Ra/Mo (11+4 Beast Mastry, 10+1 Expertise, 10 Smiting)
* Zelot's Fire
* Charm Animal
* Call of Haste (10, 0, 25) (energy, cast-time, cooldown)
* Resurection Signet
* Disrupting Lunge (5, 0, 5)
* Ferocious Strike [E] (5, 0, 8)
* Predator's Pounce (5, 0, 5)
* Comfort Animal (10, 1, 1)
So... who said beastmastry sucks?
Ok. Today I decided I was _going_ to make beastmastry work. One of the major hobbles is the lack of a good weapon; by the time you take a high-expertise and high-beastmastry you're stuck with either choosing Marksmanship or finding another skill line /w a weapon. I chose beastmastry because I didn't want to use a bow... that's the whole point, you see. So I was struggling to find a good secondary, when I got hit with some nasty smiting monks (a common build these days). Anyway, what is neat about the smiting line is that it (a) gives you a wand/staff, and (b) has Zealots' Fire.
Zealots Fire: For 60 seconds, whenever you use a skill on an ally, all foes adjacent to your target are struck for 5-37 fire damage.
Nice skill. Oh, wait, it said foes "adjacent to your target". Isn't my target for beast master skills my pet? Oh, you don't say. At high expertise, I have 4 very spammable attack skills -- I just can't click them fast enough I have so much energy to burn. They have a cast-time of 0 -- so you can do them all at once if you want... is this a bug? Open the flood gates. Let's see those beastmasters finally take back their rightful spot as Guild Wars champions.
EDIT: As it turns out the "target" of the pet attack skills is yourself, so the Zelot's damage always centers around you when clicking pet attacks. I actually think this is a "bug" and I'm reporting it as such; the pet should be the official 'target' of these skills, not you. As such, this build is far less useful than I originally thought.
Smiting Tiger, Hidden Beastmaster
IxChel
Kha
Moved to The Campfire.
Watersong
Mm, no bow at all. You're doomed if your pet dies.
ICURADik
Sweet.
powdahound
Those skills dont have a recharge of 0, they have casting time of 0. The cooldown on almost all the BM skills is pretty long.
Weezer_Blue
You're /monk, and you are using Resurection Signet rather than a re-usable res? and where is revive animal? ya know... you could throw balthazar's aura in as well...
Tellani Artini
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Originally Posted by Watersong
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Originally Posted by Weezer_Blue
You're /monk, and you are using Resurection Signet rather than a re-usable res? and where is revive animal? ya know... you could throw balthazar's aura in as well...
For random arena, re-usable res is kind of awful. Why would he want revive animal over comfort animal? Comfort will trigger zealot's fire, resurrecting the pet after it dies will not.
knives
Mmm...I'll have to try this one. BM intrigues me..
Epinephrine
Well, played around with it - it's a bit glitchy - the damage seems to radiate off the Ranger rather than the pet, so it seems that a "pet attack" targets the player, not the pet. On the plus side, you don't have to wait for an attack to finish, and at the 13 expertise I had it cost 2 energy per attack - I walked through 4 X 5 cost (thus 8 energy) attacks in less than a second (literally, you can mash the keyboard and get all 4 off), delivering a nice pile of area damage (about 31 a shot IIRC, so 124 PBArea damage - I didn't have smiting maxed) in less than a second for 8 energy. You can spike it like that roughly every 5 seconds between the three 5 secoond cycle attacks and comfort pet for a burst of 120 or so area damage every 5 seconds, and bits between.
Not bad, it is definitely a surprise for anyone who thinks you're a poor defenseless ranger. It's not Uber cost effective, but few spells can deliver that type of damage that frequently - it's not a bad skill set - it turns out that you can even use comfort animal to attack if you leave Charm animal behind - the pet skills don't work, but comfort animal does - it gives a message that your pet is out of range, but it resolves and delivers the damage. UberRusty
I MUST try this build! Time to switch to a ranger secondary, get the skills, equip a melee weapon and charge in.
Haloknight9
I have to say this is an interesting build. I think ill try it a bit later.
KuTeBaka
why dont you put some sort of running skill in there, just in case they come after you? you dont need to be standing to cast the shouts.
IxChel
If I'd change anything, it'd be to replace the Call of Haste with yet another Beast Attack, such as Brutal Strike (10, 0, 5). A bit more expensive than the others, but the build above never runs even close to low; so mixing-in a 10 energy attack wouldn't hurt. This is without me reading the pet attack descriptions or using them effectively (like waiting about 2 seconds per call to actually have the pet do something).
