Curse

fires Scape · Aug 11, 2005, 06:31 AM // 06:31

Spirits have an advantage. They affect ALL of the creatures in the area and this is not really an advantage unless one of the teams has more poeple that an another team. This brings me to Pet Builds...

As you know pets are very underrated. But they shouldn't be. The main idea of a pet build is to outnumber your opponents and take advantage of skills that help out multiple creatures. For example Fertile Season used in
a pet build, that build will have very high total health [880*amount of people+880*number of pets > 880*amount of people] Winnowing used in pet build gives quite a bit of extra damage [all the rangers*4+all pets*4 > the amount of physical attackers on the another team*4], Barbs will do even more additional damage [all the rangers*8+all pets*8 > the amount of physical attackers on the another team*8] but Barbs and Winnowing don't combine with GC so it should only be cast if the other team has a lot of warriors. And there is quite a few more. And there are very good pet attack skills that will do quite a bit of damage. I'm still exprimenting with this stuff These things combined all together = an ever better version of a spirit spammer build. So far I can't seem to find the weakness of a pet build. But I've only been in a petbuild 3 times.

The point of this post is to give people a heads up about pets, because now it's such pain to get beastmasters and to organize a team.

BTW if u got good pet build strategies post em here that would be greatly appreciated. And this is only one's person opinion, I might be wrong, plz post yours. But please don't say anything bad about pet builds until you've been in one.

JackOften · Aug 11, 2005, 07:17 AM // 07:17

Things that kill pet builds : Smiting and their independent targetting at times. Their aggro can just be drawn and used. And most of all the charm animal skillslot. Lots of other ways to exploit pets too (hi Edge).

Not like every other build doesn't have it too, but pets don't turn out to be that special and come with a long set of disadvantages, so meh.

jesh · Aug 11, 2005, 07:30 AM // 07:30

Smiting won't work better on a pet than a player. It's not like they're undead. A good pet build doesn't have just charm animal, either.. a few people with Otyugh's cry, Order of the Vampire, Call of Protection and Symbiotic Bond most should also have. One person should carry the skill that ressurects all animals. If you think you can just kill the pets and disable the players.. think again. That's 160 AL and -13 dmg for each pet. The other team will most likely be like, "Get the pets!" "... Wait, get the players!" "..." "......"
Along with spirits, it could get pretty crazy. It also seems like Order of the Vampire would shine with 8 pets. ^^

BurningPants · Aug 11, 2005, 02:34 PM // 14:34

Pets will probably get used more often when they implement a better way to control them, probably through command buttons or whatever. But I have seen your build work pretty nicely before in tombs. They mostly used winnowing, order of pain, order of vampire etc... One thing that I would add would probably be Mark of Pain instead of barbs seeing as how more adjacent dmg is possible. Add this on top of the damage that group was doing with their characters and their individual builds and youll get an interesting build.

BTW is there a max number of pets you can bring into PvP in tombs, Ive heard people say there was?

Arathorn5000 · Aug 11, 2005, 03:16 PM // 15:16

1 per person I'd imagine...

Bast · Aug 11, 2005, 09:46 PM // 21:46

Yeah, 8

Eonwe · Aug 11, 2005, 09:56 PM // 21:56

The current A.I. for pets is not reliable enough to create an entire build centered around them.

Entropius · Aug 12, 2005, 12:40 AM // 00:40

Smiting hurts pets badly because the nastiest smiting skills are point-blank area-of-effect damage-over-time skills: Zealot's Fire, Balthazar's Aura, and Symbol of Wrath.

Area of effect skills are more effective against large numbers of targets, which pet builds definitely have.

Point-blank area of effect skills are more effective against melee attackers, which pets are.

Damage over time point-blank area of effect skills are more effective against melee attackers that don't move around much, which pets also are.

Basically, Balthazar's Aura > Pets.

Eonwe · Aug 12, 2005, 01:30 AM // 01:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by BurningPants

They mostly used winnowing, order of pain, order of vampire etc...

