Suggestion: Merge Charm Animal and Comfort Animal

I really like that.
/signed for a way to have multiple pets, even if you can only have one out at once. I would definitly get at least one of every single pet for my ranger if this happened! Plus, it would be exactly like how pets are now, except that you can accually choose which pet you have and not have to have the same one over and over.

ArenaNet, many players want this, and it would also probably make beast masters more common. It won't unbalance the game either. You still have to go and tame+level all the pets you get. Please at least consider this!

/signed for a Elite like this, but since it would allow you to possibly bring a second pet, maybe get rid of the healing and rezzing? Either that or you can't bring charm animal and this skill at the same time....

Then perhaps that means that something should be changed.

/not signed to combining charm animal and comfort animal, unless it is an elite (like above)

Yay for Heal As One now resurrects your pet. Yippie, I think that's what I wanted.

One Point, as a Ranger your skill bar starts filling up quickly when your a Beast Master. And sometimes "Revive pet" isnt a good skill to bring because the res is only nearby. if your pet is a bit aways(EVERYONE has wandered off forgetting to res pet) and you need to bring it close, Res wont make the range. But comfort can res off the radar. ALSO, pets are singular targeters and have nearly no AI to them so you cant really call them a Henchy.

So you want to make a skill that not only summons a level 20, but keeps it alive forever? That's better than res sig.

You realize that merging charm and comfort would be like adding heal to Animate Flesh Golem and making it non-elite.

/notsigned

/notsigned

there'red end up being a very usful ranger/melee class that could heal itself, have a speed buff and not worry about having a dead animal.

I really really like the signet idea.

/signed for this idea

Thumper: III?

Adding pet resurection to charm animal is a good idea but not healing that would be a little overpowerd.

Merging them into an elite is not a bad idea but you would have to add something extra to it in order for it to be a real elite. Maybe having an armor or attack boost if the skill is in your skill bar?(for the pet)

/signed

I dig the charm animal becomes comfort animal feature. I'd also like to be able to keep multiple pets. The amount of times i've dumped perfectly good level 20 pets because my vanity has struck again is getting annoying. I want to either have a pen in my guild hall where my pet can hang out and i can re-charm him, or as was previously suggested, have mutliple signets with each pet. Sometimes i feel like taking a rat out for a nibble, sometimes i feel like savagely mauling someone with a ruddy great bengal tiger. Why won't you let me live my dream anet!!

So Tame Signet functions like a Capture Signet except it captures Pets instead of Elites? And presumably each captured pet has a corresponding icon which you need to equip for the animal to be present, and are mutually exclusive like elites and and and i love this. This is a great idea. I can't bear to part with my first Tigger pet that's been with me since i started, but i'd love to bring up a few more pets.

/signed so hard


On topic:
I think that keeping the Charm skill seperate from Heal/Res helps force people away from running mixed Beastmastery/Somethingelse builds. Which is good or bad, depending on how you look at it. It's probably better for PvP, though, to prevent half-Beastmaster builds. Just a vague impression; i don't PvP.

Anyway, i'd rather see some of the Beastmastery keep-alive skills aid the player more. If Call of Protection also gave me the damage reduction, i'd feel much better about leaving a slot open for something else. Would that be hideously overpowered in PvP? (note: yes)

If you're going as a full Beastmaster, you take the Charm, Comfort or Heal as One (but then you don't get to use Rampage as One or Enraged Lunge or Ferocious Strike and i really want to). So you have six slots to 1) Keep yourself alive 2) stop your pet from being asploded 3) do some damage and make taking the pet at all worthwhile.

Enraged Lunge{e}
Predator's Pounce/Disrupting Lunge
Comfort Animal
Troll Unguent
Optional
Res
Call of Protection
Charm Animal

Really to max out Enraged Lunge you either need to hit Comfort Animal so that both that and Pred Pounce/Disrupt are recharging when it strikes (which is a bit silly but doable), or put another Beastmastery skill in (i'd go for Call of Haste, sine Call of Prot is even better after the Nightfall buff).

