Creature Handler Archive
Thread: Koa, let Devs know that pets definitely can NOT take on CL 80 mob
As a level 80, you can no longer tame babies from a mission lair. Even if you wanted to take missions at level 70 and get zero combat XP but just look for babies, you can't. Unlike before where we could team with a weak pet to get lower level missions or a strong pet to get higher level missions, now (excepting the bugged terminals that give you level 15 missions when you're level 80) we can ONLY get level 80 lairs. Which means double-master CHs can't tame babies off their lairs, but lower level CHs can.
This makes finding just generic babies (not something special) of the level you are after a much more time consuming and tedious task. Sometimes I like going into the wild to tame random things, but sometimes if I want a certain baby, I used to know what planet, what mission level to take missions at, and I could get what I wanted in short order. Not everyone has a 4 hour session to spend running around looking for the right baby. Nor should that be considered a required element of the class.
C
Chessack wrote:
OK I guess I was not detailed enough.
Level 80 lairs do provide babies. You can tame them. They are level 10. If you want a level 10 pet this is a good way to get them.
If you want anything other than a level 10 or so pet, you cant' get them off of a level 80 lair.
C
Crowd control to me means controling who the mobs are attacking, crowd control states I always considered roots and snares. Stun, intimidate, dizzy are more detrimental states in my book, but I see where you're coming from. However, crowd control by stopping shot or crowd control by sending the pet in both serve a similar function, keeping the mob off a player that is otherwise engaged.
My pets as extra attacks seem to be doing quite well, whether it's the three female nargalatches or the two BE 35s I use, they do more damage than my GSH or arachnae. Would I like to see pet specials returned? Absolutely.
Should the same pet be used for tanking and/or crowd control? The same pet may not be optimal, but they all need to be somewhat capable, since you sure can't switch pets in combat to deal with unforseen circumstances.
You go on a tirade about how long has the CU been out, and we still don't have specials, and we can't fill our roles. Well, the thing is, the animals we fight don't have specials either. If the wild stuff had specials and we didn't I'd be a bit more worried. It tells me that they don't ahve creatures the way they want them. As for filling roles, as I've said I can add to the groupd damage with my pets, as well as assist in controling where mobs go, I feel quite versatile. States would be a nice addition. A taunt of some kind would be a nice addition. But we are a far cry from unplayable or ineffective right now.
Yes, it is very true we cannot change out pets during combat. It is a shame we cannot change out pets to fulfull different needs that arise in combat. That severly limits our role of versitility as defined by the new system. It would be very nice to have the same pet do a role with specials and be able to effectively tank and so on, but that is how it was pre-cu. I do not think we will be afforded that same pleasure. With the way they want roles to be more clearly defined, I would not hold my breath for anything of that nature, but I would be much happier with a pet that at least could act as a tanker by having a taunt and good ham, and a pet that had good specials but not as much ham as that tanker pet, and so on.
Is it a 'tirade'?, i do not think so, it is simple truth. We are a profession that is one of the most rewarding and has a multitude of possibilities, yet see little light. What gets pushed out in publishes? multiperson vehicles.
Some of us come into contact with other things that can induce states. Travelling on wookie world, the wookies there have knocked me down and dizzied me. Being able to induce similiar effects would be nice.
Are we 'unplayable'? it is up to that person to decide. As a MCH, I was able to go to Lok and harvest Lok leather for our armorsmith from lvl 80 gurks without much effort.
This is all about the potential of what we could have in relation to how we are described by role in the new combat system.
From ArthurDent's report of Fan Fest in the BE forums:
ArthurDentOnBriawrote:
Creature Handlers & Pets
According to Keldarin, CH is getting a lot of work right now, and we should see this out soon. He says that creature handlers will be able to affect pets in many ways that they couldn't previously through training. His idea is that a creature handler, by using pets, can be a "jack of all trades". And while a pet should never serve as, as good a tank as a player tank, or as good a nuker as a player nuker, that a creature handler can have his pets fill either role adequately. He was very deliberately unspecific about exactly what these new enhanced training capabilities will be, but he did hint at ability to grant extra tanking power, extra damage, and extra speed.
He was asked about "rares", and stated that most creatures in the game should have tameable babies. It wasn't clear to me whether he was saying that this was already the case or something that was being enhanced in his upcoming work.
He was asked about why CH's could only control level 70 pets but would often times be up against level 80 content. He said that no, when you are a master CH and have no other combat skills, the expectation is that you should not be able to kill level 80 content any more than a master pistoleer with no additional combat skills could. He said that by adding another master-level combat skill, and getting up to level 80, only then should you expect to take on level 80 creatures and you'd be relying as heavily on your pistoleer skills as you were your CH skills. He added though that as a master pistoleer/master ch and a level 70ish pet, he was personally able to solo a level 80 creature.
Eavik wrote:
From ArthurDent's report of Fan Fest in the BE forums:
ArthurDentOnBriawrote:
Creature Handlers & Pets
According to Keldarin, CH is getting a lot of work right now, and we should see this out soon. He says that creature handlers will be able to affect pets in many ways that they couldn't previously through training. His idea is that a creature handler, by using pets, can be a "jack of all trades". And while a pet should never serve as, as good a tank as a player tank, or as good a nuker as a player nuker, that a creature handler can have his pets fill either role adequately. He was very deliberately unspecific about exactly what these new enhanced training capabilities will be, but he did hint at ability to grant extra tanking power, extra damage, and extra speed.
