Creature Handler Archive

Okay, I'll bite on CH being a support class. But, if CH is a support class, then they need much more love than they would need if they are a combat class. CH brings nothing in support to a group. They don't heal, they don't buff, they don't increase damage or defense of other party members, they don't increase other member's resistances, in other words, CHs do absolutely nothing for the other members of their party. So, if CH is indeed a support class, then they need a ton of love in order to somehow improve or assist other members of the group.

To make this class into a combat class. You have to destroy all that it is now. You would need to destroy the distinction between player and pet. Would there even be a ch class. No you would have sentient critter class. The person avatar would just simply be used to go into buildings go get stuff. I guess my question is this. Do you want to play the profession like this.

You are over analyzing this, to the point you have lost all sense of reason.

At one point Creature Handler was the ultimate combat profession. It was not support, because no weapon could compare to pets. Pure combat and the best in the game at it.

The power was toned down, rightfully, and Creature Handler was still a good combat profession. There were still some very strong pets out there (although the graul mauler should have been a master-only creature).

Next the tree got corrected to fix the major imbalance of allowing the best pet available for a minor investment of skillpoints giving BH and other combat professions a cheap meatshield. Most handlers applauded this as these people gave true handlers a bad name. At the same time we had the castration of creatures which turned us into the worst combat profession.

The only differences between when we went from the strongest to the weakest combat profession are the damage we could deal and the amount of damage pets could soak. That is it.

To make Creature Handler a viable, solo, combat profession only requires giving our pets an increase in damage and/or soak (or by nerfing the stuffing out of the other professions, which is what will actually happen...). The only difficulty is balancing with the rest of the player base. It is possible and very simple. It is not rocket science nor does it require length revamps of the profession.

Damage and soak. That is it.

A very good and succinct point, Suenr.

If we are supposed to be a support profession, we have a long ways to go. If we are a combat profession then a few easily made tweaks can get us where we need to be.

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StikerRunningfly wrote:

No, a CM can't do both at once, BUT he can continue to fire while his poison and disease are still affecting the target. By your logic, if he poisons and diseases someone, he shouldn't be able to fire his weapon as long as his poison or disease is still in effect. That scout can't use a weapon until the trap stops taking effect. The other point is that defense stacking is still able to be used at this time. Someone can use defenses and benefits from multiple professions at once. Have you ever tried mastering pistoleer and trying to shoot a TKM/fencer? Even at ideal range, with a +25 mod on the pistol, with a powerup that adds 30% to ideal range mod, you see "miss miss dodge dodge miss dodge". Why? Because he's using skills from 2-3 different professions at once. Now add to that pistoleer a pet or two (if they were effective) that can help counterbalance that. You might miss a lot with that pistol, but the pet might land a few hits, making it more of a fair fight. The problem at this point is finding the balance between being stacked on one side or the other, or being a fair fight where the outcome is unknown. Now for your other point, I don't see anyone here asking for creatures to be able to use mind shot, health shot, or any other special that we get with our other weapons. Creatures are just a secondary line of offense/defense no different than stacking any other combination of professions together.

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Everything else is about CH being a Combat Support or Combat profession, which I've already deceided doesn't matter. CH is what it is, it doesn't really matter what you want to call it. I just watned to explain this a little.

Most people that want CH to be a Combat profession want it to have the offensive power of TKA(again, I'm going to use TKA to mean ALL combat professions). The problem with this is that if people are CH and TKA then they can use both Elite Combat Profession skills at the same time. The CM posion is a DoT (which is also getting a nerf), the same as a pistoleers bleed attack. I have no problem with using your pistol to bleed the health then switching to your rifle to bleed the mind.

CH is a different kind of stack because it gives your opponent another 15k HAM he has to get thorugh. If you use intimidate on him it effects all of his attacks and all his skills, if he uses it on you, you still have an elite combat profession that is uneffected. He has to use specials 2x to effect both of your skills, and with the combat rebalance and specials being more costly that's a big difference.

Yes right now there is Defense Stacking, but I don't think it makes sense to change CH now, just so they can go back and put it back the way it was after the rebalance.

*Cracks her knuckles*

Specials the ch profession has specials just like anyother fighting class, but the chs specials have no artificial limitation.

This is a programming limitation. They would have to create a "/special one" command to make it like a standard combat special. They chose instead to let it be a taught command that goes into the pet's combat queue which gives a bit more use-friendliness and doesn't clutter the parser.

The specials are different, too. They don't get a 3*damage modifier on a weapon that already does insane amounts of damage.

Consider the fact that this command gave pets more combat potential than they had previously.

