Pets and PvE

[OMFM]

I really like the idea of having the pet do more damage but when you get
farther into the game will beastmaster just get weak?
Or is it alright to use one to beat games?

[BenC777]

I believe that beastmasters can have an impact in high end pve...
seen my Guild leader make a few builds, but if you really wanna beastmaster in high end pve.. make a build of your own dude, find its weaknesses and improve them.

[Chthon]

No, it's terrible.

I love beastmasters. They're quite fun to play. But they are third-rate when it comes to high-end anything.

[Turbobusa]

It's OK if you macro the pet behaviour and targets.

[chesterocks7]

why don't you try it out and get back to us?
Why don't you try being helpful instead of a smartass?

To the OP, there are very few beastmaster builds that work well in the higher lvl PvE areas. When you are dealing with the higher lvl monsters you'll encounter in the tougher areas, you would really need to dedicate your whole skillbar plus attributes into beastmastery in order for your pet to have any effect on the enemies. And even then, the pet still isn't as effective against them as you can be. Still, bringing a pet along as an extra target while not dedicating too many attribute points to them can be worthwhile, and is very effective if there are 2 or 3 rangers in the group. But in case you wanted to try it out, here's some builds that may be worth looking into:
http://www.pvxwiki.com/wiki/Build:R/D_Enraged_Scythe
http://www.pvxwiki.com/wiki/Build:R/P_Beastly_Spear
http://www.pvxwiki.com/wiki/Build:R/P_Imba_Pet_Build
http://www.pvxwiki.com/wiki/Build:R/P_Norn_Beastmaster
http://www.pvxwiki.com/wiki/Build:R/any_HaO_Beastmaster

EDIT: If you look on pvxwiki, there are a lot more builds than the ones above that may interest you, I just browsed through and linked the ones that caught my eye right away. Also, beastmaster's are not that popular, so I'm sure there are plenty of potential builds you could come up with, but most ppl would rather just not focus on that area.

[ALF71BE]

Bow Ranger > Scythe Ranger > Beastmaster, IMO.

A bow won't deal uber awesome damage, though. So no, they won't get you any closer than what other kinds of builds can, but it's fun, at least in NM.

[Monk Gsb]

dont listen to chthon, of corse beastmasters are awsome in high end pve, you just need to think about what skills your ally's can take too help them be awsome (this is not ursan u need to use ur brain when getting a build to geather) .

see:

Barbs, Mark of Pain, fragility, order of the vampire, order of pain. these are most effective when you have R/P or R/W (or a mix of both) with pets beating down on 1 target to kill it. add mutipul conditions (for fragility), and boom, bye bye things. (play it like a Barrage/pet build)

[The Arching Healer]

Playing a Beast Master is fun, but it is almost useless in pve. A "normal" pet has 480 hp with XX armor (dont know that). So it dies pretty quick vs lv28 mobs because he rushes in.

Offcourse you have that base reduction etc. But hey, play it for fun. If you want big numbers gogo nuker :D

[ALF71BE]

If you want big numbers gogo nuker :D

lulwut.

If you want MANY numbers, gogo nuker. If you want BIG numbers, gogo warrior and necro.

[Channeling_Monk]

I think when the OP said "Beast Master" he meant bring a ranger with pet attacks, not a ranger that uses his pet for one broken skill, then lets it die. In which case, no, pet masters suck in high end pvp.

[Monk Gsb]

that uses his pet for one broken skill, then lets it die.

sry to say this, but iway was nerfed a long ass time ago :P

[Fay Vert]

I still have my first pet from day 1 pre-searing and love him, I'll never change him. But beastmasters are really weak in PvE, particularly high end. They have been nerfed and crippled relentlessly over the years because of some quirky builds that umbalanced PvP. In theory, now we have a nice split between PvP and PvE, ANet could fix the problem and bring back the pets, but sadly they are long forgotten. People care more about their minipet than they do about their ranger's pet.

Its very very sad.

[Rhamia Darigaz]

go RaO and knock sh-...stuff down and blow them up with deep wound/daze. its a fun way to make things go boom with a pet that also gives you an excuse to use that destroyer maul you bought and secretly think looks pretty cool.

