User:Windjammer/Solo Beastmaster

=Temp Beastmaster Guide= This is a guide on the aspects of Beastmastering. It is written specifically for and about the Beastmaster. If you are looking for a guide on the pet, see guru guide on pet. For purposes of this guide, a Beastmaster is any build that works with the aid of a pet.

There are three classes of Beastmasters:
 * 1) Pure Beastmaster: With this type, the pet is the focus of the build and does all the grunt work. An example of a Pure Beastmaster is the [Build: R/any Tank Master|R/any Tank Master]
 * 2) Para Beastmaster: In this type of Beastmaster, the pet is an integral part of the build, but is not the focus. The Pet and the Master generally share the duties of dealing damage and tanking.  An example of a Para Beastmaster is the [Build:R/W Bunny Thumper|R/W Bunny Thumper].
 * 3) Psuedo Beastmaster: This Beastmaster is one in which Charm Animal is on the skillbar as more of an option filler. The pet does not play a major support role to the build, but may add a little extra damage.  As you might guess, this is not a very good Beastmaster, and their are no successfully tested builds of this type.

Beastmaster Professions
For a build to be a Beastmaster, it must have Ranger as one of its professions (in case you didn't know :). Most Beastmasters will be primary Rangers, though secondary Rangers are not unheard of. The Ranger line has the most skills for a Beastmaster. However, many other professions have skills that may be of benefit to this family of builds.


 * There are many skills from Beastmastery that work well with the skill line.  As such it is popular for Para Beastmasters, though Pures may use it for Healing Signet.


 * A wide range of skills that can buff or protect the pet make this a great choice for Pures.















Beastmaster Concepts
=Solo Beastmaster= The Solo Beastmaster family of builds all use the pet to tank and kill mobs. They depend equally on the beasts' rote defensive and offensive powers, and the master's mobility. The builds generally use powerful, active, single target attacks to deal damage (as opposed to passive AoE type damage used by basically every other general purpose farming build).

These builds are played in a very active way. Rather than striding into groups of enemies and keeping certain skills going, the master and beast must do a lot of moving around. Often, foes break of from the main melee around the pet, and the master must kite them or lead them back to the melee. Because of this, the build must be very mobile.

How it works
The main goal of this build is to get the mobs to focus on the pet. You must have the mobility to keep mobs off the master, and you must be able to use the pet to tank and kill them. When selecting skills, you must consider that the master is often to far from the beast to cast typical enchantments and spells on it. Skills that ignore this distance barrier have priority in skill selection. All Beastmastery skills that affect the pet ignore this distance. Maintained enchantments, once cast, ignore distance to the point of the edge of the mini-radar. If the pet goes off the mini-radar, maintained enchantments on it are lost.

Profession
The Solo Beastmaster is most often R/Mo. R is, of course, required, and Mo provides a strong line of skills for dealing with the problems the Solo Beastmaster must solve. A Mo/R Solo Beastmaster is also a distinct possiblity, especially if it has strong energy management skills.

Offense
The build must be able to kill. If it can't kill a particular boss, it doesn't matter if it can tank all the damage in the world. Additionally, some bosses use heals that must be countered. It is not uncommon to carry an interrupt with the Solo Beastmaster to deal with healing.
 * Enraged Lunge: Primary damage dealer of most Solo Beastmaster builds.
 * Disrupting Lunge: Useful interrupt.

Defense
The build must be able to withstand the large amounts of damage it will face. This problem is solved using the following types of skills.
 * Shared Damage: These skills split the damage between master and beast. This allows damage to be filtered through multiple sets of heals and damage reduction filters.  The shared damage skill is generally the centerpeice of the defense.
 * Life Bond: Splits damage and reduces the damage the master recieves. Generally the prefered skill.
 * Symbiotic Bond: Splits damage. Generally not used because the master will be killed from the damage through this skill.  It is not an enchantment, however; leaving some possibility for usefulness.


 * Damage Reduction: Reducing the damage recieved is the most efficient way of dealing with it.
 * Call of Protection: Staple of Solo Beastmaster builds, provides flat damage reduction to the beast.


 * Healing: Whatever damage that can't be prevented with reduction must be healed.
 * Comfort Animal: Most powerful heal in the game, and it can only be used on the beast!
 * Predatory Bond: Good skill for dealing with small amounts of damage master may recieve.

Mobility
The build must leave the master with the mobility to kite mobs and set up the melee around the pet. As part of this, the build should ideally only include skills with fast or no casting times, so as not to slow down the master.
 * Dodge/Zojun's Haste
 * 1) Run as One: Could be taken as an additional movement skill for running Solo Beastmaster builds. Also helps fuel Enraged Lunge.

Energy Management
The build must keep enough energy to remain functional. Expertise is generally the best way to do this, but if you need more energy, the following skills are useful.
 * Balthazar's Spirit: An excellent way to provide extra energy. Needs large mobs to be effective.
 * Essence Bond: Similar to Balthazar's Spirit, but not as good. Upside is that it doesnt require the master to take damage to work.

Interaction
The Solo Beastmaster often filters damage through multiple skills, leading to some direct interaction effects. It also experiences indirect interaction among skills due to this build's distinct requirements. All skills on the skill bar will work with these requirements in certain ways. For example, unless you have a way of protecting the master very well, don't expect a Solo Beastmaster to work if it is using skills that require a long casting time or for the master to be close to the pet.

Usage
The following is general usage applicable to all Solo Beastmaster builds. For specific usage, see the build's pages.

