Do you think a.net knows about beast mastery?

Just curious if any of the guild wars articles/interviews have brought up the issues with Beast Mastery. I know they've already fixed quite a few "big" issues we have with pets but in general, beast mastery is viewed as a "novelty build" where you can have some fun but never competing enough.

Recently, they've reduced Vamp Touch recharge to 2s and that's like a GIFT for Ranger (and Ranger pet builds). I wonder if this is to encourage people to combo Ferocious Strike + Secondary skills?


The point of this thread is to figure out whether A.net knows Beast Mastery needs some boost or not. A.net constantly updates skills and usually the changes are made for the BALANCE of the game (mainly PvP).

I wonder what A.net thinks of Beast Mastery. I mean most people I've talked to in the game think BM sucks. I've been a BM ever since I bought the game (about 5 months ago) and while I don't feel I "own", I certainly don't think I am "inferior" to other builds/class. This Vamp Touch Pet build has been winning so much in Random/Team arena. I haven't tested it in 8v8 because you know how hard it is to get invited as a beast master. lol (yes, I've been trying to find a guild that welcomes pet builds...NO LUCK).

Maybe the truth is Beast Mastery is NOT as bad as most people think? Maybe this is the reason why A.net hasn't really changed any skills in BM besides boosting the pet a little and fixing some bugs? If this is the case, then how come those "elite" guilds (top 20 ranked guilds I guess) haven't really tried pet builds to win guild battles?

What can a.net do to encourage people to use BM? I do see some pet builds but mostly are warriors with sacrificing weak pets (poor things) or bow rangers with pets (whose pets suck!). Is a pure beast master really that bad? Has A.net really discussed about this?

Any thoughts?

they are paying attention to it. they have asked suggestions on beasty mastery weapons.

just give me the ablity to call commands and don't stop until i call something different. same thing for henches. i should be able to command them. they are henchmen for hire after all. don't do as i say i'll fire you.

have to admit this game has one of the worse AI i have ever seen in a game (at least now it some what better). i have nintendo games that had better AIs.

make the BM weapons, give me control of pet, and combine charm animal and comfort pet and BM is good to go.

If Anet ever were to rewrite the pet code to prevent collisions of my warrior with his pet (you know, the warrior getting stuck against the pet, requiring him to walk in the opposite direction in order to release the pet and continue the attack), I would be enternally grateful.

I love my pet

I have a water ele with a pet. She's been water ele since the moment I was able to get water skills for her, and on very few occasions have I gone pure fire, with a few times leaving a certain pet behind in favour of helping the team.

Haven't played her since the update, but always enjoyed the fact that my 'tank' could keep aggro away from me while I used some aoe's on the enemy.

Strange thing, now that I'm at Thunderhead, I have a Hearty Stalker... I kept making sure she/he didn't die on me

My guild has gotten to the hall of heroes with a beast mastery build (though we haven't held it), beaten IWAY and Ranger spike with it, and even energy denial. Beast mastery is not underpowered.

underpowered no. unreliable yes.

sometimes they are too dumb for my liking and never have the same results. consistancy is what wins battle after battle.

I agree this. Just because the pet build won a few battles doesn't mean it's a reliable thing.

Like I've said, I don't feel pet is "bad" but it certainly is not considered a top build. To some degree, I kinda like the fact that that not so many people use pets. I feel more special. lol

Oh, they have asked suggestions for BM weapons? Cool thing. At least they are trying to improve BM. hehe.

I am not sure what kind of BM weapon is good for beast masters: Melee or Range?

I think pets suffer too many "little" things. I'll state some (since I am at work, bored):

1.) Body blocking: This can be good or VERY bad. I've got stuck by my pet before when I try to make a turn. My teammate has been blocked by my pet before. I know pet blocking may provide some strategies but in general, it's not reliable since you can't really control it unless you have like 4 pets going after the same target...then the other problems occur... ->

2.) Pets get stuck: Get stuck behind things (spirits), behind teammates and behind other pets. This is partially why many people don't use pets in 8v8 because it's just too crowded! In 4v4, my pet build really shines but in 8v8, I can totally imagine pets getting stuck SOMEWHERE and it takes forever for you to call your pet to another target, which leads to --->

3.) Poor control: I know some Poison Rangers love the fact that the pet doesn't change target as they change target but to a pure beast master, IT SUCKS. So many times I want to change target to help out some teammates and my pet just won't get there in time. What's worst is when I DO NOT want to chase a running target (EX: Ranger), it takes about 10s for my pet to retreat! During those 10s, I am like useless (like a warrior without weapon for 10s). This forces me to bring some secondary skills to prevent situation like this where my pet just keeps following the running target even after I've switched the target. This is probably one of the most annoying things with pets. Recently, I am so sicking tired of another bug.... --->

