User:Thalestis

Thalestis
The name means nothing. It just sounded cool at the time :-) I like exploring - all done the hard way without Texmod - and working with heros and henches. I don't do much PUGging and I am not active in any guild; in fact I've been left as default leader of two moribund guilds! I do not PvP, I am PvE only as I don't feel comfortable fighting real people. "Killing" AI controlled monsters is one thing, real people are quite another.

I like to play single class characters. The idea of a Touch Ranger, where the real power comes from the secondary profession, doesn't suit my style. I like to try other professions, but I always come back over and over to my first character, my ranger Charankra Thalestis who has been every where (and I mean everywhere, I'm a Legendary Cartograhper twice over and a Tyrian Grandmaster Cartographer four times over!) and done everything more or less. Finding stuff for him to do has presented challenges at times, but I've always managed it. Often after a lengthy spell with another character perhaps, but I've always done it somehow.

I like developing and levelling characters: building them up and learning what skill work and what don't. I don't much like working with other people, who often don't understand or want to understand how classes work and what they are good at. My ranger has spent a lot of time rezzing entire teams of PUGs who rushed in and left me to pick up the pieces... even, or is it especially, in hard mode. So, I tend to do the ranger thing and fight alone, with heroes and henches.

My characters are, in the order of creation:

Charankra Thalestis
"Born": Tyria

Profession: Ranger

Secondary Profession: Monk - only for hard res purposes.

First Title: Tyrian Cartographer. First maxed title was Tyrian Grandmaster Cartographer

Maxed Titles: 20 at present. Legendary Cartographer (so I like exploring!), Legendary Skill Hunter, Legendary Vanquisher, all three Protectors, Guardian and Vanquisher of Elona, Guardian of Tyria, Slayer of All, Secret Agent, Legendary Spearmarshal, Holy Lightbringer, yada, yada.

Armour: Lime green dyed Monument with tinted spectacles (and designer stubble!). As I said to friend once, "While the title says "People Know Me", all I really am is a Ranger with fancy armour and cool shades." I don't collect armour.

Pets: Ran with a pet for a long, long time: Mel Kitty, my pre-searing obtained Melandru's Stalker. It was a wrench to part with her :-) But I traded her in for a Black Moa. Since then I've recently tamed a Jingle Bear (yes, why?) which I've since replaced with a Rainbow Pheonix. All this is somewhat academic as I don't run this character as a beastmaster. I'd love to see pets in town, maybe in something like the "stable" system other MMORPGs have.

Build type: Ursan/degen damage dealer: evolved to work with heros and hench teams. I know, a ranger who actually uses a bow! How quaint. Quaint it might be; effective it certainly is!

Current Build Template: OgMTcXslZ6SEXrt0o0S8wI2QmAA

Technobabble is in the optional skill slot. Replace it with PvE only (e.g. Pain Inverter Lightbringer's Gaze) or a resurrection skill as required. I often swap out Body Shot too, as I find Cracked Armor to be a relatively ineffective condition.

Preferred Heros: "Sabway" triple necro for vanquishing. Double Balthazar dervish (OgCjkyqG7Ol7vL4l52cHwuXBAA or similar) + Tahlkora or Ogden as WoH healer works well, if not better in some places - that's who I used to vanquish Joko's Domain. Don't like Dunkoro much: he seems to run into trouble too often and die :-( Pyre Fierceshot as BHA interrupter (OgATcVMmZa2wV6x4LU4w3o3CXDA) or elemental interrupter (OgYUswbirMTPD5WPGfhzG4aWiHGA) or similar: seems to be more resilient than Jin or Margrid. Pyre synergises well with Zhed as a water snarer (e.g. OgBCsMzz1QdsOqGPDzK04dA). Both useful when there's disease about as neither are human, ditto for Vekk who I run as a SF nuker.

Current Status: Just obtained Legendary Vanquisher, and will probably put him away for a bit, but I always go back to him after a while.

Amonotep Thalestis
"Born": Elona - name chosen to sound ancient Egyptian to fit in with the North African theme of Nightfall.