Or if i was going to get aggro (like when Heroing Nightfallen Jahai quests or whatever), i'd want to take Whirling or something else. I suppose i could drop the Res to do that, or make do with three skills to fuel Enraged.

Either way, it's a bit tight in PvE as a full Beastmaster, and that's not even bringing along any Bow attacks. It'd be nice if some of the keep alive Beastmastery skills also aided my Ranger so that i'd have another slot free.

/signed

The ability to combine the charm and comfort would be a great help to a ranger.
I really like the suggested signet idea as well, I would love the ability to switch in and out different pets.

You brought up a really good point, let's make charm animal elite!!

Let's make this simple. Charm gives you a level 20. Comfort resses it with almost no recharge. Merging these would be like giving res sig a recharge (a real one). Do we have to tell people what res sig is? I just came from random arenas.

i'll have the main course, rack of spam and a glass of pvp whine

/signed

was just talking about this today with a guildie. 8 skill slots is sometimes not enough. having to carry two for one purpose is as much of a waste as not licking the jelly off your plate that fell out of your overstuffed peanut butter and jelly sandwich...

another idea if charm & comfort wasnt merged was heal as one should not be an elite but only a skill so you could still bring barrage & a pet res/heal skill and have room for that extra interrupt or spirit.

also the Tame Signet idea sounds really nice. having to give up an old friend for a new one isnt a very pleasurable experience.

/Signed!
I love my pet, but taking 2 skills just to be able to bring it along and rez/heal when needed feels useless...

/signed for tame signet and for charm animal also ressing. mutually exclusive ideas, but either one would be cool. I like Miss Piggy, but sometimes I think it would be interesting to try other pets, but i don't want to have to re-level

I don't know... actually having another lvl 20 for free? You are adding a whole new "character" to the party. Thats a skill of its own if you ask me.

/signed

I love this idea. My beastmaster never has room for a res.

/signed

I thought i did this already but i guess not. Its a good idea and frees up a much needed slot.

~the rat~

/Signed... don't want to use up those skill slots do we, could always use another skill in there somewhere.

They need to be combined and i think charm animal, comfort animal, and res animal should all be combined.
its not fair to a ranger to use a skill slot for something there entitiled too.

/notsigned

I can tell pets are really worth that extra skill slot, especially in PvE, where pets are the cheapest way to absorb mob barrage and hamper incoming melee attackers (I know players who just change their secondary to R, just for this extra level 20 ally); making them even cheaper would be so out of balanceWait ... are you saying that rangers should bring an extra level 20 along without cost, just because they're rangers? How in the hell would that be balanced anyway? that's like saying all necromancers should automatically get a level 20+ minion spawned, without having a skill for it, from the 1st corpse they encounter.

uh?
A MM can bring ONE skill (summon skeletal horror) to have TEN allies. It can bring skills to transfer to them conditions, damage, heal all of them. When they die it doesn(t diable ALL skills for TEN to THREE seconds but rather fuels him with energy. They absorb A LOT of damage.
You don't imagine the death builds (Discord for example) focused on damage where Mmastery is just a BONUS.
Without beast mastery, a pet is a running timed blackout which, when it dies, cannot be revived through normal skills.

Additionally, the pet DOESN'T COME LEVEL 20. It has to be TRAINED to be efficient.

Sorry, but

/SIGNED.

Anyway a good resurrect of this topic which hasn't been answered from ages by Anet.

I'm a bit torn on the issue myself. I agree that "needing" to spend 2 slots in order to start making a basic pet build is a bit much, but on the other hand you can't make pets "too easy" to bring, or all rangers would always bring one.

Though, I wanted to point out that just bringing a pet "for the sake of it" isn't as hot as it sounds, since the pet's damage is determined by your level in beast mastery. If you take your pet with you with no points in BM, it will do about 1-3 damage.