Originally Posted by Watersong
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Quote: Originally Posted by powdahound Those skills dont have a recharge of 0, they have casting time of 0. The cooldown on almost all the BM skills is pretty long. I listed the cooldown for you in the skill listings -- for most of them it is 5 seconds, which is not very long at all.
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Originally Posted by KuTeBaka
why dont you put some sort of running skill in there, just in case they come after you? you dont need to be standing to cast the shouts.
Well, given that damage is around you (and not the pet, unfortunately) running isn't going to be a good option. I wouldn't swap out any of those attack skills, as it is another 32 AOE damage every 5 seconds. If you really had to have a non-beastmastry skill, I'd pick throw dirt.... but that said: get a monk to heal you. This is a damage-dealing build, not a running build.
Myth Osis
o.O just found this im a Mo/R so zealots is only affective if im standing by a mob?
That is if my pet is tanking then zelots is on me and not the pet? hmmm bugger... Spose could use Balthazars aura but 25 mana ouch....!
IxChel
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Originally Posted by Myth Osis
o.O just found this im a Mo/R so zealots is only affective if im standing by a mob? That is if my pet is tanking then zelots is on me and not the pet? hmmm bugger...
I bet Zealots' fire does exactly what the skill description says -- it centers the AoE damage around target other ally. This comes down to N cases:
1. if you are targeting a "foe" (and watching their skill-bar), then it centers the Zealot's Fire around you; 2. if you are targeting your "pet" and you hit the pet attack, it might (not tested) center the Zealot's Fire around your pet; and thus, 3. if you are targeting your "monk" and you hit a pet attack, it might do an additional Zealot's Fire around your monk! (not tested). Anyone who has the build up care to test and report back? Black Raine
I tried making a R/Mo beastmaster once... was hilarious.
Level 12 Smiting Prayers for... Strength of Honor- + 8 damage that is unaffected by armor (I think and added the the damage value last, like Galrath Slash) Judge's Insight- 20% armor penetration Level 16 Beastmastery and your pet does... 17.23 - 32.16 damage per hit... With Judge's Insight... your pet deals... 21.21 - 39.59 damage per hit... on a 60 AL target Add 8 from Strength of Honor... 29.21 - 47.59 per hit. Nice  By the by, I got these numbers from the calculator on the guild wars guru main site. And this isn't including pet attacks. ^_^
IxChel
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Originally Posted by Black Raine
29.21 - 47.59 per hit
That is nice; but that's not the rationale for this build -- you could just as easily stack those on a Warrior /w Flurry (and a 1.33 rather than a 2.0 attack rate) and have more team damage being dealt.
This build centers around the idea that Zealot's Fire triggers when you use a "skill" on a "other ally". The goal is to trigger that AoE damage as cheaply as possible. The current approach is for a Monk to cast Zealot's Fire, then Divine Spirit, and then spam Divine Boon (at a cost of 1 energy) as many times as possible till the opponent is dead. With the 1/4 second cast, and the 3/4 after cast, you can get off about 13 of these with a maxed Divine Favor attribute. That's 2 slots and a cost of 2en/fire, for 13 seconds of each minute... but beyond that it's prohibitively expensive. With the ranger's pet attacks your also in the 2-3/fire energy range, only its not limited to a single 13 second spike -- it is more continuous and sustainable damage. The problem with this build seems to be that it's not targeting the AoE damage around the pet; but this might just be because the pet isn't selected. silvertemplar
Nope been testing this with my Mo/R. Damage always around me, whether i select the pet, or me, or an ally makes no diff.
Simply spamming normal monk healing/mend condition etc on my pet do however cause damage arund the pet. Punching Bag Used : Nice friendly self-healing Jungle Troll outside Denravi's. Black Raine
If you guys haven't realized yet, Pet attacks are something you cast on yourself. When you go to capture Ferocious Strike, you see the boss using the skill, not the pet.
It's kinda like... using certain shouts. You are the target of the skill, though the affect does not... effect you. Example: "Fear me!" triggers zealot's fire. It is a skill that targets yourself though it effects the monsters around you. Using a Pet Attack is like using a shout that tells your pet to do something.
Ollj
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Originally Posted by Watersong
Mm, no bow at all. You're doomed if your pet dies.
no hes not. he can still smite trough teammates just like before.
you must cast spells on allys to smithe trough them. UberRusty
Guys I have a question, is Zealot's Fire triggered when the pets ATTACK, or are they triggered when you press the button for the skill?
silvertemplar
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Guys I have a question, is Zealot's Fire triggered when the pets ATTACK, or are they triggered when you press the button for the skill?
