Beastmastery suggestions.

I've compiled a list of suggestions and skill ideas for the beastmastery line which address several "weak" areas and flaws and intend to make the BM line more playable, both in PvE and PvP.

Section 1 - flaws and weaknesses.

1) Pets are rather sluggish in reaction speed and can take a long time to attack the same target as his master.
You can switch targets and still be waiting for your pet to assist well over 10 seconds later. Sometimes your pet will not attack at all, as happened to me on two occasions yesterday.

Example: Your team kills the enemy monk and then you move onto the next target but then an enemy player resurrects the monk.
You switch targets back to the monk but you can't interrupt him because your pet is busy barking at the hammer warrior who wants your skull smashed into tiny pieces.

Suggestion: Improve pet AI/reaction speed.

2) Although mentioned several times since release, rangers have yet to be rewarded with either a melee or ranged weapon with a beastmastery requirement, or indeed anything other than markmanship.

Example: Players cannot fully spec beastmastery and expertise or beastmastery and wilderness survival because they would be left with no weapon in hand.
We are then left with no choice but to be forced to reduce one of our chosen attributes in order to have a weapon with which to "order" our pets, unless taking a weapon which deals little to no base damage.

As a further example, take monks attributes. They can fully spec in any two combination of attributes for their main profession, yet they can have a staff whatever they choose.
Infact they can choose two staffs and a large selection of wands and offhands.

Suggestion: Give rangers at least one bow with the same stats as any other bow, but with a requirement of beastmastery or expertise.
Marksmanship skills would not be effective using these weapons, except perhaps poison/bleeding skills, which could be applied with any bow anyway.

[String] Beastmasters bow [Bowgrip]
Piercing damage 15-28 (req. 9 beastmastery)
Dmg +15% (when health is above 50%)

[String] Experts bow [Bowgrip]
Piercing damage 15-28 (req. 9 Expertise)
Dmg +15% (when health is above 50%)

3) Players cannot see what beastmastery shouts are currently active, unless it has an obvious beneficial effect.

Example: Not necessary, problem is self explanatory.

Suggestion: Add shouts to the effects monitor.

4) Pet aggro management.

Example: It's extremely difficult to get more than one target at a time to focus on your pet or to stay focused on your pet when attacking more than one enemy.

Suggestion: An increase in pet threat wouldn't be ideal because it would place a great burden on a team who take a beastmaster along (for example, warriors losing aggro to a pet or too much aggro on one target causing trouble for the healers).
A skill to use when more pet threat is needed would however be very useful.
Something like a shout, to make all nearby enemies attack your pet, or perhaps 1...5 nearby enemies depending on your beastmastery rank.

5) Ordering your pet around is practically impossible. Pets only attack what his master attacks.

Example: I can tell my labrador to get in her bed because she's my bitch (excuse the pun) she will do as she's told, but i cannot tell my ingame pet to go attack X with Y skill unless i put myself in harms way by attacking first.

Suggestion: Selecting an enemy and then pressing a pet attack skill should send your pet to that enemy and then the skill should "activate" - much like if i were to press a touch skill (throw dirt), my character would run to that enemy, with the skill pulsing on the skillbar and then carry out the skill.

Alternatively, give a "pet attack" order button underneath the compass alongside the henchmen flags, or aside the skillbar, or even an assigned key which tells your pet to initiate combat with a selected target.

Section 2 - skill suggestions.

1 - Threaten - A shout to cause nearby enemies to attack your pet, as mentioned above.

2 - Natural antidote - A shout to counter hexes and conditions on your pet, perhaps with X chance of removing a negative effect, or to reduce their durations.

3 - Scratch - An armour reducing pet attack.

4 - Feral agility - A shout to give your pet (and his master?) a chance to dodge attacks.

5 - Leap - A skill which makes your pet leap a bows distance to the enemy and knock them down, giving you an element of surprise.

6 - Natural strikes - A shout to prevent your pets attacks from being blocked or evaded, perhaps with a duration or next X number of attacks.