[Miska Bow]

Having all your skills disable for 5 sec in high-end PvE is an awfull long time for the rest of your party.

Pet are fun to have in low to mid game areas. In fact most of my heroes have a different one. I stopped using them when getting those pet killed resulted in party wipes.

Useless you want to dedicate your game time to really mastering the use of your pet and becoming an experience BeastMaster, i'd say have fun while you can then when you get to end game, loose the pet.

[Improvavel]

Might work with a spear on u.

[Div]

Pets are fun to have when you like to roleplay. You can always use pet attacks and try to achieve high DPS numbers or whatever on the master of damage, but when it comes to actual usefulness, the pet AI is so dumb that it really hurts the build. Any splinter barrage build will outperform a beastmaster in high end areas, but if you want to have fun go ahead and use it.

[Orange Milk]

Great Dwarf Weapon It's been mentioned enough times in the past in other threads here that this skill on your Pet makes good things happen. Add some other pet skills for added Damage. I like to go hammer with KD's and you and your pet cAn keep things on the ground.

anyway....

It's PvE anything works for the most part. It may not be the most effective build for the area your in, but I'm sure it will work to some degree.

[SnipiousMax]

...the pet AI is so dumb that it really hurts the build...

This is what kills pure beastmasters. It was a matter of micromanaging a pet that was decently responsive, then it might be a different story. But as it stands, pets are an accessory not a build for the harder parts of PvE.

[Vehemence]

I tried Packhunter build and it works much better than pure Beastmaster build.

[Krill]

Try this:

[build=OgQTcULfRqMwSQ3oWyLczg2QAAA]

Packhunter (spear + pet) also works but tbh the dps from spears isn't that great. Use a physical spear to trigger barbs and mark of pain with this build and it does about the same damage. Using ferocious strike to manage your energy you can use your hexes and pet attacks on recharge. The dps might not be as good as splinter barrage but it's different at least.

http://img55.imageshack.us/img55/2820/gw349ey0.th.jpg (http://img55.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gw349ey0.jpg)

[Orange Milk]

Originally Posted by arienrhode
Try this:




Ranger / Necromancer
10 Curses
12 Beast Mastery
8 Expertise









Core Barbs5210Hex Spell. For 30 seconds, target foe takes 10 more damage when hit by physical damage. (Attrib: 10 Curses)







Core Mark of Pain20110Hex Spell. For 30 seconds, whenever target foe takes physical damage, Mark of Pain deals 30 shadow damage to adjacent foes. (Attrib: 10 Curses)







Core Ferocious Strike85(3)Elite Pet Attack. Your animal companion attempts a Ferocious Strike that deals +25 damage. If that attack hits, you gain adrenaline and 9 Energy. (Attrib: 12 Beast Mastery)







Factions Poisonous Bite75(3)Pet Attack. Your animal companion attempts a Poisonous Bite that Poisons target foe for 17 seconds. (Attrib: 12 Beast Mastery)







EotN Feral Aggression2015(10)Skill. For 17 seconds, your pet attacks 33% faster and deals 9 additional damage. (Attrib: 12 Beast Mastery)







Core Charm Animal1010(7)Skill. Charm target animal. Once charmed, your animal companion will travel with you whenever you have Charm Animal equipped. (Attrib: 12 Beast Mastery)







Core Comfort Animal1110(7)Skill. You heal your animal companion for 87 Health. If your companion is dead, it is resurrected with 48% Health. (Attrib: 12 Beast Mastery)







Core Resurrection Signet3Signet. Resurrect target party member. That party member is returned to life with 100% Health and 25% Energy. This Signet only recharges when you gain a morale boost.







Im going to go ahead and on a scale of 1-10 give this build a 0.7, and thats simply for having a rez.

Using a weapon that does half dmg is a VERY bad idea. Who cares if you trigger buffs when you do no dmg to start with, I guess you just hope there is no hex remover around. Leave the Hexes to your SABway necros please. Plus no IAS = 1/4 your damage of a full dmg spear WITH an IAS.

You have NO spammable skills that require you to have the need to constanlty get 9 energy or ANY Addrenialine, FStrike is a GREAT skill in the right build, this is not it, you lack damage, go do some with an better elite.

