Idea For Ranger Beast Mastery Fix

OK, heres my Idea to make Beast master rangers a viable playertype. Gloves. unique gloves not attached to any set (like Lt.'s helm, bloodstained boots, stonefist gauntlets)

Beast Charming Gloves
Base + While equipped, if you have 13 or more points in beast mastery, you do not need charm animal in your toolbar to bring your pet into combat.

The high beast mastery Req would prevent players from bringing pets just because it no longer took up a skill slot space.

Please share with me ideas or critiques.

This would be awesome bordering on overpowered.

While Charm Animal isn't too hard to work around, it would be easier if the pet stayed on your bar if any beastmastery skill was placed there, and charm was only used to capture new pets.
Most of all though, Beastmasters need a weapon. Not only for basic weapon damage, but also, and more importantly, for weapon modifications such as "15% > 50%" (on pet) and "skill recharge x2 (20%)".

It is somewhat true that Pet "The Weapon" does not do the same damage as the bow because pets don't get +damage mods. I believe this is the reason why they've increased most of pet attack skills.

As for BM weapon, I just use a staff for +energy but I do pathetic damage with the staff unless I have invested in the corresponding secondary skill line.

It may be too overpowering if BM has their own weapons that do good physical damage. Or not?

I believe Galie said they want to create BM weapons for Factions, or in the future? Haven't heard anything more about this issue though.

Most defintly! A "vampiric/sundering/zealous Tooth" for your pet or some sort of item you could keep in your inventory for a temporary stat mod. Being a beast master myself, Id like to see some collector items, specifically boots with some pet mods. Although if I read the recent Frog log correctly in the dev section, Changes to the pets are coming.

Changes to pets are coming?

What I REALLY want is variety in pets in terms of stats/abilities. This will be the most exciting part of being a Beast Master because every BM will need to find the pet that fits their playing style! Moa Bird ftw!!!

your weapon slot should be a collar for you pet (which gives 15^50 or poisoners or what not) and your offhand should go to some "doggie treats" or something which give you energy with a beast mastery req.

Those gloves are rediculously overpowered and unfair (what about other classes that want pets?)
So now IWAY gets an extra slot because they bring TF?

Beast masters have a weapon. Their pets does more damage than a bow does, plus they can use a bow(or X) to double their damage. The mods are all they are missing, but I dissagree with a beast mastery weapon dealing much damage....perhaps 2-6 would be fair (considering the pets do 19-32 [I think...havent seen the value in a long time...and it was disputed then])

They bring Charm Animal?

Don't you use Warrior if you're going IWAYing? Then you can't use Ranger armor, nor get 13 in Beast Mastery.

Pets do a lot less than 19-32 if you're not using any skills, and why would anyone use a beastmaster weapon if it did LESS damage than a bow?

The idea behind the gloves is. Obviously if they have more then 13 invested, They're not gunna be using something like Marksmanship to depend on damage. They'll need another beast mastery skill to buff their combo.

i have to /sign this. I find that it is kinda rediculous that you need to bring the Charm Animal skill to bring a pet along. Since you are mainly using your pet for a weapon, I'm trying to think of any other weapon that requires a skill to be able to be used. Oh, there isn't one...allowing beastmasters to not have to bring the Charm Animal skill would add a certain new vitality to the Beastmaster attribute line. (2 skills are already used, by default: Charm Animal and Comfort Animal. This is, imo, kinda rediculous.)

How I set up my build, I really don't need the energy from a staff. And why would someone spec' 9 into Marksmanship just to do extra damage. Shouldn't I be able to do something while my pet is attacking. Seems like I sit there and my weapon is just to direct attacks.

Oh ive got a new idea, but im diging the whole equip your pets with weapons thing, that would kick ass. Ok, this idea is that when you have a pet , a small toolbar would come up in instances that would have pet commands, like "attack target" and "return" and "change target" and various other commands. Also, the whole thing where the people in PvP go after the ranger instead of the pet because the ranger is helpless needs to be remedied.... somehow.... rangers need some sort of melee weapon/ more offensive and defensive spells for the RANGER that are attributed to beast mastery. because if my pet is to be able to attack at its best, i cant have a decent bow and have healing ability for myself, the points are just too far spread. And those of you who bitch about comfort animal, DONT. Anet could have just as easily made it it 2 skills, one to heal and one to revive. Also the whole recharge thing when your pet dies AND when you rez him is pretty annoying, because often times by the time my skills are recharged to heal my pet, hes already dead again. My guess is Anet saw the powerful potential for beast masters and overcompensated, basically killing any potential they might have had.