7 - Befriend beast - An elite version of Otyugh's cry. This skill will befriend a nearby animal which will stay linked to you until it is killed or you rezone. Befriended pets do not execute pet attack skills but may be healed, attack your target and inherit the hitpoints, armour and base damage equivalent to your own pet. Befriended pets may be resurrected.

Section 3 - BM related.

The abilty to store pets, so we can have a selection of pets to choose from, rather than having to level another one up again if we desire a change.
The same was done with festive hats, so can we please now have one for pets? It's alot of work to level a pet to 20, much more than standing in a circle with some CCS's in your pocket.

Beastmaster title. You will gain rank 1 in this title when you have charmed and levelled up ten pets to level 20. (Rank 2=20, 3=30 etc.)

Please feel free to comment.

I don't play Ranger very often, but I agree Beast Mastery needs some boosts, or at least some usefulness outside of Thumpers. I also agree Rangers get shafted when forced to use 3 attribute lines if they want to use Beast Mastery and not have sucky attack (bow) damage. Good suggestions for most part!

Here is a fair fix to Otyugh's cry: Instead of sucking, it can do what it already does, however, effect PvP in this way: Anyone with Beast Mastery 10 or less, they lose their pet to the person who use Otyugh's Cry last. Player's Beast Mastery whose are 11-13, their pets are weakened in some way. And if their Beast Mastery is 14 or above, they are not effected.

When a Ranger just wants to specialize in Beast Mastery and no Marksmanship, they should hold a water bowl as a focus item... or not.

Ranger is my primary char i do agree beastmastery has to be buffed up especially when it come to pets it self, they are kind of slow to react to the commands but first pets are slow when it comes to actually attacking a foe it and it takes them 2.15 sec to hit some one. From my understand you would have to wait 1 or 2 sec to activate next attack skill and if you use one skill and following with another right the way it would cancel it out one of them. if i'm wrong on this please correct me. Also i like your idea of in section 1-5 to command your pet to attack using a attack skill, this way pets wont have to wait for you to attack the foe with your bow. And i like your skill idea as well in particularly "leap" i think it should be elite or have little bit longer recharge and/or cannot be used if the foe is near you.

BM rank is not possible, as it only affects 1 profession, so I doubt Anet will throw it in.
But other than that, I agree, BM needs a fat buff, because playing as a Beastmaster doesn't appeal to a lot of people with the way BM is right now.

Actually, all professions can go Ranger secondary and charm pets to get this title.

Agree with everything that Beastmasters need some improvements.

I agree with things such as the time it takes for the pet to switch, I know people counter this with its a pet its not meant to be as intelligent as a human. But when you have a pet that youve trained they are generally pretty good at following orders so its something that would be nice.

The whole threat thing I highly disagree on. Im not a fan of games that impliment that sort of thing, makes tanking to easy and just doesnt make sense in a lot of cases. Also what happens in pvp? Just a pointless skill there.

I think theres a couple of good ideas in there. Leap would be fun, dont know how balanced otheres would think it was, but it sounds like fun.
Befriend Pet would be novel as well. The whole thing about storing pets is needed, I mean what decent Beastmaster would only have one beast, haveing a person similar to the Pet Tamer now, but who would store your pets, like the Holiday Hat guy does now with collectable hats. Now that would rock. I dont think theres any, large advantage to being able to select from several different pets you had leveled up. It would seem this would be relatively easy to accomplish and shouldnt really affect balance that much, if at all.
Some interesting ideas I think.

threaten.... seems only pve viable... havn't seen a pve only skill yet (cept of course, lightbringer gaze, sunspear rebirth siggy)

This is actually one of the strong points of pets, you can kite, focus on another target for a moment to interrupt or apply pressure, and your pet will stay focused on your primary target. "Improving" reaction speed would just make them run around needlessly and follow your movements like the heroes/henchies already do. I suggest learning to use your pet's tenacity to your advantage.

