Creature Handler Archive
Thread: Myths ( about CH and money making )
Some overall good points all 
I was mainly just posting to let people know that MCH by its self isnt a gold mine.
hehe, I agree with you partly Barb, if the bugs were fixed.(btw I wasn't the one who 1 stared you)
The only thing I disagree about is saying CH is worth the skill points or is necessary to take high end content, that isn't the case anymore (also double the mission payout is not correct unless you have no Elite Combat skill). Now you mentioned Krayts, I couldn't solo those with or without pets (acually I haven't tried so I'm assuming, maybe I can lol). I think those mobsneed a group, which is howdevs intended.......but I do know of people who do defense stacking or rifle conceal shot that can kill Krayts. The defense mitgation with buffs and high quality armor has changed what you can hunt as far as the mission based mobs. You no longer need CH to do high level missions, i.e. I do engraged lairs by myself (of course fullybuffed )
So CH would work good if they fixed the pet running, I doubt that will be fixed anytime soon (tell me how long dewbacks and Rancors have run, then give me your real answer on when you think devs will fix it). The advantage of CH once that bug is fixed, you dont have to think about tatics. Just send pet in, shot mob dead. My point is you get more for your skill points without CHbecause all you need is the right combat profession, armor, and buffs to do the same thing, less skillpoints requried. You can then get professions such as Smuggler, I'm Master now, which opens a whole new way to make money while keeping your fighting power the same as having MCH.
Dont get me wrong, taming pets is nice. Its actually fun for a month. After that, I fail to see a reason why CH is worth keeping. I realize things may change in the upcoming Combat Balance, but for now as is, CH = waist of skill points in PvE & PvP.
btw are you saying you can kill Krayts........hmmm even a pet maxed with 60% Kinetic wouldn't last long against a beast that hits for 2-3k at a time. Since your pets will last at most 1 minute against them, how are you killing them and for that matter how is 1 min worth of tanking helping you against a 300k mob?
Message Edited by WookieOgre on 02-23-2004 10:28 AM
Wabit wrote:
it can be done, just takes doing... 2 10k HAM AR1 60% kin res... buff the pets... be a rifleman... keep healing pets...
but a pistoleer has no chance of soloing krytes... you damage per shot will be about 200...
like barb if i had a kinetic rifle i would try those 300k witches...
I do understand in practical terms of how you would solo one, before the Creature nerf I would use 2 maulers to hunt them. But now that they are 300k ham, to heal that kind of damage would take very high stims. You said buff the pets, that to me doesn't sound like soloing. That sounds like having a doc there with you buffing and healing the pets while the rifleman does damage. I know in theory what your saying could be possible, but so many things have to go right for that to happen....pets not auto-store, pets not run, ect... Also to heal your pets you will have to get close, with the AoE attacks the dragon has, how do you survive long enough to completely heal the pets? Not to mention if you send in both pets, they both die at the same time because it has AoE attacks, thats unless you use one at a time which is what I would have done.
I've never been Rifleman so I'm not sure how well that compliments CH. If your able to solo something that devs have said shouldn't be soloed with/without CH because of Rifleman, beware the dev nerf.
WookieOgre wrote:
I do understand in practical terms of how you would solo one, before the Creature nerf I would use 2 maulers to hunt them. But now that they are 300k ham, to heal that kind of damage would take very high stims. You said buff the pets, that to me doesn't sound like soloing. That sounds like having a doc there with you buffing and healing the pets while the rifleman does damage. I know in theory what your saying could be possible, but so many things have to go right for that to happen....pets not auto-store, pets not run, ect... Also to heal your pets you will have to get close, with the AoE attacks the dragon has, how do you survive long enough to completely heal the pets? Not to mention if you send in both pets, they both die at the same time because it has AoE attacks, thats unless you use one at a time which is what I would have done.
I've never been Rifleman so I'm not sure how well that compliments CH. If your able to solo something that devs have said shouldn't be soloed with/without CH because of Rifleman, beware the dev nerf.
WookieOgre wrote:
btw are you saying you can kill Krayts........hmmm even a pet maxed with 60% Kinetic wouldn't last long against a beast that hits for 2-3k at a time. Since your pets will last at most 1 minute against them, how are you killing them and for that matter how is 1 min worth of tanking helping you against a 300k mob?
