Creature Handler Archive

I've got a character on Starsider that I intend to make a bounty hunter. I want to play him as a person who doesn't really like humanoids (he likes to kill and he likes money- hence the profession) but he has a fondness for viscious creatures.

In other words I am weighing the pros and cons of taking one line of BH and Investigation plus going 4/4/4/4 CH. Am I really missing out on a lot at master? Is there one or two CH lines that I could do without?

Plus does +60 pet level mean I can pull out two level 60 pets or two pets whoseCOMBINEDpet level is 60 or less?

Thanks to anyone who can answer these questions

The Devs made it tougher to decide to dabble, but you could always go up the Taming & Training branches to pull out 1 CL36 or below pet. At master CH you could pull out up to 3 pets totaling CL70. (eg. 1 CL50 Pet, and 2 CL10 pets - whatever combo). It would be great to be able to master both but wow: MBH and MCH leaves you short 30SP's

You can still get some great vicious looking BE pets with lowered CL's and great stats though

blastcypher
~ master shipwright ~
~ master teras kasi ~
"Out of millions of sperm, you were the fastest one?"

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Thanks ya'll,

I need to look into this BE thing- 'course that will ALSO mean dealing with humanoids- BAH!

My dream pet is a toxic merek battlelord- That's a PvP BEAST (literally). I fI can lower the CL on one of those bad boys- LOOK OUT! Send in a detonating droid on top of that and it's ALL OVER.

I do hope to hunt a jedi or two but my main game will be Smugglers if the revamp plays out right.

Thought you might use my input for this.

I am a MBH with 4/3/0/0 in CH. I found that only having half of the CH profession doesn't really hamper me. Out of the possible 12 Pets I can hold, 3-4 are BE'd, and I'm still powerful. Its very nice to able to get buffed, and not have to use armor, since my pets can tank for me

I too am trying to decide on what balance I want between CH and BH. First I will ask, are you trying to build a character that has any chance in pvp, and second do you want to hunt jedi? If you answered yes to either, then you're screwed! Haha but kidding aside, BH will give you more pvp ability than CH. But I have good news! If your idea is pvp, not the highest lvl pet possible and not jedi hunting, and a Toxic Merek Battlelord is your dream pet, then I thinkI have the perfect comprimise:BH 0/4/4/4 and CH 4/4/0/4. Two flaws here: you will still need someone else to teach your pet a trick, and you have no ranged damage mitigation (investigation branch). This does give you most of the BH specials and all the flexability of the 3 different weapon sets, and allows you to have up to 48 pet levels (toxic merek is 45) and 2 pets out at once. And of course you can re-arrange them a bit too, like if you don't care if your pet can group or not, then CH 4/4/4/0, or for bounty hunter you could do 4/4/4/0 because most people that wear composite are going to have huge resists to electrical damage (although LLC is great in PvE).

Now, what I was going to do was MCH and bh 0/3/4/0. This lets me play with all my pets hehe. Carbines 3 gives me fireknock down (which if you are going to be a BH, you basically need) and eyeshot (also you also need hehe) as well as torso shot (don't "need", but can allow you to win a fight against a tough target with hit and run tactics, and who wouldn't want the ablity to light people on fire??). Before I do this I decided to try out all the BH weapon skills while I still have skill points before mastering CH. Tonight I got 0/3/4/4 BH, and the speed difference in the LLC between 2 and 3 and even 4 is amazing.....with a good speed slice you are at the speed capI would bet (but I don't "know" cause I don't have a speed sliced LLC :/). What I am going to do though is give up the whole LLC branch, stay 0/3/4/0 and master CH for awhile then master BH if they ever fix it lol.

The big disadvantagewith MBH and only 3/4/0/0 (or whatever combo) is that max pet lvl is only something like 31.....no pets with light armor. Then you need armor and buffs to fight tough stuff, which from the sounds of your idea defeats the purpose of taking CH. The disadvantage with master CH and 0/3/4/0 is that now that you can have an awesome pet tank, you can damage it as fast (well you can, but you burn through weapons faster hehe). The disadvantage of not mastering one or the other and combining the best you can from each? No elite master title.....but big deal if it allows you to accomplish your characters goals right?