4.) Kiting Pet: This is most obvious when I try to target kiting Monk. Guess what? Your pet kites as well! I don't know why it takes so long for my pet to initial attacks. You don't see bow ranger and warrior stops for like 2-3s before attacking and if the target is running, they just won't attack until they are "ready". Call of Haste speeds this reaction delay a bit so I always use it. Then just before you think you've solved the problem, another one occurs: Pet Running and not Attacking! My pet has +20% speed (innate) and +33% from Call of Haste, but there are times when my pet would just keep following the running target and NOT attacking at all. I've figured out a few tricks to squeeze some hits out (like keep using pet attack skills), but in general, I don't see how a pet with +53% speed would miss so many chances to attack. Again, this is due to that Reaction Delay BUG and I hope A.net is seeing this.



If they can take care of the above 4 issues, I think pet is ready to compete!


Of course, there are other suggestions like Combining Comfort Animal with Charm and I sort of agree to it since you are forced to take Charm. I know people say you have +20ish damage from a skill that you don't need to activiate but in reality, that's a false statement. You still need to invest in Beast Mastery for your pet to be relatively effective. Then you need to throw in pet skills for your pet to be really effective. The Charm skill is NOT a given hidden bonus for being a beast master. It's a pre-req for using pet skills that are viewed as "inferior" to bow skills.

I think A.net should try to combine Charm + Comfort and see how overpowering pets can be. That will save us at least 1 skill slot for some self protection. I mean we are already suffering from: Skill Disable (when pet dies), Poor Pet AI and Minority Status (not getting invited). lol

The only 3 problems with a beast mastery build is:

1. Pets can very easily get body blocked
2. Rangers have to keep the pets alive, and this gets a bit hard with 6 pets in the team
3. It takes a pet 6 seconds to get another target. This sin't necessarily bad, you just have to learn to sick the pet onto an enemy, then if you need to, you can hit another target, maybe yo interrupt it, then move back to the original target, and the pet hasnt moved on.

Oh, another thing I want to add is that I think they should increase pet's damage a bit because:

1.) Weapons have base damage but weapons also have mods that make them stronger, like +15% when in Stance, Enchantment, Health over 50% or Below 50%.

2.) Weapons also get +20% damage when you customize it.


Pets don't get any of the above bonuses. Their base damage is the same as Bow but in reality, they are inferior. Pets also attack slow without Call of Haste. And did I mention that you can add strings to change your weapon to elemental damage? That's another bonus when you fight against warriors who have huge physical resistance. Your pet does beyond pathetic damage on warriors. You'll just have to rely on your secondary to handle tricky situations and sadly, beast masters don't have enough skill slots to compromise. That's why I think BM + Secondary is somewhat better than Pure BM (nothing but BM skills).

all what i want to say is already said.

So i can just make à +1 on this, and hope for Anet read this and make something for comfort and charm animal

There's some good feedback here. Yes, we do know about Beast Mastery (I have a beast master character myself ) and yes we are keeping track of what players are saying about this facet of the Ranger profession.

We have, in the past, made some changes intended to help bolster Beast Master. Pets have had their run speed increased, and their armour increased as well. We also changed pet attack skills so that you can use them even while you have a long cast-time skill casting (or without needing to pause if you are chasing an enemy or fleeing).

As with every other skill and attribute line, game feature etc we read your feedback and that feedback is often incorporated into any changes made.

Seems like every class has a "tricky" attribute that does not fit too good to its class as a primary class in pvp but is essential for PvE and 4 player arena fun.

Smiting Prayers
Blood Magic
Tactics
Beast Mastery
Inspiration Magic
Water Magic

You barely ever see them skilled up to 16, especially not in the hoh, most times only used as a secondary profession.
But there are valuable 8-player-team builds with 16 of each of the above attribute.
And they make it REALLY easy in PvE.

pro-pets:
With 11+2 expertise 10+1(+3) marksmanship and 10+1(+3) beast mastery, youre basically 2 players bond to each other, both doing nice types of damage.
all pet attacks cast instantly, while you can do anything.
Pet attacks seem to have a short queue, you can invest energy in later attacks.
pets have high initial HP ~500.
pets are really fast.
pets can interrupt and cause conditions.

im still for adding a res spell into "charm animal" and changing "compfort animal" into a skill that only heals and doesnt res anymore, to make it more newbie friendly .

