Creature Handler Archive
Thread: Discussion Topic: Know your Role
My role as a Creature Handler in SWG.
I provide the tank for all levels and types of combat. Sorry people, but this is Star Wars. You can role play all you want, however, we are in the middle of a civil war and this is what the game was designed to simulate. Remain neutral if you can but do not expect to be unaffected.
As my primary role in this game, to take damage and draw enemy fire, these tanks should be the best! This does not exclude faction pets or droids. The mechanical devices created by man are limited in their abilities, susceptible to failure in a harsh alien environment, or have known exploitable weaknesses when compared to native life.
I am the elite combat profession from the Scouting support tree. I am dependent on them to find what I seek, only with the help of a skilled Ranger can we find the rare and useful pets befitting a Master of my class. They in turn are dependent on me to keep them alive in the wilds while harvesting high quality and scarce resources. Their knowledge of tracking and animal behavior gives them an advantage in knowing a creature’s weakness when in combat against it.
A Bio-engineer can customize my charges to match my needs, for a fee I get just the right combination of resistance, specials,and model needed for the combat I am engage in. They are also the doctors for my biological shields and I am thus dependant on their services. A BE’s trade is the sale of useful creatures for specific purposes in life, mounts for rugged terrain, pack animals for merchants lugging their wares, or poisonous assassins for a quick and gruesome death . They are thus dependant on the skills of a trainer, an unbroken house pet or stubborn mule will fetch a poor price. Any attempt to create a being that is supernaturally powerful must end in failure, due to mankind’s limited sciences and understanding of the universe.
I am equally able survive on my own as any other elite combat profession. My defensive abilities allow me access to increasingly tougher adversaries as my skills evolve. Without the need for breaks, to heal or recover from drug induced downers, my lack of offensive weapon skills do not make me weak. My services are highly sought in groups for without this cooperation, combat objectives would be unattainable or very costly in the loss of human life.
These are the roles and dependencies I envision for the upper tiers of the scouting profession in SWG. Below are some ideas to accomplish this.
•Higher CL super pets are only controllable by MCH only found in nature.
•These high CL babies will spawn for a Master Ranger or are very, very, very rare.
•BEs already dependant for raw materials could also benefit from rare spawns or high end loot.
•Knowing and targeting the weakness of any biological opponent would have great tactical advantage in PvE and PvP.
•A wild creature’s weakness is not static but shift like the resources.
Thanks,
Lt
Vertexon, Answering without reading the other posts...
1. Whatwas the appeal of the Creature Handler profession to you? In other words, what things make being a Creature Handler something you have chosen to do?
I started CH, after being a medic, giving up marksman. I like the idea of tame/train/working pets and having a collection of pets is cool. Problem: I can buy pets that perform somewhat better than what I can tame.
2. What role(s) do you, as Creature Handlers, fill in the game world? For example: Tanks, damage-dealers, roleplayers, status effect inflicters (i.e. poison, disease, knockdown), resource harvesters, mission runners, pet salesmen, pet trainers, etc. Which roles (combat or non-combat)does the CH fill better than any other profession?
I play a mixed role running combat missions as tanks/assistsand doing my own tame/trains. Unfortunately, the CH role has been watered down in both combat and non-combat so I'd say we do nothing better than any other profession. Except maybe to draw mobs out away from lairs that are too dangerous to approach. We have no market to sell pets to. TKMs, Commandosand Brawlers can inflict damage much quicker.
What I'd like:
To be able to have a viable market and a way to sell pets. Tame, Train, and release gets boring.
I still think CH should either be the resource provider for BE or take the role of a 'pet slicer' where commands add value (and have some teeth that actually do something)
A larger selection or availability for tamables.
3. What should a Creature Handler's place in a hunting group be? Everyone in the group wants to feel important... what should make the Creature Handler an important addition? What would it take to get us to that point?