Drop the hexes for a Spear attack Energy or addrenal based is no matter and an IAS, drop Posion bite for Great Dwarf Weapon, cast it on your pet. Now you have a reason for your elite.

Though there are better Pack Hunter builds out there, at least this is a start now.

[Krill]

You have NO spammable skills that require you to have the need to constanlty get 9 energy or ANY Addrenialine, FStrike is a GREAT skill in the right build, this is not it, you lack damage, go do some with an better elite.

Drop the hexes for a Spear attack Energy or addrenal based is no matter and an IAS, drop Posion bite for Great Dwarf Weapon, cast it on your pet. Now you have a reason for your elite.

Though there are better Pack Hunter builds out there, at least this is a start now.

The point of ferocious strike is to gain energy (10 to be exact) to reapply barbs and mark of pain on new targets. Nobody uses it to gain adrenaline, 1 strike every 8 seconds = woo hoo nothing.

The IAS in the build is [feral aggression] for your pet which also does bonus damage and stays up 100% of the time with 16 in BM.

The only reason to carry a spear is to fling it at your target every 1.5 seconds to trigger barbs and mark of pain more. It's common in practice in PvP for teams that run a barbs spike to have everyone fling a spear if they can at the barbed target to trigger it as much as possible.

I guarantee that barbs and mark of pain does more damage than rinky dink spear attacks when mark of pain is hitting adjacent targets. If you don't believe me to go Isle of the Nameless with that build, put barbs and mark of pain on the Master of Damage and see what happens when you and your pet attack him and hit the adjacent dummies. In fact I'm going to go out on a limb and say it does far more damage than splinter barrage but it's not as mobile since you have to cast the hexes first.

As for the comment about hex removal, afaik monsters don't remove hexes very often (if at all).

You can dump the rez signet sure, but I usually carry one when there is not a skill that is absolutely necessary to make a build work. There are no additional skills needed to make this build work.

And I'll admit I don't know much about the PvE only EoTN skills because I have not played EoTN at all. There are some great skills avaliable sure but not everyone has advanced those titles so recommending them in builds isn't always a win.

[Orange Milk]

Originally Posted by arienrhode
The point of ferocious strike is to gain energy (10 to be exact) to reapply barbs and mark of pain on new targets

I know what the skill does, I didn't know you were barbs/Mark of pain EVERY target, so I guess I see why you need the energy. One question though, while you are busy casting hexes whos chucking spears and creating all that uber Dmg? Ya know for this part of what you said:

The only reason to carry a spear is to fling it at your target every 1.5 seconds to trigger barbs and mark of pain more.

Barbs is a 2 sec cast, and if your casting it on everyone around, thats gonna be alot of spears not chucked, like I said, Leave the Hexing to your SABway Necros. Also:
It's common in practice in PvP for teams that run a barbs spike to have everyone fling a spear if they can at the barbed target to trigger it as much as possible.


When did this "High end PvE" thread become a PvP barbs Spike thread? Also isn't there a necro involved in those spikes?

I guarantee that barbs and mark of pain does more damage than rinky dink spear attacks when mark of pain is hitting adjacent targets. If you don't believe me to go Isle of the Nameless with that build, put barbs and mark of pain on the Master of Damage and see what happens when you and your pet attack him and hit the adjacent dummies

Have your Necro Hero put barbs and MoP on the Master of Damage and you put 12 in spear add a spear attack AND an IAS and have you and your pet attack you will do about 2-3 times the ammount of Damage you are doing now.

As for AI Monsters removing Hexs, The OP asked about "High End" PvE, where monsters have mad skillz, lulz.

You can dump the rez signet sure

NO WAY, thats what your build got .7 points for.

There are no additional skills needed to make this build work

You sure about that?

And I'll admit I don't know much about the PvE only EoTN skills because I have not played EoTN at all. There are some great skills avaliable sure but not everyone has advanced those titles so recommending them in builds isn't always a win

Your failure to take advantage of the skills available to you does not constitute a reason for me to not suggest them. BTW, no EOTN eh? Then why suggest the EoTN skill Feral Aggression in the build? Hmmmm....

