Animals yay or nay?

[Brian]

From my initial impression, it seems like animals are something you go "all in on", as in like you theme your troop as wildmen or something, or you don't use them at all. I was thinking a single wolf would be cool for my archer lady that I made a Beastmaster, but it seems like the overhead (food) and initial non-controlabilty of the animal make it a pure burden. I don't want to dump a bunch of points into stuff that I only use for 1 character. Should I just respec my archer and let the wolf go?

[drake_hound]

If you want Roleplay things, those animal sure ads character to your team.
But do not go overboard with 0 Valour regeneration Animals.
Cause you would regret it. it isn't that Animals are not playable they are infact.
Sadly generating 0 valour, means sooner or later you are reduced to your basic attack.
Instead of tactical combat.

And if the wolf is a burden, just dump it, go get a BEAR, infact go get a Polar Bear.
The Bears are awesome in this game, superb tanks cause of the Health Pool (3000 HP at level 13 :P Takes atleast 8 Guards to beat it down) and they don't do shabby damage either.
For 2 valour you can easily kill anything with medium armour endgame mob. or strip all the heavy armour off any tanks.

[Lightning]

Yeah wolves are awesome and even the best with 3+ in your party each get 50% crit chance basically you can use animals to attack once then spam the BM attack skill once the wolves surround a boss or major hp enemy and they constantly widdle it down every use.

Yeah I need to level up still to get the better bears but for now at level 7 the alpha wolves are really shredding things up quite a bit

[Brian]

Originally posted by Lightning:

Yeah wolves are awesome and even the best with 3+ in your party each get 50% crit chance basically you can use animals to attack once then spam the BM attack skill once the wolves surround a boss or major hp enemy and they constantly widdle it down every use.

Yeah I need to level up still to get the better bears but for now at level 7 the alpha wolves are really shredding things up quite a bit

But my point is, if I'm just dabbling, it seems like the pay off isn't worth the overhead. I'd either have to go all-in as you're saying, or don't bother. Currently I have 1 alpha wolf.

[Dies Fourth]

Originally posted by Brian:

Originally posted by Lightning:

Yeah wolves are awesome and even the best with 3+ in your party each get 50% crit chance basically you can use animals to attack once then spam the BM attack skill once the wolves surround a boss or major hp enemy and they constantly widdle it down every use.

Yeah I need to level up still to get the better bears but for now at level 7 the alpha wolves are really shredding things up quite a bit

But my point is, if I'm just dabbling, it seems like the pay off isn't worth the overhead. I'd either have to go all-in as you're saying, or don't bother. Currently I have 1 alpha wolf.

Ive never had any animal that lasted very long.

But imo if you have other " real " archers a beastmaster might be interesting ?

The problem i see is if it takes along time to level any animal and you somehow lose it is it to much a nightmare to level another 1 ?

Or when you capture another wild animal is it scaled up to the level or your troop ?

And how long till you can control it ? And can that archer get enough xp by killing w/o its points being spent on skills that actually make it dangerous ?

just puttin in my .02 cents, if im dumb just ignore me

[drake_hound]

Any Animal you capture same way as prisoners retain their level.
So if you capture a level 13 Animal, you got yourself a Level 13 Animal.

If you capture a level 3 Animal, while your party is level 12, then your animal is level 3.
Simple as that.

[Schrobes]

A review on here touched on this very topic and essentially said that animals beyond bears are near game breakingly bad.

[drake_hound]

Originally posted by Schrobes:

A review on here touched on this very topic and essentially said that animals beyond bears are near game breakingly bad.

They are game breaking bad, but they are still playable, they are like giving yourself a huge handicap.
And infact depending on your party, baby sitting 1-3 Animals isn't a big deal.

[Schrobes]

"-Capturing injured enemies and animals is a wonderful mechanic but its incredibly underpowered and should be avoided unless attempting to capture a powerful animal. The animal that you capture will be considered a new company member and will artificially inflate your company numbers against the next enemies you encounter. Perfectly fine if you have captured or bought a bear, but a wolf, or a boar? They are nothing but fodder and will get you killed against enemies more powerful than them." -from a reviewer on here.

[drake_hound]

Originally posted by Schrobes:

"-Capturing injured enemies and animals is a wonderful mechanic but its incredibly underpowered and should be avoided unless attempting to capture a powerful animal. The animal that you capture will be considered a new company member and will artificially inflate your company numbers against the next enemies you encounter. Perfectly fine if you have captured or bought a bear, but a wolf, or a boar? They are nothing but fodder and will get you killed against enemies more powerful than them." -from a reviewer on here.

I agree I had fun finding special Prisoners with skill tree, capturing Animals.
Sadly the problem with all those Animals and Prisoners is that they do not GENERATE valour.
Thus in the end game become a BURDEN. since Valour Generation and more attacks is needed to kill oppenents who have 60% damage reduction in heavy armour. 500 HP combined at the minimal.
Or overpowered level 14 ITEMS (gee what a poor excuse of being item heavy nonesense, when you have to get Overpowered items again to make prisoners play trough work)

[Fredenhal]

If your looking to have a wolf just to have a wolf then I'd suggest you get a bacon collar for it to free up your archer. It is a handicap though, moreso on adaptive difficulty.

[drake_hound]

Originally posted by Fredenhal:

If your looking to have a wolf just to have a wolf then I'd suggest you get a bacon collar for it to free up your archer. It is a slight handicap though, moreso on adaptive difficulty.

Why do you need to free up your Archer from Beastmastery?
Beast Mastery is one of the best passive, it not only allows you to control your animal.
It also heals your animal. and thus free up your animal slot for even MORE HEALING.

Nobody is saying you should go full Beastmastery tree, or cannot criss cross combine passive and active.

[Kexin]

As soon as I captured a boar I immediately got my ass kicked in a fights where I usually mop up and he's a massive resource hog. In fact its not the boar's faults. Its the game's moronic combat scaling based and the over importance of moral galvanization above all else.

[drake_hound]

Originally posted by Kexin:

As soon as I captured a boar I immediately got my ass kicked in a fights where I usually mop up and he's a massive resource hog. In fact its not the boar's faults. Its the game's moronic combat scaling based and the over importance of moral galvanization above all else.

I don't even bother with Galvanization never did, if I was so bothered by it, I would have taken a Spearman Fury.. that is 50% more damage too each round.
Galvanization is nice, but they slowed it down, even with a Willpower 25 character equiped with a Moral gain per kill. (yes I still have one toon with willpower 25)

In the end it is the same, I end up having surrender at 3-4 left. instead of the past at 25% left the enemy runs away.

[Fredenhal]

Originally posted by drake_hound:

Originally posted by Fredenhal:

If your looking to have a wolf just to have a wolf then I'd suggest you get a bacon collar for it to free up your archer. It is a slight handicap though, moreso on adaptive difficulty.

Why do you need to free up your Archer from Beastmastery?
Beast Mastery is one of the best passive, it not only allows you to control your animal.
It also heals your animal. and thus free up your animal slot for even MORE HEALING.

Nobody is saying you should go full Beastmastery tree, or cannot criss cross combine passive and active.

I suggested this because he said he only had 1 animal and didn't want to invest points into it if it was going to be a burden. Bacon collar would allow him to do just that.

[drake_hound]

I always take beastmastery on my Archer. never really hurt my archer who taken Barrage.
My Barrage still hits for 500-700 on a critical.
But that is more cause my strategy table has 20% more damage on oppertunity attacks.

Infact I have started to use Barrage again, since the endgame Mobs are so annoyingly tanky at level 13.

So unless somebody builds a vicious shot build, I can't understand why they would skip on Beastmastery Passive.