Creature Handler Archive
Thread: Can CH handle missions/spawn without a combat profession too? (Try to be positive please?)
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PurpleWarrior
Mon Jun 14, 2004 4:28 pm
#1
(Apologies for the 'positive' comment but I read this forum for a while before I posted and some people seem to be a little bitter about the whole CH profession...)
I currently haver a BE/Scout/Carbineer and want to try Creature Handling, but I don't know how well a CH can handle everyday PvE combat situations. Could some of you please provide me with an opinion as to whether a BE/CH is viable without some weapon backup?
Example situations:
- Creature mission lairs.
- Faction Missions.
- Resource gathering for meat or hide.
- Getting 'jumped' by Maulers while on foot.
- (any others you care to add..)
Putting my guns away would be a big step for me, but I'd be willing to try it if it is workable. I like to have fun in game.
KillerZeke
Mon Jun 14, 2004 4:50 pm
#2
I was a MCH from august of last year to just last week and I tried to use pets as my primary weapon and hold medic and crafting skills. For the first few month as master it was not to bad but after the December patch things changed. It has been my experence after the patch that if your pets/pet is atabout three times higher in level then the missons difficulty level you can use your pet as the sole weapon. So if you pull a lv.20 mission you will need a good level 60 pet withproper resist for your mission. It is also very slow, about three times as long as it take a TKA novice to run the same mission.
If any other MCH have found better results please post them, this is just the numbers that have worked out for me.
I have tested this as a Novice TKA and MCH on many different missions in the past.
Ragemaster9999
Mon Jun 14, 2004 5:05 pm
#3
Afraid not, I would think it would be very difficult ( or impossible ) to solo medium-high end creatures without having a combat profession thrown into the mix. Why? Because though your pet can tank and do okay damage, you will not be able to hold your own against so much as a chuba. When you try and hunt rancor on dath its just suicide. Also, pets arent always reliable, sometimes they autostore, sometimes they run all over the place due to general pet pathing issues, and if your pet runs away in combat and you have no skills to hold your own, your dead. I would STRONGLY recommend going Advanced combat profession ( carb, rifle, pistol ) if you are going for Master CH.
LadyMorana
Mon Jun 14, 2004 5:29 pm
#4
I played an MBE/MCH for several months and with no weapons skills to back it up at all (spent the rest of my points on medic and artisan). Let's just say, I got incapped by anything and everything. If the mob got past the pets, I was dead.
However, I did have a lot of fun playing this way. It was a challenge to survive DNA sampling on places like Endor with nothing but your courage and your pets. And I didn't even bother with armour or buffs since it just meant I died in three hits instead of one. lol But you'll probably have to stick to BE for making money. I found Ipretty much couldn't do destroy missionstougher than kaadu lairs by myself. And even thenI still ended up incapped once or twice. 
And forget trying to get much for creature resources this way unless you want to spend hours and hours killing smaller things. You'll have to recruit fighters to bring in your meat for your BE work. I could bring in enough meat on my own for making clones, but no where near what was needed for tissue production.
But, that was just my experience and the way I played it. It was an interesting challenge, and some days I really miss that template.
Seiryuu
Mon Jun 14, 2004 7:40 pm
#5
[I'm not bitter. I'm a realist. (Okay, I'm pretty bitter, too.)]
It is possible if you are in for a tough challenge. Fortunately you are coming from being a carbineer rather than TKA or Rifleman, but it will still be difficult. I am a master CH/BE with Ranger Tracking III. I have no combat skills whatsoever.
- If you are patient and pick targets from mission lairs one by one it is possible. You will not be doing super high-end stuff like other professions. (They won't be doing them either if the Combat Balance is to be believed, however.)
- You only get faction points for the damage you do to targets and the mission reward. Your pets will therefore take all but the reward from you. (I wonder what they spend the faction points on.)
- Resource gathering can be done, but it will be slow. You will be better off trying to kill lots of little things rather than tackle a few large ones.
- Pets make a great distraction while you run, but sometimes you cannot shake what is after you.
1) Pets with high kinetic resists will be a necessity. When you can use high enough CL, armor as well. The pet needs to be able to survive the encounter with as little damage as possible. Otherwise you spend a bundle on stims (at least you can make them) or store it to use another day while it heals.
2) I like pets with energy resists as well so they can tackle NPCs that jump me and so I do not have to switch constantly. I suppose I like general-purpose pets.
3) In this set-up, intimidate is an invaluable special as it cuts damage in half. Stun reduces damage a little and lower accuracy. Put these on one pet and its survive against a single target is greatly increased.
4) I like a second pet with cripple and dizzy to deal with humanoids. Knockdown would be preferable, but more on why to choose cripple in a bit.