BM doesnt really need a weapon. I mean, we are already looking at 25-35 from perts, and spikes as high as 130 with brutal strike. If anything what BM needs is for pets to have a similar AI upgrade as the henchies. Ie, change targets when you want them to, and not sit in AoE.

Peewee, the weapon isnt really for the attack strength, its for the atts on the weapon, like +health or 15%^50 for the pet. Also, you should be able to keep pets with the Tamer so that if you want to change pets, you dont have to retrain a new pet if you want to change back. hell, if you could leave just 2 or 3 pets with the tamer (for a fee of course) that would make me happy.

Thus creating an edge that can only be had for rangers...there is nothing similar for any other class...Nice one there!


If you bothered to...well...you know...READ...you would see that I quoted a suggestion saying that bringing a beast mastery skill would automatically bring your pet. So stop being a moron and read (Ive seen you do this a number of times in many posts)
Also this just proves that the gloves are overpowered...because no other class can use them, thus giving rangers even more damage.

Pets deal more than bows when not using skills....so I guess bows need a buff too? Along with every other weapon?

A beastmaster would use a beastmastery weapon because it would give his pet bonuses and would allow him to attack targets (so his pet goes and hits them)



But I guess you think that being a ranger should instantly give you a pet, which is invincible and does infinate damage. Congradulations, I would rather hear suggestions from the horrid pet AI than from you...They would make more sence.



If you want an alternitive for Charm Animal, use your heads and think.


Res/charm animal
elite
charms an animal. bringing this skill allows you to have a pet. if used when you have a pet and he is dead, it ressurects him.


There ya go...bring an elite and you dont have to bring charm (now if this could just get implemented...stuff like this is what BM needs)

The only thing you could fairly trade for the ability to equipt a pet without charm animal is your ability to attack, period. Even then it would be a serious balance issue which would need much redesigning. But as long as you can provide a continuous attack and your pet can as well, it automaticly merits the use of a skill slot. Now if you can't attack and you can only signal your pet to attack a target, then it might be justifiable.

A Taming Rod or Flute, A simplistic item which would remove your characters attack but allow you to equipt your pet even without charm animal.

I realy have heard it a million times, and no matter how it's presented, the fact that you have an entirely extra body on the field, with it's own continous attack is worth a skill slot, and you can't argue it, because nothing is free. Wearing special gloves isn't enough.

The only other alternative is to give every other class something equally powerful, like elementist gloves which block interruption, since some armor should add the same effect as Gliph of Concentration. Or how about a Monk Vest which adds 2 or 3 health regeneration, that is the same power as mending, but without using the skill.

Now I could understand some Ranger Gloves which improve your pets attack or something simular, but assuming something that truely does merit a skill slot should be unneccessary with the use of a non determental item is totaly broken.

Personally, I think it would be both fair and simple to make your pet follow you permanently without Charm Animal if you invest 13 att points into Beast Mastery.

You do know hammer warriors get to use Stonefist gauntlets, right? No other class can use those either.

I'd apologize for the IWAY + TF misunderstanding, but since you can't be civil...

What?

Good point, but 2-6? I can't imagine a chance of having faster recharge or getting +1 BM being worth that decrease in DPS.


Why elite? And you'd still need Comfort animal if you want to heal your pet.

You dont need Comfort Animal to heal your pet...Symbiotic bond or the like can heal it as well.
And it would be elite because its better than charm animal and rez.

Pets deal the most damage without skills. More than every other weapon.

And no you did not misunderstand the IWAY + TF part...you plain didnt read it or the part I quoted.

I like this idea, but not as an elite. Just make it a regular skill, and also add heal ability to it. Having to blow two skill slots for a pet is excessive starting from day one. It would be easy to implement--as someone suggested up thread, if you already have a pet, it acts as heal/res. If you don't, then you can use it to charm a pet, and then it'll act as heal/res. I know there's symbiotic bond, but you don't get that for a while.

