Satisfied with Pet skill improvement?

Well, I was trying to find some threads about this but I haven't seen much about it.

A.Net has improved some Pet skills. Have you tried them?

Bestial Pounce: Recharge down to 10s instead of 15s
Brutual Strike: 37 + 37 when foe's health is below 50%
Predator's Pounce: 37 damage at lvl 16
Feral Lunge: 37 damage at lvl 16
Melandru's Assault: 21 + 37aoe (and +37 on the target), recharge down to 5s
Maiming Strike: Recharge down to 5s
Scavenger Strike: Damage up a bit
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Looks like A.Net has heard enough complaints about pet attack skills. I've only tried them a bit and last night I killed an E/Me with about 4 hits: Melandru's Assault + Predator's Pounce + MA + PP = death or almost death

Are the improvements competitive enough or A.Net still hasn't fixed the "main problems" which is "Pet's AI" and not being able to switch target easily or give commands?

One thing I do know is that you can spike with pet attacks now but the sad thing is we can't switch targets fast enough so a very skillful monk can probably save the target in time, or not?

Plus even if you press your pets attacks you have to really watch what it's even attacking or not. Cause he can still be running to the target to attack and you spamming the pet attacks, while he has'nt even reached the target.

So I guess you think A.Net still hasn't made enough improvements? Cool. I think A.Net has tried and this MAY be the best they can do in terms of Pet's AI. I usually don't have path problem with pet except on "bridge" or "in corner" where the target runs around and my pet gets stuck behind somebody (usually warriors) and it takes about 5s-7s for my pet to switch to another target. This is when I am most pissed about Pet's AI. A.Net has increased pet's damage a lot so the pet can kill the single target quicker and need less target switching. Is this the best they can do?

Because of the path problem, I am usually forced to target the first foe I see or I try to run close to the "soft" target like Monk/Ele/Mesmer, who usually stand in the back, so my pet doesn't get stucked behind our warriors or opposing warriors. It usually works but not all the time and I think that's what kills beast mastery.

i find them very uber as they currently are

I think pets are at the moment just as they should be.

Don't forget you dont kill an ele with 4 skills actually you do it with 5-6 skills, charm animal, comfort animal

I've tried a couple pet builds and I got to say I love them

It's worse when YOU are the warrior. I have a W/R and if I had a nickel for every time I get stuck on my pet when I'm trying to change targets or just move, I'd be rich. I think pets are great just the way they are except for this issue. It's not a problem for my ranger since she's not in the thick of it with the pet. But for the warrior, it's a real pain in the you know what. I wish Anet would do something about it.

Yep i agree! the attack skills are awesome!

I'm playing with Beast Master builds myself--my first char was a Ranger since I love teh puppies, but once I figured out that Pet = Failure, I switched to being a monk. >_> With the update, I thought I'd pull out my wolf, good ol' Oreos N Milk / Fenrir, depending on my mood.

I guess I'm just a selfish little brat, but I continue to be frustrated at the unwieldliness of pets. The inability to get them to attack the targets you want and such--I just am constantly feeling like I could do a better job myself, rather than relying on my pet and using valuable skill slots for my pet. ESPECIALLY when you factor in how you have to devote one slot to the useless Charm Animal, and a second to Comfort Animal (or Revive) since only you can res your own pet. ><

Don't get me wrong, I'm lovin' the über-cheap costs for the pet skills, the pet-related shouts that last for 100-200 seconds, and these increased BeastM stats with the update.... it's just, I continue to feel like ANet wants us to see pets as a cute add-on, rather than a legitmate focus in a Build. And if I can't make my build AROUND them, then I feel like I'm wasting my skill slots, using the 2 useless skills just to have him and keep him up.

Yeah, that's something else they could improve. With only eight skill slots, it would be nice if charm/heal occupied only one slot. Two slots is excessive. You could argue that you don't have to take heal, but hey, some of us care about our pets and try to keep them healed.

First of all, I'm psychotic about my puppy. Every time I call pets worthless, another piece of me dies. Ahem.