This one varies with the group's makeup and size. We're penalized inxpfor using an overmatched pet, but yet an undermatched pet can be bad for the group. We're valuable since we can shed off a target and pull it back to the group. And we can bail out a teammate by drawing fire/attack away from them.
To me, small groups provide the most fun with a mix of strategy and teamwork.
Vertexon wrote:
1. Whatwas the appeal of the Creature Handler profession to you? In other words, what things make being a Creature Handler something you have chosen to do?
Taming babies, playing with pets (I have spent far too long just going /pet /scold /reassure since the last patch, lol), and operating a team in combat. Being self-sufficient, as I hate having to rely on other people or have them having to rely on me.
2. What role(s) do you, as Creature Handlers, fill in the game world? For example: Tanks, damage-dealers, roleplayers, status effect inflicters (i.e. poison, disease, knockdown), resource harvesters, mission runners, pet salesmen, pet trainers, etc. Which roles (combat or non-combat)does the CH fill better than any other profession?
Right now CH are (imo)tanks primarily, state effect inflicters and damage dealers secondly. With a vastly reduced non-CH market the role as salesmen/trainer for third parties is going away (no complaints from me). CH make very good mission runners/resource gatherers. Note, this is simply how I see CH atm, not my preferred state for CH.
3. What should a Creature Handler's place in a hunting group be? Everyone in the group wants to feel important... what should make the Creature Handler an important addition? What would it take to get us to that point?
I would like to see CH shift away from the tank position toward the damage/state effectinflicter position. With BE pets this becomes more feasible but there is still too much emphasis (imo) on HAM over damage for all creatures, wild and pet. Specials commands MUST be fixed asap (its pathetic that they entered the live servers as fundamentally non-functioning additions). CL must also be re-calculated away from its damage centric status to include other stats more equally, to allow for a far greater diversity of creatures in the mid-high levels. There should be creatures that do 2-3k damage but only have 8k HAM for example, instead of all creatures basically being simply scaled up linearly.
I basically support the devs position in making players the tanks in groups. However, the shift was made without fully supporting a CH shift to a different role. Fixing the specials commands will go a long way to redressing half of that role change, i.e. the infliction of state effects. Creatures need to be able to be more asymetric in HAM/damage though or we will be reduced to a very limited subset of state effects as our only contribution to group play.
The other thing I would like to see is work done to improve our position in PvP. With a reduction in PvE capability (we are still good, but no longer the best at PvE by a long shot) it would help a great deal to improve our position in the PvP arena. For me, this means eliminating vitality loss for pets in PvP (in line with the coming elimination of decay on death for PCs in PvP) and somehow granting AP1 attacks to the highest CL pets (e.g CL65+ only) - maybe through the use of some weaponsmith made device or the introduction of AP1 to a limited set of wild creatures ( regular/bull/mutant rancors, maybe 
). Pet AI needs to be improved to allow them to properly guard their owners (e.g against DBing) - maybe make the /guard command get the pet to automatically attack any hostile (i.e. red to the owner) that comes within 32m.
CH still has power, although it seems greatly reduced atm vs other combat professions before the combat re-balance due in the next month or three. Against the environment we are broadly fine, if a little predictable due to the fundamental lack of real diversity in pet format (high HAM, low damage, small number of useful state effects). In PvP we are very poor and that must be improved to keep CH players interested in the game long term.
1. chose CH because i like pets and animals. I thought it would be fun to own and raise them. I think raising a pet should be much more in-depth
2. Tanks, easily.
3. I think it would be neat if a CH could have a huge variety of roles depending on his pet. Could have a high ham pet for tanking, a high damage pet for damage output, a pet with stat effects, etc. This could potentially make us too adaptable, though, and be unbalancing.
I have to say this I dont like the idea of the CH being a support class. I think it should be a strong class however one that is harder to achieve than it is right now. Make getting MCH similar to mastering BH. I was already a Master Scout whenI got Master CH but it was not required. I think Master Scout should be required for Master CH as well as another proffession.