Profession: Dervish

Secondary Profession: None, but probably monk for Hard Mode work for res.

Maxed Titles: 11 at present. Legendary Cartographer (Did I say I like exploring?), Legendary Skill Hunter, All three Protectors.

Armour: blue dyed Asuran with red dyed bandana. Works well with the dark skin tone and Egyptian style square-tied beard he has.

Build type: Pure dervish mob reaper. Likes to get into mobs and slash at anything that moves. Uses three enchantments to safeguard health and to power Mystic Sweep. Hates snares :-(( Very powerful and provided the skill template for the "Double Dervish" hero team I often run with all characters.

Current Build Template: OgCikys8w9/+f3BczF8O6ZuA

Farmer's Scythe is in the optional skill slot. Replace it with PvE only (e.g. Pain Inverter Lightbringer's Gaze) or a resurrection skill as required. I sometimes swap out Radiant Scythe too as it is at its best in short fights with smaller mobs where I'm likely to have more energy. The technique is to raise Watchful Intervention followed by the much shorter lasting Mystic Vigor, which can be kept up as required. Then go in to the centre of a mob firing off Aura of Holy Might at point blank range and then Mystic Sweep which is my primary attack skill. Note I use no elite with this build. The avatars are tempting (I select them by damage type, by favourite being Avatar of Balthazar) and my heroes run with one at all times, replacing the PvE only skill Aura of Holy Might.

Current Status: No plans for him at the moment. He's done great work, and is fun to play (and on top form he's awesome!) but I've sort of "done" him. Yes, I suppose I could do hard mode stuff with him, but I know he can do that, I don't need to prove it.

Charankra Fireball
"Born": Tyria

Profession: The family elementalist.

Secondary Profession: None.

Maxed Titles: 2 at present. Tyrian Grandmaster Cartographer (I'm sure I did I say I like exploring...), Protector of Tyria.

Armour: Goldish yellow dyed Canthan Robes with flame aura. Look remarkably classy! No plans to upgrade at the moment.

Build type: Pure fire nuker: OgBCoMzCy8LNNdbLFDu4LA. Powerful but skill timing and sequencing can be finicky :-( When it works its devastating, when it doesn't its a damp fizzle ;-( Likes to target the centre of mobs and then burn, baby, burn! Thus he loves Norn territory. Put an early version of the build on heros but while it was powerful it's not as successful probably due to those sequencing issues. Consequently I rarely run a fire nuker hero, much preferring a water snarer instead in most places, though not all. I don't find much useful synergy with a nuker - they pretty much work on their own.

Current Status: No plans for him at the moment. He's parked, acting as storage.

Llanfair Merdoc
"Born": Tyria - created by one of my daughters who played her to level 10 or so.

Profession: Inspiration Mesmer.

Secondary Profession: None needed yet.

Maxed Titles: 3 at present. Tyrian Grandmaster Cartographer (Look, so I like exploring. Want to make an issue of it?...), Protector of Tyria, Tyrian Skill Hunter (from Tyrian sources alone).

Armour: Purple/blue dyed Sunspear attire with Istani mask. Looks classy on this shorter redhead, but too revealing says my daughter! May well upgrade to Norn or Deldrimor, which should pass my daughters criteria, and which looks classically elegant in a warm and toasty way. Though the Deldrimor perhaps has a murmur of kinkiness about it - its the boots and corset-like waistcoat that do it, plus its not a complete armour set and thus cannot be displayed in the Hall of Monuments.

Build type: Inspiration Mesmer: OQBEAYkCO7oBQBfgmACAKsCqpA. Hexmiester from the valleys :-) Her first four skills were basic ones obtained by my daughter pre and immediately post searing. I rationalised her, gave her a max damage staff and pushed her on to Lion's Arch, then over the sea to first Elona to pick up heros, on to Cantha to level them in Kaineng and then straight back to Kryta to bulldoze all before her. I never did replace those four basic skills - there was never any need! I like the mesmer skills, which require different play styles to all the others. Is mesmer a niche profession? Not if she's anything to go by! I'd happily take her anywhere and run with the best. I not had much success transferring the build to heroes, i.e. Gwen :-(

Current Status: She's exploring Elona at the moment, though there's nothing there to challenge her as yet.

