Drake tanking videos
Tonk the Giant Slayer!
That is one beast lizard. I wonder if he could survive against the troll in queensdale.
Think how much better good ol’ Tonk will be once Chomp is fixed and actually heals HIMSELF and not the mob :{
Tonk the Giant Slayer!
That is one beast lizard. I wonder if he could survive against the troll in queensdale.
Probably, giants hit harder!
My love able Wolfy companion Wilson has done this with Nageling, except I used stone spirit + dodge rolls for prot instead.
Didn’t know about the other giant… I must hunt him!!
They sing dark, delicious notes about power and family.
As their mother, I have to grant them their wish. – Forever Fyonna
As their mother, I have to grant them their wish. – Forever Fyonna
Think how much better good ol’ Tonk will be once Chomp is fixed and actually heals HIMSELF and not the mob :{
That would be nice, although (in L80 terms) he gets over 900 HPS, so that’s only equivalent of missing an extra sec or two of healing. It’s stupid, but not enough to break anything.
Guard isn’t just for tanking bosses. See a zerg? Send your pet in invisible, with protection, and allow him to pick his own targets. See what happens.
Mister Flingy has tanked a couple Legendaries for the entire fight (and I was soloing them, so they were very long fights.)
How on earth did you do that? :O
What specc?
I can do thirty Five-Dolyak Arm Curls.
Do you even lift, bro?
Do you even lift, bro?
How on earth did you do that? :O
What specc?
Looks like a pretty typical beastmaster/bunker build. Dreadfully boring to play.
Those armadillos would be a lot cooler if they looked more like real armadillos. mmm armadillos
-BnooMaGoo.5690
-BnooMaGoo.5690
Mister Flingy has tanked a couple Legendaries for the entire fight (and I was soloing them, so they were very long fights.)
Devourers are awesome. I wish I could do the insane things you pull off, but I’m just not that good. You could make much more interesting videos.
How on earth did you do that? :O
What specc?
I’m running 0/0/20/20/30. Full details at http://garik.fastmail.fm/boon_swap.html.
Looks like a pretty typical beastmaster/bunker build. Dreadfully boring to play.
Agreed. Most people would hate it.
How on earth did you do that? :O
What specc?
Looks like a pretty typical beastmaster/bunker build. Dreadfully boring to play.
O.o are you the guy whose soloed CM? Or nearly did?.
And I know Me, Wilson, and Clucky have soloed the entirety of the Dwayna temple (everyone else was too busy dying to Lyssa) it took, FOREVER.
They sing dark, delicious notes about power and family.
As their mother, I have to grant them their wish. – Forever Fyonna
As their mother, I have to grant them their wish. – Forever Fyonna
How on earth did you do that? :O
What specc?
Looks like a pretty typical beastmaster/bunker build. Dreadfully boring to play.
O.o are you the guy whose soloed CM? Or nearly did?.
No.
I actually can’t come up with a trait build that satisfies everything I want from my ranger.
I want 4 things: piercing arrows, quick draw, martial mastery, and loud whistle. Unfortunately, I have to give up one of those things for lack of points to spend. So far, I’ve settled on giving up piercing arrows.
Those armadillos would be a lot cooler if they looked more like real armadillos. mmm armadillos
-BnooMaGoo.5690
-BnooMaGoo.5690
That is one beast lizard. I wonder if he could survive against the troll in queensdale.
Seems like not, although trying was fun.
The major issue seems to be the bleeds the troll stacks which, of course, ignore toughness & protection. He lays bleeds on six stacks at a time in melee range. I can counter that by putting the spring under Tonk, but that only helps half the time.
It’s hard to get much solo time with him. The troll must be pulled from the cave with the grubs, as drake cleaves will get them all into the fray, and they respawn quickly. Even in the cave, the troll is a popular event, and people come running, even on lower population servers.
Pets aren’t useless in the fight, especially ranged ones, but the kind of tanking that Tonk did with the giants doesn’t seem feasible.
More ideas for targets?
Hehe I had a feeling the cave troll would be too hard. What about the giant shark in Sparkfly fen?
Assuming you mean the Champion Risen Megalodon, no, not even close to possible. That thing’s damage is way too high, and shreds armor fish and devourer, let alone drake. The one in the straits of devastation is just as bad.
The giant shark is brutal and usually destroys anything in the water. The trick is to shoot on land. If it swims away, jump back into the water to get its attention, get out of the water, and repeat.
It takes time, but it can be soloed.
Yes, I’ve soloed both doing this.
Gone to Reddit.
Assuming you mean the Champion Risen Megalodon, no, not even close to possible. That thing’s damage is way too high, and shreds armor fish and devourer, let alone drake. The one in the straits of devastation is just as bad.
I’ve soloed the one in Karka Land, granted my pet died a good many times during that fight…
They sing dark, delicious notes about power and family.
As their mother, I have to grant them their wish. – Forever Fyonna
As their mother, I have to grant them their wish. – Forever Fyonna
I didn’t mean it couldn’t be soloed, although I’m skeptical whether I could. I meant it can’t be tanked by a pet.
Daemon Hawk,
Nice write up on your build and thanks for sharing the entertaining video. I do have a couple of questions, or it can provide some food for thought:
- Why not apothecary gear over cleric’s (at least for the weapons and armor)? It seems that would increase your kill speed without sacrificing the healing power.
- Have you considered using Bowl of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew ? With the high up time of vigor you can provide a lot of might from dodging to both you and your pet.