Weapon decay a ch has to weapon decay asside from his or her own negligence. A pet can last forever. If you are careul with it. On the other hand all the other weapons in the game decay. You can use a gun only on special occassions and in a year it will still decay till it has blown up. Pets cannot have powerups or slices done to them.

Vitality was introduced later in the game to make them simulate weapon decay. It is not as severe because the devs understand that people get very attached to their pets. You take a krayt T21 away due to rapid decay and the person goes out to buy a new one. You take a beloved pet away due to rapid decay and they quit the game. Real handlers are that serious about their pets and Holocron realized this.

Powerups and slices are a long-time suggestion of both Creature Handlers and Bio-Engineers. Any lack of implementation is due to a lack of time and the fact that both profession have already had a lot of focus put into them.

XP all combat classes use either weapons xp or combat xp. Technically a creature handler can go about it all without ever haveing to use a gun once. A ch never has to get weapons or combat xp.

Technically yes. Oddly, the fastest way to get xp is through combat.

Template stacking. Combat templates do not 100 percent stack. You never get to carry around both weapons at the same time. You never get to use the special shots at the same moment. Ergo not one hundred percent, but a ch gets to do that I can have a pet out and doing all its commands. While I am fighting with an entirely different combat skill. Now listen to this it gets better. My creature commands do not go into the combat que. Every other fighting profession has to go through that cue except ch. Think about that if the pets moves are combat moves. Then shouldnt they go through the system like any combat move. The pets special attacks are not combat moves.

This is always why we got hit with a nerf every patch up to Publish 6. People that were not CH as their primary were abusing our profession. So you are correct that we fully stack.

That poor design was because the devs were pressed for time. In beta CH was completely neglected. Did you know that pets randomly vanished from the datapad, usually within an hour? Did you know that this happened until about two weeks before release? The few of us that bothered to stick CH got the best pets grown at about the time the beta ended.

I have already explained about the queue above.

The easy solution is to prevent stacking between any professions. Then regardless of whether poor design or not, all of your arguments here become moot.

Perfect repair a pet can be perfect repaired with food and play not so with anyother weapon.

As pointed out, it is impossible to get a prefect repair. The pet will always lose some permanent vitality.

Also as I have pointed out, taking away pets is far more likely to cause a customer to quit than taking away their gun. From a business standpoint this is Bad (tm).

A ch gets two sets of armor. No combat class gets two sets of armor. A creature pet has resists that puts in line with armor.

The "person" might be considered to have more HAM, but the armor is not better than anything a player wears, and often it is quite a bit less. A player also regenerates a lot faster than any pet, which is just as important if not moreso.

Basically you are saying the pet is acting as a tank, which is considered in most games to be one of the most important combat roles available. True the player is not standing there, but that is the role the "person" is providing. (Since you will quickly scream that the player can also be firing their weapon, see my solution in the paragraph one section up.)

Anyway I could spend hours listing off how ch breaks any combat mold. Thats how far its out there. To consider this profession a combat profession. You would have to just cut all lines with any catagorizeing system. You just let everyone in architects medics dancers. The reason it matters is the reason the question is asked in the first place.

So what if we are a different flavor of combat profession? It makes the profession interesting.

If they are supposed to be the same then let's compact all the professions into two: Ranged and Melee. That's pretty exciting, isn't it?

None of your arguments mean CH was supposed to be support though. It simply means that we are a unique combat profession that was neglected when the initial balance was done and the devs have been too pressed to continue that balance.

People want their professions status changed to be of benefit to them. Little realizeing that to make the ch stronger the devs would probabally slash into the stacking.

Hey I do not care if you consider yourself a ch first anything else second. I am a bh first, and ch second. I took up ch to take down bigger game. I do not want this crud you need a rideing crop in your hand lunacy.

Obviously your little bit of psychology applies to you as well.

Thank you for showing that what you really care about is being a Bounty Hunter and wish to our profession to be nothing more than a free tank so it benefits you. Why should someone whose loyalties are not with Creature Handler get to dicate what the profession should be?

Did you know I tried to be a BH while I was a master handler? Does that give me the right to suggest castrating your beloved profession, too? I'm sure you would absolutely love my ideas for it...

Let me repeat that last sentance of yours:

Hey I do not care if you consider yourself a ch first anything else second. I am a bh first, and ch second. I took up ch to take down bigger game. I do not want this crud you need a rideing crop in your hand lunacy.

You view OUR profession as a stepping stone and nothing more. You don't consider us to be a profession in our own right, just something that benefits you. Damn the idea of making the profession useful on its own, just for you, you, you.

You are just like the Bounty Hunters that abused Creature Handler and got us nerfed, then left when it was done for the next FOTM.

You are also the perfect example of why Creature Handler should have a control device to prevent stacking. Thank you.