[SnipiousMax]

...tbh the dps from spears isn't that great...

if by 'isn't that great' you mean 'good' then I agree. Spears are one of the better sources of DPS in guildwars.

[KycooGhost]

back on topic... -.-

Pure beastmasters aren't good for high end pve because 1. pets atack once every 2 secs while a bow is about once every 1.5 secs. 2. Pets wont do as much damage as a barager or even a single target ranger. 3. Some times pets will randomly re-target or come back to you. 4. Pets have lower armor than rangers 5. A Dire pet will have -60 hp and +12-14% dmg and a hearty pet will have +60hp but -12-14%dmg. neither is good when in DoA or FoW or UW.

[Krill]

Your failure to take advantage of the skills available to you does not constitute a reason for me to not suggest them. BTW, no EOTN eh? Then why suggest the EoTN skill Feral Aggression in the build? Hmmmm....

I bought EoTN when it was released and have yet to play it, I just use the skills.

The guy asked for a beastmaster build for high end pve and I gave him one that on its own can do a lot of damage vs. mobs of high level monsters like splinter barraging. I have played packhunter plenty in pvp and all it's good for is rapidly spamming poison and bleeding on many targets and spamming an unblockable enraged lunge on monks. The damage of spears vs. high armor targets (i.e. high level pve) blows ass as there are not many non-elite, non-suck spear attacks with bonus damage. Spear of lightning, vicious attack and blazing spear are the only decent ones but you won't be landing many criticals for viscous attack with 12 in spear mastery and no critical buffs. Not to mention many high level monsters are not fleshy so there goes your poison and bleeding spam too with a packhunter.

Of course you can run packhunter with a nec putting the hexes on but unless you are on vent with an experienced group, most pve pugers pay zero attention to what's going on and fail to put hexes on the target you want to hit, if targets are even called or the right ones are called. This is really no different than a ranger carrying mark of rodgort to throw on mobs for barraging.

And one last note on pet AI, if you double tap the lock icon on a new target after the old ones dies and don't distance yourself too much from your pet it won't start running back to you and will instantly move onto the new one. It's still annoying and clumsy to control a pet but it can be usable if you really want to do all beastmaster.

[Cherng Butter]

back on topic... -.-

Pure beastmasters aren't good for high end pve because 1. pets atack once every 2 secs while a bow is about once every 1.5 secs. 2. Pets wont do as much damage as a barager or even a single target ranger. 3. Some times pets will randomly re-target or come back to you. 4. Pets have lower armor than rangers 5. A Dire pet will have -60 hp and +12-14% dmg and a hearty pet will have +60hp but -12-14%dmg. neither is good when in DoA or FoW or UW.

I thought bows attack 2-2.7 o.O

[Orange Milk]

Originally Posted by arienrhode
The damage of spears vs. high armor targets (i.e. high level pve) blows ass

So you figure just put "0" in spear and reduce that dmg even more? BRILLIANT!!!

Lets see here, you have a spear with "0" so you get half DMG, unless it's a collector spear then you get even less, SO each spear hits for 7-14ish Dmg before armor, with a MUCH higher chance of that "7" rolling due to your "0" Your looking at an Average Damage of say 5 vs a high armor target (100 AR). Add your barbs damage (12, assuming 12 in curses) and your hitting for 17 every 1.5 secs. (not counting Vamp or Sundering, assuming 15% + 20% custom) With a 1% Crit Chance rate

Now, lets drop barbs and the whole necro idea to begin with and toss a "12" in spear your gonna hit for about 16.3 every 1.5 secs (vs 100 AR), However I would have added an IAS, so now thats every 3/4 secs I'm getting 16.3, (not counting Vamp or Sundering, assuming 15% + 20% custom) Also with a "12" in Spear your looking at a 17% - 19.2% (depending on who's numbers you use) Crit Chance Rate

So with an IAS and an Crit Hits I'm doing more than double the damage from your build, not counting attack skills.

Granted you loose your AoE Dmg from Mark of Pain, but then your using that on one target every 30 seconds and hope his buddies surround him. Also you are loosing the Pet Attacks activating the barbs, But I think the IAS more than makes up for that with your Spear at more power.