Pet Aggro Model
The following is a model that predicts how the pet seems to behave using this type of build.
 * Framework
 * state of attacking: The master enters this state as soon as the attack command is given. If an attack is initiated, and then a casting time skill is used, the master continues to remain in a state of attacking through the cast time.
 * attack: An attack has been performed once the weilded weapon has been used. Attacks that have been obstructed are not considered attacks for this model
 * pet aggro delay: This is the delay between the time a new target is chosen for the pet and when the pet actually obtains that target. This delay seems to be about one second.
 * heeled: This is when the pet is following the master. This state is entered anytime the pet has fully returned to the master.
 * aggroed: This is when the pet is actively chasing and attacking its target. This state is entered when the pet has obtained a target.  If the pet loses its target, it will begin to return to the master.
 * flee check: While aggroed, the pet checks periodically to see if the master is fleeing. If the master is moving in any direction when this check is performed, the pet loses its target.


 * Model
 * The pet's target is that which the master has initiated a state of attack upon.
 * When the pet is heeled, an attack must be completed before the pet aggro delay will start
 * When the pet is aggroed, the pet aggro delay starts immediatly after the state of attack is initiated.

Monster Aggro
The following is a list of tips for dealing with monster aggro.
 * If you are being chased, move away briefly to get the monsters to return to the pet. Though they start to go back towards the pet, they often quickly return to chasing you.
 * With a movement stance like Dodge active, monsters will not chase you for very long because you will move away from them so quickly. Without it, they will often chase you for a long time.
 * You can keep the monsters that are chasing you moving back and forth between you and the pet for a little while by running away as they chase you, and running towards the battle when they start to return. Tap the attack button as monsters start to return to simultaneously run towards the battle and make sure the pet is focused.
 * If you have plenty of room, you can simply kite the monsters chasing you around while the pet works away at the ones around it.
 * While doing this, you can often get the monsters chasing you back in the melee around the pet by simply running past it with them in tow.
 * Do not be afraid to try running through monsters chasing you, and straight past the melee around the pet. You may take a little damage, but your pursuers will be dragged right through the melee and will usually get caught back up in it.


 * You can often switch the pet's target to the monster chasing you to get this mob involved back in the melee. The pet, with its aggro in tow, will chase down this target.  As it engages the monster chasing you, that monster will stop chasing you to deal with the pet.
 * If just one monster has aggroed to you, and it is a healer or other low damage monster, or an elementalist (the ranger has excellent elemental resistance), the master can often easily tank out the damage. If this is the case, just stand in place and kill off the targets around the pet.
 * Monsters seem more likely to break off and chase the master when there is a large number of them. The following are reasons why this might be so:
 * When there is already a given number aggroed on one aggroable object in the fight, other monsters will look for another object to aggro on.
 * Each monster has a certain chance to aggro on the master, meaning the more there are the more likely one or two will chase the master.
 * When there are so many mobs gathered around the pet that other monsters are body blocked, or perhaps cannot 'see' it, they look for another aggro object.

The Player
The mini-radar Health Energy Target Priority Movement Terrain
 * This is your best friend. Use it to keep track of monsters and the pet.  Watch it for monsters coming to chase you, and to keep an eye on the pet to make sure it is focused on its target.
 * It is easy to lose track of the pet's health as you are kiting and avoiding. Keep a wary eye on its health and make sure you use Comfort Animal as necessary, it is a reasonably quick cast.
 * Predatory Bond generally takes care of your health. Make sure it is always active.  If you are in danger of dying, make sure you are avoiding direct damage from mobs.  If you need to, disengage the pet and retreat to regen.  As a last resort, if you are taking damage from it and are about to die, dismiss Life Bond.  If you do this, try to quickly disengage the pet and keep it alive with Comfort Animal.
 * With high Expertise energy can be managed. Pet attacks, at an energy cost of two (with an Expertise of 13), put very little drain on energy.  Constant use of Comfort Animal will steadily chip away at energy however.  If you are running out of energy, you can often regen in the middle of a battle by just using Comfort Animal when necessary.  Do this until energy is full before beginning with pet attacks again.
 * In general, healers must be killed first. It is often possible to kill soft targets even with a healer present however.  Targets that use powerful degen must be the first killed if no healer is present.  If you can kill them quickly with a healer around, consider killing them first even.  Kill soft targets before hard ones.  If you can't reach a healer because of blockage (they often stand in the back) try taking out some soft targets that can be killed even in the presence of a healer, then go for it.
 * Sometimes, the target you would like to begin the attack on is standing close to the back. It best to begin the pull on the monster closest to you.  Try waiting for the desired target to reach the front as they mob shuffles around.  If a mob is chasing you, and you must start the attack, or the desired target will not move to the front, start the attack on the closest mob.  Once you are away and the pet is engaged, try switching it to the desired target.
 * It is very tempting to want to put as much space between the master and the melee around the pet as possible. Resist doing this however.  Staying close allows you to quickly drag stray monsters back into the melee.  It also gives you more room to move away from the pet when kiting around.  Lastly, monsters seem less likely to break off and attack in the first place if you are close by (not confirmed).
 * Moving around a lot causes the pet to constantly lose focus.
 * Height advantage. If you have height advantage, you have much better range with your bow and can pull from further away.
 * Obstructions. If monsters are aggroed on you, you can often obstruct their ranged attacks by hiding behind a wall.  Monster AI will not recognize that its attack is obstructed and continue to focus on you.