Creature Handler Archive

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There are other ways to simulate this such as requiring a CH "weapon" such as a quirt (riding crop) or something similar being equipped. While equipped your pets can gain defensive and offensive bonuses. With the new five second weapon switch rule this could work very well.

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Let me see so I have a quirt in my hand (igore the other hand for this stuff ) and a blaster at my side.
I drop the quirt and it takes me 5 SECONDS to deploy and use the blaster? That is way too slow. Take a quirt and a handgun in this world. I drop the quirt and I can (and have) deploy the gun and fire at least 1 round before the quirt hits the ground. What does that blaster need? 5 seconds to bring its power unit online? I think I will stick to my sig .45.

-Indene-

That would be your choice. Mine would be to hold the quirt and give my pets bonuses.

The nice thing about something like this is that we would each have the option to do what we want and the "pure" creature handler could hold their own.

I'm not saying CH's have the best tanks, but you are only concentrating on the creature and forgetting the handler. Every time a swordsman hits so does the handler, and so does the creature. Sure the damage isn't that much but you plus your creature is more than just the swordsman by himself. I don't know how you feel about Bio-Pets but I for one love them, and have differnet pets with different resists depending on what I'm fighting. Most players only carry around 1 set of armor.

When my creature gets hit there is no armor decay I just heal him back up. Like I said GSP's can keep up with swoops farily well. If you want a good combo of pets a GSP has a KD attack and a Grand Wrix has a Dizzy attack (that might be the other way around I forget which is which).

It doesn't matter really what we want CH to be, it's role has already been defined, it is combat support. I think (hope) that once the combat revamp is done, CH will be the go to guy(gal) for tanks again.

I also am not sure what people mean when they talk about the CH nerf? I remember the on time when they re-evaluated CL's of certain creatures and mobs (which really bummed me out since I couldn't call 2 GSP's and a GW anymore), but my Creatures are every bit as powerful as the ones in the wild...more so because they attack by my direction instead of just go after the first thing that made them mad.

Well after going though a lot of posts and a lot more flame wars (mostly my own fault since I never did know when to keep my mouth shut) I figured out why people are complaining where I am happay:

There are two camps, which it seems like I'm in the smaller camp, but to define them:

There is my camp, which wants CH to be a support role in combat. The people that want to use their pets along with whatever combat profession they may have. People in this camp are pretty happy with the way things are. The dabblers are now much less powerful than a master, and since pets were nerfed along with all the wild creatures, if you don't PvP you didn't really notice the nerf all that much.

Then there is the camp where it appears the vast majority of CH's belong to. The camp that wants pets to fight for them. I think both camps have agreed that you can't make CH as powerful as Pistoleer/TKA etc (from now on I'm just going to say TKA to represent ALL other combat professions) without limiting the ability to use other weapons while fighting with your creature. A common suggestion would be that CH's would have to use a quip (is that the right word?) in their hand to prevent use of another weapon.

Now after thinking about this some more, here are some of the problems with the CH as a pure combat profession:

1. The obvious one I've already mentioned about pets and weapons at the same time, quirt controlled seems like a logical solution;

2. Risk factor. TKA's are in the thick of it, no less than pistoleers etc. When they attack they are the ones that aggro, not their weapons. Something would have to be done to balance this risk factor out.

3. Healing. TKA's can use stims, but that means they just lost an attack, CH's could stim themselves or their pets and nothing was lost since the pet kept on attacking. This may seem minor but it's an importaint difference that has to be balanced, espcially when considering PvP.

Those are some of the main considerations that I thouught of, and here are some problems I've thought about to some suggested solutions:

1. Riding Crop. This was the method to keep TKA/CH's from being able to do both at the same time. When I decide to switch from CH to TKA mode, what happens to my pet? Does he auto store? Just sit there? What about the MOB that he was attacking? Does it now Agro me even if I haven't attacked it yet?

2. To make pets more in line with TKA people have suggested that CH's are able to increase HAM, again what happens when the crop is put away? Does the pet lose the HAM and can be incaped, does it take it away from the bonus HAM first so nothing is touched on the basic until after all bonus is gone? What if I put the crop away and then pull it again? Do I get the bonus back?