Asha Begandi
"Born": Tyria - created by one of my daughters who played her to level 10 or so.

Profession: Ranger.

Secondary Profession: None needed yet.

Maxed Titles: Protector of Tyria, Protector of Elona, Elonan Grandmaster Cartographer. Which should go some way to proving a beast master can go anywhere... This character may well not be a title hunter - just a monster hunter!

Armour: Purple/blue dyed Norn, waiting to level up Asura title to get her some slim spectacles to complete the ensemble. Warm and stylishly functional, but maybe just a tad overdressed for Elona!

Build type: Pure beastmaster. Her pet is a classic hearty Melandru's Stalker called "Sheep". Don't ask... I intended to zap her - the character, not her pet! - and start a new character to try a new profession. But then found she had "Cities of Ascalon" active, and that was too good to waste. So, as I was very experienced at being a ranger, I decided to try another twist and ran her as a out and out beastmaster. I'm very impressed with her so far. I've not found any significant weaknesses and I really like the beastmaster build. It's great fun to play too! I'm trying to encourage others to give beastmastery a try. So maybe titles will be the way to show to others that pets are not just for show!

Current Build Template: OgATY5bmTa342gHkzA3g3i2YzAA

Scavenger Strike is an optional energy managment/attack skill. As energy managment is not a big issue, replace it with PvE only (e.g. Pain Inverter, Lightbringer's Gaze,Ursan Blessing, etc.) or a resurrection skill as required.

Current Status: She's steamrolling Elona at the moment. She went to Eye of the North well before level 20 and steamrolled that too. Her very first elite capture was Enraged Lunge from Ashlyn Spiderfriend in Magus Stones. Not bad for a "lame" build type...

Me
Ah well, Charankra Thalestis is the nearest to "me" but then there is more than a little of me in all of the characters I run.

Some Personal Observations and Adventures in Beastmastery
This is an edited and updated version of a post I made on Talk:Beast master

I've always had a soft spot for pets ever since I charmed my first Melandru's Stalker in Pre-searing Regent Valley. Mel Kitty, as I called her, went everywhere with me, through all missions in all campaigns. She was there when my ranger became a Legendary Grandmaster Cartographer and Legendary Protector and Legendary Skill Hunter. I never left town without her.

But times changed, and it was on my first successful vanquish of Dalada Uplands that the apparemt limitation of pets became brutally apparent, and I left her for dead and continued on without her for almost the first time since I started playing Guild Wars :-( I then thought I saw why beastmasters were rare, but I had a nagging doubt as neither Dalada nor Hard Mode existed when beastmastery had become so neglected.

Cut to a month or so ago. I like creating new characters of different classes to see and learn how to play them effectively. After my original ranger I created Amonotep Thalestis, a full-on dervish, and then went back to prophecies and created my fire nuker elementalist, Charankra Fireball. More recently I took over the Tyrian female Mesmer, Llanfair Merdoc, that one of my daughters had played to level 9 and then abandoned. All four are TGMCs, a feat of which I'm quite proud :-) Amonotep is also, like my first ranger, a Legendary Cartograhper, protector and skill hunter. My ranger is a Tyrian guardian and Elonan vanquisher I'm working steadily on vanquishing Tyria... one area at a time, all with hero and hench only. What I'm saying is that I'm been around a bit and I'm not a noob. But what of beastmastery? Ah, well, I have two daughters and the other one had another abandoned character, Asha Begandi, a level 10 Tyrian ranger. I had decided to zap her, transferring all her useful stuff to my other characters or selling it as appropriate, then when I went to play her I found she had Cities of Ascalon active and partially completed. So I thought, why not play her to get the 55 monk grim cesta and then zap her.... but I'd already done a lot of rangering, so how could I make her interesting? I know, I thought, let's run her as a beastmaster and see for myself why they were so rare.