He was asked about "rares", and stated that most creatures in the game should have tameable babies. It wasn't clear to me whether he was saying that this was already the case or something that was being enhanced in his upcoming work.
He was asked about why CH's could only control level 70 pets but would often times be up against level 80 content. He said that no, when you are a master CH and have no other combat skills, the expectation is that you should not be able to kill level 80 content any more than a master pistoleer with no additional combat skills could. He said that by adding another master-level combat skill, and getting up to level 80, only then should you expect to take on level 80 creatures and you'd be relying as heavily on your pistoleer skills as you were your CH skills. He added though that as a master pistoleer/master ch and a level 70ish pet, he was personally able to solo a level 80 creature.
And I will clarify again. He said that after Publish 17 he had a CL 60 pet that was able to defeat a CL 80 creature. If he said anything about level 70ish pets, he did so well before his reply to me.His answer was in direct response to my challenging his his view that pets - and therefore CH - were balanced. I said, and I paraphrase only a little, that as a Master Pistoleer using no CH skills that I was able to solo anything CL 80 or lower, but that as a Master Creature Handler using no Pistoleer skills I could not. I was only able to solo mobs lower in level than my highest level pet a CL 66 Rhoa Kwi Pack Leader.
Clearly, then, when he replied that his CL 60 pet defeated a CL 80 pet he meant thathis pet was able to do so without help from him. Further, when I said that I had a very different experience than his, he said to go ahead and bug it or post in CH forum if my pets were not able to defeat a CL 80 creature. Not an exact quote but close enough.
I wasn't challenging the view that a CL 54MCH with no other combat skills should be able to take on a CL 80 mob - obviously not. I was saying that a CL 80 MCH should be able to take on a CL 80 mob in the same way that any other CL 80 combat profession is able to.
Ok, I didn't want to say anything cause I'm afraid of getting nerfed, but here it is....
Claim was made that a CL69 pet took only 1/3 of a 78/79 stormtrooper health before incap.
Not DPS. No weapon does that much DPS. You are thinking of max damage.
AngusMacGregor wrote:
Angamarth wrote:
To play devil's advocate, if you want to call the pet a 'weapon' then a creature handler gets two weapons, the pet and their own weapon. No other character gets two weapons. Also, a rifleman's weapon stops at cl 54 I believe, so hopefully they won't make our pets like everyone elses weapons.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have the level raised to 80, I still have my gaping recluse in my datapad hoping I'll be able to call it again someday.
To play Devil's Advocate to you, our pets don't do upwards of 1000 DPS like some CL 54 weapons do, such as rifles.
I took out a level 69 pet vs level 78 and 79 stormtrooper missions.
Pet was dead fairly quickly and only got the trooper down maybe a 3rd of it's health.
Without major help from me, anything close to level 80 and especially level 80 just magnifies the problem.
Pair an MCH with anything and see how it stacks up against say a rifleman/smuggler or MBH/carbineer or swordsman/TK or whatever, there is nothing you can pair him with that truly helps in any great way. It adds a small dot (in the case of level 79-whatever level fights) and a meatshield that doesn't last long at all, nevermind all the inherant problems we have with pet pathing, waiting to bring pets out, waiting before we can store etc.
You don't get any special attacks as an MCH, you get no helpful mods to defense or offense. As it stands right now you get a less than green pet that's a pain in the ass to control and doesn't bring much to any medium to high end fight which is primarily what you will be doing at level 80.
Why not have the pets be able to scale up to just below your true level? At MCH and level 54, make 53 the highest level of pets you can pull out. Then at level 80, you could pull out a level 79 pet. It still would lose in a stand up fight to level 80's but at least it wouldn't be a joke.
Denaiya
I understand what you are all saying, however, if a MTKA that is ONLY a MTKA tries to take out a lvl 80 mob he will be dead! That MTKA has to have another elite proffesion to get to the lvl 80. At lvl 80, yes he can now take out a lvl 80 mob using only TKA. But he receives a lvl bonus from the 2nd elite proffesion. Now a MCH with another master elite proffesion does not seem to have the same advantage. We can get to lvl 80 but cant use 1 of our masters to take on lvl 80 mobs. In that case we are not up to par with any other dual master combat proffession. That is a fact. We should get something to CH when we have another elite master.
Oh and I believe the dev was Darth Platypus. There were only 2 and I think it was him that stated he took out a lvl 80 mob with a lvl 60 something pet.
-Elder Medic-
spreadsheet wrote:
...Oh and I believe the dev was Darth Platypus. There were only 2 and I think it was him that stated he took out a lvl 80 mob with a lvl 60 something pet.
Nope, sorry spreadsheet. It wasn't Darth.I don't even remember him being at the CH forum 
I found this pic of the devsin fanfest forum by Arc-Casper:
http://www.mosquitohills.com/galleries/fanfest2005/slides/DSCN0190.html
The dev who said it is theone with beard in the middle wearing a blue shirt over a black t-shirt. Well, I'm 98% certain anyway. I'm pretty sure the dev standing to his right (our left as you look at pic) was the other dev. Darth Platypus is next to Tiggs, kneeling front center wearing white pants.
Angamarth wrote:
Chessack, I tamed a baby at a lvl 81 lair of a creature that is normally level 23. It lists in my datapad as a level 23 creature.
OK, I stand corrected. I have not done extensive testing on this. I tamed one level 80 baby, it came out level 10, and another CH tamed a level 82 that was 12, and we assumed from those 2 that above 70, tame levels "wrap around." Clearly we did not do enough testing.
C