My advice to you is to do what I did. Don't decide right away what you want, try out different combos to suit your play-style. BH and CH both get complained about alot, but together I have found that I am quite powerful. CH pets give you defensive abilites and BH has alot of offensive power. People overlook the fact the we have master scout and marksman, so we can root, snare debuff creatures, suppressive fire, use two pets at once (I am way better at crowd control then a carbineer with my traps and pets plus knockdown and supfire 1), and use mind shot to single pull. We are soooo versatile, man I LOVE the BH/CH combo. Just wish we had more skill points as a BH!!!

On a side note, tonight I dueled a master squadleader/almost master carbineer wookie with no armor or buffs while I had 80/50 comp amor with no helmet. I did not use a pet, and I only used a laser carbine/DH17 short. I tried fire knockdown twice, dizzy stuck but he did not get knocked now. He knocked me down, but he has no dizzy I got back up, /supfire, ya that's right, a sissy marksman skill......but down he went Fight over.

-Round 2: almost the exact same fight, fire knockdown didn't knock him down but dizzy stuck, and sup fire brought him down.

-Round 3, it gets spicy: now he wants to try with me in no armor, which I agree to if I can use my pistol (/grin hehe) and he agrees, but we are going to wait 10 minutes so he doesn't die if I incap him a 3rd time. While I am about to take off my armor, his hubby challenges me to a duel.....she had just given up a box or two from master rifleman as she is working on....combat medic :/ So I accept her duel before taking my armor off....and I have no helmet on, and I have not healed fully from my other fights....and I am not using any brandy....and she has her t21 pointed at my head from about 30m back lol. But here is the spicy part. No sooner do I accept, I am flat on my back. The carbineer and her tricked me and are double teaming me! This is where I exercised a bounty hunters most use skill: running away lol! But not far, just behind the nearest building so they don't both have a line of sight on me at once. This is where I got lucky, the carbineer saw my go behind the building, saw the rifleman chase, and then he went the OPPOSITE way around the building to trap me....when I saw him go that way, I turned around, knocked down rifleman as she came around corner So, she is incapped, quickly drink a bandy, and here comes the carbineer from behind me. Knocks me down, but the dizzy has wore off (flurry shot from rifleman) so i can get up and then knock him down...but no once again he does not fall down :/ But yes, dizzy stuck....but I have do action left to sup fire him and all he needs is one leg shot and I am down....yay for equilibrum and brandy! Then bam sup fire down goes Johnny and this time he goes to the cloning facility for his treachery! (I didn't DB, just that he was incapped 3 times in 10 mins).

Anyway, had I not been wearing armor, or if the rifleman had been, I would have lost, but if I had a pet out it would have been an extra dizzy attack ora distraction to buy you those few precious seconds that a BH relies on. Sorry for getting off topic, but my pvp experience is very limited and that was the most fun I have ever had on a game, and I needed to share it

Long live the BH/CH cross!

I started at release and wentBH/CH. Then Iswitched to Commando/CH after AT-STs became vulnerable to blast (I was rebel and wanted to help the cause :smileywink. The flamethrower + pet was awesome back then too. I quit in the fall and didn't resubscribe until a few weeks ago.

I'm still a Commando/CH... flamethrower + pet is still nice, but it's not nearly as powerful. Armored mobs give me fits and I have no range. So, I'm thinking seriously about switching back to BH/CH. The problem is a lack of skill points.

I definitely want to keep 4/4/1/4 CH for the level 50 pets (rancor, rhoa kwi pack leader, gurreck, TMB, etc.) and I want BH pistol 4 (I love the scatter pistol). I could drop Novice Medic to get more BH boxes but I'm very leary about not having any healing ability. I hardly ever use stims on pets (I just swap them out when I need a new one), but stims save my butt once in a while.

So, is Novice Medic really necessary? Anyone have advice for which boxes in BH to take? Is the LLC worthwhile?

Thanks!

I actually posed this question a bit ago and from what I was told, if you are wanting to go PvP, BH/CH is not good.

but if you wish to do it, you can, in all effect go

MCH

MM

MS

and one full colum and 3 boxes in another colum.

provided that you don't take at lease Novice Medic.