The only problem was, try as I might in PvE at least, I couldn't see where the problem was. I was expecting to find some glaring weakness in the build, or the pet, but I couldn't find one. I must stress this relates to PvE only, as I cannot make any useful comment about PvP play. After sorting a full beastmaster build for her, I found that she was ripping through everything as fast and as effectively as with any the classes I'd played.

Each class has their strong and weak points of course, and for the beastmaster the strength seems to be mainly against good ol' melee classes, however, they are not "weak" against others, just not as devastatingly effective. Put it this way, I'd not want to come up against me and a decent pet (which made my Doppleganger encounter particular fast - sub ten seconds - as it didn't have my pet :-) ) I pressed my beastmaster on as fast as possible into EotN and other high level areas, trying to find the weakness, all to no avail. As a level 16 ranger I pushed straight through to Magus Stones to capture my very first elite with this character (using the free capture signet from Magi Malaquire in Lion's Arch) - Enraged Lunge. Well, what other decent BM elite is there... A little later I discovered the power of the only other decent BM elite: Strike as One, especially when partnered with Never Rampage Alone.

That those elites are the only decent beastmastery elites possibly tells the story of why beastmastery isn't taken seriously, though your mileage may vary on that. Both are not Prophecies skills. Enraged Lunge was added in Factions, while Strike as One came in Nightfall, and until recently worked very differently and very poorly :-( So, initially, beastmastery was significantly under powered, but this was addressed in Factions which added many useful non-elites as well as the Elite to rule them all Enraged lunge. With the change and massive buff to Strike as One I feel the time has come for beastmasters to be taken seriously, though as I'll discuss below, there are some issues to deal with for that to happen.

"The pet is the weapon"... nice soundbite, but err, no actually it isn't. The weapon - a decent armour penetrating shortbow works for me - is the weapon, the pet is a skill set. Charm Animal works as a infinite duration DoT skill. Your pet attacks replace bow attacks, NOT the pet replaces the bow. You have to have a conventional weapon to provide targeting in any case. You don't need mountains of energy a beastmaster bar, at least not of you have decent Expertise.

So, enough of my history and motivation for beastmastery, what is it that I have found?

1) It appears Beastmastery is an all or nothing skill set. My experience is that there's little point in being half-hearted about being a beast master. That is why my age-old Mel crumbled in Hard Mode. You have to invest most of your attribute points to be an effective beast master. I run at 16 BM, with a superior rune (currently very cheap as BMs are so out of favour!) on my headgear giving a +4 boost on top of a full 12 from attribute points.

1a) Enraged Lunge relies for its power on recharging BM skills, therefore you need to have a good number of active/spammed BM skills. I run with a 7 BM skill bar, with one slot for optional skills, such as PvE only (BM is reasonably compatible with the current 60 second limited Ursan Blessing) and or a res, which is probably only needed for Hard Mode. Again, its an all-or-nothing thing: you need the BM skills to fuel Enraged Lunge.

1b) There is a downside to "all or nothing", that is that an effective BM skill bar leaves little room for alternative skills. i.e. there are few optional slots on a bar. Every alternative skill will need to earn its place. That should really be true of any decent skill bar of course. All skills should be there for a good reason at all times. These "alternative skills" are things like res, Asuran/Norn/Vanguard skills and other PvE only skills.

2) I have found the key to effective BMing is time management. Pets attack on a strict two second cycle. BM attacks are not like other skills, they don't act directly. Instead they request the pet to perform the attack on their next scheduled attack. This makes interrupts very hit and miss, to be frank more often miss :-( The queuing mechanism also makes skill management vital, so I run with the Pet Control Panel on at all times, so that I can see when the pet has actually performed the attack skill. Pet target selection affects this considerably, and all pet attacks have a non-documented time-out period, and if they haven't performed the attack by that time, it expires unperformed. Don't expect pets to immediately perform the attack as soon as you hit the skill icon - pets simply don't work that way.

