Guide to Creature Handler
Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2020 10:33 am
There is plenty of information out there so I thought I would cover things that are less general and maybe more specific to the server. So I've combined a few posts I've made to plonk most of the useful info in one spot.
1) Go Singing Mountain Clan - if you don't go that way have a very good reason not to as you will have to accept a reduction of 25% damage output or 15-20% survivability for your pets at max level as the compromise for not going Singing Mountain Clan.
2) Go up the 4xxx line first. You want to be able to tame vicious creatures too this is the line that gives it. CH XP scales with how far up a line you've gone - you will get more XP at 2000 than at 1111 for example.
3) Before you start get Bio-engineered clothing with +25 taming and +25 vicious creature taming. Or tape up to +25.
4) Accept pets grow every day and it takes time - this won't show in the datapad - get them out and restore to see their growth. Top end pets will take a week to grow. Yep, it's frustrating and requires patience. If you don't have patience this probably is not the profession for you though. Plan ahead.
5) Look at a pets resists a pet with 200 HP and 100% Resist to Stun can be hit for 20000 stun damage and not lose any health. The look at my 17k HAM superbeast with 5% Stun Resist crowd won't feel so cool when they see their brute one-shotted. Light armour works like the armour you wear it reduces damage - you want it for a pet that actively tanks. Power equates to damage. Some specials will show on pets but don't work so don't excited that you've seen a bio-engineered pet that has something fantastic check they do work first. If the bio-engineer knows their craft they won't have done this for anything other than a show pet. If they tell you all specials stick consider going elsewhere. Get to know a good bio-engineer so you can get custom stuff made. Know DOT attacks are influenced by Battle Fatigue. So overtime the same special will be more damaging. Disease causes Battle Fatigue but poison does not. A knocked down target will take 1.5 x damage. Enraged pets do 1.15 x damage.
6) Pets suck at PVP - you can annoy people at best.
7) Pet specials don't last long when they stick. So you need to spam them.
8) Train pets and /tellpet command. Macro that stuff so you do it quickly. Learn to control pets early so you don't lose the ones that took you ages to buy.
9) Don't expect any pet to be the jack-of-all trades. Pets perform functions very specific functions. Know what you want it to do and and pick the right tool. Don't whack in a screw with a hammer and complain about the hammer or the screw!
10) Make a decision before engaging - who is that target going to try and kill me or my pet. Make sure the targets focus is on the one who can survive its attacks. Creature Handlers can take down all Master Bounty Hunter marks, krayts, and DJMs with ease. Not always as fast as some other templates for sure but you can often do these things without great weapons, unbuffed with a bit of food, and you don't even need armour for a fair bit of it too.
Plenty of Creature Handlers are doing end-game content every day. They likely won't tell you how they do it - that's for you to find out. Sometimes it's about the journey not the destination
Possible templates or ones we use:
M.CH/M.Rifles/Ranger0040/Marksman4004
M.CH/M.BH/Pistoleer0010
M.CH/M.Rifles/Scout4444/Squad Leader 0013
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A Bio-Engineer will likely make most of the "functional" pets you use. You only really 'need' very few "wild" caught pets. I believe of the wild ones only 3 are functionally better than what a Bio-Engineer can make. They are:
1) wampa (Hoth) - great damage sponge; high health + medium armour, annoying KD attack and weak AOE damage
2) nerf (Tanaab) - very fast mount
3) birds (Naboo, Endor, etc) - birds can only be tamed from the "wild" not made.
Bio-Engineers use DNA to make a pet template they then apply that to a pet "skin".
Pet Skin for the Creature largely determines:
1) The pet's appearance.
2) The pet's speed (kimos and cats being the fastest)
3) If the pet is potentially mountable.
4) If the pet can do a ranged attack (ranged attack can be turned on and off).
5) What special attacks the pet can do.
Pet Defence
Resists cap at 100% with the exception of kinetic and energy which both cap at 60%. You will never get all the full caps on a pet. You need to decide what it's for and what it's not and chose accordingly.
Health, Action, and Mind cap just over 17000.
Only light armour is achievable.
Pet Offense
Power/damage caps around 840. This is hard to get unless compromises are made elsewhere.
Damage and attack speed govern DPS. Damage alone governs DOT strength for disease and poison along with the actual DOT attack. Don't accept anything other than Plague Strike for disease or Strong Poison for poison DOTs. Anything else is underpowered or won't actually apply in practice. There is no point having something that appears good if it doesn't actually work
If you want to DOT just look at damage. Damage will never be maxed out on a pet with for example with 100% electric resist unless someone does an awful lot of work.
To Hit is obvious but you have to accept pets don't hit accurately because they can spam attacks for no cost to your HAM. That's the balance.
So what exactly can a BE do for you that is useful:
Make 100% Electric resist pets for Master Bounty Hunter missions.