Thanks for the kind words, Beta.
Power seems to do more for me than condition damage, at least in my testing. I don’t have my notes, but I tested the DPS loss on practice dummies by going naked, and it worked out to a bit better than 1 DPS : 4 Power. Since burning and 5 stacks of bleeds, both scale at 1 DPS : 4 Condition Damage, it was a bit more favorable to go power.
If I habitually got in melee range for splitblade, that will give 5 stacks of bleed for 6 sec on a 6 sec cooldown, and I could keep burning up 14 secs out of 20 between bonfire & throw torch, even without the sun spirit. That’s enough condition damage to tip the scale, but I don’t generally like to get quite that close.
Also, power helps tear down inanimate targets, whereas condition damage does not. Burning’s base damage is pretty high too, even with no condition damage. Still, I really should repeat my experiments to make sure that I’m right about getting better DPS this way.
I have some of that stew that I’ve been meaning to experiment with. I expect 7.5 sec of might for me, and 15 sec for the pet, which is certainly enough to be interesting, especially with 2 dodges per 10 seconds available from vigor. I should be dodging a lot more than I have been, for the sake of stacking protection on the pet. The barrier is technical.
I play almost exclusively with my right hand, using a 4-button trackball. I move with the right+left button combo. I’ve got button 3 set to jump, and button 4 set to dodge. The dodge button works great, but the jump button (left + right + 3 to jump forward) is terrible. I fail so badly at jumping puzzles! If I could manage to get button 3 to either do an about face or a dodge forward, I could do a lot more dodge + dodge back combinations, and this would greatly improve my game. I’d just have to W + spacebar to make the jump after lining it up. I’ve tried unsuccessfully to get either binding to work, both natively with the GW2 options and externally with the mouse driver. I’ve been meaning to give Autohotkey a shot to see if I can get that to work.
Incidentally, my inability to simultaneously move and act is the reason I play a “boring” support beastmaster. It’s the most effective turret build for any class that I’ve come up with. My play skills have to be in the bottom 1%, but my guild still finds me to be an asset. I’m thankful for that.
(edited by Daemon Hawk.9406)
This is pretty much the build I’ve decided I’m probably going to run as well, with a few utility / trait differences. I really enjoy supporting my pet personally, don’t find it boring or anything.
I usually run Guard and Sick’em over spirits. I do occassionally switch in spirits as well (and traps for that matter) just for variety because I don’t like to be completely static, but I like the shouts the most I think. Guard dropping aggro IS annoying though less so since the last patch, but the Protection from it is just too useful, and the stealth is actually really nice at the start of a battle so that enemies aren’t moving prior to your pet engaging (NPCs chasing your pet at the start often leads to both parties running past one another I find, and puts enemies closer to you). Have to try and use it with something like Axe #3 so that enemies don’t get much chance to run before the pet reappears in the middle of combat. I also will sometimes run Battle Cry (Charr racial utility) instead of Sick’em, works quite well with this sort of build since its basically a second Call of the Wild.
And of course, when using shouts I use the shout cooldown trait. I also tend to prefer either the 20% F2 cooldown or the 10% pet skill cooldown traits (really wish the later was 20% as well), just because abilities tend to be the best damage a pet can output.
I’m never very happy with the traits in Nature Magic. Even if I am using spirits, the spirit traits never seem that useful. Keeping spirits alive via HP seems like a lost cause to me, either they’re going to die regardless of an HP boost or you place them right so they don’t get hit. More frequent procs is useless on something with an internal cooldown. Nature’s Protection and Enlargement are based on me getting hit, which I usually avoid. I basically end up running Strength of Spirit and Nature’s Bounty just because there’s nothing else (unless I’m running GS in which case I’ll use Two-Handed Training, or using a pet that applies boons where I’ll use Concentration Training).
Wilderness Survival, definately need Offhand Training. Even if its only for Warhorn (which it often is, my favorite weapon combo is Axe / WH and Greatsword) its still worth it. More pet buffs and a wider range on those buffs, yes please. First slot is a competition between Vigorous Renewal and Expertise Training, which are both great. Wish VR was in Nature Magic so I could run both, and have something actually useful in Nature Magic.
I wish I could get to 10 in Skirmishing so I could pick up Pets Prowess, but that would mean losing 20 in Wilderness Survival and Offhand training (well, and losing 20 in Nature Magic, but thats… eh, besides Boon Duration wouldn’t hurt me at all).
But thats all just me, just my own personal build and me talking out loud about it just because. The only actual suggestion I’d make for you would be maybe looking at Expertise Training over Vigorous Renewal, especially if you aren’t dodging constantly, because with the Drake / Devourer bleed-on-crit and Sun Spirit having that extra condition damage for your pet might really help.
Drakes are nice but I like them for the aoe, I find wolves to be the best tanks better than bears aslong as you can keep regen rolling.
The only actual suggestion I’d make for you would be maybe looking at Expertise Training over Vigorous Renewal, especially if you aren’t dodging constantly, because with the Drake / Devourer bleed-on-crit and Sun Spirit having that extra condition damage for your pet might really help.
You’re right! It is a better pick for me, and I was so focussed on how overpowered AOE perma vigor was on paper, I was missing how under used it was in practice. Even with my new about-face mousebinding (go go Autohotkey), 3 dodges per 20 seconds is enough. Robert Hrouda mentioned making vigor do something useful for pets, and that might swing things back, but for now this is a definite plus.
(edited by Daemon Hawk.9406)