I'm no pro at pvp or anything, but I'm under the impression that most viable pet pvp builds are the one revolving around the selfbuffs which can only be used while your pet is alive. I don't think I've ever seen a pvp (or pve, for that matter) build that focuses on using pet attacks. I haven't had much luck with them myself since they're a nightmare to time correctly.

• Minions have -10 regen, cannot be resurrected, need corpses to be made and do not follow intructions.
• A pet has no negative regen, can always be resurrected, does not need a corpse to appear and follows instructions (not to mention it cannot become hostile to allies).

• Death spiking is a joke, unless it's used to fell easy targets in order to provide corpses for minions.
• Beast Mastery however is much more used as an effective "bonus", like I mentioned in my previous post.

A blackout that has soaked up 480+ damage otherwise destined to you!

• Oh yeah? Never heard of Black Widows or Black Moa Birds?
• So, because some take time before they are effective, they should lead to overpowered builds, for "compensation"?

Figures why.

/notsigned

Seriously people, the idea is about as lame as you can get. Charm animal takes 10 seconds, cause its supposed to be not so easy to get a pet, and aftter that, Charm animal IS your pet, and Damagewise, it is better then just about any spell you can com across, PLUS it is a free source of damage. It dont cost energy to maintain/summon your pet. As for Comfort animal over Raise animal, remember that Raise animal is only in the ares, while Comfort animal works as long as you have Line of sight. Its also faster, so the 10 energy cost is more then adequate.

On the topic of pets VS Minions, consider the following points.

Pets need to level, a minions level is based on Death magic.

Pets can reach Lvl 20, and cost no Energy or attrib points (You can have a pet with no points in Beast Mastery. Minions cant (Besides Fleshies),and Cost energy and Attrib points to raise. Well... you can raise minions if you want to on 0 death magic, but dont expect them to last very long....

You can only have 1 pet, but Pets don't Degen like minions do. They can actually recover HP on their own.

Pets follow commands (usually), Minions attack on sight.

If the ranger dies, the pet remains with him. If the minion master dies, Those Minions can destroy the party

Pets EVOLVE, Minions don't. That is the whole point to leveling your pet. You can train it any way you want to.

well, i never use that, "overpowered," 5-damage per second pet or whatever they do when you don't have a toolbar full of pet skills. if they did make it so you only need 1 pet skill (not specifically charm) then i would still put 0 in bm and use that sunspear, "never use this skill at all," a couple times before taking it back off and continuing to never use a pet.

all the crap you need to make a pet useful makes your bow useless. i guess that's the point. i trust my bows more than my cheesy spider. i personally believe ranger is a little overpowered as it is but i should probably shut up about that...
maybe instead improving the usability of pets. make them able to agro without you attacking would actually make me consider using them. i'm not a big fan of the bow-shot-pet-aggro dance as it is.

Oh, but you'd have to agree that, if this dmg and the additional protection would come without the cost of a separate skill slot, it would give an unfair advantage (hence: builds with unfair advantages = "overpowered").

/not signed

Let's make rangers even more powerful!!! No...

/signed.

A pet takes too much space on the skill bar now, because you'll usually also need to bring one or two pet attack skills to make a pet useful.

