Creature Handler Archive

Actually everything I can find says "role depends on the pet you're using".... which isn't true, really, since all pets always hit min dmg.

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Skull-Taker wrote:

pets as tanks?

I cant keep the target on my pet, The second I take a shot its on me.

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The aggression ability will fix your problem. All you need is aggression L1 on a 450 damage pet and you won't be able to draw agro if you want to.

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c-mot wrote:
the better damage output of BE pets comes from the doubled attack speed. u can have an increased attack speed with wild pets thru abilities too. as BE pets dont come with an innate ability and usualy get 1 ability slot less than wild pets u can see its attack speed advantage as their ínnate ability (+ the goodies a good BE put into them).

the ability system gives back some value to wild pets. its amazing what u can do. i teached my CL58 dessert gurreck charger marring storm 2 and vigorous health 2 - now it has stats of a CL70 pet. i will finish its training with some thick skin - so it will end with nearly the same stats as a CL70 (+ fleet footed 1 and blind 2 and harmstring 2 special attacks).
BE pets are still very good in damage dealing - but if u need a real tank pet u better go for a shear mite soldier (with innate thick skin 3) or a rep flyer (with innate agression 3) as basic pet. this leaves u plenty of room for more abilities to use on a tanker (eg. vigorous health, beastly constitution, intimidate attack).

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Actually the ability that is SUPPOSED to make your pet attack faster is broken. It will actually slow down your pet's attacks.
If this is ever fixed, then wild pets might be an option for dealing damage. Until then, bio-engineered pets are your only choice if you want to inflict a lot of damage with your pets.

When it comes to tank pets, no wild pet will ever come close to the amount of health that you can have on a Bio-Engineered pet.

Its my opinion that the higher health (2500 more than you'll get on a wild pet) and the higher damage (more than double what you'll get on a wild pet) makes Bio-Engineered pets far superior in combat to wild pets regardless of the fact that wild pets get more ability slots.

The aggression ability will fix your problem. All you need is aggression L1 on a 450 damage pet and you won't be able to draw agro if you want to.

CH is barely in the tank column the profession is defined as adaptable depending on creature used. In the new ability system you can build pets to fulfill most rolls. The reason its even remotely a tank is because you and the pet can take greater damage in combat before you both go down.

Regular attacks always hit for near minimum damage for everyone. Specials act as a multiplier. If you want your pets to do more damage get a solid damage BE pet and drop on marring storm my level 70 kimo with marring storm 1 will hit a level 80 npc for 184 points of damage dps. I estimate with marring storm L3 my pet will easily go over 200. If i give him stun intimidate and imperilled feint he may do 250 against another player. Thats 1000 hitpoints every 10 seconds.

Its all in how you build your pet if you play to your pets innate strengths. I am right now figureing out which pets of mine will be damage dealers full tanks special dealers, and how best to build an effective trio.

My suggestions if you want to up the damage marring storm L3 Imperilled feint L1 Bleeding L1 Knockdown L1 Staggering L1. When combined your pet will do signifigant damage he may not last long but odds are with a good BE pet he will hit like a mack truck.

Look, what it comes down to is this. If, in a game, on an object, be it a pet or a weapon, I see the text "Damage: 106-453", I EXPECT SOMETIMES TO SEE 453, sometimes 300, sometimes 125, sometimes 213, etc, etc, but that is NOT THE CASE. It's always 106, no matter what, every single time, without fail. That to me is ... deception I guess. It won't ever do the 453, so don't print it. Just say "Damage: 106". Or fix/change the system so that the pet can sometimes do the 453, or any other random number in between.

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Skull-Taker wrote:
The aggression ability will fix your problem. All you need is aggression L1 on a 450 damage pet and you won't be able to draw agro if you want to.

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I have aggression L3 im still hunting a baby with L1 & 2

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you can learn L3 abilities before you know the previous levels. i'd recommend taking your flier out for a spin and seeing what aggression L3 can do, i know i like mine, and my L2 frenzied graul. if you have already and still aren't impressed, well then i don't know what to say.

I like the aggresion L3 but I need L1 & L2 to train my main tank

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flurry_player01 wrote:
Look, what it comes down to is this. If, in a game, on an object, be it a pet or a weapon, I see the text "Damage: 106-453", I EXPECT SOMETIMES TO SEE 453, sometimes 300, sometimes 125, sometimes 213, etc, etc, but that is NOT THE CASE. It's always 106, no matter what, every single time, without fail. That to me is ... deception I guess. It won't ever do the 453, so don't print it. Just say "Damage: 106". Or fix/change the system so that the pet can sometimes do the 453, or any other random number in between.

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The problem is that the accuracy rating of your pet is enough lower than the defense rating of the targets that it hits for the minimum damage, or possibly lower due to armor on the target. You'd need to check verbose combat spam to see for sure. If you have a pet attack a CL1 target in the noob areas outside of town, you can see your pet hit for max damage because the target will have low defense rating and no armor value. As a MBH/MCH/CM 4000, I could have the same gripe with my scatter pistol when I'm dueling a master defender. I will *always* hit for minimum damage, because my accuracy is too low when compared to the targets defense. Then, I'll hit for even less (probably around 60% less) because of jedi innate armor.

As a player, you can combat this by stacking general accuracy from multiple professions, eating accuracy food, using skills like aim, etc. For pets, the options are much more limited. I suppose that it might be possible to have a BE experiment for max accuracy, although I'n not sure that isn't one of the things to magically get reset to default-for-CL levels upon taming. Or you could train the special ability that increases accuracy, Precision Strike. I don't know stats on the 3 levels of that, but to be honest I doubt that it will make enough difference to be worth it.

At first, I really hated the CU system of consistent damage values, but now I like it a lot. It gives you much more control with weapon selection, and really gives weight to the new system of stacking skills and modifiers from multiple professions to boost your high-end effectiveness. It does, however, tend to be more harsh on CH since even your CL70 pets will not have enough accuracy to match favorably to CL80 range targets, and grouping only affects CL-difference based damage multipliers (which is admittedly a pretty band-aid solution to the old unreliable con system) as far as I can tell.

Anyhow, hope that at least explains what is going on if not being exactly what you wanted to hear.

I understand what you're saying about accuracy and CLs and such, but then what's the point of allowing us to have CL 70 pets if they always hit for min damage? I mean, why not either let us have CL 80s (haha) or just alter the combat routines so that pets have a chance of doing more than min damage vs. higher level mobs?

Though, I found it's not so bad... 3 CL 23 pets outdamage 1 CL 70 pet due to the min damage thing. Of course they die a lot faster.

I'm still trying to decide whether to keep CH or not. Sigh.

I haven't tried foods like pyro. I believe that they apply only to your mods, not to your pets. I'd say your best bets are to teach your pet imperiling feint to lower target defenses, and precision strike to raise accuracy. But again, I'm not sure how effective overall those skills might be...

It would also be interesting to experiment with Squad Leader accuracy buffs to the group. I have heard that they don't apply to creatures, but I can experiment to those ends and see if that is true.