My guild ran a beastmaster build in 4v4 that actually used beastmastery skills. And to me, it seems like they are overpowered, but not given enough variety/control. Once you hit a target, they won't switch until a few minutes after or if the target is dead.

Ultimately I think the whole problem is having to bring in both Charm Animal and Comfort Animal (or is it pet?) in case it dies. Considering you'll also want to bring in Ressurection Signet or something of the like, you've already really hampered your skill bar. You're left with 5 slots to make the foundation of your build on.

So really, I think like others that Charm should cover all the aspects; healing it slightly, ressing it, and allowing you to bring it in. That, or introduce a command like /bringpet to make it somewhat like a toggle. Nothing worse than having a skill on your bar that you'll never press in a heated battle.

The problem with that is that every ranger spike team would bring their pets too. Even that extra 8-9 damage from a low beast mastery will make it worth to bring. Which would make spike rangers even more invincible.

maybe a seperate beast mastery console?

small window that is from the pets FPV. when you click in it, you switch the pets target. around the edge are 2-6 (based on atts in beast mastery) slots for beast mastery skills (but [same amount-2] are removed from your regular bar to not overpower you as a ranger)

____________
|petsviewhere|
|petsviewhere|
|petsviewhere|
|petsviewhere|
|petsviewhere|
--------------
|s1|s2|s3|s4|

IMO this would make everything better

Beastmastery is poorly balanced at present, as can be discerned by an examination of damage efficiencies for example.

The AI and collision detection need work, and it is in desperate need of a command system - even something dreadfully simple - a toggle key for "stay like that" and "do what I say" would suffice. While on "Do what I say" the AI will target your target, including yourself - i.e. - you click "I'm targeting myself" and it calls the pet back. While on "stay like that" the pet will continue with what it is doing - if on the attack it will keep attacking that target, and when the target goes down will move to the next sensible target (nearest probably) - if not on the attack it will stay where it is. That simple a button would allow easy pulls, would allow you to send in the pet, would allow you to keep a pet on one target while you interrupt another and so on.

The AI should learn not to run by its target. It is really sad that the pet AI will run right by the target charging at me, then follow it all the way back, nipping at its heels.

Effects you use on your pet should be visible. Call of protection/call of haste happen to have durations 5 seconds longer than their recharge, so it isn't as hard to judge, but when Serpent's Quickness, Quickening Zephyr or Oath shot are in the picture for example it is impossible to know whether your pet needs the call refreshed. Worse yet is Symbiotic Bond, with an incredible long duration but short recharge, and no way to tell if it is funtional until your pet is under attack. Icons to indicate the calls (And Otyugh's Cry) would help.

Bah - I have played a lot of beastmaster builds, and have plenty to say about the issues facing us. I don't think we need extra skill slots - it's very limiting to play a beastmaster, that much is true, and I'd dearly love it if I could get a slot back from a combined Charm/Comfort, but I don't know that it is necessary. I'll keep playing my pet builds, but Alex, Gaile, please take a look at the analysis of pet skills I posted and see what I mean by balance issues. Several suggestions for ways to improve the skill line have been made by various posters...

i love BM, i think its definately underated but not underpowered. heres my beast build for comps...
Necromancer/Ranger

Skill 1: Resurrection Signet

Skill 2: Charm Animal

Skill 3: Call of Haste

Skill 4: Feral Lunge

Skill 5: Plague Touch

Skill 6: Weaken Armor

Skill 7: Mark of Pain

Skill 8: Spiteful Spirit


Curses 9 + 4
Soul Reaping 9 + 1
Beast Mastery 12 + 0

True. But normally you're still attacking with your bow meanwhile, or else the pet will stop attacking too. So I guess that kinda makes up for it.

Thats one of the major things that need to be fixed..

pet reaction time.

people who say BM sucks are noobs

I use beastmaster rangers in GvG, the team usually laughs at our pets but they arnt laughing when we have them dped to hell and trapped by their lord within 8 minutes.

Fero strike
disrupting lunge
hammer bash
irres blow
TF
charm
comfort
res sig
15 bm, 11 hammer, 9 exp

running under qz for uber damage and natures, each beastmaster gets on a monk(or 2 monk 1 spiker) and keeps spamming spells(disrupt lunge every 2.5 seconds, bash every 4 or so, ect)

The big problem with the pet is the AI. Unless you're sitting on one target and never changing the pet is never going to be doing what you want it to. If you want to retreat, or if the other guy runs, your pet just commits suicide. More maddening is all of the pet skills that are clearly designed to be used tactically...but can't be used tactically because your pet is retarded and won't attack the target it needs to.