Your Pet is your weapon. Now you want another one for free? Please try again. While Wilderness Survival and Expertise do not have weapons, if weapons were added, they should not be bows, but some kind of wand that would be as generally ineffective as caster wands against high level targets.

Also a problem for Paragons, and to some extent Warriors.

This isn't WoW PvE, agro management (besides the "Book Trick") has always been hit or miss (pun intended.)

Actually, pets often only attack when the Master "hits" with an attack. This can be used to advantage when pulling. Fire the arrow and then run away before it hits and the pet won't go charging in and the beasty/monster will often be drawn out. Making pets too "comandable" would probably result in them having to be nerfed. You effectively have 2x hitpoints, and 2x attack rate, and you seem to want no trade-off. Or the trade off of only one or two skills on your skill bar.

A standing leap the length of a longbow? That would be a surprise.


I did. While I would like to see pets a tad more obedient, namely "attack" and "heel" commands, with a possible "stay" thrown in as well, trying to turn them into Rin Tin Tin, or Lassie, is going to far--"What's that girl? Timmy's been eaten by Grawl?"

Wow, a pet that can leap like 80ft? That's Super Kitty right there.

Back on topic, here's my two cents on this. There are pet skills that affect you and your pet. But a lot of them deal with attack speed or damage, and what use is that to someone with a base damage weapon? I think there should be bows linked to beast mastery and expertise, but no other bow attacks for those lines. Yes, your pet would be your main weapon, but that way you can provide supplementary damage. Also, I've noticed people talking about how much of a joke Otyugh's Cry is, maybe Anet could make it so it actually does turn pets against their masters. But 30 seconds is too long for your pet to be against you, so duration would have to be lowered to somewhere around 15 seconds, and maybe increasing recharge to 35 seconds.

Threaten does seem like it has a PvE use more than anything, so it probably wouldn't be a good idea because all the skills could (all technicalities aside) have a use for PvP as well, and the only way I could see Threaten working for PvP is if it forces anyone in range to target your pet and be unable to even target someone else for X amount of seconds.

I think the shouts listed in the effects panel would be good, but it would have to be fair to just put shouts there overall, so it includes Warriors and Paragons as well.

I like the idea of having your pet run to the target before activating the skill, because if we have to do it, so should our pets.

The AI improvements and pet controls have been suggested before, but I like them nontheless.

So overall, here is my vote on this suggestion:

Section 1

1) /signed
2) /signed
3) /signed (But it would have to apply to all shouts, not just Ranger shouts)
4) /notsigned (Although I always go for the pets since they almost never get healed, most people just ignore them)
5) /signed

Section 2

/notsigned on the skills (I think the skills you have suggested would make a beastmaster overpowered. The pet attacks now are good enough, I think the main problem isn't with the skills)

Section 3

/signed on pet storage, /notsigned on the title (already enough titles as it is, plus a lot of titles get suggested all the time, I don't think titles should be that big of a part of the game personally)

That's my opinion on this, nice idea, only a couple things I don't like though, nice job.

If anything all I would like A.net to implement is a system of control like with have for our heros.

Basically some interface, minor a skill bar and energy bar (as pets don't have skills or energy). But allowing us to monitor this health, status and current haxes, conditions and shouts affecting them.

And of couse being able to force them to target other things and set their attack mode.

Just being able to flag them like we can with heros would be a massive improvement.

asking for beast mastery or expertise requirements on weapons is like asking for tactics or strength requirements on weapons tbh.

your pet is supposed to be your weapon when speccing high in beast mastery.

i however do agree on giving you some kind of advanced control options, much like heroes have now.

Change Oty's Whimper to "For 30 seconds your animal companions have +20 armor." and you would have a very useful skill for anyone running Enraged Lunge, or who simply wants to keep their pet(s) alive. As it is, you need to be within shout range of your foe and the shout is too conditional to location to run effectively. There's no reason to turn it into some over-powered elite skill, just make it usable.

Edit: Or even "For 30 seconds all animal companions in the area have +20 armor." That would be an interesting skill to use against an IWAY team.