When you press the button. Or to be more precise: When you loose the energy. So if i'm not mistaken you can pull aggro on yourself, spam 5+ pet attacks with zealots which will result in 5x40+ aoe damage [200+ ? @ 25+ energy] AND the actual pet damage [depends on skills]. | But if you just cast Balthazar's then you can do 20+ aoe damager for 10 seconds [200+ @ 25 energy] . Therefore the only diff imho is what exactly the pet attack DO [so just spamming pet attacks + zealots instead of just spamming balthazar's + serpent's quickness need to weigh up carefully :P]. In short, if i'm going to have to tank [or farm] then i'd probably not bring pet attacks with zealots fire.
FrogDevourer
It's assuredly an original build. However (at first glance) the amount of damage dealt isn't impressive. That's about 150 dmg in less than 1s every 5/8s, right? It doesn't strike me as powerful in terms of DPS, and it's a weak damage spike if you take into account all the skill slots required. I could be wrong but I'd say a basic AoE elementalist can do better as long as he has some energy management skills. Does the pet damage or the damage from attack skills make these number more exciting?
PippinTook
Does zealots fire really work while you are using pet skills, I didnt think it did. It would probably work if you did comfort animal but I dont think if you do pet attacks then that would work because it isnt a skill on that ally. Can someone test this to see if it works plz?
Scaphism
I've been running a similar build for the last week or so in PVE and it's been a blast to try and get it to work.
I dropped call of haste from my bar because I get more damage from the chaining pet attacks than I do from increased attack speed. Alternately, you can use Call of Haste with Strength of Honor- they're a natural combo, but otherwise call of haste isn't enough of a priority to kick another skill off my bar. It's good, and I want it, but I don't need it. Also, it's still upsetting that I can't see damage numbers from my pet's attacks- if I could, I suspect it'd be easier to rationalize putting Call of Haste into the build. However, as is the problem with most beastmastery builds, I run into problems because my pet takes up too many slots on my skill bar. I've been using Balth's Aura and Zealot's fire and it works very well for my purposes. Energy isn't a big deal either- Ferocious Strike is amazing (though frustrating when you don't know if it missed or it simply hasn't launched yet). Combine ferocious strike with Druid's Armor and a decent staff/foci and you can chain two BA back to back without a problem. I'm struggling to find a +20% enchanting mod to add that extra two seconds to my Balth's Aura- if anyone comes across one I'd pay well for it (and report the results back here). UberRusty
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I'm struggling to find a +20% enchanting mod to add that extra two seconds to my Balth's Aura- if anyone comes across one I'd pay well for it (and report the results back here).
Faction? |
Tuna
I've run a beastmaster using balth in tombs. It did pretty decent damage but nothing spectacular. The overall effect of a smiting beastmaster on a single target is probably on par with an average warrior. If you get in the fray yourself using balth + zealots that damage suddenly becomes aoe, which can have disireable effects. If I recall correctly I used a +20% enchants staff. I could throw a balth on my pet quite often with the help of ferocious strike. Zealots could prove interesting in tombs (koth maps) but I don't see much use for GvG. If zealots would trigger on the pet people might actaully consider running one of these
 My biggest problems with the beastmaster were 1. switching between my pet to cast balth and the target to stategically use the pet skills and 2. getting the damn animal to go where I wanted and when I wanted it to. I swear, if the AI on that thing got anyworse...
Scaphism
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Originally Posted by UberRusty
Faction?
Oh, I've had it unlocked for a long time. This is a PVE character though, so I need to buy the actual wrapping.I had another thought for the build earlier tonight- throw Serpent's Quickness in there and you could really spam your pet attacks non-stop.
Tellani Artini
There's a visual cue every time your pet uses a pet attack. I think it's important to always keep your eyes on the fight to time the attacks and see what's going on (obviously you'll want to know if the pet is hitting a target with shield of judgement on them). That being said, I have no idea what happens when you use a pet attack before the last used one has been executed. I always thought the first one just vanished without a trace, but never tested it. Would be nice if they came back out in order (FIFO).
I do know that the pet doesn't have to actually be at the target to use the last attack you called. You can hit ferocious strike while the pet is approaching and he'll still use it when he gets there for at least 10 seconds. This way you can use two ferocious strikes in rapid succession as soon as the pet reaches the target, which is conveniently almost enough to regain the entire energy cost of balthazar's aura 
UberRusty
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I had another thought for the build earlier tonight- throw Serpent's Quickness in there and you could really spam your pet attacks non-stop.
Lol, that's what I did. Every 3 seconds it's a barrage of spamming! | I just use a melee weapon to be near the target and chase him while he runs. =)
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