Honestly, if you do a lot of solo, you need Novice Medic, cause you don't want to put yourself in a place where you will get your butt handed to ya and can't heal up.

Me, I'm going Master Carb, Master CH and going 4-0-4-0 in Medic for the heals, won't need pet stims.

but that's my my opinion, others might differ.

Walle Deabi - Shortest Master Creature Handler on Shadowfire

"Yes, my spelling and grammer sucks, but I never claimed to be an English Major." -Wallach1

Yep, I mainly solo PvE during my short sessions (family, job, etc.). It sounds like we agree that Novice Medic is important then. So, I'll have enough points for Novice Medic, 4,4,1,4 CH, one BH tree, and 8 points left over. I guess the big question is are any of the BH trees better in high end PvE than the flamethrower? If so, I could go with one of the following:

4,4,1,4 CH

0,0,4,0 BH or 0,0,4,0 BH

Novice Pistoleer or Carbineer

1,0,0,0 Medic

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Didn't anyone read my post? Hehe. I solo'd just about my whole career, BH 0/3/4/3 and CH 3/4/1/4. I got myself killed a few times, but the best way to learn is from your mistakes.

My two main thoughts: pet stims rule. They heal mind damage as well, and you don't need tospend 15 skill points to use them. If you going to go BH, you already know that you are short on skill points. To go CH 4/4/1/4 and then take BH AND novice medic is pointless, you get like one skill tree of BH, so whats the point?? The one strength BH has is versatility in weapons and state control. If you take BH, you need pistols, period. If you are more inclined to PvE, then take LLC with it. If PvP is your thing, carbines....

Which brings me to my next thought: underhand shot sucks. Fire knockdown is the pwn......but knockdown is useless in PvE and very hard to land in PvP. This is why fire knockdown > underhand shot: dizzy. If you read my story above, you'll see that people can stack up all the knockdown defense they want, but it won't save them from a simple marksman skill: suppression fire.

But anyway, to get back on topic, BH/CH is an excellent combo, and even though BH sucks upskill points because you need master marksman and master scout, those professions have usefullness!! And here is my example for PvE since I already talked about PvP last night hehe:

Alright, everyone needs money. We need creds to buy guns, pet stims, brandy, and armor, and sometimes buffs(another reason not to bother with medic ). Since if you have gotten to BH and some CH skill, you obviously aren't broke, we will assume you have decent weapons (not like krayt or anything, just weapons in the 20k range...this is whatI use for PvE). Now, if you are here reading this, then you must also know where the trade forums are. Just check those out and you will see armorsmiths and doctors looking for hide and meat. Find out what they need, what planet it is on, and what creatures drop it. Now take your pet and your butt to that planet, equip your LLC and group your pet for the toughest missions you can get that drop the resource you need, and head out to the liar.

Now here is where you need to use your noggin or you will end up at the cloning facility, or wish you did have medic skills. Don't charge right up to the lair. Stop about 70 meters away, and pull out your pet. If you are any kind of CH, you know that mask scent is your best friend. It should always be up, just because hehe. Now, you have Master marksman, so you have a rifle and mindshot 1. I use a laser rifle, but any rifle that has an ideal range near 60m will do fine. Now, move to within 60 meters of the closest creature, and lie down (I have tried this standing, and rarely they will see me and come after me.....but rarely kills ya just as dead and it only takes a second to lie down) then mindshot 1 and immediately /peace. Now stand up, move back about 10-20 meters and wait.About 10 seconds later (patience is a BH's best friend) the mob willstart combat, and about 5 seconds after that he will come after you(note: if you know or are not sure if the creature has a ranged attack, unequip your weapon so you are unarmed after you mindshot! If you don't, you will automatically return fire once you are attacked by the ranged attack, and any creatures close by will aggro on you). Now you just wait until the creature is far enough away from it's buddies and then send in your pet while you use suppression fire. This will stop the creature from moving towards you and let your pet get its attention. Now you simply move to the ideal range for your weapon of choice and proceed to kill the creature, and havest its resources and become a millionare.

