Tiny buffs that I'd like.

Pets. I find them only slightly underpowered at the moment, because you need to spread out over 4 attributes if you want to be a beast master with decent damage and chance of survival. So, accordingly, I suggest:
A Beast Mastery self-heal skill/
Marksmanship self-heal skill/
Beast Mastery weapon/
Wilderness Survival weapon.

Pick one.


Also, Ether Lord could do with an increased duration(+0...6?)... or a faster cast before Fast Casting, around 5/4 or 1s.

Then I'd suggest a self heal for all the other attributes that don't have self heals.

I'd like to be able to Curse my health back.

Attributes are there for support, not so that you don't need another attribute to survive. They use other attribute lines to rely on, for survival, as well as other things.

Yes, but usually you don't need to spread out over 4 attributes. You need markmanship so you can still deal damage, Expertise and BM for obvious reasons, and Wilderness Survival for self-healing. Removing one of them leaves you very vulnerable, unlike normal builds. If you want to be a Curse necro you'll still have points left after you put them all on what you actually need(Curses and possibly Soul Reaping).

You don't always need a pet. I think players tend to get attached to their pets, and don't want to remove them from their skill list.

And you don't necessarily need a lot of points in WS to get a decent amoung of regen (5 pips).

Expertise is useful mostly when you plan on using a lot of high energy skills. Usually it's a preperation (apply poison, kindle arrows) and maybe 2 or 3 Marksmanship skills, whose cool down time allows you to get enough energy back.

With the right balance, there is no trouble in alotting points in all 4 attribute lines. If you are going to be a Beastmaster, you can't expect your arrows to do as much damage. Same goes if you put a lot of points in Marksmanship. It's so Rangers aren't overpowered.

Chapter 2 - Heal as one. Heals you and your pet.

This is true. But then, you're not a beast master without a pet. I've used my BM ranger in Random, and its got a lot less 'potential' than my other, more normal characters.
I suppose. But I shouldn't need to spend any.(I know, sounds awfully childish and egoistic, but compare to other builds where you at most need 3 attributes and it makes sense. Like if elementalists had to spend points on Sorcery to up an artificial cap on their damage)

I thought the whole goodness of Expertise was that your innate energy regen would make up for the energy lost using 5-en skills?(meaning theyre nearly free)

I know, but right now beast masters are underpowered.
Excellent! This solves it all. Incidentally, where can I find the listing of new skills?


EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot that another 'buff' I wanted was to simply fix the AI so the pets attack the instant they get within range, like warriors do. Wont even need that with that skill though.

EDIT2:One last thing. You guys never mentioned the Ether Lord proposal, what about it?

This particular skill was one of those posted in CGW Issue 259 (Feb.). I dont know if I have permission to post them.

Continuing problem with ranger balance always seemed to be excessive power, not lack of power. The one exception has been pets and beastmastery, but you can still create marginally good pet builds as things currently stand. As stated some of this will be addressed in Factions.

I don't know what exacty you want to do with your pet, but beastmastery has enough interesting synergy that allow you to go three attributes without issue. Self heal: Pred season(Solo), Symbiosis(w/ group),Fertile season. Damage buffs in beast mastery: Tigers fury, eoe, Call of Haste. You have the equivalent of two weapons with you are with a pet and bow.

Here's a build expertise/bm/mark intended for charr soloing or the like: EoE, Pred season,Tigers fury, Pred pounce,Call of haste,Charm, barrage,Whirling D, Use a vampiric bow and good hunting to you. Same concept could be used in pvp if you took punishing and disrupting lunge over pred pounce and barrage. (I'm just working off the top of my head here, but I've played with similar builds, IW with a pet, pet+interrupting...)

Pets tend to be more passive than some stages of testing because they would tend to aggro half the map towards you.

Parasidic bond is your curses heal.
Vamp is your blood heal.
Soul feast is your death heal.
Troll ungent - wilderness survival
preditory season - beast mastery
IWAY - strength
thrill of victory or healing sig -tactics
ether feast - inspiration
aura of rest. and ether renewal - energy storage
monk - obvious


Fast casting, expertise, soul reaping, marksmanship, axe, hammer, sword, domination, illusion, air, earth, water, fire

none of these have heals...are you saying all of them should get heals? kinda makes pve pointless...and monks...and teamwork...

They do need some sort of beasmasteryy weapon or something, like a whip *not one you hit your animal with*

Predatory season is in no way sufficient for a self heal, especially as most monsters will be gaining the same amount of health.
Did you guys even read my first post? And sure, self heals make monks pointless. Totally.

In no way am I saying pets are useless because of the lack, it just results in a beast master build lacking in power or in defense, at least when compared to more, ahem, normal builds. Right now I just use a beast master because I get attached to my pets, cursing and praising them depending on how they do, even though they're bits of code.

most of those have defensive instead, bar fast cast, fire and domination (they'll be more) the weapon lines dont need any, they should go with strength or expertise or whatever

also strength - "I Will Survive!"