Creature Handler Archive

... and I have a few questions! *shock*

Here is a little background about me first of all. I recently quit playing EQ after 4.5 years in an end-game guild on Quellious, so I thought I would come on over to dabble in SWG since I have always been a fan of all things relating to SW. So, anyhoo, I started out as a scout a few weeks ago. The EQ grinder in me forced me to master it in a day or two and I chose to go up the ranks in Rifleman as well. After mastering scout I decided to go down the Ranger/Rifleman route.....obviously w/out TOO much research invested in the decision (although it seemed to be a pretty decent PvE build on paper). As of tonight I have mastered ranger and I am still only 2/2/3/2 in rifleman (my low credit balance has made it hard for me to move any faster). My problem is that the whole ranger thing isn't doing it for me. There are some positive aspects to the profession (high creature to-hit, camps, tracking, etc), but I really wanted to try something a little different (and thankfully SWG allows me to do that a hell of lot easier than EQ can).

So now we come to the reason why I am posting all of this in the CH forum! I had extra skill pts, so I chose to put some in Novice CH. I realize that there are problems w/ the class, but it seems that is the case for all professions atm (except jedi!!). I came to the decision that I wanted to master up CH. The prof appeals to me for some reason that I can't quite describe. Maybe it's the whole 'sic'ing-the-bull-rancor-on-the-durni-for-sh*ts-n-giggles' thing....or maybe it's because I am a pet person IRL. Who knows. So here are my questions (I know some of you SWG vets are saying "about time, nooblet!")! I want to keep Rifleman (and master it) along w/ CH, but I also want to keep one of my ranger columns as well. This is what I was able to work out......

Scout - 4/4/4/4

Marksman - 4/0/0/0

Rifleman - 4/4/4/4

CH - 4/4/4/4

Ranger - 0/4/0/0 (for larger group appeal) or 0/0/4/0 (to help me locate those rare possible pets)

I guess my questions arethree-fold......1) Is my math correct...is this build possible? 2) Is this build worth it? 3) which of the 2 ranger columns should I keep? I don't have too much interest on focusing on PvP yet, but it seems the build would be ok in either PvP or PvE. What do you all think?

Oesai Ravenshade
Master CH
3/3/3/2 Rifleman
4/3/4/0 Medic

Kazan'hi
Baby Marksman/Brawler

First of all welcome to SWG, and the wonderful world of CH. If you're looking for the uber end-game, CH is not gonna be what you want. If you enjoy having companions, and the thrill of the tame, you'll love it like most of us, despite our complaining, do. A bit of advice...there are pet stims that can be used only on pets, but they tend to be expensive. With novice medic, or even a bit more, you can use stim b's that will work on both your pet and yourself, and are useable in combat if needed. I have 4/1/0/0 in medic, and with 400+ stims throw the occasional 1k heal. It helps a lot on the higher-HAM pets. Ranger is nice, and when you whip out one of those big tents, impressive. A good friend of mine had most of Ranger, and another friend who is also heading up the Rifle trail, has Master Ranger. Neither one saw a whole lot of benefits to it, and that's a whole lot of skill points. I tend to be the independant type. I have a bit of entertainer so I can heal my own mind wounds and battle fatigue as well. CH/rifle, from the number of them present on the boards, works well. The good thing is, if you decide you don't like a build, you can change it easily enough. Experimentation is the best way to find out what will work for your playstyle. This is the ultimate dabbler's game...

Current build: Master Fencer, Master Creature Handler, Medic 4/1/0/0, Entertainer 0/0/0/2

Tsiya Ama-Valcyn
Tsiya Ama-Radiant
3 accounts cancelled as of 9/19/04

I'm master scout, master rifle, and soon to be master CH. I keep medic novice for stim use on me and my pets. This leaves one skill point. I could drop a couple of scouting lines but actually use the tents on occassion, the trapping I should use but always forget about.

If I did drop those scout lines I would probably pick up a little bit of pistol for some variety but I doubt that I would use them since master rifle, at least for now, is good in any situation. Even up close you rarely miss at master.

Elwyn LyteFoot - Corbantis server

Thanks for your input, Tsiya and Elwyn! The pragmatist in me is saying to drop the ranger line and the two non-requisite scoute columns all together and try out some medic like you are recommending. So that should give me 52 more points to play around with....soooo maybe I should do the following:

Scout - 4/0/4/0

CH - 4/4/4/4

Marksman - 4/0/0/4 (this is what I currently have btw)

Rifleman - 4/4/4/4

Medic - 4/3/0/0

My one issue w/ the medic is the fact I'd have to purchase the stims, but I suppose the point is moot since I'd just be buying pet stims from a BE w/ the older build I showed anyways. I suppose when I get Master Rifleman I can safely lose the last column in Marksman as well and plug some more pts into medic....or perhaps some folks have a better idea?

Oesai Ravenshade
Master CH
3/3/3/2 Rifleman
4/3/4/0 Medic

Kazan'hi
Baby Marksman/Brawler

Stim b's are a lot easier to find and cheaper than good petstims, due to the number of doctors vs. the number of BE's. I keep a couple of good petstims in my bag in case I get my butt in a sling, because they're on a different reuse timer, so you can effectively doubleheal with them. I don't see much point in you dropping the combat line in Marksman to put it into medic, the second line is the speed of your heal, and the third line is your medical use. All that means is you'll be able to use stim c's I believe, which are again more exoensive than stim b's, and not as easy to find. I think your planned template will do everything you're looking for, and I hope you grow to love CH as much as I have!

Good hunting!

Tsiya Ama-Valcyn
Tsiya Ama-Radiant
3 accounts cancelled as of 9/19/04

here's a handy link for you

http://swgcb.yogn.net/swg-cb.php

Unless anything changed I didn't find the fronteering line especially useful for anything and if you only wanted tracking to find rare pets you're not going to need the top box of that line (I didn't find tracking useful either though, it's a lot quicker to scout about on a swoop tbh). As you're rifles you might find the terrain neg line the most useful to hang onto for the faster crawl.

As I got higher in CH I found less and less of the ranger profession useful and dropped it altogether in favour of my pets but I haven't looked on the Ranger board for a while so I don't know if it's changed a lot since I was there.

Oooo, that's a great site thanks! (although some of the skills in the ranger tree aren't correct)

It seems I went over by two sp's. :\ Hrmmmm, well If I can't have all 4 of a single ranger column that certainly makes Frontieringless attractive. Myreasons forkeeping the tracking column was in the hope that SOE might introduce a /track command at somepoint as well...., but perhaps Wayfaring is the way to go.....bleh. If I did drop my ranger prof all together what do you think I should get instead to round out the rest of the build?

Oesai Ravenshade
Master CH
3/3/3/2 Rifleman
4/3/4/0 Medic

Kazan'hi
Baby Marksman/Brawler

Hrmmm, too many choices! I guess for now I'll put off the medic tree and stay relatively close to my initial build (it will just be ranger 0/0/3/0 instead of 0/0/4/0 since I won't have the points). Thanks for all your input everyone, I really appreciate the guidance.

Oesai Ravenshade
Master CH
3/3/3/2 Rifleman
4/3/4/0 Medic

Kazan'hi
Baby Marksman/Brawler

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