Beast Mastery

That brings me to an even harder question....
What is better beastmastery of marksmanship.....
Now i know that neither is better......but what do you think is more fun ; easyer ; deadlyer....and last but certanly not least harder to counter...
So to make things short.....what do you prefer and why

My main character is a ranger, and he focuses on Expertise and Marksmanship. I just charmed a level 20 black widow from the Underworld but have yet to play around with him yet, so I cannot speak for the beast masters... but I really like being a marksman. I have a whole bag of tricks that I can use from the Marksmanship line... need someone crippled? Pin Down or Crippling Shot does the trick. Annoying caster giving you problems? Concussion Shot will daze them, really hampering their ability to do anything. Need to do some heavy damage? Penetrating Attack will pierce armor. I play a pure ranger build (only ranger skills), so combining Marksmanship bow attacks with Wilderness Survival preparations and Expertise stances and skills provides a nice combination and allows me great versatility on the battlefield. Beast Mastery always seemed like a real burden to me, as you are required to take up one skill slot for Charm Animal, and then you needed another one for your pet heal/res (Comfort Animal)... now your skill bar has 6 open slots, which, in my opinion, limits your versatility, which is one of my favorite things about rangers. Throw in your res skill (signet or otherwise), and you've got 5 skill slots for pet attacks, pet buffs, bow attacks, bow preparations, stances, nature rituals, and/or other ranger skills, not to mention skills from your second class. Yes, I know everyone needs to make choices and sacrifices in making their skill set, but beast masters have it especially hard since they start off 2 skill slots down. Plus, if your pet dies, your skills get disabled for 8 seconds, so you need to really protect him when out adventuring, otherwise you might find yourself pet-less and skill-less in the midst of battle. I prefer to live and die with my bow in hand, not an empty leash
Choose wisely, woesla.

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Not only would you be spreading your attributes fairly thin among all the ranger attributes, but you don't have enough skill slots to utilize everything from all the lines. As Jenosavel mentioned earlier in this thread, you'd be much better off focusing on one thing and doing it well. If that thing is having a monstrously damaging and fearsome pet, then so be it. If that one thing is being an expert marksman, like myself that's also acceptable. However, you probably can't do both and expect to be highly effective in the later missions or in PvP.

On the uniqueness of ranger pets... anyone can take a ranger secondary and utilize beast mastery, which makes it a little less rare. I have a lot more fun tapping into the conditions that rangers have access to with bow attacks and preparations while most other classes do not.
The dazed condition is a mighty useful condition to inflict on casters, and only 2 skills in the game can inflict it. One is Skull Crack, an elite melee attack available to warriors. I have only ever met one warrior who uses it, and he was highly effective with it, but most warriors choose other elites over Skull Crack. The other skill that inflicts dazed is the ranger's Concussion Shot, available in the Marksmanship line of skills. Since it is not elite, its much easier to fit onto a skill bar.
Poison is the other condition that is rare among the classes. Necromancers have various skills that can inflict poison, but rangers have such easy access to it with Apply Poison or the elite Poison Arrow from Wilderness Survival. With a quick and easy 4 pips of health degen on your target and the ability to re-apply the poison at will to the target, I find coating my arrow tips with poison highly enjoyable.
Sure, another primary class could take ranger as a secondary, but the ranger skills I use primarily require the use of a bow. How many casters or warriors do you see running around with a bow as their primary weapon? Not many, I have observed. I contend that using a bow is what makes rangers unique

Thats true i never see a elem figtning with a bow.. wich is good
I still havent decided yet....but hey what are refunds points for if ya wont use them
Thnx for all the tips if ya have more dont hold back