Needing to bring two otherwise useless skills to run a pet is annoying but not crippling. Pets don't autores with any consistency for some reason so you really don't have a choice in the matter if you want to actually use the pet. So you need Charm Animal, which is strong for the effect it has, and Comfort Animal, which is terrible besides the res effect. I'd like to see that skill buffed in some way to actually make it useful - I don't think a combined skill is needed but it would certainly be nice.

...It's really just the AI and space. The skills are great. Too bad you can't use them intelligently since you're at the mercy of whoever your pet is attacking =/

Peace,
-CxE

i think comfort and charm should be combined. most BM builds must bring both while one of the skills does nothing. i don't understand the res affect of comfort being good as stated by ensign. your pet dies all skills disabled for at least 5 seconds (haven't timed exactly but i know its 5 or more) and then will be disabled another 8 seconds if you want to res him. when you do res him it won't even be at full life.

combine comfort and charm. remove the 8 second disable on res affect and had a 3-4 second casting for the res. keep it at 1 second for the healing. with a 3-4 second casting you do have a chance of being interrupted so it will keep it in balance but not overshooting it. charm does nothing but waste 1 skill slot for something that you will need to devote 3-4 more slots to get it even close to comparable to other attributes. most attributes i can have a few points invested and have 1-2 skills from that attribute to be affective. BM will take nearly maxing out and take up nearly your entire bar.

very straight forward commands would make the pet so much better. command modes would be very simple as it would only focus on one AI thinking at one time.

Attack: pet attacks target until another commande mode is set.

Attack as one: pet attacks the same target as you and changes targets with you. once target is attacked pet will not stop attacking if you stop.

Follow me: pet comes to you and stays by your side. pet will attack closest foe but will not go outside of arggo circle.

Defend: pet follows target ally and attacks closest foe to ally until another command mode is set.

Do nothing: pet will only follow behind you but will not attack until another command mode is set.

those 5 commands would be able to accomidate every style of gameplay. some people like that he attacks with you some people want him to attack a different target. maybe you can use him to defend another player. follow me would keep him from chasing a target arggoing other groups of monsters. do nothing would keep him out of the way while not hindering you from a spiteful spirit or other attack triggers. since all of the controls on the game can be set to any key you choose and plenty are not even used at all this would be no problem from a control aspect.

I never have more than 9 in Expertise when running a Beast Master. BM skills are either 5 or 10 energy. I run 16 BM, 9 Exp and 10 Marks.
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content...sts-id1154.php

I read in a thread that moving above 12 in BM isn't very beneficial. Since Sticky Icky joined up with me, I'm thinking otherwise.

its not i run 10 BM on my warrior with my pet and he still does around 25-30 dmg with regular attacks. problem is anything below that will just about scrap using BM at all with a pet.

I'm not sure of your point. Are you saying I should only have 10 in BM? Punctuation helps.

I didn't say it was good, I said it was neccessary. What I meant is that the healing effect on your pet is worthless, it's way to little to matter. The blackout from the res and pet death is neccessary, though, otherwise there's no point in killing pets at all if they just pop right back up at no cost. My gripe is that the skill really is nothing more than a pet res, and I think it needs to do something more than that if they're going to keep things divided.


That'd work. It just needs to be non-trivial to get your pet back up. This sounds more like combining Charm Animal and Revive Animal, making it act like an actual hard res. Comfort is weird because it needs the 1 second cast time to be a (terrible) heal.

Peace,
-CxE

Interesting discussion. I'm playing around with a BM build, so I appreciate the thoughts. Has anyone noticed that a BM build is also expensive on skill points? I just did some quick research. I picked the main attribute lines from my (and my husband's) characters and looked up which skills could be learned through quests and which had to be 'bought'. To gain all the skills available to me in a BM build, I have to buy half.


Not counting elites, number that must be learned from trainer or capped (skill points and gold) vs. number that can be learned through quests (free):

BM - 11/11
Marksmanship - 0/10
Axe Mastery - 1/7
Death Magic - 7/15
Fire Magic - 7/9
Domination Magic - 4/16
Healing Prayers - 1/12



Just something to chew on...

No offence bud but id hardly call that a beast build. Id like to run a purist beast build which is what i think most people are refering to.

Someone posted a good idea though. A seperate skill bar thing that would say..only let you apply beast mastery skills (without having to bring along charm animal) and NO other skill line. Secondary professions would be allowed to keep it fair. But a ranger running his normal skills+could bring his pet for free would be overpowered. I always sink at least 7 points in BM for a moderatly efficient TF. With a free charm animal id do way more dps.

looking over your posts on this site makes me think you really dislike this game. If youre always going to be so damn negative about it find something else to play that you can enjoy.