Hey guys, let's not get into personal flames and continue with the real debate. No finger pointing and name calling (yes, this means acting a little more grown up and not using phrases like "Jodo DORK").

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JodoKai wrote:

Everything else is about CH being a Combat Support or Combat profession, which I've already deceided doesn't matter. CH is what it is, it doesn't really matter what you want to call it. I just watned to explain this a little.

Most people that want CH to be a Combat profession want it to have the offensive power of TKA(again, I'm going to use TKA to mean ALL combat professions). The problem with this is that if people are CH and TKA then they can use both Elite Combat Profession skills at the same time. The CM posion is a DoT (which is also getting a nerf), the same as a pistoleers bleed attack. I have no problem with using your pistol to bleed the health then switching to your rifle to bleed the mind.

CH is a different kind of stack because it gives your opponent another 15k HAM he has to get thorugh. If you use intimidate on him it effects all of his attacks and all his skills, if he uses it on you, you still have an elite combat profession that is uneffected. He has to use specials 2x to effect both of your skills, and with the combat rebalance and specials being more costly that's a big difference.

Yes right now there is Defense Stacking, but I don't think it makes sense to change CH now, just so they can go back and put it back the way it was after the rebalance.

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You are right, yes you do have to switch from pistol to rifle to do a health bleed and a mind bleed. But one thing that I think you are missing is that when you use skillpoints to get CH, you can not do things like bleed health, then switch weapons and bleed mind (unless you start dabbling in these skills and not master them, which I have found to be pretty ineffective). Now as for your example with intimidate, any ranged fighter with 15 skillpoints to spare can pick up novice brawler and use intimidate. You don't even have to switch weapons for it, just use it while you have your pistol or rifle armed. Now pretend I am a rifleman/CH. Do you know how many skillpoints I have to use to pick up intimidate (assuming it's special attack 1 on the pet I happen to have)? 61. That's 61 compared to 15, provided I can get a pet that has intimidate as special attack #1, that I have it out when I happen to be in combat, and that it can get to you before you take me out. And by the way, I never said anything about changing CH now. I said that it shouldn't be changed to further limit our abilities in combat. I can tell you right now what would happen if CH's weren't allowed to use any other weapons when pets were in use. Everyone would spot the pet owners right away and take them out with ease. You'd see countless people check pets from a distance to see who the owners are, run up, target the pet owner, kill then just as easily as killing a new player, and burst run off without fighting the pets at all. They have a word for this in the game...what is it again? Oh yeah, griefing. If something like this was allowed, I think most CH's would either quit the profession or quit the game.

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Dodece wrote:

Excellent point. It is elitest mumbo jumbo. To be fair a ch could not be anything else. Infact a ch would need to even have its ability to use cdefs and survival knives taken away. They would also need to be able to go invisible so that a opponent couldnt attack them. A ch would need to have an umbilical cord attached to the pet it incaps you die. People are just not reasoning out what they are saying.

Actually, I can see your point on this but if you were to do something on long these lines, you would also need to make it so that other professions would not be able to use "advantages" from two combat professions. My examples are, A bounty hunter should not be able to use Pistoleer specials if holding a scatter pistol. A Swordman should not be able to utilize defense skills gained from his TKM profession and so on. Now, I will agree, if they made CH on par with TKM as a combat profession, and they made it that the handler would not get attacked as long as he is using pets, then that would be good. But unless the CH is removed from being argoed when pets are attacking, they would at least need protection from a novice skill. CH on par with a TKM should not be able to take any eleite attacks.

The ch profession has some holes in it. Nothing that cannot be gotten around. Mastery in most professions is well within a chs reach. Yes the TKAs are out of line. You can ask any tka that, and they will for the most part agree. Its way too good. They need not got any support skills, because it is way too good. The pikemen and swordsmen. Will come more in line when the buffs get cut. Right now their heavy ham moves are too easy to spray. Which they were never meant to do in the first place. These are things that the rebalance will sort out.

Hopefully will be sorted out, unfortunatly it's the waiting game that is driving people nuts.

Even with that the ch is a great support class in the game. The added bonuses of haveing a pet out equal out to the difficulty of pulling it off. Since you have to control more things to do it. Some people say well maybe they can make it so a profession will not stack with the ch. Well to be fair that would mean that a ch would have to have like a three minute timer on useing weapons after the pet finally incapped. Also is that really fair. To make someone upon loseing a pet stand there, and get beaten to death in slow motion by a spent opponent. If you let the ch supercharge the pet throughout. You still have the effect that. After the pet goes down they still got to deal with you.