You conveniently hide the fact that they can be mass healed (if ever a MM could care about this). You conveniently hide the fact also that you absolutely don't care if they die. You are conveniently lying also about their degen, which takes a serious time to accumulate. They need corpses to be made, right, and your pet need a skill slot. guess what I choose?
You conveniently hide the fact you must bring another skill to rez them, skill that disable also yours. A dead pet stay dead for the entire battle, while completely disabling you. Guess what happens if you're the monk of your party uh? About following instructions.... uh? agressive, pacific, guardian, target lock, that's "following instructions" for you? Bah.
Learn to toy with death magic. Come back later. Death Magic can deal damage.
No. You need 12 Beast mastery to have a pet DPS of 11, 13 if Dire. Ridiculous. Death Magic brings you a lot more than 11 DPS, sorry.
Seriously.... Presently, monsters break aggros like mad and comes directly to kill you. THey won't stay stupidly on your pet what do you try to make people believe? Did you ever try to bring a pet in Hard Mode without being a beastmaster loaded with pet protective skills uh? Your pet is just another mana pump for your monks, provided ennemies choose to target him, which is unlikely.
Or you could just bring with 4 Blood Dark bond or Transfer condition to have a virtually indestructible MM as long as he has his army.
Oh yes, I charm them everytime in presearing. Every of my heroes have a Dire Black widow, they are so easy to capture. O wai-
Ovepowered build? I have yet to see an overpowered build of beast mastery.
Thumpers are thumpers because of RaO and expertise, what's overpowered is their expertise, not their pet. And they are FAR from being an overpowered build. I don't see Beastmasters a lot in High end PvP. And beastmasters rangers share the Mesmers fate in PVE.

I would like Beastmasters popping in PvP and PVE. But the number of skills they need to bring just to begin to be efficient just keep them inferior.

Just show me a place, PVE or PVP, where there are beastmasters. The Barrage/pet build is only there to provide corpses to a necro! The true center of the build is the order-barrage-minion army, not the pets (get rid of barrage and necro and try to tank with your pet - die - then take again the Necro with his army).

/signed
Can bring my bear along and not lose my cap sig, yay

this will have major ramifications in pvp, and not all of it is good

nah, i think they're still pretty useless with 2 or 3 skill slots but i don't think they need to change that. it's roughly 6ish skills on a pet (with pet elite) that make it even comparable to a pre-searing-level (no elite) bow toolbar and really not even then since the pet is doing all the work but you don't have any blocking stances for pet.

i think they've buffed ranger enough...like i said, i would dig some changes to pets themselves that make them more than a drain on hench monk e-bars or distraction when used in mass in a b/p.

I don't see a need any more. In terms of power pet's are particularly strong now. The only thing I'd like is for them to be classed as party members instead of just allies.

Merge infuse health with lod please. They go together 99% of the time now anyways...^^

• Don't overrate this "mass healing": most of it is lost to healing the automatic health loss from the minions.
• You're "conveniently hiding" the fact that, except for the single Flesh Golem, all minions take significantly more damage than 60 armor targets.

Uh ... right ... with 60~75 armor, no armor buff, no protection spells and severely inadequate offensive skills, a MM really doesn't care the only barrier between him/her and a certain death disappears!

Minions lose 2 health/second from the start which, at 3 minutes allready, has accumulated up to a loss of 20 health/second. After 6 minutes, they lose 20 health/second and have a hidden 20 health/second loss versus positive regen from healing skills.
More so ever: minions will always die if left alone, while a pet regenerates when it's out of combat.

You're "conveniently" hiding the fact that minions need a skill slot too, in order to summon them from corpses.

Imbalance?

A minion cannot even be resurrected; then don't take a "pet rez" and you'll be even on that point.

Oh come on! You could at least try to keep it real!
You can resurrect your pet as many times as you want and, for real Beast Masters, the downtime for "pet death" is only 3 seconds.

People will call you a "noob" ... definitely. A healer/protector Monk, thinking he's a Beast master as well, is deluded.
This "argument" was just for comical relief, wasn't it?

Oh ... again ... look who's "conveniently" leaving out things.
A pet can also: break away from a target in order to flee together with its master and you can add "pet skills" for strategical interrupts and condition applying.

• I prefer to toy with my opponents and to stay realistic about Death Magic.
• A level 15 Charr Warrior can deal damage too.

What kind of Beast Master are you?!? You have to bring skills for your pet to deal decent damage! You don't expect a warrior to just win by auto-attacking without using skills either, do you?

Then why have you been whining this much about the inconveniances of your pet dying before you? If you die 1st, there's no point in worrying about disabled skills.

