what's the point?

Hey. I'm sorta new to the Thumper and was wondering y they use pets. Couldn't you use the tactics skill of the warrior with the hammer and expertise and have a tank with around the same dmg output with all the kd? I'm a good warrior a good ranger and play everything well but I never understood y thumpers used pets. Is the hamer atk speed to slow that we need pets to make up for it? If so y not use warrior atk speed buffs? I'd like some1 to explain y thumpers use pets plz. I'd appreciate it.

Well, first of all Expertise is a primary only for Rangers. So you need to be a ranger to use Expertise, lowering the energy cost of all your skills. Also one advantage of RaO is that it gives 33% faster attack, which is better than Tiger's Fury's 25% faster attack. Not only that, it also gives 25% faster attack. This makes it hard for opponents to run away from you. Also having a pet gives more DPS with the pet constantly attacking the opponent you're attacking. Most of the Warrior IAS has drawbacks to it. For example, Frenzy has double the damage back to you, Flurry has 25% less damage, and Flail has 25% slower. Rampage as One gives IAS, speed boost, and also an extra damage from the pet.

The ranger uses expertise to spam IAS stances and keep the knockdowns coming with their trusty hammer.

Warrior IAS stances typically come with a drawback, as noted above.

The best Ranger IAS when Thumpers got started was Tiger's Fury, which is a Beast Mastery skill. You needed a decent investment in BM to get any duration out of the skill. Pumping BM also increases the damage done by your pet.

So since you have to have the points in BM already for your IAS, why not bring the pet along for extra damage? It only makes sense, since the pet requires no energy, and will put out DPS on its own, at the cost of a skill slot that you can't use in combat. There is also the option of using pet attacks to cause additional knockdowns or conditions.

RaO just takes it to another level, buffing not only your damage but your pet's as well. Of course it also requires your pet to be alive for you to use it, which means you HAVE to bring Fluffy along if you want to run an RaO build. Unsure how viable RaO will really be if the test updates go live as they were this weekend, though.

Ahh I c. Well 1 thing I noticed while playing my thumper was the lack of a self heal. Could some1 tell me a nice self heal I could use in combo with RaO? Standard build usually has 3 hammer skills res sig, charm animal, RaO. Sure the stances work but ele gets past it easy. Could u use predatory bond? ( animal attacks by ur pet heal u ). And comfort animal so RaO works. So when u look at it the thumper has hardly any ability to survive I think, then again idk the thumper like I know the other classes. Kd I suppose is what has been stopping some1 from killing u, but I don't like the idea of something like dolyak sig or a stance used while irresistable blow/kd skill is being recharged. Any good ideas for a self heal while using a RaO thumper and still putting out a decent DPS?

None. Trust your monks

^^ Agree with above. With the point spread necessary to effectively run the build, you simply can't run any kind of healing (very well). A defensive stance linked to expertise like WD is your best bet to avoid taking damage in the first place.

^ You barely have room for WD unless you play in AB/FA and don't need a rez sig. Hard to drop one of the hammer attacks...

By the way, Sin, here is the standard RaO build (from before the temporary update): http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Build:R...paging_Thumper. As suggested by Vexed and Zeph-, self-healing is not the thumpers job. To do this you would have to drop at least one attack and replace it either by a defensive stance or by the 2 self-heals available: Troll (off-attribute, and very long casting time) or Heal Sig (off-attribute, bad draw-back, very dangerous for a ranger with 70AL). But the point of using a ranger over a warrior is because despite their low AL compared to warriors they have a higher DPS; lowering their DPS is going against the concept of the build. Of course if you wanna have fun with a hammer in PvE and feel you need self-defense, go for it. But it strongly discourage that in pvP.

[wiki]Predatory Bond[/wiki] could provide healing and is linked to Beastmastery. It's not too reliable - a blinded pet misses it's attacks - and the heal is slightly less then Trolls (approx 220 HP over 15 seconds, every 30 seconds)

Now they've nerfed Rampage as One so moronically theres no use in a Thumper anymore. A thumpers problem was always the lack of move speed. Tigers Fury solves the other problem, but then everything just runs away laughing like it use to.

Apart from AB where you could use Run as One with Tigers Fury and Ferocious Strike... it aint gonna work.