I got into creature handling and went on to master it because I liked the danger in going into the middle of gapping spider recluse lair with only mask scent and coming away with a tamed pet. However, I also liked the idea of this pet growing up and becoming a strong companion at my side to aid me in all types of battle PVP or PVE.
I dont see the point in being able to train and command a creature such a Bull Rankor or KImo and not be able to hold your own in combat PVP or PVE. I know people complained about the proffesion being to strong especially at the lower levels. However, one thing that I dont here brought up is yes you may have a pet to use as a tank and such but you dont get any bonus defense mods as a player like in other combat proffesions. So you are very vulnerable very much so now after the nerf. Again this is fine if the CH proffession is to be set along side the dancer proffession but my point again:
What is the point in being able to command a Bull Rankor with strong disease light armor and high kinetic if you are going to be reguard as an entertainer class.
Right now the MCH is too weak to be a true combat class thats why all the talk of support comes up but that was do to the changes. I think they should be changed again. Make it a long hard road to the MCH but make it well worth it once there. There are higher level creatures out there that we should be able to train and command.
And I have to say this: To all the Hippies that what to commune and bond with the pets go be a dancer or chef! I love my pets im loyal to them as well as they are loyal to me and I care for the deeply. However, my point again is what good is commanding creatures such as rankors if in the endyou are just a PAPER TIGER. The pets are your minons to command. If your walking around with a cupa named spot fine dont use him as atank when a TKA is kicking the hell out of you. However I would like to be able to at least put up a good fight with my Level 63 Kimo or 58 Frienzed Grual.
As for all the creature handlers running around not being starwars like, the game is supposed to be fun whats the difference? There wasn't any jedi running around in this point in the star wars story but there are in the game and thats a good thing. I also dont recall Karate ever being used in star wars either.
As for all the creature handlers running around not being starwars like, the game is supposed to be fun whats the difference? There wasn't any jedi running around in this point in the star wars story but there are in the game and thats a good thing. I also dont recall Karate ever being used in star wars either.
/putting on flamethrow resistant armor
I agree. This isn't real life. It's based loosely on Movies, and books based loosely on the movies. Anybody seenreal SW main charactersin game lately? Well, I haven't. Software has the same literary license the movies and books do; you're not writing (filming, developing)about history.
If this were a WWII sim, it would be a different story. No one's really held the movies strictly accountable to each other; um, they're movies and their purpose is to entertain. This is a game...same purpose.
Summarization...
- Tougher pets for PVP/PVE - right now we're just too weak and any fighting class can wipe the floor with our pets and us. Master CH should command respect and the highest pets (Rancor et al) should be feared by any fighting class.
- Make CH economically viable - give people new reasons to want pets. Domestic/fighting/utility pets that sure a single purpose. Armor for pets? Pet slicing to enhance stats? Give us a way to sell.
Devs should realize that the CH profession is unlike any other in the game and should be treated as such. I'm not saying we should have special treatment, but our profession requires more than other professions because we are multi-faceted.
1. Whatwas the appeal of the Creature Handler profession to you? In other words, what things make being a Creature Handler something you have chosen to do?
Somewhere in my mind, there was a picture of a kind of Grizzly Adams meets Han Solo, with some Marcus (B5) thrown in. To this end, the critters were a part of that picture. Critters are companions, friends, tools, tanks, and just plain cool. The visual picture of running around, hunting alien things (this was before I fine tuned my character), with some alien things at my side was brilliant.
It wasn't until after the latest CHner....I mean CHpatch...that I decided to actually master the profession. The reasons behind that decision were based on the fact that when I was running around with my critters, I had more fun than when I didn't. I have chosen the profession, therefore, because it brings me the most pleasure in the game.
2. A) What role(s) do you, as Creature Handlers, fill in the game world? For example: Tanks, damage-dealers, roleplayers, status effect inflicters (i.e. poison, disease, knockdown), resource harvesters, mission runners, pet salesmen, pet trainers, etc.