In all this talk about special gloves, weapons, etc., remember that some ranger secondaries are also beastmasters. I have a W/R beastmaster (not IWAY). I'm not interested in any "improvements" that would cripple my ability to carry a weapon that deals major damage. Reducing the number of skill slots required to take my pet out and keep it alive would be just ducky, and would work for secondary ranger beastmasters as well as primary ones. Many of the suggestions in the thread would render ranger secondary beastmasters impractical, even impossible, to play.

Comfort is the only GOOD pet heal except Heal as One, which is elite. Personally, I prefer FS by far.

Wouldn't it be better to give it some other penalty, like additional downtime to skills? It's really not worth being elite.

They're remote controlled and unintelligent, they need some sort of edge.

Don't be so nitpicky.

BM's deffinently need a weapon. Having to sink points into Marksmanship whne you don't use any of their skills is borderline crippling.

My idea for a BM weapon is a sling with a "tamer's whistle" as the off hand. The sling would do the same damage as a wand 11-22 and the whistle would give a modest enrgy boost like +5 or so (energy management is a serious problem for BM's before you get ferocious strike). The whistle would have typical mods like "20 BM+1", "lengthens bleeding from pet attacks" and etcetera. The sling would have normal weapon mods, i.e. only the whistle would boost pets and their attacks. It makes sense logically and would prevent pet attack from becoming too powerful.

The biggest misconception people have:

1.) Pet does regular bow damage. They deal great damage as a "weapon"!
- Wrong! In order for pet to do that damage, you need to use at least 2 Skill Slots (Charm and Comfort) (and heavy Beast Mastery investment). Then pet's reaction speed is just so slow, so you throw in Call of Haste to match bow's shoot speed (excluding the fact that pet can easily be kited and stuck behind things/people). For 2-3 skill slots, your pet does about 19-32 damage. THAT'S HARDLY OVERPOWERING.

========
A few ideas I have:

1.) BM weapons that reduce the Duration of the condition the pet suffers. If I remember correctly, Warriors have new armor that reduce the hex duration. I feel pet is just a mini-version of Warrior and it will be really nice if the BM weapons can reduce Condition duration.

2.) BM weapons that reduce Hex duration on the pet.

3.) BM weapon that add resistance on the pet.

4.) BM weapon that can reduce the skill disable time by %.

Yes! Investing into Marksmanship and find out that you have almost NO skill slots left. That's the pain. We HAVE the attribute points left but we have no skill slots left.

ok, so maybe the gloves are a bit overpowered, but one thing they DO need to change is the whole 5 sec recharge on all skills when pet dies AND when it is brought back. either lessen them both to 2-3 seconds, or remove the recharge when it is brought back. And the reason im not addressing the AI issue is because i dont need to. Everyone else does.

Mandy's postings of misinformation is making my teeth hurt....but you guys already corrected her/him so it's all good.

So yeah, they really need to do something with the Charm Animal problem. It's one of many reasons why BM builds are so inflexible. There are a lot of suggestions to fix this so I wont go into that.

And if it turns out that making such changes makes BM too good, they can always adjust the skills accordingly. Right now, BM is too much of an all or nothing build.

I also wanted to mention that Heal As One is in no way a replacement for comfort animal. A 120 point heal every 12 seconds will not save your pet if it is being focused on. When it dies and you have no CA, then you're screwed. But bringing HaO and CA is also sort of a redundancy...another problem of the BM line. Too much redundancy and wasted skill slots.

In regard to your comment on Heal as One, YOU ARE RIGHT! I've already stated my impression on the new elites and even though it's nice to have a self heal as a beast master, the healing isn't enough for you to neglect Comfort Animal. I've tried to just bring Heal as One. All is well until an axe warrior went crazy on my pet. Heal as One can only heal 151 in 12s! My pet died and guess what? I was like 99% shut down.

That just plain sucks. With CA you can heal your pet 660 health in the same amount of time, albeit costing a lot of energy. But still.

True.

True (with equal investment in BM as you would in a weapon attribute)

True


Sadly this is all of the information I have posted...and all of it is true.

Symbiotic bond does heal your pet...dont see how you can argue that.

