Petmaster Build Viable?

Is the petmaster build viable in PvE?

Why not try it out and see?

Well I don't want to buy all the skills and find out its not that great. :P

Works fine, in fact I vanquished most of Cantha on my ranger using the three ranger heroes set as beastmasters (pre full hero team update). Levelled most of the animals for the zaishen menagerie that way as well.

Oh thank you! I'll definitely try it. I wonder what weapons have Beast Mastery requirements...

Sadly, no weapons have a beast mastery requirement, nor are there any with a wilderness survival or expertise req. If you want to go full beastmaster, your best bet is to do what the trappers do: get a staff (for any profession, any req) and fix it up to give you +20e and +30hp (Insightful head, Hale & Hearty inscription, wrap of Fortitude).

For inspiration:

lately i see Rangers running beastmaster builds, so it looks like it is pretty stable. I might even go as far as trying it myself.

I have used Bacon the warthog with enraged lunge for the entire tyrian vanq and its been great fun.

Running pets alone is pretty bad. There is 1 really good pet skill (Enraged Lunge) and 2-4 decent pet skills (Brutal Strike/Feral Aggression/Scavenger Strike/Edge of Extinction depending on what you want to use), the rest aren't worth the time. So generally you want to combine the pet with a weapon yourself, since 3 good pet skills + 2 good weapon skills is far better than 5 pet skills of varying usefulness.

options:
R/W - Rely on adrenaline for attack skills and Save Yourselves spam while your energy goes to fuel pet stuff. All of the weapons perform decently, just remember you won't have an elite if you use Enraged Lunge, and if you aren't using EL then your pet isn't worth being there. You can also just use bow stuff (volley) and abuse SY if you want.
R/A - Death Blossom dagger builds are strong. Its the highest DPS you are going to have by far, especially when you stack +damage bonuses, but energy is tight. Absolutely need zealous daggers, decent expertise, and maybe Scavenger Strike on the pet.
R/P - Spear chuckers are ok. Not really great at anything, but its safer than melee in the harder areas where your ranger armor is like paper. I don't know why its so popular, it doesn't output THAT much more damage then bows and if you run bows you can go /W for Save Yourselves to make the party invincible. Do as you like though, its still plenty good enough to beat PvE these days.

OgATY5rl3RWub6tqmfznhzQbAA is what I use. Works great, at least in normal mode.

Enranged Lunge [elite], Predator's Pounce, Crossfire, Savage Shot, Otyugh's Cry, Call of Haste, Call of Protection, Comfort Animal. Beastmastery 12+1+1, Marksmanship 11+1, Expertise 6+1, whatever other runes and insignias you might prefer.

Wouldn't Rampage As One be a good skill to use with a pet? So far I have:

Enraged Lunge, Volley, Rampage As One, Scavenger Strike, Call of Protection, Finish Him!, Comfort Animal, and a free slot.

12 Expertise, 12 Beast Mastery, 9 Marksmanship.

Volley is mainly there so I don't have to manually click every time my pet has to attack, and since I already have 9 points in Marksmanship I might as well use a skill that abuses it.

I think the petmaster build is a lot of fun and for the ranger may very well be the most effective way to play (obviously debatable). This thread has a lot of good ideas:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/b...t10459338.html

This issue with pets though, is still a fundamental flaw in their AI. It definitely takes some getting used to.

I'm running R/A right now, great damage with SoH and OoP, but as i run from mob to mob, as i attack, even if i hit a pet attack, he'll stand there for about 3 seconds before attacking. every time.

great damage though. while vqing plains of jarin i could pretty much take out a single monster in one round of jagged, ff, db, EL. scavenger strike is absolutely necessary for energy management even with zealous daggers. i run oom in large groups if i don't hit it on CD. the team for 4 man content is pretty solid, just lacking in interrupts, and i'm thinking i could use chocking gas for that. went way better on my ranger than my derv, thats for sure. crippling anguish sucks, and i didn't remember to bring hex removal the first time.

more on topic though, pets deal great damage in PvE, and make good meat shields/blockers. by using different secondaries, you could have beast masters cover any shouts you want i'd think, just make sure you have enough energy management for things like, fall back and stand your ground. maybe R/P with zealous bow and volley/needling. go for the eyes is great with pets, same with OoV/OoP.

I dislike builds without a weapon skill because its a hassle having to manually target every enemy you face. With my laggy computer there could be valuable seconds wasted in a fight where my pet isn't doing anything because an enemy is downed before I could click another target. I think my build is okay... what do you guys think of it?

How does a weapon skill solve your targeting problem? You have to have a target before you can use a weapon skill or a pet attack. C-space does not require a weapon skill, nor does it require any clicking on targets. My beastmaster carries a staff, and I never have to click on targets or take my fingers off the keyboard at all unless I want to lock the pet on a particular target. (If I could hotkey that function, I would.)

I used to carry Enraged Lunge all the time. Then I decided to try out Heal as One and haven't looked back.

The damage output is roughly the same (when considering IAS), and HaO becomes the far better option if there is an alternate source of deep wound in your party. Plus, it's one of those fire-and-forget effects... requires less attention than an attack skill. And it even frees up another slot on your skill bar. What's not to love?

Good question. In normal mode PvE, practically anything is viable, even a (non-RoJ) smiting monk.

Good answer.

By the time you find out, you will have made the gold back, just by playing and picking up drops. After all, how much could it cost, 5-6k for a few skills? (And another k or 2 for a headpiece with a BM Rune.)

Well, my point was, it could be the best build in the world, but you'll only know if you enjoy it by trying it out yourself.

Just for Lolz, do the Norn Fighting Tournament with a pure beastmaster build. It's pretty funny to see your pet tanking Magni without a problem.