PvE Beastmaster Build - Check the screenshots before you laugh.

I can't really answer your question but I rather playing beastmaster for fun and not for missions or serious events.

I prefer using only Enraged Lunge for the 5 seconds recharge and no other attack skill. I use Symbiotic Bond, Predatory Bond and Call of Protection for the long recharge and for Feral Lunge (no need to click every attacks and then Feral Lunge.

Quite Easy to get over 100 dmg thought and do conditions at the same time.

The major problem still left for a beastmaster build is that there is NO weapon that uses Beast Master, Wilderness Survival or Expertise for a req. It would be nice to have one that uses those.

Elementalists don't need to have points in wand or staff do they?

Yes, in order to deal the damage required for a wand/staff they must meet the requirement. The mods will still apply, though - but an offhand must meet the requirement or you won't get the energy bonus.

A Pet-related weapon would be nice, but the damage you would deal with that - or a bow - is small compared to the damage dealt by the pet.

You can use a Bow. Poison String anyone?

The pet is the main form of attack so there is no real need for Marksmanship.

The high Expertise seems like a waste though. All of the skills are either 5 or 10 energy skills. At Expertise lvl 12, they end up costing 3 and 5 energy. But, if the Expertise was dropped to lvl 9, the skills would cost 3 and 6 energy. The build wastes 3 attribute levels to save 1 energy each time a 10 energy skill is used.

Beast: 16
Expertise: 9-10
rest: Wilderness Survival

<-- Lucky!

I happened to find (way back in the beginning of the game) a gold Insightful Raven Staff with +15 energy, a 19% fire recharge (for some reason), and no requirement at all

It's made me happy in many situations for energy alone.......wish it had a better associated recharge tho :P

As for the build, looks very interesting. I really need to cap that elite....

Staves and the like don't make you meet the requirement for the Energy bonuses - i've been using an old Milius' Pillar with my ranger for trapping/BM when I don't have Marksman points.

Thanks for the info on the Expertise - as a default I usually have low WS but dump a lot into Expertise. Good to know in this case. More suggestions welcome

i did 1 vs 1 with my wammo agains her pet. not that im a great warior (its kinda new to me) but i was using a basic build my i got from my guildie.

with my max armor the pet degened me with poison bite+bleeding (forgot attak name). i was waistin all my energy for condition removing, self defence etc. even with all adrenaline damage skills and bonneti defence, the pet killed me!!!

gotta give credit to a good BM

*i never realy got into it and was using BM mostly for B/P runs and some ettin farming. i actually posted a BM farming build somewhere here a while ago, but still used trapping much more

The thing is with the Beast Masters, they're pretty rare to find one, like PvE mesmers, and players use their pet as a meat shield most of time and do Barrage.

I wonder how good is it a team of Beast masters for farming.

One thing that I noticed - and love - is that I can strafe and dodge arrows/missiles whilst my pet beats the crud out of an enemy - all the time i'm using pet attacks and shouts. You can't get interupted unless of course you're casting Troll, but in that case run behind a corner where the view is obstructed.

After taking my ranger from the boat at Kaineng Center to Cavalon in the past week, not one single PUG has noticed that i wasn't using a bow, or that I was using pet attacks. Every group, however, had a very high damage output. Not entirely mine to take credit for, but it shows...sometimes.

Well, if you want a self heal (Cheap but still good and without being interrupted): predatory bond. Each time your pet attacks, it heals you at the same time. you can use it for Enraged Lunge booster too

maby heal as one? new elite

If you want to remove your Enraged lunge ok but if you want to keep it, which skills instead Troll can you use? Melandru Resiliece? I dont think so. Except if you're R/Me and you have Arcane Mimicry with another beast master

maby a monk bond? the 1 that does "when target ally attks YOU gain +? hp" is it Life attunment? that might counter effect simbio bond

I personally would much rather have Call of Protection on my bar than Symbiotic Bond, but then I tend to play with people who will heal my pet if need be and don't need to do anything sneaky to help the heals along. Aside from the one pip of regen, Symbiotic Bond isn't doing anything but moving damage around whereas Call of Protection will actually reduce the damage coming in. Damage absorbtion can be so helpful, that if I want to buff my pet's defenses, Call of Prot is the first thing on my list of necessities. It's especially crippling to an assassin's damage, as they rely on a huge quantity of small bits of damage.