I'm not trying to start another flame war (God knows I've been in enough of them lately) but trying to either A) get people to see how freakin' hard it would be to implement something like this or B) get someone to prove to me it can be done

All I am going to say for the daft and narrow minded is I do not get Support XP. I get combat XP. I must get into combat. If my pet does not fight I do not get XP. As an SL if you do not fight you still get XP. Healers get XP for healing. Not shooting. Combat medics are combat and must apply biological weapons to recieve combat XP.

There is no Tanking XP to represent a combat-support idea. It is combat. If you cannot see that make your fonts size 40 when you fight things as a CH. You will see if you fight things with your pets and they are not incapped when the MOB is defeated then you get XP.

How can "you must fight to get XP" be interpreted as cobat support? This is amazing and very fuzzy logic in the most generous way I can say it.

Okay, two points.

First, there is no comparison between a SL and a CH. The CH weapon is a pet, what is the SL weapon? The SL increases the power of everyone in the group, the CH just brings their weapon.The MCH can solo fairly high missions (however slowly) without using any other weapon skills, how about an MSL?

Second, the CH weapon idea is one I would love to see them add. They could adjust the pets so they aren't overpowered when using other weapons (heck, they are doing that anyway), but they could also allow CHs who aren't using other weapons to make their pet do more damage. They could add special moves which are performed with that CH weapon which cause the pets to perform special moves. It would be the best of both worlds without forcing anyone to play differently if they don't wish.

I agree that giving CH a special weapon that prevents the use of other professions does present balancing problems. No it won't be easy. That is the point of having developers to design these systems though. (Given the track record scepticism on either side is acceptable.)

As for how it works, in basic terms it is pretty simple (the implementation is another story). The creature rebalance introduced a forumla to figure out how powerful something should be.

When a player is using their CH weapon, bump the pets up to some higher pre-determined and balanced level. This could be in the form of resistances, toughness, dodges, damage, to-hit, special attacks or other abilities. When the player equips a regular weapon the pet can fight at its natural level or even suffer a penalty. This could even be a variable level for the use of different weapons! (No it is not as realistic, but it could grant a much smoother power curve if done properly.)

About the handler not being in combat while the pet is -- this is true. However the handler gets no defensive or offensive bonuses should they be engaged in combat. In PvE sometimes the handler is attacked and the pets cannot pull the attacker off. I have been incapped or deathblown many times as a pure handler. I am not invincible by any means.

In PvP the opponent can choose to go for the handler and again there is no bonus to survival. The offense is ignored and the defense is non-existant. That is not to say pets cannot be useful in PvP, but as things stand now, CH certainly is not adding much if anything to survivability.

You dodged the question. If you think CH is a non-combat class, name another non-combat class that can run high level missions (not kreetles) without using ANY other class skills. The fact that CHs suck at PVP doesn't change that. There are other combat classes that aren't very good at PVP without other weapon skills, but that doesn't make them a non-combat class.

You can stick your fingers in your ears and shout no, no, no all you want, but that won't change the fact that even the designer said CHs are a combat class.

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ScoutMastr wrote:

I don't know about you guys, but I'd love to have a blurrg raptor as my "companion" on those dangerous trips through the wilderness.

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Sure you would, I mean what CH wouldn't. The problem is that if you go to the rifleman boards they want their T21 to do 2k damage with a speed of 1.7, and the pistoleers want to keep thier speed but want their pistols to do more damage. It's all about balancing everything out in the big picture.

As far as is CH a combat class or not it really doesn't matter one way or the other does it? If you want to call it combat and someone else wants to call it combat support, that is totally irrelevant. The class is what it is, and if we want to try to get the devs to make it something other than what it is right now, there are some serious hurdles that need to be overcome. The people who want it to change need to come up with viable solutions to the balance issues.

Personally (and this is only my opinion) I don't think CH is going to change. I don't think it will ever be as combat heavy as TKA because of the balance issues, and the amount of work that would have to go into the changes. I also believe though, that after the combat rebalance, people will need CH's a lot more than they used to. I think people will need tanks again once buffs and armor gets nerfed. I know, I know everyone is sick of that answer.

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JodoKai wrote:
Once everything is brought back to where it should be, CH will be FOTM again...and for those saying they were CH's before it was FOTM, I'm not exactly sure what you mean as when the game first came out, that's exactly what it was.

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