Tips you want? Then tips you shall get -
Play around with both beast mastery and marksmanship. Whichever you like better, that is what you should focus on. My advice would be if you go with beast mastery, get your beast mastery attribute to at least 12, possibly higher, and only put enough into marksmanship to use your bow of choice after rune/equipment bonuses. If you choose marksmanship as your focus, either drop beast mastery all together or only put enough into it to hit the 7 or 8 second breakpoint for Tiger's Fury, the stance of choice for many rangers. I personally do not use Tiger's Fury (I know, its sacrilegious), so I have my attributes set up in an 11-10-10 configuration using expertise, marksmanship, and wilderness survival. I prefer to use Lightning Reflexes or Whirling Defense as my main stance... my overall damage might not be as good as a ranger using Tiger's Fury, but it allows me to focus more as I don't have to refresh my stance every 10 seconds, my non-attack skills don't get disabled for 5 seconds, and my survivability is a little better since the stances I prefer provide a 75% chance to evade. Sure, the recharge on both are somewhat burdensome... but I'm a wily ranger, I pick my spots to turn the stance on.
The best thing you can do for yourself, woesla, is to pick some skills and attribute layouts that YOU think will go well together, test them out, and then keep trial-and-error'ing until you find a build you are comfortable with. Using a build that someone else came up with could work, but you'll ultimately be more suited to something you're familiar with and have developed yourself. Take everything I say with a grain of salt, and develop a build that works for you!

If you're going for the pure ranger feel, splitting between marksmanship and beastmastery isn't such a bad idea. I usually take:

barrage with zealous flat bow(for both spammable damage and energy management)
4 pet attacks
call of haste
charm and comfort animal.

Triple sup. rune-ing is also very nice to do in this build, since your pet should be diverting some damage away from you, and you'll be attacking from the longest distance possible.

Shwitz really hit the nail on the head when he said that the pet can be a burden. It's my favorite build to play, but beastmastery does indeed have its drawbacks. As pointed out, you instantly lose 3 skill slots when you decide to be a beastmaster. Charm Animal, Comfort Animal/Revive Animal, and Call of Protection are staples of any beastmaster build. In addition to this, you now have to work all of your magic through the pet. If it dies you're crippled not only for how long your skills are blanked out, but also for the blanked duration that comes with reviving the pet. The pets aren't as smart as you are, so you're going to have to do a little extra work just trying to make it do what you want it to do and how.

However, to counteract what would be a no-brainer, for nearly every Marksmanship skill there's a far cheaper Beastmastery one. A beastmaster needs less expertise to remain effective, and since a beastmaster is given the option of wielding a staff rather than a bow, no beastmaster should ever run into energy problems. Ranger is a class that is already about as energy efficient as they come, and the beastmaster is the most energy efficient of all rangers.

As much as I love the beastmaster, I will admit that if you're playing PvP it's really not the wisest of choices. In the high end competetive stuff, the wasted skill slots really come back to bite you. On top of that, it works through AI. If you can learn to control the pet by manipulating its AI, so can other players. And lastly, your pet will rarely be targetted first, so one of the greatest advantages of the pet, its incredible defense, is useless in PvP. ...though if there were a whole team of beastmasters? I haven't had a chance to play with that, but I can dream. In the mean time, my kitty will stay at home when I decide to compete.

In PvE, however, the usefulness of the pet as a tank with 11+ absorbtion (12+ beast attribute) that doesn't take a death penalty is often an overlooked advantage. Not to mention that Comfort Animal is an extremely fast casting spell for a rez -I've only ever seen it interrupted once- and the pet comes back with a very large chunk of life.

My advice? Learn how to play both types of rangers. Learn when to use one and when to use the other.

I've played both a Bow Ranger and Beast ranger extensively... [well, Beast now far longer]

For one reason...

Ferocious Strike {E}

I still run 9 expertise [8+1] because having a chunk of your pet skills costing 3 and 6e. is just WAAYYY too good for FS and synergy. My only giant skill is Balthasar's Aura...

Treat your pet like a remote control warrior. He can take hits, he can dish them out, [and holy crap maybe even better than most warriors] and if you use your secondary to buff him (monk is the best for this I think) your pet will chase down and devour any target you choose... [it seems you don't really have to hit your target with your arrows, aka through a wall, you just have to start shooting and after the first shot, pet starts going]

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But if you go full beastmastery...can u handle stuff on your own then??
Because if me and my pet attack a large group of enemys normally they just run to me and ignore my pet completly.....

Ps. is there a way to make your pet charge towards an enemy without me attacking it first??? *meaning it wont come after your but after pet*

Btw. thnmx for al the postings keep uhm coming

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