I will say this much, right now, with CH in the current form it is now, is nothing more than a support class, unfortunatly, it's not much of a support class at that. I dont' see how you are justifying the 3 minute timer on using a weapon if a pet is incapped. I agree there should be a time frame, but 3 minutes is a bit much. Especially if you are using only one animal. What I suggest is that if they are going to have something like that, 1, they should make the pulling a critter out of combat for a CH to be instant. While in Combat, it should be say....30 seconds, IF the CH is not being engaged. What I'm suggesting is, if a person has 2 pets out, attacking a target. one pet gets incapped, the target would have a chance at attacking the handler. If he gets engaged then he can't pull another one out. Now, with something like this in effect, the CH would need to be able to utilize novice skills. This is just a suggestion.

You can say well make it so a ch can only be a ch and nothing else. That equals fair, but only fair to the ch in the end. You would have to say to mister pistoleer commando riflemen. Hey we are special. You want to tell the other professions they cannot get elitist status to push out dabblers in their fields. You might say well make ch require that you master scout. Trust me I am a master bh its a diservice to you. Do that to make the profession stronger, and you still have the problem that if its worth it people will do it. I remember when pistoleers would eat the scout just to get the bh pistols tree. People would do it. So why would you want to burden yourself with content that is hardly applicable to a ch. Camping and trapping may have some value to a ranger, because it carries over into their profession. Though do you really want to have camps and traps you will not use. Thats not fun content. Infact it stands in the way of you getting fun content.

Both valid points. But in all honestly, Trapping has more relation to CH than it did to BH, considering Traps only work on animals. SOE doesn't want to keep dabblers away, but they dont' want Dabblers to have a high benefit from a skill if the ain't mastering it.

Its a combat support profession. It cannot be a combat profession. Combat professions can only double over so much. I might go get pistoleer, and shave a second off my time, but I cannot use the dx2 at the same time I use my scatter, and i have more shots, but I cannot use them at the same time. To make the ch a combat class. It would have to function exactly like every other combat class. You would need to manualy use specials with your pet. Costing you ham points. Everytime that pet takes a hit. That hit would have to transfer right into you. You would not be allowed to wear armor or carry weapons. Your armor and weapon would be the pet. You would only be allowed to use pet stims no stim bs. In the end for this class to be a combat primary class. You would only be makeing a funky looking avatar. My avatar is a guy in armor. Your avatar is a creature with a person folloing behind it. You might aswell save the trouble, and just strap the humanoid avatar component on the back of the beast. Then change the in head perspective to what the creature sees.

This is the only thing I strongly disagree with you on. You keep using the analogy that it is unfair that a CH/(combat profession) has 2 weapons out at one time. Gratned, this is technically true, but you go on to make this seem that you gain no benifit from a duel combat profession.

Here's my logic. If I happen to be a BH/Pistoleer, utilizing my scatter pistol, I could hit my target with Pistol Whip, thus knocking them down, then using my BH skill, I could nail them with eye shot. You are utilizing a BH weapon, but using a Pistoleer skill. You basically are able to use an additional attack form. Me, I am a Swordman/Creature Handler (just dropped Carbine, got tired of it) My creature is a different attack form, but just happens to be a pet instead of another button on my tool bar.

It's just a different train of thought, both of them actually arguable. But either way, depends on your thinking.

To make this class into a combat class. You have to destroy all that it is now. You would need to destroy the distinction between player and pet. Would there even be a ch class. No you would have sentient critter class. The person avatar would just simply be used to go into buildings go get stuff. I guess my question is this. Do you want to play the profession like this.

Not necisarrily, it could still be the same as any other. They would just need a little revamp a few things like they need to do with BH and others.

Honestly, this is an argument that will never truely die, because you have three trains of thought on this.

1. those that feel CH should be returned to it's former glory and run ramped on everything thus making it a true combat class.

2. those that feel it just needs a small "pick me up" and made as a better "support class."

3. those that play it now and have no problem with it because they are doing good with it right now.

Each to there own, none absolutily correct, but on the reverse side, none abosolutily wrong.

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sadnebula wrote:
Do they have to take another combat class to survive or are they simply taking another elite to be more effective ? Yes, the same could be said for us but you know the answer for Ch's. So, do you really need me to supply you with an answer. Actually support could be used for several of the "combat" professions. Some are so weak no one really wants to use them as a stand alone class. If you can't use it as a stand alone and have to take up another combat profession to be effective then it would seem that profession is more of a suport class. It may be listed as "combat" but you know when you use it if that's true. So supply your own answer. Me it's a support class if I need to master another profession to be able to deal enough damage to hold my own in a fight.

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Being underpowered does not make a combat class a support class. It just makes it an underpowered combat class. As for holding their own, I only have novice pistoleer, and I hold my own fairly well (in PvE). It is just sad that as a novice pistoleer, I can put out more damage than I can as an MCH.