It is going to be highly dependent upon your tactics, armor and other variables, but here is a little test you can try. It will let you see how much each is contributing to your overall effectiveness:
1) Pet Day - Pick up a CDEF (or maybe a republic blaster). For this day, you are to not switch weapons or use any specials, regardless of how weak you think they are. Your pet and auto attack with your CDEF are your only weapons. See how well you do and what dificulty of creatures you can handle.
2) Weapon Day - Go back to your prefered weapon. Don't use any pets. None. As before, see how well you do and the difficulty you can handle.
3) Synergy Day - Either remembering your normal routine or going back to it, note the difference in your capabilities.
When this is over, you should see the difference between each.
From my own experience, day (1) was at best equivalent to a fourth tier basic combat profession. I could do Cl 20-ish but my pet would be hurting. (2) I could solo any CL 35 creature unbuffed and without any tactics whatsoever. With buffs, armor and tactics my capabilities grew by leaps and bounds. (3) Allowed groups of CL 35, but using careful tactics and my pet would be spent by the end of it (unless buffed, in which case it would be fully healed). With myself buffed, I could blaze through enemies but my pets needed replacing unless it was also buffed.
As you add in buffs, quality armor and high-end weapons, the difference between days (1) and (2) is staggering. Pets never get better, but you can continue to improve yourself until the pet is simply irrelavent, if not an outright liability.
So basically if you are serious about killing things, you won't ever need a pet. Without combat skills they are a good distraction and might let you live, but don't expect to be taking on large creatures. If you fall into the middle, then you will see a boost in what a pet gives you. Understanding this will help us see what is a myth and what isn't.
tougher things take special preperation and i do not mean to give the impression that i walk around harvesting krayts all on my lonesome. it is not efficient, it is fun but not efficient. the minimum to make krayting efficient is two people one of them preferably a doctor or a melee type if not a doctor.
how i heal my pets when doing krayts or other AOE attack monsters is to just run up and hit the stim and petstim then run back. at most i take one hit.
if i need an extended healing session i put my rifle away and recall the pet and train the krayt while i heal the pet back to full then send him back in. with my skills and stims i can do around 6k health in the time it takes the petstim to re-cycle. sometimes more. having your pets primary stats and secondary ones doctor enhanced REALLY helps. i dont bleed big things on purpose it just makes them more pissy than they already are.
however for most of my hunting on lesser things like ancient bull rancors and less. i just set my pet to guard me and dont actively send him out to fight.
anything is soloable its just finding the right technique/skill mix/tactics. the real problem with soloing high-end animals is finding them without a billion and one noobs running all over the place shooting it with cdef pistols and leaving their corpses around to trip over....
can i personally solo anything with my current skill set?? nope somethings are just immune to the damage i can do or for all practical purposes immune. im not going to change my template to hunt those exceptions. if i did tho i could solo them eventually.
i hope this explains it a bit more.
WookieOgre wrote:hehe, I agree with you partly Barb, if the bugs were fixed. (btw I wasn't the one who 1 stared you)
The only thing I disagree about is saying CH is worth the skill points or is necessary to take high end content, that isn't the case anymore (also double the mission payout is not correct unless you have no Elite Combat skill). Now you mentioned Krayts, I couldn't solo those with or without pets (acually I haven't tried so I'm assuming, maybe I can lol). I think those mobs need a group, which is how devs intended.......but I do know of people who do defense stacking or rifle conceal shot that can kill Krayts. The defense mitgation with buffs and high quality armor has changed what you can hunt as far as the mission based mobs. You no longer need CH to do high level missions, i.e. I do engraged lairs by myself (of course fullybuffed
So CH would work good if they fixed the pet running, I doubt that will be fixed anytime soon (tell me how long dewbacks and Rancors have run, then give me your real answer on when you think devs will fix it). The advantage of CH once that bug is fixed, you dont have to think about tatics. Just send pet in, shot mob dead. My point is you get more for your skill points without CH because all you need is the right combat profession, armor, and buffs to do the same thing, less skillpoints requried. You can then get professions such as Smuggler, I'm Master now, which opens a whole new way to make money while keeping your fighting power the same as having MCH.
Dont get me wrong, taming pets is nice. Its actually fun for a month. After that, I fail to see a reason why CH is worth keeping. I realize things may change in the upcoming Combat Balance, but for now as is, CH = waist of skill points in PvE & PvP.
btw are you saying you can kill Krayts........hmmm even a pet maxed with 60% Kinetic wouldn't last long against a beast that hits for 2-3k at a time. Since your pets will last at most 1 minute against them, how are you killing them and for that matter how is 1 min worth of tanking helping you against a 300k mob?