If they can make the pet AI better that would work wonders. I mean while pet smite is really fun and allows me to solo up to 4 dumb warriors in 4v4 it sometimes make it hard when the pet downs a monk then takes forever to switch targets. They also need to improve damage just a bit since well weapons can be customized and have +x% damage alrdy. Maybe allowing pets to have the same may be the boost it needs to gain some popularity? Oh well my opinion only.

Quoted for serious emphasis.

Pets are not underpowered by any means. They are faster than human players, have higher armor than most, and have high base damage, with the pet attacks working as sorts of modifications to the pet "weapon." So why don't more people use them?

Because the pets have AI's equivalent to those of a five year old playing a W/Mo. And I mean that seriously. They need to figure out what they're actually attacking. And then attack it.

As a mesmer, I have no problem interrupting skills with Cry of Frustration. As a Warrior, Disrupting Chop prevents the big spells from coming through. With Disrupting Lunge, though... I just click it and hope for the best. And that's assuming the pet showed up to the battle, and didn't get stuck behind a rock.

Here's the deal, ANet. You've upped Henchman AI. You've given a boon to enemy AI. Why are pets still so artificially stupid? Couldn't you at least make them more responsive to targeting and attacking, like aforementioned Henchman? This is all I'm asking. Improved Pet AI. PLEASE.

I also like to add that when you face a pet in pvp and it's not an IWAY-type build, it is not as effective because you can't go high bm and carry all the skills. So, basically what people end up bringing in is a pet that doesn't kill people and when it's down, an eight second window for the owner to get attacked without any way to counter or defend except a firing bow and running.

Don't think that a target-caller isn't looking for little opportunities like this to capitalize on. A quick-reacting team can get the ranger down in eight seconds, or close to it.

You want to put yourself in the best possible position to win. Pets as they are currently don't do this. They add one more way you can lose.

Ideally yes, but our guild has been running beast masters (with 14 in beast mastery) in tombs and team arenas, and have found that 90% of people don't attack the pets, and if your monks can protect your rangers, then theres alot of pets running around with high armour and, with only 2 pet attack skills, still a decent damage output. Beast mastery is not underpowered, though there are problems wth it, primarily the AI.

I just ran a full BM build in CA. Totally owned. Disrupting fixed that monk's rez and orison. Icky spreads the love through bleeding. And the BM elite gives me 10 energy every 8 secs. What more can a tamer want? Oh yeah, an attack that heals Icky.

Since the advent and molestation of IWAY builds, no one wants to kill pets anymore. That's fine with me, lol.

i have been messing around with beast mastery lately and i love it
i have been using 2 BM builds alot the last 2 weeks
1 is a hammer beast master
12 hammer
3 expertise +1 - 4
12 BM + 1 + 3 - 16
hammer bash
irrisitable blow
tigers fury (lasts 11 seconds, 10 recharge ITS GREAT)
ferocious strike
call of haste
comfort animal
charm animal
res sig

even with the low expertise, i really have no trouble with energy managment

and the dominatrix

11 domination
6 expertise +1 - 7
12 BM +1 +3 - 16

blackout
shatter enchant
shatter hex
ferocious strike
call of haste
comfort animal
charm animal
res sig

blackout the casters while my pet shreds them into pieces, shatter any enchants the monks and wars have on them, shatter those annoying life transfers and ss/empathy/insidious you get the point, and also help out a hexed monk on your team

i wouldnt mind a better AI pet, but i love it as it is right now

I just think animals need a better AI.

In PVE with my R/Mo's, I'll target a boss, which sics the cat on them, then throw Balthazar's Aura on the cat as soon as it arrives. Had a lot of success with that trick.

Pets don't suck. Their AI does.

I made up this thread a while back and I thought very few people cared. lol

I've seen more and more beast masters in competition.

I think anyone who has tried BM knows that pet AI is bad and they get stuck a lot. I wonder why A.net hasn't fixed this yet? It's so obvious. I wonder if they even try beast mastery to see what are the obvious problems?


Besides Pet AI, pet skills also suffer some issues. I think somebody started a thread about improving pet skills and mostly it has something to do with pet skills that require a "condition" like Miaiming strike, when the target is running, you Cripple the target.

Brtual Strike, Melandru's Assuault, Scavenger Strike and Beastial Pounce all need some improvement. You are NOT doing more dmg with those skills. Predator Pounce is all you need. Since beast masters are so limited with skill slots, it's rare if the master brings more than 2 pet attack skills. Normally it's Ferocious + Disrupting/Feral.

A lot of beast master's problems come from pet's AI and hope the dev can do something about it soon.