Pets deal 17-41 damage @ lvl 20 with 12 bm and attack every 2.14 seconds (barely slower than the fastest bow)[A dire pet will deal 20-46 damage]
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=89491

Plus you can still use a bow. (Note: using a bow does not mean bringing bow attacks)

Giving up a skill slot to more than double your damage (assuming you are using a bow as well with at least 12 marksmanship and at least 12 BM) is not that bad. Giving up 2 slots to deal that damage forever is a steal.

You don't need comfort animal to keep pets alive. First off, you can cure them with many Monk spells, as well there are life stealing BM skills, but most of all, revive animal allows one player to resurrect an innumerable amount of pets for your entire party, The skill ressurrects Pets in an AoE your own and allies for only 5 energy, with a good chunk of health I might add.

Aside from the fact that Pets are hard to kill even if nobody is maintaining them, and they are never a focal target, there are plenty of skills to maximize the power and effectiveness of your pet, making pets Free of skill slot is totaly broken, And if you don't agree, then 13 points in Fire Magic should make Fire Attunment free as well, that is exactly the kind of suggestion your making.

1 skill gains you an entirely extra body on the field, good health and higher armor then yourself, and an added attack. As well, because of the pet requirement to use beast mastery skills, "All" beast mastery skills are cheaper then any counterpart, doing just as much damage and having more energy efficiency and versatility then any simular skill done by a normal character.

Light of Dwayna cost 25 energy to raise a group of players, it only cost 5 energy to raise a group of pets and they get back more health. Almost every pet attack cost 5 to 10 energy max, with damage and effects just as powerful as warrior attacks. Call of protection reduces damage on an entire team of pets for 5 energy, and last for "Two Minutes" wile being recastable at 5 seconds shorter then its lasting time, compare that to Shielding hands, which only covers 1 teammate, for a very short time, and cannot be recast anywhere soon enough to continously maintain the effect, this doesn't include the fact that people don't waste enchantment removal on pets.

Pets are powerful, expendable, cheaper, easier to maintain, and now you want it to be free? BS. This isn't even a debate, you haven't come up with a balanced concept to allow pets to be usable without a skill, so it Can Not be accepted. In a party of 8, and soon upcoming, 12 members each with pets, only 1 or 2 people need bring Revive animal for a maximum of 77% restoration from death to allied pets in an AoE, and only 1 person needs bring Call of protection to cover all of your pets with 11 damage reduction, permenantly. Your out of your mind or completly lacking one if you think that allowing pets to be usable without a skill is acceptable.

You still need Comfort Animal. Not so much for the heal but for reviving the pet. Saying that you dont need CA because there's other heals is missing the point.

Pets do NOT do the most damage without skills. You're saying that they do more damage than Hammers and Axes? This is taken from the same pet guide that you referred to:

A basic pet thus attacks every ~2.14 seconds for ~24.4 average damage vs. 60 AL at level 12 beastmastery, for 11.4 DPS with no other skills used.

So NO pet attacks are NOT the highest damage with no skills.

20-46 @2.14 mean 33 (/2.14 = 15.42) [dire]
17-41 @2.14 mean 29 (/2.14 = 13.55) [elder]
[email protected] mean 17 (/1.33 = 12.78)
[email protected] mean 18.5 (/1.33 = 13.909)
[email protected] mean 26 (/1.75 = 14.857)

All assuming no customization or bonuses.

Dire pets do the most damage.

The mean damage is 22.4, the reason you see a high max damage is because that includes critical hits. So there goes that argument. The Dire Pet gains a 15% damage bonus, like a mod on a weapon, but you must sacrifice pet health and can't chose it on a PvP character.

The best solution is to combine charm and comfort animal at BM higher then 13.

Skills still not worth it. Large recharge and a AoE smaller then that of light of Dwanya means that you cannot reliably keep your pets up. And not only that your primary attribute is useless while the pet is dead.

More Versatile is a total fallacy due to the AI and reaction times of the pet. The skills are much less versatile.

Additionally Call of Protection and Call of Haste only work on the owners pet. the plural in the description is a typo.