2a) Time management is everything, and this is the key to understanding the power of pet IAS skills. Pet IASs increase the rate at which pets attack, and therefore increase the number of attack skill slots per second and reduce the chance of the skill timing out. I used to use Call of Haste as this reduces the "time to target" of the pet as well as its attack rate, though I have replaced it, and Enraged Lunge, with the Strike as One/Never Rampage Alone combo. This though also shows why pets might seem apparently useless in the early stages of the game. Against low level foes pets often simply don't get to the target before the target is dead. Pets really only begin to shine against high level foes who last long enough for the pet to properly engage them. You've simply got to let the dog see the rabbit as it were. The same to some extent goes generally for any degen/condition: they produce more damage the higher the health of the foe. As a ranger I've always preferred to get the degen, typically poison, in with the first shot if possible as that gives it the longest time to cause the most damage. Pets are in effect a sort of DoT machine, and should be treated as first strike weapons.

This might at first sight sound like a lot of hassle-some micro-management, but it is your own skills you are managing, not a whole second set as when you are managing a hero. Its simply a different way of managing your own skills.

This neatly brings me to Strike as One. This is the BMs first strike skill par excellence and in the limited time I've been using it, is stunningly effective against most foes, but especially healers. In PvE healers like to stand out of the way at the back. This presents some possible problems for pet owners. For a start, they should generally be your first target in most mobs. But, they are a long way away for your pet to run to and they have often to run through the melee front-line, which can body block your pet. Strike as One solves this problem, teleporting your pet to the feet of your back-line opponent, cutting out the possibly several seconds delay, neatly jumping right past and potential body-blockers. All that AND they then inflicting bleeding which you will probably near-instantly cover with crippled! That means most Struck as One healers are toast :-)! So, Strike as One is a critical time management skill, though it is probably not quite so useful on non-fleshy foes, but they are where the raw damage, around 80 to 100, of Enraged Lunge really shines.

I find that Strike as One works well with Never Rampage Alone in that Strike as One reduces the pet time to target while Never Rampage Alone adds significant pressure from both my pet an my bow. Never Rampage Alone is a PvE Only Sunspear skill and technically not a beastmastery skill, so it doesn't [currently at least] appear on this wiki's list of beastmastery skills. Heroes cannot use Never Rampage Alone however so for them I use my older Call of Haste/Enraged Lunge combo.

3) Skill management. I touched on this above, but getting to know and understand the attack queuing system is vital. Many attack skills will cancel each other, so there's no point in firing off what might seem like a good one-two of Feral Lunge quickly followed by, say, Predator's Pounce and the pounce will cancel the lunge. Again, keep the pet control panel open and check when those skills are really going in. Interestingly, Strike as One will queue alongside attacks as it is a shout, not an attack skill (in fact it triggers a form of Shadow Step).

4) Energy. As you cannot spam pet attacks any faster than the pets attack cycle, energy is not as much of a limitation as might at first be thought. There are recommendations out there for "pure" beastmasters to use a staff with an energy buff. I have found this to be unnecessary and can be reasonably effective as a BM on just the basic 25 energy of rangers. I use decent levels of Expertise of course, as all Rangers should. I use an attunement rune (+2 energy), though that is more to ensure I have at least 15 energy for use with G.O.L.E.M. 2.0s in Destruction's Depths. My point is that except in long mob fights, energy is not the limiting factor - pet attack cycle time is. This leave me free to use a normal bow, allowing me to use Distracting Shot or another bow interrupt. With a minor rune of expertise, I'm currently running at 16 BM, 10 expertise and 9 markmanship. I'm doing useful additional damage with my Uhiwi's Shortbow; the Droknar's Shortbow is similar. An armour penetrating shortbow also increases your attack rate and conveniently gets you inside the range at which Strike as One works. All in all with decent basic bow damage, range matched to critical pet skill range, good rate of fire, the armour penetrating shortbow appears to be the ideal beastmaster's bow. Incidentally pets attack at the same rate as a shortbow, the fastest bow type, so they have a decent rate of fire too!