Of course you can run packhunter with a nec putting the hexes on but unless you are on vent with an experienced group, most pve pugers pay zero attention to what's going on and fail to put hexes on the target you want to hit, if targets are even called or the right ones are called.

A) Don't PUG
B) Dicsuss it prior to, ask the Necro to call his barbs, if he won't just attack the target with the little purple triangle next to his name. Take a Hero Necro and micro him.

Read hear and learn stuffs:

http://www.oildrip.com/calc/index.php

Here too:

http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Attack_speed

Bottom line, unless your are using some wack obscure farm build, if your attacking and attempting to deal damage, meet your weapons requirement at the least.

[Kain Fz]

I never really see pets actually used GOOD anymore. Most people I see have pets just for the heck of it.
Is there any reason why? I really want a phoenix, but after that, I would of accomplished nothing and the whole thing would be pointless.

[Kyomi Tachibana]

I use a pet on my ranger in PvE for [Never Rampage Alone], it doesn't have the speed boost but it has the IAS which is important and frees up the elite slot for more useful things like [Earth shaker].

[Darkobra]

Rather a pet that doesn't suffer death penalty being attacked than a vital party member.

[timebandit]

Well,
Pets are fun to be around with. They are not the ultimate Cookie cutter's but they can kill stuff, tank damage and take no DP in PvE.

Packhunter Heroes (Something like this (http://www.pvxwiki.com/wiki/Build:R/P_Hero_Battle_Spear_Ranger)) do fine and are micro manage free most of the time ... I love to have three of them around me; really feels like hunting season.

As for yourself: what Kyomi Tachibana said plus [[Great Dwarf weapon] if you have it. For PvE I use [[ferocious strike] since [[never rampage alone] provides the IAS for me.

There are serveral builds posted here around 'beastmaster's' just dig around a bit ... here is a bar I made a while ago ... PvE Thumper (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10281996&highlight=pve+thumper)

Have fun!

[Rhamia Darigaz]

I use a pet on my ranger in PvE for [Never Rampage Alone], it doesn't have the speed boost but it has the IAS which is important and frees up the elite slot for more useful things like [Earth shaker].
in an attempt to find a use for my ranger's destroyer maul ive actually been using that same variant on the RaO build, with ["I do big domage"] instead of a spirit. not only is it easier on energy and the elite's more useful, [never rampage alone]'s regen counters the degen from my vamp hammer(!).

[Artisan Archer]

I use:
Whirling Defence, "I am the strongest", Rampage as One, Spear of Fury, "Dodge This", Comfort Animal, Charm Animal, Res sig.

It's good for general damage.

[-Lotus-]

unfortunatly pets a basically a self-blakout every once in awhile with little to no benefit. I wish they were useful :/

[Rhamia Darigaz]

unfortunatly pets a basically a self-blakout every once in awhile with little to no benefit. I wish they were useful :/
fortunately while ur black-ed out you're holding a hammer, so you can autoattack and not be totally worthless.
bringing a pet has its advantages in letting you bring [bestial mauling], [rampage as one] or [never rampage alone]. they also add some damage.
of course thats all assuming we're talking about thumpers

[Charlotte the Harlot]

using ferocious strike to fuel conc shot and other high energy attacks is kind of cool not great but probably one of the more interesting beast mastery combos.

[Syn Wind]

ok , about pets too i recently discovered, that rangers can charm pets higher
level, than they are, i made ranger got to level 4 and charmed a level 5 warthog, which i didnt think was possible, but apparently so ! O.o as i was thinking of hunter in warcraft , so i thought perhaps gw rangers were similar, but thats kind cool having a pet higher than u if u want to solo low areas = )

[odly]

Pet's take too much skill bar space.
They aren't good in themselfves, so you need to use beastmastery skills as well to benefit from the attribute points you put into it.

Pet's take too much attributes.
I believe you need 12 in beastmastery to make a pet do as much damage as a hammer with 9 in hammer mastery, but I might be wrong there.
High attributes are not bad if you consider them being a second weapon, but you'll still want to do damage with your own weapon as well. (well I like to anyway)

Pet's have bad pathing and get bodyblocked.
Pet attack skills don't queue.
I really hate this, due to the bad pathing they don't execute the attack skills as fast as expected and then you're accidentally removing it by commanding another skill.