This one question actually has two answers, past and present. In the far past, the CH was the person that proffession that was the ultimate tank. He brought a creature into combat that pretty much eliminated the need for any tactics of any sort: send in critter, wait three, start pounding. Additionally, the CH was the trainer of the tanks. In the recent past, s/he added a sideline to the tank/tank-trainer, of tank-seller. With the most recent changes, the job of the CH has been reduced back to tank provider - unless a group can find a TKM to do the job.
Therefore, to answer A - we currently fill the role of a sporadic tank, when people want critters. The BE provides the critters to everyone, though, so even the role of tank is being slowly ground out.
2B) Which roles (combat or non-combat)does the CH fill better than any other profession?
CH's handle creatures better than any other profession - in theory. Non-CH people currently have the option to control creatures, provided that they were trained by a CH. This has diluted the profession to the point where it is no longer a unique ability. BE's can create critters that the CH cannot find in the wild (yet that look like the wild counterparts), as they should be able to, but these critters are available to anyone.Although the BE critters will be brought into line with what they should be, they still dilute the proffession, because (again) ANYONE can have one.
3. What should a Creature Handler's place in a hunting group be? Everyone in the group wants to feel important... what should make the Creature Handler an important addition? What would it take to get us to that point?
As a firm member of theGroup Against Forced Grouping, this set of questions is difficult to answer. If you are asking what will make the CH a NECESSARY part of the group, then the answer is "Nothing you idiot! Leave us alone for crying out loud!" 
However, since that can't be what you are asking, I will answer the implied question of "What will make the CH a HIGHLY DESIRED part of groups?"
First and foremost, no one that has not invested at least the points to be a novice CH should be able to control a critter that is seriously effective in combat. Period. Ever. If s/he has a critter with him/her, it should be no stronger than a dog would be on this side of the keyboard. Even the most aggressive dog cannot stand up against a bullet. By the same token, non-CH people should not be able to control creatures that would normally eat their head.Instead they should have droids for the majority of their big fighting(which brings up an entirely different discussion, so please forgive my mentioning it.) See my point about mounts for more details.
Secondly, a CH should be able to ACTUALLY USE the special attacks that we can train the critter for. I can tell my spider "spit" all day long, but he won't do it until he feels like it (unless I use the workaround, which is completelynot the point of having the ability). This means that I cannot use the ability to maximum effectiveness, which means that while my spider an I are an OK addition to a group (the more the merrier), we do not have an actual place in the group where we are desired. If I could use my spider to target and poison several times, then suddenly I would be a viable option as a group player because I would have a wonderful long range ability that helps, without getting in the way of the other players.
Thirdly, our mounts should not get in the way of fighting or doing anything else that I need to do. On this side of the keyboard, I can get on a horse, aim it, and read a book while riding, keeping a small eye on where I am going. I can use my PDA (survey devices) and shoot a gun if something tries to eat my head. Conversely, in a vehicle, I can go far faster, but I have to actually DRIVE. This means that if I try to use my PDA I will probably have a wreck. Therefore, our mounts should be trained by the CH, but, the ones for non-CH should be like normal mounts out here: useful, and thus giving you the ability to perform a large variety of tasks while moving. They can even be trained to help in combat situations to a limited degree, but still should be reasonably weak for the non-CH, specifically because the non-CH has not spent the time learning how to use them. On the other hand, the rider should be able to use their special shots and such from mounts, but not from vehicles. Our mounts would be infinitely more desirable if people could actually fight effectively from them. Naturally, there would have to be some sort of fight or flight option to avoid the dreaded "kiting".
