Beast Mastery skills- functionality specifics

a couple edits...

Hi Gurus. First post. After checking a few fansites, I consider this the best. Very knowledgeable, and the best skills reference hands down. (except for the Aug 25 updates) Working on a beast-heavy team build, and have a few hard-to-test Beast Mastery questions, which were touched on in this forum, but not thoroughly answered yet:

1. Can someone verify that Call of Haste and Call of Protection work on all your party members' animal companions? I heard rumor that the plural effect is false, and only applies to your own pet. What about after casting Otyugh's Cry? (once all pets are under your control)
2. For that matter, do pet shouts stack?
3. Otyugh's Cry- enemy pets can't attack their masters or their master's allies (i assume the description meant target foe's party members, as opposed to just Lord/Thief/Priest/Pets.) But do enemy pets still get the armor bonus?
4. Do party spells, particularly Order of Pain, apply to Allies/Pets?
5. Symbiotic Bond. due to update- nevermind
6. Maximum number of melee-ers (ie pets) that can surround a single target?

and one non-beast related question:
- if yielding a lightning weapon, ie shock bow, is it Greater Conflagration or Winter that changes the elemental properties? (I know it's not both, and I suspect it's Winter.)

For your last question, Winter, because GC doesn't touch elemental properties, only physical damage.

1. Call of Haste has always worked properly on my animal companions (I've used melandru's stalker, warthog, wolf, snow wolf, lizard, and bear).

2. They should. No real way for me to prove it to you, but I'd assume they would follow the same guidlines as shouts for henchies and humans.

3. Haven't found a use for this skill since all animals are usually level 5 and enemies will make easy work of them....

4. don't know

5. don't know

6. I'd assume that if there was room, you could have 8 humans and 8 pets attacking one target. Since the pet typically (or is *supposed*) attacks the same enemy you are attacking, I see no reason why it wouldn't attack b/c other pets are already attacking that enemy.

This is a free bump, so someone else can fill in the blanks or add their expertise to this....

OoP does NOT affect pets. I tested with OoV to see if pet gained health. It doesn't. So I'm certain party affecting shouts/spells don't affect pets. However, pet shouts affect every pet on your team, not just your own. Pet heavy teams need only bring one of each shout per character.

Symbiotic Bond works. Pet takes longer to die and you will lose some hp when pet gets clobbered. However, if u combine that with Call of Protection and Otoyugh's Cry, you're pet is pretty much unkillable...

edit* Warrior Shout: I will Avenge You! DOES work with dead pets for some reason...

Symbiotic Bond works in the way that it halfs the damage to your pet (and give the +1 health regen), but it doesn't give the other half of the damage to you. So, in the way it works now, it really is an incredibly useful spell for all beastmasters.

Great responses thankyou. I had to clarify a couple questions, as i think they were misunderstood when some of the answers were given. So far, y'all have confirmed the following:

4. Party [enchantment] spells, like Order of Pain, do NOT apply to pets. Corpse-count spells (ie Victory is Mine) seems to include pet corpses. Makes sense, as I believe this is true for Necro death spells as well. (thanks Yukito)

5. Symbiotic Bond was fixed, and is now a shout instead of stance. (thanks Thock)

7. Winter changes elemental weapons, not Greater Conflagration. (thanks Pardoz)

bump?

Number 5 i believe is mentioned in the new update notes page as being fixed.

(bump) still would like answers of proof to 1,2,and 3. Thanks.