5) If a pet knows to use its special commands, use them constantly. Normally pets do less than their full damage. With specials they do the listed range. They also attack two or three times as often if they have specials queued up. Plus you keep your target under constant state effects. This will increase their damage output dramatically and means you can kill something in a reasonable amount of time. Still slower than other professions but reasonable.
6) The specials knockdown and the mild/medium/strong poisons and diseases do not work on command. A pet uses them sparingly on its own. Due to (5) especially and (4) somewhat, these are better replaced with stun, intim, cripple, blind or dizzy.
7) Make macros of your important combat commands, then bind them to the keypad. You will then be able make your pets come, attack, use specials, follow, guard or whatever else you need quickly and efficiently.
8) Learn to run. Learn to have your pets pull what is after you off you. (Phec traps help here a lot, but it has a two second delay...) This will take practice and is by no means fool-proof, but it is an important skill to learn.
9) Consider investing in a 70% kinetic ubese shirt, preferably with an encumbrance slice. Ideally you won't be hit much, but if you are down, you cannot command your pets. Being a BE, you run that risk a lot. (If you like, wear more armor. I dislike the HAM hits and got a lucky 42% encumbrance slice on my jacket, so it is all I need.)
10) Don't forget you can stim yourself. This is my downfall. :/
It is possible if you are in for a tough challenge. Fortunately you are coming from being a carbineer rather than TKA or Rifleman, but it will still be difficult. I am a master CH/BE with Ranger Tracking III. I have no combat skills whatsoever.
- If you are patient and pick targets from mission lairs one by one it is possible. You will not be doing super high-end stuff like other professions. (They won't be doing them either if the Combat Balance is to be believed, however.)
- You only get faction points for the damage you do to targets and the mission reward. Your pets will therefore take all but the reward from you. (I wonder what they spend the faction points on.)
- Resource gathering can be done, but it will be slow. You will be better off trying to kill lots of little things rather than tackle a few large ones.
- Pets make a great distraction while you run, but sometimes you cannot shake what is after you.
1) Pets with high kinetic resists will be a necessity. When you can use high enough CL, armor as well. The pet needs to be able to survive the encounter with as little damage as possible. Otherwise you spend a bundle on stims (at least you can make them) or store it to use another day while it heals.
2) I like pets with energy resists as well so they can tackle NPCs that jump me and so I do not have to switch constantly. I suppose I like general-purpose pets.
3) In this set-up, intimidate is an invaluable special as it cuts damage in half. Stun reduces damage a little and lower accuracy. Put these on one pet and its survive against a single target is greatly increased.
4) I like a second pet with cripple and dizzy to deal with humanoids. Knockdown would be preferable, but more on why to choose cripple in a bit.
5) If a pet knows to use its special commands, use them constantly. Normally pets do less than their full damage. With specials they do the listed range. They also attack two or three times as often if they have specials queued up. Plus you keep your target under constant state effects. This will increase their damage output dramatically and means you can kill something in a reasonable amount of time. Still slower than other professions but reasonable.
6) The specials knockdown and the mild/medium/strong poisons and diseases do not work on command. A pet uses them sparingly on its own. Due to (5) especially and (4) somewhat, these are better replaced with stun, intim, cripple, blind or dizzy.
7) Make macros of your important combat commands, then bind them to the keypad. You will then be able make your pets come, attack, use specials, follow, guard or whatever else you need quickly and efficiently.
8) Learn to run. Learn to have your pets pull what is after you off you. (Phec traps help here a lot, but it has a two second delay...) This will take practice and is by no means fool-proof, but it is an important skill to learn.
9) Consider investing in a 70% kinetic ubese shirt, preferably with an encumbrance slice. Ideally you won't be hit much, but if you are down, you cannot command your pets. Being a BE, you run that risk a lot. (If you like, wear more armor. I dislike the HAM hits and got a lucky 42% encumbrance slice on my jacket, so it is all I need.)
10) Don't forget you can stim yourself. This is my downfall. :/
taloncard
Mon Jun 14, 2004 9:19 pm
#6
I really can't add anything to seiryuu's post he hit the nail on the head.
Be prepared to have to heal your pet/pets 1/2 way through each mission or after each spawn. even a good 60% kinetc (the max) BE'ed pet is only good for 1-2 lairs that a MCH can pull when grouped with your pets.
Be prepared to have to heal your pet/pets 1/2 way through each mission or after each spawn. even a good 60% kinetc (the max) BE'ed pet is only good for 1-2 lairs that a MCH can pull when grouped with your pets.
ZonJaiNezBA
Mon Jun 14, 2004 10:42 pm
#7
I will add a few things.