Fourthly, we should be able to train special critter abilities, if we are training a critter for a specific type of profession. Small options, but useful ones would enhance us in ways that would make us more useful in general, and give us many more viable products. It has been suggested that we be allowed to train small creatures to aid entertainers - I'll go a few steps further. There should be creatures that are specific to different professions that we can train and sell.Examples:
- Entertainers that are song bird and bunny types that we can train with four or five different tricks. When grouped with an entertainer, they add a percentage (that increases the closer the entertainer gets to master) to the healing the entertainer provides. Pretty much useless incombat, but a ton of fun to watch (and they might enhance the non-entertainer's general enjoyment of the show in the first place).
-Scouters that aresmall dog types that can be trained as bloodhound types so that scouts, rangers, and bounty hunters can improve their chances of getting the mark or finding the creatures they are lookiing for.If the player has AreaTrack (Rangers), s/he could actually select the target and the critter would lead him/her to it. If not, the critter would act like a limited area track, sniffing along the ground (with a chance for error) and stopping frequently to pick up the scent again. In fact, this could be hilarious, as if you told your dog to find "herbivore meat" it might lead you to a gorg, which anyone can take out, or to a rhonto, which might pose a couple problems for a novice. 
-Protectors that are small armoured bugs that don't do too much damage, but are AR2 that automatically take the aggression, so that artisians will have something to guard them long enough to get away from what's trying to eat them.If the player hits /peace, then the critter takes the aggression completely, giving the artisian type a chance to actually run away from that pesky kreetle.
- Sniffers that would lead medics to a place where their /medicalforage might get them 30 units of whatever, rather than 2 (with limits to the amount of times they could sample that spot). Or, in the same line, "Truffle Pigs" that could lead a chef to a place to find those wonderful mushrooms. The "mushrooms" would be an additive that would enhance the food values even further, to slightly extend the duration of the food, or add some plusses to the enhancements.
- Rescuers that are animals that would be pretty much useless in combat. However, the rescue animal could go into a big fight and pull out an incapped or dead player so s/he would have a chance to actually recover from the incap, or to get an actual revive from the doctor who is staying out of the line of fire, so he doesn't have to take a trip to the clone center.
- Flushers would be animals that go in and tear up the nest some, bringing out ALL of the critters in the nest. They wouldn't actually do any real damage, but would simply bring all the critters out - including the bosses. This could be used by Squad leaders who have created tactics so that their group knows exactly what to do, who encloses the nest in massive pincer movements.
The list goes on, and there are many good ideas that could be used. The critters that would be available for special training would be smaller ones, that have that kind of training inherent as a path that the CH can choose. Let's say, a vrobal is one of the three kinds of critters that can be used as a sniffer. The CH (novice even) gets a path option once he tames the critter. It would be something like "This creature can be specially trained. Do you want to use special training, or standard?" By checking "Standard" he trains it with his normal commands. But, if he choses "Special" then he can train it for the specific tasks that critter can be trained for. In the case of the Vrobal I am mentioning, it would still have some of the normal training (Trick 1, Stay, Group, etc.), but would sacrifice the ability to get a kill command for a find command. At that point, you would train it to find what it could. Find Food would find truffles. Find meds would find the stuff that can be medically foraged.
The special training would have to be available at a lower level than MCH, too. The MCH can tame and train the big nasties, not to mention have multiple critters out at once. Therefore, the special training ability at lower levels would give the novice or near novice CH a way to make some creds besides missions. Meanwhile, once he hits the right box, he can train mounts, and still has the ability to handle multiple critters as a bonus for being a Master. Best of all, since the Master can handle multiples, he can, if he wants, go on finding expeditions with his other friends, thus grouping, and do something besides shoot stuff (although he would want to keep his big nasty out at the same time as protection - naturally).
This went a little longer than I planned, but I hope it helps.
1. Whatwas the appeal of the Creature Handler profession to you? In other words, what things make being a Creature Handler something you have chosen to do?
the Apeal of CH to me was the fact that I could interact with images from the SWU.... I could run with a Rancor, as a pet lover it apealed to me more then anything else offered. I was sad to hear that in order to make the Elusive FSCS you would need to master like 7 professions if not more because it ment that I would have to give up CH.