Pets are not reliable and with the large proportion of your skill bar used just to bring one that you can res they aren't worth bringing except in very specific builds. And you can't even afford to put BM past 14 in any of them, because witbh the pets current state you either need a bow or melee weapon to use them effectively and have no slots left for a self heal.

Pets are Unreliable due to their horrific AI, the need to combine charm and comfort would totally dissapear with a beastmastery weapon with the same stats as a wand.

First of all, your weapons numbers are off. Hammers are 19-35 damage. So even if your pet damage numbers werent wrong, hammers still beat them in damage.

And second, as I said, your pet damage numbers are wrong.



Dire pets do 13.1 DPS at 12 BM. You were using BM 16 numbers and comparing them to level 12 weapon masteries of the other weapons. At least make it fair okay?

And this isnt even adding extra mods to weapons that can push the edge even more (ie Vampiric)

I think a good idea is that a lizzard does poison dmg,wolf causes bleeding,panther stuns or knocks down,warthog cripples etc..or something in that line.They may even have different attack speeds and dmg.Just a sugestion.

Some of us don't want the pet to die in the first place.

I don't see pets as expendable or cheap. I know some people use their pets as meat shields, but many of us actually try to keep them alive because if you're willing to sacrifice half your skill bar to them, they have some good skills and can really help out in a fight. But it's *not* cheap, and because you can't issue simple commands to the pet, pets can sometimes do more harm than good. If you meant expendable in the sense that you don't have to have one, well true, and it's easy to pass up on having one when they're so expensive to use. That's the point.

I agree that keeping a pet should require a skill slot. The complaint at the moment is that it takes two skill slots to take out a pet, and if those are the only two skill slots you dedicate to your pet, your pet isn't going to be all that useful. So you have to dedicate at least another skill slot to your pet, ideally more, plus dump a lot of points into beast mastery. That's too expensive for the current gain. The only reason I do use a pet is because I like having a pet--I think it's cool, but at the same time, I know I don't have the best build because of it. And there are times, unfortunately, when the pet is left at home because I know I'm going through a tough area and I need those skill slots and beastmaster points for something that's actually going to make a difference.

Bottom line is that being a beast master can be made more viable with a few tweaks to the current system.

"Fixing" the BM issue is quite simple: just fix the pets AI. No need to add gloves or whips or collars or whatever. And the good news are that apparently ANET is working on it. Now I hope that wont be a crappy fix. I think the only solution would be to assign 2 keys to 2 new functions: pet attack command (the mob targeted), and pet heel command.

If only we could get that command for the henchies.

Actually, a pet heel command would be fabbo. But I still think it would be nice for them to reduce the skill requirement for just taking a pet with you from two to one.

A few points I want to make after reading the new posts:

1.) Not every Ranger is R/Mo and even though you can bring cure/heal for your pet, can you imagine how many skill slots you have left for offense or your defense?

Comfort, Charm, Res Sig, Monk Cure. 4 skill slots for anything else you want to bring.

2.) Have you tried Revive Animal?? Sure, it only costs 5E but the casting time is freaking 6s long and the rezing CIRCLE is so small. If your pet dies at the frontline, good luck going in and trying to rez it. I think I'll be better off with Comfort and run away a bit and then get back to action.

3.) I think most people want Comfort + Rez together. Getting rid of Charm can be overpowering, which I agree. Pet's AI is the most important thing though.

I am glad A.net is going to fix pet's AI.

When it comes to the specific armor for the ranger (like bloodstained boots and stonefist gloves) to help that class, I thing every class should have something like that.

The rez in comfort animal should be transfered to charm animal this way it makes bringing comfort animal not so much a neccesity. Also, it prevents the BM from becoming to overpowered. If you want to bring a pet then you use one skill slot (charm animal), if you want to keep that pet from dying while in a fight then you use up a second skill slot for healing your pet (comfort animal). Right now it's if you want to bring a pet you must use up two skill slots because if you just bring charm animal and that pet dies then now your using up a skill slot and no longer have a pet to make up for it. It's the same as taking only 7 skills and leaving the last one empty. The other thing would be the reverse. Charm animal is still used to charm an animal but its comfort animal that is required in your skill bar to have your pet in your party. This way it still costs a skill slot to have a pet but you wont require spending a second slot to keep the first one from becoming a waste if your pet dies at the beginning of a long mission.