Message Edited by WookieOgre on 02-23-2004 10:28 AM
i replied to the gist of this in a previous post but i did not direct it specifically to you. CH isnt "neccessary" its just the most efficient combat multiplier you can have. the benefit from having a pet tanking is that you are expending your HAM doing damage instead of absorbing it. armour is nice and so are buffs defenses etc. but the problem is that your still taking damage.
krayts do 300-500 damage to my 30% resist gurreck and 150-250 to my 60% resist gurreck with spikes of 500-700 range when it lands a odd special.
the math basically breaks down to my pet tanking for about 90 seconds before i MUST heal him. during the initial engagement i can deal out around 80,000 mind damage to the krayt. after that i have to spend 20 seconds of every 90 healing the pet (this is where the ineffiency comes in). so i end up only dealing damage for 70 second stretches for around 60k damage a run. takes about 5 sets of healing and damage to kill a krayt give or take extra damage dealt by a krayt and me having to run a bit to fully heal the pet it takes 10 minutes to solo one if everything goes as it should and no one else interferes. with my hunting partner who is a rifle/doctor it goes MUCH faster. i just used the median average damage on my shots to figure this sometimes of course i hit for more less as does the krayt. these are just averages based off of observation.
as for the pet problems supposedly they are fixed today in a hotfix. but they did not really affect me all that much i just spent more time getting the pet to stand still. i used a combination of followme and attack and a bit more of me running about to deal with the issue. the last couple of days of pet problems were merely irritants than anything serious as the devs had stated they would fix it the day after the patch was released.
mission level monsters i have no trouble with and seldom use pets for other than as bodyguards. i dont remember the last time i used a rancor for hunting just because they cant keep up with a speeder bike
and i never used my dewbacks for hunting.
Barb-Wire wrote:
tougher things take special preperation and i do not mean to give the impression that i walk around harvesting krayts all on my lonesome. it is not efficient, it is fun but not efficient. the minimum to make krayting efficient is two people one of them preferably a doctor or a melee type if not a doctor.
This I'm a little bewildered. If you mastered Rifleman/CH, you should only have enough for 2 trees and 3 boxes in Medic. Now I'm not going to lie and say I know much about stims, but the best stim I've seen is that you could use at 40 medicine use would be 600-700. I guess you really have some nice doc enhanced stims.
if i need an extended healing session i put my rifle away and recall the pet and train the krayt while i heal the pet back to full then send him back in. with my skills and stims i can do around 6k health in the time it takes the petstim to re-cycle. sometimes more. having your pets primary stats and secondary ones doctor enhanced REALLY helps. i dont bleed big things on purpose it just makes them more pissy than they already are.
I appreciated thatyou posted back because frankly I've seen so many people claim how uber they are with CH and how they solo anything which is wrong and is why CH keeps getting nerfed on the misconception. I've been playing since launch, I know a lot of tricks and techniques that make hunting easier with or without petsbut as of today hunting high end content is almost next to impossible without having the right combat profession (rifleman is the best) and another player who is a CombatMedic or Doctor to help heal/buff pets. If I had a Doctor traveling with me, ya I would be good to go anywhere, well except maybe the nightsister dungeon.
But I'm still not convinced that anyone is better off overall with pets. Really what is the difference between you getting buffed, wearing armor, and using a nice gun. The only reason I died a couple days ago while I was buffed was because the Nightsister killed me with one Force Hit, Drained all my pools in one hit(HAM was at 3k except Mind was at 1500). I would expect that to kill even you and your pets reguardless of stims
WookieOgre wrote:
This I'm a little bewildered. If you mastered Rifleman/CH, you should only have enough for 2 trees and 3 boxes in Medic. Now I'm not going to lie and say I know much about stims, but the best stim I've seen is that you could use at 40 medicine use would be 600-700. I guess you really have some nice doc enhanced stims.
i have no medic, so its all petstims... You never hear of pet D's because they take fish to be made, only get them through special orders where i supply the fish...
i'm not going out with just my petslooking for krayts (well juvys i'll stop for)... but it is fun to once in awhile test how good you are by trying the endgame things... my hunting partner is a Mdoc/MCH... that gives us 3 tanks and all he does is heal... the minds are the only things that get low that way... if it get desperate i'll put my armor on and tank for a few...
Wabit