But we all know that a plan only survives the first 5 seconds of combat right? Things will go wrong. For instance, suppression fire fails and now you have an angry rancor (or whatever) coming right for you. Oh ya! We have master scout! Therefore we have 2 different traps to stop this guy from eating us. A snare trap and a root trap. Personally I use the snare trap because it is easier to make and it slows the creature down long enough for your pet to get it's attention.

Now, we can combine the above two tactics if we end up with TWO creatures after us instead of one. The first creature, we suppression fire and get pet on it, then switch targets and snare the second, and then send the pet to attack it as well....now the pet will have the attention of the first creature, and it will chase him over to the second. Now you best get killing one of em and heal your pet as necessary (this is why I love pet stims). Also, if you have eyeshot take the time to blind the creatures so they hit your pet less.

Using those simple tactics I made 342k in a couple of hours, -10k for pet stims, -10k for a buff, and -10k for round trip from tat to endor, for a profit of over 300k. For two hours work. Not something you can do all the time, but who wants to? While on Endor tame some pets Btw, toxic merek battlelords are 45, not 50.

One last thing, some general pet tactics for all CH. Once you get to lvl40, life is sweet. Get to endor, and get a couple of delirious merek avengers. You won't have to look long, they are very popular. They have 40 or 45 kinetic resist and light armor. Now you can't do anything with them now,but after a couple of days they will be lvl12 with over 3k HAM, and will tank just as well as a 35 graul mauler as long as you aren't attacking real big stuff (like level 40 or higher) and net you some great CH exp, as well as giving you TWO pets to protect you if you end up with more then you can handle. Also, get a pet with a ranged attack and you can use it to single pull. For whatever reason, pets don't get aggro nearly as easily as we do. I can tell a pet to attack, it will spit and the mob, once I see the mob is aggro'd I tell the pet to follow, and it comes back with just one creature....then just tell it to attack again and at no point have you been aggro'd.

Ok I lied, one more last thing: the BH/CH combocan help you out in PvP also. Now if you are a bounty hunter, get used to the fact that you have no defense (I think a master dancer has plus 5 melee defense, and we have zero.....buy melee defense clothes and attachments with those creds we just made hehe). This means that unless we initiate combat, we will probably lose. Assuming we have the advantage of surprise, pull out 2 pets....say a merek assassin or a delirious merek avenger and a greater sludge panther. Why? Those mereks have a dizzy attack, and the pather has a posture down attack (same thing as suppression fire). Now you have just doubled the chances of knocking the target down in a given period of time. Make a macro like:

/fireknockdown;

/tellpet a1; (where a1 is the command for your merek to perform a dizzy attack)

Now you have double the chance at dizzying the target. If the target doesn't go down, but gets dizzied, use your next macro:

/suppressionfire;

/tellpet b1; (where b1 is the command for your panther to perform a posture down attack).

And again, you have double the chance at making the target kneel, which has a chance of knocking the target down when it is dizzy.

True, a master rifleman/master TK is a better pvp template, but we got to make due with what we have, and I think that BH and CH are both really fun and challenging and versatile. With a little creative thinking, we can accomplish alot more then people realize. Hope this rambling has been a help in making your decision with your BH/CH combo!

Great replies, Efia. Thanks! I definitely see how your tactics would work and it's very tempting for me to drop Medic and go that route... I have a couple questions/comments though...

(1) I like to be self sufficient during my short play sessions, so I always fight without buffs. Won't I need stims to heal my HAM bars after using a lot of BH specials? Right now, I just pistol bleed the mob, switch to flamethrower, and spam flame single 2. The HAM drain is very low so I regen to full between every shot.

(2) The combat rebalance will change the effectiveness of buffs and armor. I don't know how far away Publish 10 is, but I really don't want to get too used to relying on uber buffs and uber armor. Btw, I wear 70%+ kinetic ubese when fighting animals or I'll eat some chef food and throw on some 70%+ composite to fight humanoids.

Thanks again for the great replies!

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Math got you down? Need a tissue? Try my Chef and Tailor Tissue Calculators!

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