/signed on most of them... the skill to "foes attack pet" is retareded... in pvp you wont be able t control it.


everything else i support hooah!



*per armor perhaps? i hate having my pet "testicle" looking same as all the other tigers in factions!*

I love both of these suggestions. The first one makes a ton of sense, since it is very easy to "forget" (i.e. I'm not using a stopwatch ) when a shout has ended and needs to be reapplied.

The ability to store pets isn't a request to make this Pokemon...I think we should at least have the option to store three pets - one Hearty, one Dire, and one Elder - so we can use the pets in different situations. Right now, I'm carrying a Hearty pet because it has much more versatility in my builds than a Dire pet, which, for the most part, has a primary use only for heavily-invested Beast Masters.

Since your pet is your weapon, why is it that only Rangers have no possible way to increase your weapons attribute line above 17.

Only Rangers and Assassins have been handicapped in this way as to allow the maximum level in the attribute lines but one to be 17, Marksmanship and Dagger Mastery can each go as high as 18.

Even if they created a BM requirement staff or "wand" with damage capability equivalent to that of a caster, it would definitely be used by most Beastmasters.

I currently use Jin's Hornbow for the +15 Health, +10% Damage, but mainly for the requirement of 5 Marksmanship, so I can put my points where they are needed most when running my Beastmaster; BM, Expertise, and WS for my self heal.

do you really think a +20% on skill attribute while using a skill make any damage difference?

its about 1% or so ...

What are you talking about?

If you increase BM by +1, 20% of the time it would affect the skills in a mmore substantial way.

Enraged Lunge would increase by 1 or 2 damage per recharging BM skill.

Predator's Pounce would cause an extra 2 damage and heal for an extra 3.

Rampage as One would last an extra second.

Poisonous Bite would last an extra second causing an extra 8 health loss.

Run as One would last an extra second.

Just a couple of examples how the +1 to BM 20% of the time would affect the Beastmaster.

So you want to spread your attributes amongst 3 talents, have max in all of them, and have what amounts to 2 max damage weapons? There is a req 6 longbow in the game that is far superior to Jin's Hornbow (the 13-25 +10% Dam -2 Dam while in a Stance reward from the Blankets for the Settlers quest in prophecies.) You could also use a +5 energy bow, not bother with the points in marksmanship, use it as a conditions delivery system and stop wasting a skill slot on a "self heal."

No I don't want the 3 lines maxxed out.

I would just like to have a weapon with a BM requirement, since according to many, my pet is my weapon, and in GW all weapons have a requirement from the respective attribute line.

Swords require Swordsmanship,
Axes require Axe Mastery,
Hammers require Hammer Mastery,
Scythes require Scythe Mastery,
Spears require Spear Mastery,
...
Pets require Beast Mastery AND Marskmanship, or any of the lines of magic/prayers that are required to use wands/staves.

You know, the other day i was thinking about something similar to what u said about the bows and the req's. Nearly every other class has items that require nearly every attribute, i.e., Paragon (Spear Mastry, Command) Rangers have only Marksmanship. Dervishes have only Scythe. There are not many Beast builds out there that are of any good use, because as you say they are sluggish in their reactions. How bout wip or something that req BeastMastery. Even lion tamers use some sort of device to control their animals. Beast mastery seems like it would be a very good attribute for creating alot of builds. But they just lack the items for it.

Also, the other character classes have alot of attribytes that they dont have items for. Mysticism is one of the newer characters lacking this. paragons got everything, ele, warrior, etc.

These need to be addressed Anet.

Give Rangers a choice to not put points in Marksmanship, and make our Beastmastery shine like t should!

I like these ideas, although I don't generally focus on beastmastery. I more just have a pet as an extra to maul my enemies and stop them mauling me. There is just one thing in your suggestions that I didn't like. The title would be a bit too easy, in my mind. I think instead of having 10 pets, having all pets of all evolutions in your collection would get a maxed Menagerie title. And also, once you get the Menagerie title, you get your own space that you can invite people into to view all your pets (Hey, I can dream, can't I?)