If you have traps in scout then you can help your pets by throwing the glow wire trap and the wire mesh trap as the glow wire will lower general defense and the wire mesh will lower their melee defense, and if you have a cdef to help out a bit (every little bit helps :smileywink
you can throw the thermal detonator looking thing, it drops the ranged defenses. Then if your pets have initmidate and stun then you can at least help them take less damage by using the traps. Of course by only having the Scout line of traps you are limited in what higher level creatures they will stick to, but if you only have pets to do your damage you shouldn't be taking on higher level creatures alone.
you can throw the thermal detonator looking thing, it drops the ranged defenses. Then if your pets have initmidate and stun then you can at least help them take less damage by using the traps. Of course by only having the Scout line of traps you are limited in what higher level creatures they will stick to, but if you only have pets to do your damage you shouldn't be taking on higher level creatures alone. As of the publish back in I think August (wow a long time ago), your targets are more likely to pass by your pets altogether and attack you even though you are just standing there yelling commands. I found this out the hard way as Klikniks all of a sudden swarmed me and left my GW alone.
I was a Master CH/ Master Ranger for quite awhile, but I did have 1001 in rifleman. I could handle myself pretty well on Dath. I used all my traps from Ranger and Scout, and I used my pets to their best abilities, and I only ended up in the cloner when the Rancors would chase me down and kill me while my pets chased after him. Those Rancors are fast. Although after cloning I usually jumped on my bike and got back in time to help my pets finish him off.
So the answer is yes it is possible to do this, but you will need to be able to heal yourself pretty well. You will need to be very selective of your targets, and you will need to know when to turn tale and run, a Gurreck or other type of cat is good for this last maneuver as they can hold off the target and then catch up with you when you call for them.
I don't recommend doing this unless you at least have a level 2 Marksman box, but that is 20 points to get.
Good luck, and if any of this was said before I apologize as I read it all but right now I can't remember what was in the previous posts. <<<Need Sleep, Brain works better after getting Sleep>>>
Ekaw
Tue Jun 15, 2004 6:50 am
#8
well, it is a hybrid profession for a reason. It is not meant to be used alone IMO.
Eavik
Tue Jun 15, 2004 8:07 am
#9
You could also throw in a decent battle droid to fight alongside your creature, for a little extra help.
PurpleWarrior
Tue Jun 15, 2004 10:01 am
#10
Thank you all - given me a lot to ponder over.
I started CH today to try it out, with a wild tamed/mounted Bol I bought from a CH in Bestine, so I can learn what I'm doing. Being able to pull out my medical droid and make some Pet Stims 'on the fly' proved very handy though
I found sampling the rubbish spawns and making rubbish pets let me get some useful CH XP when I was bored later, by taming them and teaching them my paltry 3 commands *grins*
I do see what you mean about the Mobs taking a higher level pet to kill them. Yelling "Kill it!" and watching my Bol run over to a female Kaadu and sort of 'whiff' at it was amusing...
It's fun so far and I still have a lot of carbineer to hold off the spawn during manic moments 
elneckio
Tue Jun 15, 2004 10:11 am
#11
I used to be MBE and MCH leaving not many skill points 
I used to fight klikniks with two crimson razor cats and the novice pistoleer skill, fights were never easy and involved using a lot of pet stims but were very much possible and I could dothem whenever I liked without needing to be buffed.
Without me causing damage though I fear it would have taken a lot longer to kill them, so if you do have the points my advice is to try and keep a novice ranged profession if possible.
The_Strider_Family
Tue Jun 15, 2004 11:03 am
#12
I might be somewhat biased at the moment but I am a firm believer that you need an elite combat class to accomplish most of the things this game has to offer in PvE. With TKM I am enjoying 'fighting side by side' with my creatures as I am levelling up and getting more powerful creatures.
Obviously a Melee Prof is probably not the best complement for a CH (ranged profs seem the more logical choice so your pet can tank while you stand afar and shoot) but it is still a blast.
Unless you have a lot of time on your hands I can't imagine waiting it out while the beasts do battle. And by limiting yourself to missions that are a third as powerful as your pets you are going to get shortchanged a lot on mission payouts, etc....
Hope that was semi-helpful but I think you should possibly stick to Carbineer / CH and then dabble in something else with your extra points (I dabbled in Ranger).
GMANHNC
Tue Jun 15, 2004 1:06 pm
#13
All day long, as a MBE/MCH it is no sweat, I can take out single lvl 80 creatures Enraged Rancors (Mutant Rancors too) with little or no pet healing! You just have to make yourself the right pets. Use Blind and Intimidate, make a pet with Light Armor and 60kin. The duo I use arelvl 24 & 35 Woolamanders.
Happy to give Demo if you are an unbeliever.
It will be a dificult road to go up CH that way, stick to Doth groups, or lower level missions until you are close to master. don't forget to get your self some +25 mask scent and taming gear.
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