5) So, you've got a top level beast, working fast and you're managing its skills carefully and effectively. What else is there? Health of course. As a beastmaster you're only really useful while your pet is alive, so keeping it alive has to be a priority. I run with Call of Protection on my pet at all times. It's cheap - 5 energy - and long lasting - two whole minutes. The only time I run without it is after my pet has died in a long and tough fight and its still recharging after I've rezzed her (and I regard all my pets as "her"). The base damage reduction is very useful and at that cost, what's not to love about it? Other health buffs could work well too, I just haven't tried them all.

Whatever you do, some sort of health buff/damage reduction is good for your pet, and probably essential in Hard Mode. Another key skill in this respect is Predator's Pounce which gives a useful health boost to your pet when the pounce hits. Its my preferred spammable pet attack, and I'll swap out other skills in preference to this. Note that with higher BM it is less likely to miss and the health gain is higher: another example of BMing being all or nothing and half-measures are not much good. I reserve Comfort Animal for really bad situations even though it often isn't much use in the thick of a fight :-( I don't try to heal her, I let her die and then res her which results in her having significantly more health. I do like to give my pet a comfort after a good fight, it's kind of like a thank you to her I suppose. Silly really, as her natural health regen will soon get her back to normal. Its just me being an anthropomorph :-)

6) Teams. In general I've found that in Guild Wars most classes work better in pairs. I've found that in Hard Mode a double hero dervish based team can outperform triple necro/sabway teams, and not just in area of undead which don't provide many corpses for necros, and where dervish's holy damage can really let rip. I ran for a while with a double beastmaster based team, using Jin (she has a hearty lion) and she handles a Call of Haste/Enraged Lunge bar reasonably well. They are said to spam Comfort Animal for one thing, though I've not seen any hard evidence of that; and I'm looking carefully beleive me! I doubt they could be trusted to exploit the full first strike power of Strike as One but then I don't run her with it. That proved reasonably powerful, but it cried out for going the next step - a full BM team. All or nothing again. So, I got Margrid a Hyena and sorted her a third variant of my BM bar. I beleive in skill and degen diversity. My "standard" team as follows:

Me: OgATY5bmTa342gHkzA3g3i2YzAA

Jin: OgATY5bmzp3sb4MfGcjsk2sZAA

Margrid: OgATY5bmzpW+Z4M7GXJuh2sZAA

with support from Pyre as something like: OgYUowbirMT2C5WPGfhzG4aWiHGA

Note the lack of res or heal. There's not much need, at least in normal mode. I will run with two hence healers or healer and protector where available, but often with only one healer. Wipes are rare and not a disaster as pets don't suffer death penalty in PvE. If I am worried about survival then I swap Pyre out for a healer, Ogden or Talhkora. Alternatively I run with a triple necro vanquish/sabway team, as I did successfully for The Last Day Dawns.

Survivor insignia on chest and legs or more, beastmaster on rest. Vitae, Superior Vigor and Attunement runes for extra health and energy. Generally I find that health is more useful than armour, particlarly with lots of degen, hexes and life stealing going on. I run everyone with health over 500 before DP if I can. All my beastmasters run with a max damage shortbow of +30 fortitude with armour penetration (20% chance) if available.

There is a lot of scope for alternative bars of course - experiment and see what works for you!

Hero and hench healers have no issue with directing healing towards pets. I doubt human healers would be prepared to do that. So running when with PUG healers, I don't expect any help from them, they simply don't rate your all important pet as a priority :-( That's probably a result of BM being so neglected overall ;-( I do all my adventuring alone, even in Hard Mode -- I even tried to do The Villainy of Galrath first time in hard mode without level 20 - they were level 17ish - and fully runed-up heros. I managed the quest fine, but couldn't quite get the vanquish of Kessex Peak as the Apprentice of Veratas were just too much for my team. I probably would have been no problem at all with a fully evolved hero/hench team.

