How much good to Pets do? (Ranger Pets)

05-18-2005, 10:31 PM

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So, old... apparently from before people realized that pets aren't all that great. Sure they have some good uses, but generally they're limited by the fact that you have to spend two extra slots, as well as others to keep your pet alive.

The worst is people who bring pets, but don't put any points into Beast Mastery. Seriously, it's just stupid, almost like bringing [wiki]Signet of Agony[/wiki] with no Blood Magic or condition removers.

I would like to use my pets more often and have run a beastmaster build a few times but its not easy to fit the build into normal pug playing.
They are imo invaluable in the early game stages when party size is small.


As for ressurecting a very old post sometimes a new player is between a rock and a hard place.

Make a new post about something that's been posted on before invites sarky comments from players along the lines of oh no not again it's all been said.
You also get moderator comments saying they should have done a search before posting.

On the other hand if they do the search and reopen an old post they also come in for critisism.

Well listen up, this game changes by the month and what was posted a year ago may no longer be true.
If someone wants to ask a genuine question have a little charity and answer rather than ignore.
Ignore rather than flame.

Not especially lecturing to the posters on this thread, its something that's been on my mind for a while.
We as a community are in danger of stifiling new ideas and views on the game by appearing unforgiving in our rules on posts.

Anyway it's how I feel, thanks for listening.

Since this thread has been ressurected .......

A lot of people bring a pet as just a "meat shield". Try running a dedicated BM build, where at least 3/4 of your bar is BM skills. You pet IS your primary weapon and you add some auxillary damage.

My guild has several players that have tried this and really like it. We have even formed parties of 3 or 4 BM's and had a lot of fun.

I always keep my crab out, greatest tank there is. But i run a lot of beastmaster skills, heal as one rarely leaves my bar.

On a sillier note i gave all my heroes crabs too, crab army!!, no need for warriors. You ll be suprised how much damage they do and take(and i dont have a lot of beastmaster points on my heroes)

mzzls

Pets can eat up damage. They have 80 AL and lots of HP. And they do not suffer DP in PvE.

They take up 2 slots at least, and when they die, you need high Beast Mastery or your bar is unusable for quite some time. The higher BM, the more HP they have when you resurrect them.

I usually run 13 Expertise, 12 BM, 12 Marksmanship when I use a pet. BM is like Weapon Mastery for your pet, a Dire pet does some damage on its own and soaks up damage. Due to the low 420 HP it also takes a lot of aggro away from the party. Hero/Hench Monks also heal pets, so they have their use.

Unfortunately the synergy with MMs is broken, they no longer leave corpses.
But Barbs/Mark of Pain and other Hexes can still benefit from having some more meatbags punching on the target.


In general I have moved away from pets. I prefer to add Lightning Reflexes and Whirling Defense for PvE, especially if we already have a corner-blocking warrior or SY spammer. Instead of pets I invest some 10 points in channeling magic for Splinter Weapon. If you have more rangers, adding splinter Weapon to a pet is a good idea unless you have Barrage/Volley or someone with Cyclone Axe yourself.

I'm only level 9 but I think having a pet is worth the two skill places used up but mainly, as said before, to take the attacks off you so that you can gain that important advantage over a group of enemies.

For Ranger primaries pets can be a powerful tool, if you know how and when to use them.

However for most all secondary rangers a pet is simply a liability.

Actually, I'm glad this post was re-opened because I was just doing a SEARCH for information about the usefulness of pets myself! Rather than start a new one, aren't we supposed to look for a thread that already is discussing a particular topic?

For my specific interest: aside from B/P, or bunny thumper builds, is a pet useful for - in my case - a Rit primary, for instance? My Rit has a lvl3 Tiger I got doing the beginner quests at Shing Jea, but never used. I only ever see Rt/R Splinter builds, but no Rt/R beast builds. (I know - not really viable, and why play with sub-par builds?) That said, I would like to level up my Tiger just to have it as a cool companion when I want! (It's no different from questing and spending tons of platinum on Obsidian Armor. Functionally, it makes no difference. So, why do it? Because it's cool!)

If anyone has a useful - doesn't have to be "game winning" - Rt/R build that utilizes pets, I'd be interested! (And I assume weapon spells work on pets, right? Haven't tested it yet.) PvE, please! And I have all 3 campaigns, but not EotN.

Thanks!

I run a rt/r with a pet. Wep spells can be cast on the pet as well as ancestors rage. Great Dwarf wep is a good one for the pet.
Make sure your pet is dire so that he attracts enemies and will be your tank, this will make the enemies surround your pet for ancestors and possibly splinter wep on it.

Try something like this:
Only put 10(overcomes weakness) max in bow and get a q9 bow, the rest in spawning/channeling with leftovers in beast

Volley
Spirt's Strength
Splinter Weapon
Ancestors Rage
Great Dwarf Weapon/Warmongers/Nightmare Wep
Charm Animal
Comfort Animal
Death Pact Signet/Distracting Shot/Poision Tip Signet/EoE

So true….in RA I seem like most to ignore the pet. The good beast keepers have you kiting in a couple seconds once you notice the health drain. It’s my own fault thinking I am against 4 targets instead of 5………. So I deserve to die if I do not show respect to the pet

I have run a Ranger primary as well as secondary through Prophesies Factions and into Nightfall.

My experience is mixed, while its useful to have a pet at times it does demand a huge commitment to the pet for it to function as a fighting beast rather than just a distraction in the fight.

First you need to put a lot of points into beast mastery this greatly limits the points you can put into other areas.
Once you commit points to expertise for energy management and bm your pretty lucky to have much left for Marksmanship.

Then there are the 8 skills you have 2 are already taken up with pet skills and you probably need 4 more to have decent pet atack defence and protection.

If you comonly take res as a skill that leaves 1 spare for other use.


The bottom line is use the pet as a distraction and remain more or less a fully functioning ranger with good useful skills or leave all the attacking to your pet.
The main problem with that is the inability to order the pet to attack an enemy without entering the agro circle and becoming a target yourself.
Unless thats been changed since I last ran my pet.

wow, poor thread got brought back from the grave twice.

R/P Spearchucker ftw! (with pet ofcourse)
With brutal Strike my pet can do upwards of 60dmg, and with poisonous can poison for 17secs, def useful.

Original question.... how much good do pets do?

simple answer - best use for a pet is as support DPS on a weapon-wielding ranger - thumper/packhunter etc. By themselves, pets suck far too hard to be any good.

When farming, I have 4 characters (all with Ra primary or secondary) and 4 pets (white tiger, polar bear, iguana, and flamingo).

You get the benefit of extra damage and meat shields without the pets claiming the loot.

Pets are an all for nothing thing for them to be useful. You have to either spend a ton of points for them to be good or only put your spare points in there just to take aggro off you. For them to be useful in combat you need to have the points to put into BM. Also you have to have two skills slots for Charm and Comfort animal or just Charm.

qft

if ur holding a staff...
then ur pretty much bein useless

in pve...
pets r nice to get an extra source to trigger daze from bha
or if theres a barbs/mop nec on ur team...another trigger for that
bodyblock/tanking purposes, etc

but really....a pet will never be as good as a human player
and it should be that way, rite?
so i wouldnt recommend creating a pure bm buid

For a Rit/Ranger the most you can hope for with your pet is to treat it like an extra spirit.

Bring a weapon spell or two and some spirits then your basically just healing the pet to keep all your skill from reseting.

You wont be dealing much damage, but it can be fun and the pet + spirits if they actually hit the same target at the same time can stack up a decent DPS.

Pets are pretty good if you know how to use the Beastmastery Skills very, very good.