Yes, I regularely farm the Shadow Army in the Depths of Madness, in Hard Mode, with 3~4 pets on the party (with no-one more than 4 rank in Beast Mastery), where they soak up enemy ranger Barrage, body-block enemy warriors and take a portion of the aggro. It works great for me ... you should try it.

So, the game has to be made unbalanced, to compensate for your lack of imagination?

Now ... if you think that's virtually indestructible, then we certainly don't play on the same level. MM have so many weak points, not to mention their army can be sweaped in a matter of second(s) with a well-placed nuke.

I don't know what you're taking people for, but ... there are no heroes in Pre-Searing!

They're not overpowered for now, for aslong as a companion requires a skill slot!
The OP's suggestion is to make it overpowered.

They are given a hard time, because most don't know how to play them effectively ... but that's people's fault, not the game mechanics'.

Same can be said for Blood spikers ... both of them don't provide great synergy with the party.

Several Nightfall Beast Mastery skills provide combined effects allready. But the OP's suggestion completely ruins balance, for it affects not only real Beast Masters (i.e. those who actually invest in rank, equip pet attacks and don't rely on Bow attack skills)

I wasn't talking about the "Barrage/pet build", but about pets absorbing the enemy's Barrage. From one of your previous replies I can make up that you knew that, so stop twisting my words.

/signed

I agree with this very much so. I take my pet everywhere, and I like to keep my "meat shield" alive so yes I heal the pet. The charm animal sits there; takes up space and I do nothing with it.
Name another skill that does anything like this; I am unaware of any, so I am asking here (be nice) is there another skill that simply takes up residence in your skill slot bar and does nothing?

If there was a change to be made, I say have the charm animal summon the creature, with a certain amount of HP -based on the BM Level- and thereby heal the pet if it were allready summoned, that would effectivly merge the two together, and allow rangers to summon/heal pets, and make more use of the charm animal skill; vice the once per pet use it has now.

I liked the idea of having different charmed animals to pick from, I would not have to let go of the one companion that has been with me all this time. (unrealistic attachment here?)

You are a pure flamer and troll.
I made points and you nitpicked each of my sentence, twisting my words the first one.
I should never forget Ensign's signature.
Beastmasters will stay in the depths of gimmicky underpowered builds is nothing is done.

PS: Saying that blood spikers are not seen in High end PvP shows clearly that you should play more and troll forums less. Blood spikers have for a long time been a powerful gimmick in HA, and even in GvG (where it was sometimes prefered for a FoC build).
Excepted for thumpers and the glory days of Power of my Ranger, Beastmasters never have been on top of PvP or PVE's favored builds.

I think your beginning to exaggerate. Ever since Enraged Lunge appeared, pet's have been a reliable source of sustainable damage. People have been taking Beastmaster teams on missions for quite a while (I know I have). Sure we'll never do DoA with a pet team but I can live with that.

PvP? We go to TA and get glad points with 3 BM's and a monk. We have even had limited success in HA. (Well, before Para/rit spike nd hex pressure became 'the thing' anyways). It's niche. Not the most powerful course, but it works to a certain degree. More importantly it's fun.
They are a constantly renewable resource that can dish out fairly good damage (especially when they can auto-crit for around 53 damage. 100+ with certain skills). They can Dazed. Have the ability to not be blocked. Sure they can't deep wound (without R/P) but they can lock skills for 20 seconds every 10. It may be a gimmick but it's not completely redundant. Being a Thumper is sooooo much fun also. Even without RaO. It's not as bad as you make out.

What?!?
I disagreed with you and your reaction is to start hurling slurs as these at me?

I merely separated the different arguments for structure and provided counter-arguments.
Nowhere did I twist your words.

This is really getting sick.

... with the stress on "have been". Y'know many builds have once seen their use in different disciplines.

Beast Masters aquired a negative reputation in the early days, which never faded away. But, again, that's the playerbase's fault for not readjusting their view, not the game mechanics'!