2. What role(s) do you, as Creature Handlers, fill in the game world? For example: Tanks, damage-dealers, roleplayers, status effect inflicters (i.e. poison, disease, knockdown), resource harvesters, mission runners, pet salesmen, pet trainers, etc. Which roles (combat or non-combat)does the CH fill better than any other profession?
I'm currently an animal trainer, mission runner that fills the position of combat and non-combat rolls. as a pure ch I fill a non comabt roll as my pets handle the dammage that is ment for my party members and I heal them to keep everone alive, but when I am in solo mode I ame in the mix as mutch as my animals are we are a combat team that each other needs to survive.
3. What should a Creature Handler's place in a hunting group be? Everyone in the group wants to feel important... what should make the Creature Handler an important addition? What would it take to get us to that point?
I Find that I actual have a notch in the hunting partysI join in on, but agree that there is more we could do. I personnaly would like the animals like the canines to be able to scout or track a specific animal for you, imagine being in a hunting party looking for the Elusive Gorax and you tell your pet to track.. of course it would take a Ranger to get you in the general vacinity of the gorax but your Kusak could lead you to within 50 meters of the prey and because he was trained not to attack on sight he waits for instructions cause we all know a Gorax would eat a kusac in seconds.
There have recently been a number of threads talking about what the "role" of the Creature Handler currently is in-game. I'd very much like to get more thoughts on this, so I'm creating this thread to focus the discussion. Here are a few questions to get the ball rolling:
1. Whatwas the appeal of the Creature Handler profession to you? In other words, what things make being a Creature Handler something you have chosen to do?
2. What role(s) do you, as Creature Handlers, fill in the game world? For example: Tanks, damage-dealers, roleplayers, status effect inflicters (i.e. poison, disease, knockdown), resource harvesters, mission runners, pet salesmen, pet trainers, etc. Which roles (combat or non-combat)does the CH fill better than any other profession?
3. What should a Creature Handler's place in a hunting group be? Everyone in the group wants to feel important... what should make the Creature Handler an important addition? What would it take to get us to that point?"
well to answer number 1:
when i started swg the creature handler profession was unlike the other professions you could choose from, i mean either grind exp all day by crafting, shoot it till its dead, dance and sing or become a CH and explore. I opted to explore which is what the CH class is, explorers, maybe even more so than rangers. When i played eq i liked having my skelly pet with me to fill in the missing tank power, same with daoc(necro), then anarchy online with the best class ever MP so i got used to pets, how to use them and get the most outta them.
The other thing i really love about being a CH is you never know what will pop outta a lair while searching for that next pet, i mean one day i tapped a merrik lair and got a king plus 7 battlelords all trying to kill me now thats entertainment.
And as i stated earlier if i hadnt started with a CH theres no way id have hit endor/dath/dant/lok within days of just starting to play, this class = exploring, for new pets, to see what animals spawn where,resources etc etc, there arent many classes that will do that right after you start playing.
number 2:
Our role in the swg universe? would really depend on your play style and who you play with . When i started i solo'd alot so CH fit my schedule perfectly, when i group my pets are sponges for dmg NOT dmg dealers. With out levelling and with all the bugs with combat mitigration, pets really are the only source to absorb the dmg the mobs deal out, the pet dies you store and call another unlike players who have to repair armor, sit in the cantina/hospital/cloning center. We are vital to any raid where dmg absorbtion is key to survival, now with the new BE pets(cough dont get me started on this) we can tailor pets to fit most situations.
number 3:
see above.
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as a side note you might wanna ask the community what there opinion on the new BE pet thing is, theres probably alot of good suggestions all of us could put forward to smooth it over and make it work better.
just my 2 cents.
I'm really impressed by the quality of the responses I'm reading here. These are going to take me a while to process, but keep in mind that Devs do lurk through these forums on their own (as you can see from RuneSabre's post the other day).