On a similar note, I'd really recommend dropping Feral Lunge or Bestial Pounce for Call of Haste. Not only will Call of Haste increase your pet's attack speed and thus damage output by 33%, but it will also reduce the travel times for your pet as it runs to each new target. The is extremely important with any enemy that might move on you, since all pets need to waste a full attack cycle standing still next to an enemy before they attack. The faster they catch up, the more likely they'll be to actually hit their target (and when that attack you're trying to get to land is a charged Enraged Lunge every 5 seconds, you really want your pet to hit that last blow as your enemy flees). While not nearly as important in PvE as it is in PvP, Call of Haste is an awesome skill for adding damage output to your pet. In addition to that, it is an extremely cheap skill with a long duration and recharge. In other words, it's perfect for pairing with Enraged Lunge.

Having skills on your bar to charge Enraged Lunge is nice, but if you can charge it with skills that normally benefit you while they recharge then you're much better off than if you take some throw-away skills for the sole purpose of charging up Enraged Lunge.

This is why I really like the idea of using Tiger's Fury in an Enraged Lunge build. You can turn two mandatory pet skills which normally do nothing, Charm and Comfort Animal, into Enraged Lunge batteries. It prevents you from needing to fill your bar with slow-recharging relatively useless attacks like Bestial Pounce. However, Tiger's Fury does have the drawback of making your build relatively energy intensive, so I understand why some people don't want to go that route.

Any way you look at it though,working Call of Haste into this build should be a top priority for improvement.

w00t for feedback

I've played with Predatory Bond - and no, it's not a maintained enchantment. It's a shout with a recharge a bit too long to keep up all the time, and doesn't heal you for too terribly much. The monk enchant you're thinking of, probably Live Vicariously, would work but the problem of energy comes up.

I've messed with Call of Haste - I will experiment with that. By your title (Master of beasts) I think you know what you're talking about. Most likely I'll take out Feral Lunge if either of the two attacks, as Brutal Strike is a very high damage dealer, giving almost as much damage as Enraged Lunge does.

Heh, it took me a minute to figure out what you were talking about with Tiger's Fury - but yes, when it disables skills it'll amp Enraged Lunge. Thing is, at 16 BM, it's almost too easy to max it out :/ +24 for each recharging skill...three almost maxes the +80 out. I will definitely give it a try though

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Question: what items do you use?

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Currently a Milius' Staff that my ele had in the back bag of her inventory. Specifically for the +15 energy.

After more testing, I tend to run dry on energy - fast - with the 9 in Marksman and Tiger's Fury. You just run outta energy way too fast. Your pet gets one or two good spikes in, but with the relatively fast recharge of the elite, the spam for high-damage potential is there.

ROFL I should post my solo beastmaster build for the first room of the Deep... I'm currently working on a solo BM build for... Uw. We'll see the results

My Beast Master
Dp 490 1 sup vigor + Fortitude Bow +30
Beast Master 15 +(1+2) Mask + Major
Expertise 10 +(1) Minor
Wilderness 5 +(2) Major
Marksman 11 +(2) Major

Enrage Lunge{E}
Feral Lunge
Melandrus Assault
Call of Haste
Symbiotic Bond
Call of Protection
Comfort Animal
Charm Animal

Been messing around with this build for a while and so far energi has not really been a problem.

Rune update made the Att. distrubution a bit easier

I'm not a too experienced BM but one time I had tried it out, trying to solo wtih it.........I came up with a small problem. Again I haven't played around with pets too much but for a solo BM build, how would you get your pet to take all the aggro? I end up taking aggro instead of pet and i die T.T

Don't forget that afflicted warriors use frenzy. You're doing half the listed damage.

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My biggest success has been a hybrid BM/Marksmanship build:

14 Expertise, 12 BM, rest Marksmanship

Ferocious Strike
Penetrating Attack
Sundering Attack
Bestial Fury
Comfort Animal
Charm Animal
Capture Signet/Res Signet/Call of Haste
Read the Wind

Get a zealous short bow, use Read the Wind and then just jam your first four skills all at once on the first target. Ferocious Strike will deal good damage and keep your mana up for constantly spamming those 3 second recharge attack skills. You can actually do a Penetrating or Sundering attack 2 out of every 3 attacks, even with Bestial Fury on. The single-target damage is really nice, and it's fun because you get to hit a lot of buttons during combat. I also like it because there's no opportunity for one pet attack to overwrite another. I did try out Disrupting Attack for another spammable to put in slot 7, but all too often I'd hit it before the Ferocious Strike connected, cancelling it. It was just too much trouble.

When i was exploring the edges of Grenths Footprint i switched to Beastmaster for the sheer hell of it. Was amusing as hell when during an absolutely massive fight there were 2 henchman left standing, me hid behind a rock () and my pet getting blatantly ignored kicking the crap outa everything.

