) why bother with such a conditional heal
- Blazing Spear (Spear Mastery) <-- too low Spear Mastery and you need 12 Leadership for 10 second "There's Nothing to Fear!"
- Disrupting Throw (Spear Mastery) <-- Disrupting Lunge totally kills it in terms of effectiveness

Less energy Intensive Variant using GftE as fuel:

Paragon/Ranger
Level: 20

Leadership: 12 (10+2)
Spear Mastery: 9 (8+1)
Command: 7 (6+1)
Beast Mastery: 11

- "There's Nothing to Fear!" (Sunspear Skill)
- "Go For The Eyes!" (Command) <-- fuel when at 0 energy
- "They're on Fire!" (Leadership)
- Burning Refrain (Leadership) <-- cast on pet
- Call of Haste (Beast Mastery) <-- make the pet burn the target
- Heal as One [Elite] (Beast Mastery)
- Charm Animal (Beast Mastery)
- Signet of Return (Leadership)

Khomet Si Netjer · Jun 29, 2007, 02:55 PM // 14:55

I had a similar idea to yours, Heal As One is really nice and works even when you are alone. After the new sunspear skills came out I couldn't help but wonder how Never Rampage Alone would work with this concept... Rampage As One is nice but 25e every 10s is not manageable for anyone other than rangers with high Expertise. And it's elite, so no Heal As One or Ferocious Strike. The sunspear skill Never Rampage Alone also costs 25e and gives +25% attack speed and +3 health regen to you and your pet (at SS rank 8), but it lasts for 23s. I found that this was easily managed with proper planning. Check out this build:

P/R Beastmaster
Beast Mastery 11
Leadership 10 (9+1)
Spear Mastery 12 (9+2+1)
Command 9 (8+1)

[card]Merciless Spear[/card][card]Blazing Spear[/card][card]"Go For The Eyes!"[/card][card]Natural Temper[/card][card]Never Rampage Alone[/card][card]Otyugh's Cry[/card][card]Heal As One[/card][card]Charm Animal[/card]

notes: no rez, though you can probably lose Natural Temper or one of the spear attacks and carry Signet of Return if you want. Activate NRA and Otyugh's Cry as soon as you enter battle, this will cost 30e and leave you pretty low, but with your IAS you can charge adrenaline for GFTE pretty quickly; this gives you energy and increased DPS for you and your pet. Use Natural Temper to build adrenaline even faster. Otyugh's Cry protects your pet and allows you to get through Guardian, Aegis, Weapon of Warding, etc. to apply pressure to the enemy. Great DPS for this build, even better than R/W bunny thumper I think... you are always attacking faster than normal (and so is your pet), and you have the fast attack speed of a spear (vs. bow or hammer), you can deal with kiting/blocking enemies, you and your pet deal crit damage thanks to GFTE, and you even get +16AL from a shield so you're at 96 armor instead of 70.

counters: anything that prevents you from hitting will slow or stop your adrenaline gain, which will make you unable to maintain high DPS and your IAS skill. You may be blinded or hexed to miss but your pet can not miss with its attacks so use that to your advantage.