Pet's look pretty.

Beastmastery does have a couple nice skills though, here are some of my favourites.
[Feral Aggression] [enraged lunge] [Predator's pounce]

Pet's trigger barbs, and benefit from ebon battle standard of honour.
Pet's do interupt when your target is dazed from broadhead arrow.
Pet's can be enchanted with weapon spells.
(Is there a select pet keyboard control ? I don't think so, but I whish theer was one.)

[isamu kurosawa]

Pet build in PvE can be fun and although they are not the absolute best they are much better than what most people in PUGs run.

If it's general pve then you should have no problem, in it's HM then its best to use such a build in a guild/alliance team you are comfortable with if at all.

Not to mention a pet has higher AL than a caster.

[Draginvry]

I never really see pets actually used GOOD anymore.

I have a nice Strike As One ranger. I use my beastmaster build about 40% of the time, the rest of the time I use bows.

The reason people don't use pets well is because they don't realize that you need at least six of your skills to come from Beast Mastery before the pet is of any real use. Pets aren't very good tanks unless you have a way to heal them, and they don't deal any damage unless you are using pet attacks.

I like my pet build because I can go all offense. With Never Rampage Alone and Predatory Bond, it really is a matter of you killing them before they kill you.

[TwinRaven]

ok , about pets too i recently discovered, that rangers can charm pets higher
level, than they are, i made ranger got to level 4 and charmed a level 5 warthog, which i didnt think was possible, but apparently so ! O.o as i was thinking of hunter in warcraft , so i thought perhaps gw rangers were similar, but thats kind cool having a pet higher than u if u want to solo low areas = )

Even more cool than this: Go outside Lord Barradin's Estate in PreSearing and see if there is a Strider/Moa Bird by the rez shrine. If there is, agro it and let it kill you several times (i.e. death leveling). I had a level 18 pet as a level 14 character...keep in mind only 4-5 levels above you as they quit gaining XP.

[Rhamia Darigaz]

The reason people don't use pets well is because they don't realize that you need at least six of your skills to come from Beast Mastery before the pet is of any real use.
[bestial mauling][rampage as one][comfort animal][charm animal]
hmm, only 4 here

[Kain Fz]

Okay, now, lets say you wanted to go /R and use pets from your secondary class.
What uses would it serve each profession?
Preferably, I need advice on mainly Paragons.

[Rhamia Darigaz]

Okay, now, lets say you wanted to go /R and use pets from your secondary class.
What uses would it serve each profession?
Preferably, I need advice on mainly Paragons. i suppose you could attempt some crappy backwards version of this (http://www.pvxwiki.com/wiki/Build:R/P_Hero_Battle_Spear_Ranger)

[Kain Fz]

i suppose you could attempt some crappy backwards version of this (http://www.pvxwiki.com/wiki/Build:R/P_Hero_Battle_Spear_Ranger)
I really don't see the usefulness in that build :S

Okay. So I play Mesmer(Secondary main), Warrior(Mule), Monk(Farmer), Paragon(Main), Assassin. and Dervish
Am I best off just making A Ranger? Or is there usage I can get with those professions?
Just how much usefulness can a ranger do anyways? What I am mainly interested in is pets, but besides barrage/splinter weapon, I don't see the usefulness I can do to the team.

[Rhamia Darigaz]

I really don't see the usefulness in that build :S

Okay. So I play Mesmer(Secondary main), Warrior(Mule), Monk(Farmer), Paragon(Main), Assassin. and Dervish
Am I best off just making A Ranger? Or is there usage I can get with those professions?
Just how much usefulness can a ranger do anyways? What I am mainly interested in is pets, but besides barrage/splinter weapon, I don't see the usefulness I can do to the team. the r/p build is meant to be run on hero's in HB to cap shrines and such, its all i could think of involving paragons and rangers.
barrage is not the only or the best ranger elite, despite apparant popular belief...
rangers are good at splitting, interrupting, and spreading conditions. of course if you're talking pve you could just run a scythe/hammer ranger for big domage.