Creature Handler Archive
Thread: how you like YOU now?
before the last patch i could use my pet ungrouped, but now (CL damage calculation changed and pets will get the group level) my pets are worthless against CL78+ opponents when ungrouped. so imo CH is now a (mostly) solo profession. with just 8 spots in a group now, a CH with his pet will take on 2 spots minimum (adding not that much value to the group). the advantage of pets in group hunts is the ability to draw single targets from a herd, but this can be managed with non-ch pets by anyone (attack/follow commands from far out).
Before CUI was a valuable part of a group as master CH/TK. As a team we were the ultimate tank with me and the high end BE pets I have, taking all the aggro and the group backing me up from further back. Since CU I don't feel very good as part of a team. My pets are nerfed and useless, they take up group space, and they can't hold the aggro as well as they did without incapping. They don't do much damage so the first ranged player that lets fly seems to get the mob straight on to them.
I have returned to being a solo player orgrouping with my guild mate who has same template as mine - we have a lot of fun and work well as a team as we do same damage and use the "6-pack" of our 6 female nargs. But I have learned to play differently and I won't say the CU has been of any benefit to CH really.
hamhamthe3rd wrote:
interesting, interesting. now i have a question. i notice that you people all combined ch with another combat profession so i ask what about the guy who uses ch as his combat profession and nothing more?
Honestly? He's completely F-ed. CH is a LOT of fun, and now that I've got an idea of the system I can take out bull rancors lairs without too much trouble, but that's because I'm a Rifleman. The highest beast you can get is a Lvl 70 pet, which in many cases could not go toe-to-toe with a non-pet Lv70 monster. Try putting your 70 pet against a 72, 76 or 80 creature and it gets killed unless you can deal damage to back it up.
With the new hate system pets are like DOTs (stole that from someone). When I take on a bull ranc it's me versus the bull ranc, and my pets are just extra damage on the side. By itself CH wouldn't be very useful unless you only take on low-level creatures.
hamhamthe3rd wrote:
interesting, interesting. now i have a question. i notice that you people all combined ch with another combat profession so i ask what about the guy who uses ch as his combat profession and nothing more?
Well, I decided to switch templates a little late in the game and ended up losing out on the repsec. I was level 74 last night (MDoc/CH4443) and had very little trouble killing level 72-74 lairs. I dont even have marksman or brawler.....ZERO weapon skills. Once I get back to master CH, I will see if I can take on 80+ MoBs.
hamhamthe3rd wrote:
interesting, interesting. now i have a question. i notice that you people all combined ch with another combat profession so i ask what about the guy who uses ch as his combat profession and nothing more?
I'm actually trying that out now. I was a swordsman/CH combo, but I dropped swordsman to go back to the shipwright profession again. Leaving me with theMaster CH skills as my only combat abilities, and with acharacter levelof 54.
One thing that's nice with the CU is that I can use a fairly powerful pistol (the DL44 XT blaster) without any marksman skills at all. This lets me addsome extradamage to help my pets out during the fight without using up precious skill points.
So far I can solo things afew levels above mejust fine with my 3 narglatches, provided I go slow and carefully pull creatures away from the lair. But if I blunder into a lvl 70 or 80 on accident I'm lucky to get away because of the damage multiplyers. One shot from a lvl 80 rebel npc took away half my health when I drove too close to one on my speeder.
One thing that really hurts is the lack of melee/range defense in the CH skill tree.If the pets are going to continue having such a hard time holding aggro, we really need better protection. Even with armor on I can only take a hand full of hits before I'm in big trouble.
It seems like the devs don't want us to be up there helping the pets fight, as evidenced by our low defenses and how easily aggro switches to us if we help deal damage. But, with how quickly my pets' health drops in a fight with just one enemy, I'm forced to lend a hand just to keep my pets from being incapped constantly.
To make CHmore balancedwe either need a)tougher pets (that can take moredamage and deal it out) or b) much stronger defenses and special attacks for ourselves,so that we can properly back our weakpets up.