7) Damage types. This is a very minor point, but pets come in two flavours - piercing damage dealers and slashing damage dealers. Its thought, though I haven't tested it, that the slashing pets are marginally the better types, which is good because most pets are slashers. Other than that all pets are equal. They type you get is a matter of which skin pleases you most. Got to love a Black Moa though!

8) Pet counters. For all pets, skills that could, in theory, cause significant problems are any that shutdown shouts. Call of Protection is not so much of a problem as it is so long lasting that you won't be putting it on during anything other than the longest fights. The shutdown of Call of Haste is more of an issue as it significantly buff your pet's damage dealing capacity and ruins your time management efforts. Body blocking can render your pet useless for some time. General anti-melee techniques will also adversely affect your pet, and PBAoE is may not be good news either. Snares can be nasty, leaving your pet seemingly traipsing through treacle from target to target while never actually getting to any to do any damage. Strike as One is a key here, getting your pet to the right place at the right time regardless of any snare.

Incidentally, this is all with a hearty pet. I haven't yet (because I haven't really tried) got a dire pet. I suspect that keeping the pet alive is probably more important than how much damage it does... as it cannot do damage at all if its dead. So I tend to favour the additional health of a hearty pet. As it is, on total wipes, my pet "Sheep" (don't ask, I didn't name her, my youngest daughter did!) is often the last of my party still standing, and quite often kills after everyone else is dead! Don't forget that in PvE pets don't have death penalty, which is a big plus, but then they don't get all the morale boosts from killing bosses either, though they do from other boosts such as in missions (e.g. killing ballista engineers) or in dungeons from Dwarven blessing in GW:EN.

Just how weak, er strike that... Just how powerful is a beastmaster? Well, if you read a lot of the Wiki blurbs then you'd be forgiven for thinking they were lame, and non-viable as a serious specialisation. Yet, the comment I've heard over and over is something like, "Everything seems to die quicker with a pet around". So which is the truth? I've been through all the missions in Tyria and Elona as a beastmaster. Not one posed any significant challenge. Could I have done them faster and/or easier with a non-BM ranger build? In the vast majority of cases not that I can see.

Do I see any significant weakness of pets? No, none whatsoever. I have to say a few things however. Sure, pets are limited in the range of damage types they can do - you cannot have a cold damage pet for instance, and they are not ideal condition lay-downs. Their interrupt potential is very limited - but you're a ranger so use your bow for that. They can be overwhelmed by massive mobs. There is no way to shorten hexes and conditions that are applied to them, and in a big mob they can get five, six or more in some situations. Pets love to get stuck, especially on resurrection shrine NPCs, and can get body blocked and have related pathing issues, making the old saying "Let the dog get at the rabbit" rather appropriate in Guild Wars. Strike as One helps a lot with some of these issues as it cuts through all the pathing problems and gets your pet straight on to the target.

Pets appear to be pack animals and appear to work better en-masse. One is good, two is OK, but three... :-) Now we're talking! They need to be healed by monks just like any other party member. Pets are party assets and need to be treated as full and important front-line party members, not just as playthings for the rangers. I regard pets as working animals and I'd take mine anywhere, and I feel that they will hold their own in hard mode too. Beastmasters are a viable option for almost all missions, and certainly not a disaster in those for which they are not well suited. All in all, they are very powerful and should deserve a place in any PUG team, though I doubt they will get one in most :-( In my opinion and experience, a lot of the nay sayers are out of date with regard to what pets are capable of. Beastmastery is a highly specialised sub-class which needs careful playing, of that I have no doubt, but lame? Certainly not. I love it!

So, I think that with the improved BM skills, especially the elites, beastmasters should make a comeback in PvE at least. They are a viable and most importantly FUN, specialisation to play but do require different play style to other types of ranger. Though that is how it should be, each class and sub-class requires a different play-style: that is a major part of what make games like Guild Wars fun! I just want to say how much fun being a beastmaster is, and how powerful (in PvE) pets can be and so encourage others to try "running as one".

For a reference of Animal Companion skills see Animal companion skills quick reference.