I was using Ferocious Strike since i don't have Factions, but it was dishing out a fair bit of damage. The only part i hate is having to take 2 skills all the frigging time! You have so little choice afterwards, sub-par damage and sub-par protection/healing or masses of 1 and none of the other. The other thing that sucks is using a pet interrupt (i had the one that knocks down the target) and its almost impossible to target. Sometimes it'd do it instantly, other it'd stand there while a Gnasher cast both Siphon and Bone Fiend and never touch it.

I'll have to give that build a go when i get Factions.

Currently I use

12+1+3 Beastmastery
12+2 Expertise

Predator's Pounce
Disrupting Lunge
Call of Haste
Enraged Lunge
Call of Protection
Comfort Animal
Charm Animal
Res Sig

Only a level 16 Dire Phoenix right now, but soon its going to be 20!

Locust: The screen was not with Frenzy...I can take screens of me doing 160 damage against Shiro if you wish I still haven't broken the 200-damage barrier, closest was against a random lv 14 Afflicted in Vizunah with 197 damage.

Interupting with a pet is pretty tricky - you have to get used to the rate at which your pet attacks, and then you can only interupt the rather slow casting ones. Like I said...fairly tricky.

When using Ferocious Strike, you always have plenty of energy, but you're really dealing out mediocre damage. Factions beast elite skills are really a must...especially if you're serious about taking your pet. A good beastmaster's pet is much harder to kill than a good W/Mo, with a base 15 damage reduction from Call of Protection (equal to five Sup Absorbs) with a Mending that can't be shattered (Symbiotic Bond +3 natural regen), with half the damage split to you on top of that. I've been in a situation rather recently where my pet was the only tank - our W/Mo got 60 DP rather quickly - but did just fine as a tank. You can't pull as well, because the pet rushes in sometimes, but I've found that "I'm targeting myself!" sometimes works.

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Very interesting ideas. I just got into pure beast mastery, after lots of experience with B/Ps and thumpers (which in some cases are now using Enraged Lunge)...

I posted a build similar in a contest that could make it one of the premades, or at least make BMs more popular. Any help would be appreciated...

I've recently gotten into a beastmaster build in PvE and like others have pointed out, found that a pet makes a much better tank than a Wammo. With Symbiotic Bond and Call of Protection, there reallly is no match. Additionally with Troll, all the damage that comes from your pet is pretty much negated. The only thing left now is to have PuGs buy into how valuable a beastmaster can be...

The build i use atm is

Ferocious strike
Predators Pounce
Call of Protection
Predatory Bond
Call of Haste
Comfort
Charm
Rebirth

BM - 12 +1 + 3
Exp - 11 + 2
Marks - 8 + 1 (to meet reqd. of bow)

put this build together when i decided to use eoe at 16 bm in vizhuh square for the masters - during the mish noticed the insane amounts of dps my pet can do and though what the heck and went on a master spree in cantha including naphui quarter which we steamrolled on the first try - lol also did the last bonus i needed in tyria (abadons mouth) and got the protector of tyria and cantha w/ in the same day - shows u how powerful a bm build is if used right

like the ideas here and will probably try em out some time, still need to work on my build and and cap enraged lunge for more dmg - for e mangement ferocious strike is a good skill but a elite to so cant be use w/ enraged but for solo or maybe in groups maybe somthing like essance bond or balthzars spirit could work? not to sure just tossing some ideas around

--Edit-- Forgot to put predators pounce on the list - lol

I'm certain the afflicted in Cantha didn't laugh when they were torn apart by my wolf.

I'd drop WS and take Predatory Bond, but that might be very tricky with Symbiotic Bond, so I'd (drop that and) take Call of Protection. CoP takes away damage => less healing required. Though ... Symbiotic Bond splits damage ... and adds a bit of regen.
Maybe I've been lucky, but I found that healers usually take care of my pet as well.

But, more importantly, I like the additional damage output from my bow (with RtW and Distracting Shot is always nice to bring) which means I'll put some points in Marksmanship, drop Trolls and WS and rely on Predatory Bond.

I'd put expertise on 13, most (spammable) petattacks come at 5E, which means they're only 2 with 13 expertise.

I find Brutal Strike less usefull in combination with Enraged Lunge, it's 10E, and doesn't do the damage of EL. It's extra damage only kicks in when the target is <50%, which usually isn't a long lasting state. I rather take Predators Pounce, same damage (when target >50%) and free pet-healing. Bestial Pounce is fun off course, but if you want to annoy casters there are better ways. Conditions are less usefull with the DPS pressure already available, Bleeding and Poison simply don't get the time to do their job, unless you go solo hunting for big bosses, but you mentioned healers ....

If you're looking to do damage, Bow + Beast > Beast
Pure, raw damage with no frizzles.

But if you do the same as I, you'd end up with my build :S - and variety is the spice of life.

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