Unfortunately orders do not work for pets, as far as I know

Tengoku No Yushosha · Aug 12, 2005, 01:54 AM // 01:54

Woo! Go pets and Beast Masters!!! Pwn, Own, Carve etc, those other builds!!! Woo!!!

Yukito Kunisaki · Aug 12, 2005, 02:11 AM // 02:11

I too think the pet build's biggest problem really isn't in the skills. You bring a pet to attack IN PLACE of yourself. Just cause a pet user doesn't bring many self skills doesn't make him weak, it makes the pets STRONG...

Pet skills BY FAR are the most efficient means of warrior style damage and conditions. They use pretty much no energy with good expertise, have fast recycle times, and blend together for cheesy effects. Call of Haste is a combined Frenzy and Sprint with NO DRAWBACKS?! Yeah, sure... bad skill.

However the pets themselves do NOT work 'as one' with their owners. Until Anet fixes the pets and gives them the responsiveness of henchies [hey they change targets the way they're supposed to], then pets will move up in usefulness.

blackbird71 · Aug 15, 2005, 04:44 PM // 16:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by fires Scape

Spirits have an advantage. They affect ALL of the creatures in the area and this is not really an advantage unless one of the teams has more poeple that an another team. This brings me to Pet Builds...

As you know pets are very underrated. But they shouldn't be. The main idea of a pet build is to outnumber your opponents and take advantage of skills that help out multiple creatures. For example Fertile Season used in
a pet build, that build will have very high total health [880*amount of people+880*number of pets > 880*amount of people] Winnowing used in pet build gives quite a bit of extra damage [all the rangers*4+all pets*4 > the amount of physical attackers on the another team*4], Barbs will do even more additional damage [all the rangers*8+all pets*8 > the amount of physical attackers on the another team*8] but Barbs and Winnowing don't combine with GC so it should only be cast if the other team has a lot of warriors. And there is quite a few more. And there are very good pet attack skills that will do quite a bit of damage. I'm still exprimenting with this stuff These things combined all together = an ever better version of a spirit spammer build. So far I can't seem to find the weakness of a pet build. But I've only been in a petbuild 3 times.

The point of this post is to give people a heads up about pets, because now it's such pain to get beastmasters and to organize a team.

BTW if u got good pet build strategies post em here that would be greatly appreciated. And this is only one's person opinion, I might be wrong, plz post yours. But please don't say anything bad about pet builds until you've been in one.

Very good point about spirits, the problem I had with spirits at first was the description, I understood "creature" to mean animals or monsters only, so I thought I'd basically be giving an advantage to my enemy since hardly anyone else uses pets. It took a while before I learned my error, but I mean, how often do you hear humans called "creatures"? Anyway, I just wonder how many others have this misunderstanding, and if there's any chance of those descriptions getting amended.

As for your request for strategies/builds, I use a combination of marksman and beast mastery, typically something like this:

Power attack
Tiger's Fury
Ferocious Strike(elite)
Feral Lunge (just because I like bleeding

)
Comfort Animal
Charm Animal

I'll usually fill in the last couple slots with another bow attack, maybe troll ungent, or a pet attack, depending on the group and mission. I love Ferocious Strike, because not only do you get +25 damage, but if you keep spamming it, you have an almost limitless supply of energy for your bow attacks. With an expertise of 9 (8+1 rune) the skill only costs 3 energy, making it very worthwhile. I also find Symbiotic Bond to be useful, especially if I can keep myself out of harms way, then the only damage I take is what comes from my pet. The weakness in this build is that if the pet dies, you've lost some of your major abilities, so Bond is great for keeping the pet alive that much longer.

Anyway, I shall have to try working in some spirits to this build. The only problem I have with spirits is the time they take to cast, it's fine when I'm by myself or with a couple of friends, but I find in most PUGs that people tend to move too fast for me to bother with the spirits. They see a monster, and they attack, not much thought given to pre-combat preparation.