Beastmastery affects exactly what?

Hey all

Currently Im playing a 12N/R. I wanted to be a "minion" master - so I sunk alot of points into Beastmastery and Death Magic - and a few into the Blood line.

I have a level 11 Moa bird charm ATM. I rarely if ever use ANY of the pet skills - other than the pet himself. Im relatively pleased with the damage output and "tanking" ability of the pet - and I just dont have room to add in the special "pet" attack skills.

My question is this: If I were to drop ALL my points in Beastmasery and put them elsewhere - would the base damage (by base I mean just sending in the pet as a DoT type power - using none of the "special" attacks) be lower? Would the tanking ability drop? or does Beastmastery simply affect the special pet heals, pet skills, pet powers?

Since I dont use any of the powers anyway - it would seem that I am wasting 8 points in the Beastmaster line.

Thanks!

I don't think there is an answer for that. However, I can tell you that Beastmastery has little to do with your pet and more to do with what happens when you use the pet skills. For Example, does more damage, gets more health. Think of beastmastery as support skills for your pet.

Yes, you are wasting points (I just read it)

To be honest, I see Ranger pets as annoyances and nothing more. It's possible that you could use a damage booster for your pet such as Call of Brutality with Feral Lunge or Ferocious Strike and turn the pet into something good. However, you have to make a decision- Do you want to deal your damage through your pet, or through your bow?

Now, personally I prefer the bow. However, a pet CAN be an effective source of damage if you use it right. No one does, though, and as a result you end up with pets not only being weak, but also being liabilities. Not only does is the pet unable to be rezzed by others (except the ranger, who'd waste his energy doing it) if the pet dies, it gives the Ranger a 10 second cooldown on ALL of his skills. When there's a Ranger causing a lot of problems on the field, sometimes I'll kill the pet just to give him that 10 seconds of real vulnerability.

If you mouse over the words "Beast Mastery" in your Hero window (wher eyou assign attributes) you get a full description of what the attribute affects. In this case, you need to know that a higher Beast Mastery score increases the amount of damage your pet deals *and* its chance of dealing a critical hit (further increasing the damage over time).

This is my real question. The phase that it used to describe Beastmastery seems a little ambigious. "increases the amount of damage your pet deals *and* its chance of dealing a critical hit" - does this mean regular base damage? As in send in pet to attack and doing nothing else but watching? Or does it mean when you use pet-related skills - the pet will do more damage (IE - pet haste would be better, pet one time special attacks would be better, etc.)

In my impromptu testing, I have seen absolutely no difference having 10 in Beastcraft or 0 - when it comes to normal, unaltered, un-"powered" base pet damage. I thought that I may be wrong - and maybe I just wasn't seeing something right.

I think pets have a base damage on what type and level they themselves are. Got no clue if Beastmastery affects that base damage, but I assume it only affects the pet skills.

I have a few points in it simply because my pet is an extra damage magnet (and its added damage has saved my life quite often too!) so the only skill I use that involves the pet is comfort animal, and beastmastery affects the amount of hp the pet resses with and also the amount I can heal it for. Pretty useful if you do take the pet out with you all the time. But if you tend not to bother with keeping the pet alive, then I guess you don't need to put points into it.

Pets are awesome in my opinion. You can direct attacks with them, confuse players, just use them as tanks etc.

I have a high score in beastmaster too and I think it shows that it does more damage per attribute point.

Yea, when your level 11 and the pet is level 11/10 the damage that the pet does is fairly significant. In the few PvP experiences I have had, 2 things happen:

Either the person I sic the pet on stops what they are doing, and focuses on the pet for 10 seconds giving me time to kill them.

or

they completely ignore the pet and continue what they are doing - allowing the pet to dish out fairly decent damage for free.

So yes, you certainly can ignore the pet and think hes a nuisance - but when the pet is level 11 and the opponent is 11 - a nice chunk of health will be removed from you.