User:XT-8147/R/Mo Beast Master

Well, I decided to try out beast mastery. Here's the build I've tested thus far.

Armor
I don't have it but I would recommend Explorer's Armor. You'll need the health much more than the energy provided by Druid's Armor. I've been using Druid's because I have the 15k set. I also have a Superior Vigor rune.

Weapon
You won't be dealing much damage with it regardless of what it is. That said, go with a staff with both Hale and Fortitude mods on it. The only other mod you might want is 20% chance of fast cast on Protection Prayers. This way you'll have a 20% chance of a 3 second Rebirth.

Usage
You will want to let any partied monks know that you're using Symbiotic Bond, to eliminate confusion later on as to why you're taking damage when you aren't under fire. I don't know of very many monks that would heal a pet, but assure them that it will hardly be necessary.

Call of Protection and Symbiotic Bond work quite well together to ensure that your pet takes as little damage as possible. Half of the original amount will still be redirected to you, since Call of Protection kicks in after Symbiotic Bond does. I haven't had the chance to confirm this, but if a protection monk places Shielding Hands on you, it may help attenuate damage from Symbiotic Bond. Generally speaking, you won't have to worry about either of them running out in the middle of a battle, since Call of Protection lasts for 2 minutes on a minute-and-a-half recharge and Symbiotic Bond at 16 Beast Mastery lasts for 5 minutes and 12 seconds on a 55 second recharge. While I do wish there was some sort of status icon that would tell you they're still active and would blink before they end, it doesn't really matter.

I tested this build with the long fight north from Camp Rankor to Beacon's Perch. I figured if it could work there it could work pretty much anywhere. I did end up making it, but not without several deaths due to having the secondary objective of mapping out Dreadnought's Drift, which meant that I had to engage the Stone Summit army that resides there. I did eventually map it out and make it north to Lornar's Pass, but not before I was at 60 DP. Maybe I need to learn how to fight Stone Summit or something, or maybe it was the fact that it was just me and henchmen.

Further playtesting was done in Hell's Precipice, where Comfort Animal was deemed necessary. I was doing around 89 damage to Burning Titans, around 95 to Risen Ashen Hulks (outside of Aura of the Lich), and 100 or more to Fists/Hands/Sparks. Also took down an Armageddon Lord fairly quickly, though the resulting Risen Ashen Hulk combined with the Fists/Hands spawning in the lava overran my lowly party of henchmen :(

Since Enraged Lunge will be recharging when it hits, it gets counted when the number of recharging Beast Mastery skills is tallied to see how much bonus damage to deal. This means all you need to do is start up your three shouts, then use Enraged Lunge to get that nice +80 damage. Use Predator's Pounce right after it to tack on some more damage (generally around half the damage that Enraged Lunge will deal) and heal your pet. Going back and forth between these two skills, reactivating the others as necessary to keep them recharging, will dish out lots of damage and keep your pet fairly well healed at the same time. If you ever accumulate more than about 30% DP, stop using Symbiotic Bond. You can still get full damage on Enraged Lunge, but you have to use Predator's Pounce first so it's recharging when Enraged Lunge hits.

Use Predatory Bond in battle to help attenuate the damage redirection from Symbiotic Bond. It will be a nice, consistent and reliable +33 health every time your pet attacks. It will have a downtime of 9 seconds.

Expertise combined with your 3 energy regen should do enough energy management that you won't have to worry about your energy unless you have to Rebirth someone. Perhaps a better Expertise value could be found that would allow for more points in other attributes while still leaving the energy costs the way they are. It's all 5 and 10 energy skills, so not like it's anything really expensive.

I also took the chance to test this against the Mursaat, after I got my Tamer's Mask infused in Iron Mines of Moladune. It seems like the pet takes 22 damage from Spectral Agony, because I kept seeing -11 (Symbiotic Bond) repeatedly after it was hit by a Jade Armor. Call of Protection was thus reducing the direct damage the pet took to zero and the regen on Symbiotic Bond reduced its degen to -4.

Ever wonder why Enraged Lunge's bonus damage is capped at 80? Well, at 16 Beast Mastery, the bonus per recharging skill is +24. If Enraged Lunge is your only attack (just to make this simple), and you use Tiger's Fury before using it (so all your skills will be recharging when it hits), you would have 24 * 8 = 192 bonus damage. With the damage my pet deals normally this would place the total damage at around 212. Guess they decided that was a bit overpowered.

Alternate Skills

 * Swap Scavenger Strike for Brutal Strike for higher damage when the target is below 50% health.
 * Swap some attributes around and take Troll Unguent in place of Predatory Bond.
 * Swap Poisonous Bite for a skill that causes a different condition.
 * The 3 in Protection Prayers is just there to make Rebirth's skill disable 9 seconds instead of 10. Even then only having 2 in Protection Prayers would get the job done.  Swap for a different resurrect or Resurrection Signet if you feel like taking a different secondary.

another case of me thinking too much
Since this build is kind of a stagnant work in progress, I'll make note of a few tentative target skill bars:

Enraged Lunge bonus (max) = 80, Brutal Strike bonus (max, vs. foe <50% health) = 74... fairly close in damage. If I take both, I have approximately double firepower when the foe is under 50% health.

Enraged Lunge just edges out Brutal Strike. On my cap run to get it (with guildies who were so nice to help since I can't navigate in the city portion of Cantha at all), I offed Comfort Animal for my cap sig, no problems, pet got poisoned a few times (net degen -1) but never died. I think I'll go test Call of Haste+Predatory Bond.

Run as One is nice because at 16 Beast Mastery, it's maintainable for a constant 25% run boost for you and your pet. Plus, even though it's not really needed, its recharge helps fuel Enraged Lunge. To get max bonus damage, I just need three skills in addition to Enraged Lunge recharging (two of which will usually be Call of Protection and Symbiotic Bond).

I tested a variant with Disrupting Lunge, and let me tell you what a bad interrupt Disrupting Lunge is. It's just like all other pet attacks, i.e. it modifies the pet's next attack. Instead of forcing the pet to attack when you use it. Meaning you'll hardly ever interrupt anything that you actually wanted to interrupt. Interrupt foes by maiming them into little bits with Enraged Lunge, that'll show 'em.