That said, if monks could res pets, then I wouldn't take Comfort Animal. Revive Animal is a nice fallback if you have several beastmasters in a PvE group, but even then.

But the way things are, if you DON'T take comfort animal, then when your pet dies (and, as a melee fighter, your pet will die. A lot) you're essentially operating on only 7 useable skills--and I consider that even MORE of a waste than Charm + Comfort. >< And, I <3 my puppy.

Right I played the game as a W/R and OMG it was awful - well quite frankly any melee oriented class with a pet will hit this (so certain R/Ws, and R/A or A/R will likely run into this too). And I had intended to fight with the pet at least for a bit just for fun. But right from the getgo it was so annoying I took it off/out. I hear some people even went ferocious strike with their warrior beastmasters, perhaps its worth a thought in pve but I still have bad flashbacks of trying to work with Rabid...


CKaz

The beast skills themselves are much more powerful/efficient than normal attack skills, that's not the problem. It's the slot requirement and AI that make it inferior.

Indeed; a powerful attack you can't execute is no attack at all.

Looks like Skill Slot availability and Pathing are main problems (again).

I don't use Warrior so I don't notice that "blocking" problem but I've heard many complaints about them in PvP.

Skill Slot is a huge debate.

I think if a.net were to simply implement a mechanism which could allow the player to call targets for their pets, there would be a major improvment in their usefulness. Personally, that's one of the things I'm hoping for in factions

Exactly. I dont think anyone is complaining about the Beast Skills at all, it's the lack of control, horrible pathfinding, and excessive slot requirement that's the problem.

It becomes a game of luck with pets since either the pet is acting well and on target and doing massive damage or the flipside it's stuck somewhere, on the wrong target or just plain dead because it's sitting in a meteor storm, attacking with spiteful spirit on, empathy etc etc.

Basically pets are great on less than experienced players. But when facing people who know what they're doing, pets are so easy to counter simply because they're so stupid. It's basically playing PVE. (No offense to PVE players)

You know what, I know many people want this "pet command" mechanism but how do you exactly implement this and is this going to be overpowering?

Imagine we can command the Pet to attack a Target by pressing a button, while it sounds very logical and cool, won't it be overpowering if the Master makes the command (the pet attacks) and then the Master starts running away from the battle? It requires tons of play testing to see how this "pet command" works. Ideally, a master can only issue command if the target is within the Radar.

Would this Pet Command become too complicated and too hard to balance in terms of gameplay?

So sorry, I don't see why it would be.
You said yourself "Ideally, a master can only issue command if the target is within the Radar" so... as long as you were careful that the pet would leave its target and follow its owner once the owner left the radius, it wouldn't be a problem. Besides, Rangers with a longbow can make the pet attack a target outside the radius now, so....

As far as complications--I have two things to say on this.

1) As it is now, your pet attacks who attack, after your shot hits. If they at least made it so your pet would change targets as soon as you hit spacebar (or left-click), instead of waiting for the shot to connect, THAT would be a vast improvement.

2) If you want to allow your pet to hit a second target while you're on a primary? I suggest that you can cast Charm Animal on an enemy, marking them for your pet. Maybe hitting Charm again would dispell the mark, or it could display like an enchantment that you double-click to remove? (of course, the mark would also be lost once the owner left radius, as stated above). I think this would make sense, as it's not ADDING any commands to your keyboard. You're just finally touching that skill slot you've never used before.

Edit: Or maybe you could cast Charm Animal on yourself as well, to tell your pet 'stop attacking! you have Empathy and Spiteful on you!" Granted, this would be a bit confusing, being able to cast charm animal on either yourself or an enemy--but hey, it's an idea.

Yah, I think that's an excellent idea.

Pet skills might be imbalanced if AI was improved enough, but they can just be nerfed again if/when that happens.

Overpowering? A caster does the same thing basically. He can cast a degen spell on a target and run away while the degen does it's thing. Necros are especially fond of this hit and run technique.

And who says they won't tone down pet skills if they improve the AI and pathfinding and control over the pets? The only reason the beast master skills look so overpowered on paper is to compensate for the unreliability of the pet. Once they made pets more reliable then they can tone down the skills if needed.