Make DOT pets that will tick like the top-end MCM poisons and diseases even if they are using exceptional components.
Make pets that will AOE intimidate, AOE stun, AOE blind, AOE dizzy, and AOE knockdown all on the same pet.
Make ranged pets to pull end-game NPCs
What can't a BE do for you:
Make you all creatures you can tame in the wild. Some things are just nice to have because you want them. Not everything has to be functional. Aesthetics does have a quality of it's own.
They can't make you birds.
They can't make you a wampa.
They can't make you something that will do DPS of any significant amount bar using DOTs.
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I think it's an important concept to decide before any engagement who engages and who is designed to take agro from the target. Do an /examine - who can take that on best you or your pet? Whoever, that is will likely attack first.
Let's say you want to take a krayt on as a rifles/ch template. Well no pet is really going to stand and bang with an ancient krayt by itself let's make that clear from the off. Even when guarding a Mando as a support it a single heal over the course of a fight from someone. Don't forget that /embolden works as a heal and should maybe be used as such. A single /embolden is all I need for an ancient.
Now krayts have tasty resists - our T21 is going to diddly squat to that krayt until they've dropped - so how can a pet help us here? Well our pet can apply disease - this will accumulate battle fatigue on the krayt and this will halve it's resists over time. Poison will also bypass these resists. Also battle fatigue acts as a multiplier on our disease and poison so what may be underwhelming at the start of a fight will be taking chunks out by the end.
Also, we need to think a little about game mechanics here - do we open up with our T21 when resists are high? That would be not ideal - why don't we get a Tenloss with maxed wound (damage really doesn't count here) and put some wound increase powerups on it - mine does just under 99% wounds. We then chip in and help that battle fatigue accumulate from the off when the resists drop to 70% then we switch to the T21. Weaponsmiths always seem to make +++ damage stuff so you are going to have to approach them to make this for you. For some reason no-one makes this stuff - I am not sure why?!?
Also have a chat with a droid engineer - if you have scout x4xx in your template you can make some adhesive traps and put them in a trap droid and tell that little chap to spam traps at the krayts and root it in place. Krayts are quick you won't be able to kite them effectively without this.
However, say you are doing the Master Bounty Hunter missions and specifically the Rogue Bounty Hunter mission recognise that chap uses a pretty brutal Lightning Cannon. You don't want to get hit by that - however, a 100% electric resist pet won't care and take no damage - use one and go afk.
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I can't emphasise enough - name your pets. When you /tellpet attack what the game first does is look for something in the immediate environment called attack - then second it goes Oh no you want the pet to attack. How often in discord do you see people saying the can't move furniture and it's always the backpack on the floor because /move back is first trying to /move backpack but how do you want to move it you never said as far as it's concerned.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I usually spare fully grown grind pets on me so if you want to start message me on Discord. I've put this here because it may indicate you've read this properly which implies attention to detail and that you are more likely to succeed. Or check the HTFU vendor if you've cash to burn.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hope this helps.
Discord - Volcane - **BIO-ENGINEERED PETS XF-TQL, Lok: 4476, -5476**
1) Go Singing Mountain Clan - if you don't go that way have a very good reason not to as you will have to accept a reduction of 25% damage output or 15-20% survivability for your pets at max level as the compromise for not going Singing Mountain Clan.
2) Go up the 4xxx line first. You want to be able to tame vicious creatures too this is the line that gives it. CH XP scales with how far up a line you've gone - you will get more XP at 2000 than at 1111 for example.
3) Before you start get Bio-engineered clothing with +25 taming and +25 vicious creature taming. Or tape up to +25.
4) Accept pets grow every day and it takes time - this won't show in the datapad - get them out and restore to see their growth. Top end pets will take a week to grow. Yep, it's frustrating and requires patience. If you don't have patience this probably is not the profession for you though. Plan ahead.
5) Look at a pets resists a pet with 200 HP and 100% Resist to Stun can be hit for 20000 stun damage and not lose any health. The look at my 17k HAM superbeast with 5% Stun Resist crowd won't feel so cool when they see their brute one-shotted. Light armour works like the armour you wear it reduces damage - you want it for a pet that actively tanks. Power equates to damage. Some specials will show on pets but don't work so don't excited that you've seen a bio-engineered pet that has something fantastic check they do work first. If the bio-engineer knows their craft they won't have done this for anything other than a show pet. If they tell you all specials stick consider going elsewhere. Get to know a good bio-engineer so you can get custom stuff made. Know DOT attacks are influenced by Battle Fatigue. So overtime the same special will be more damaging. Disease causes Battle Fatigue but poison does not. A knocked down target will take 1.5 x damage. Enraged pets do 1.15 x damage.
6) Pets suck at PVP - you can annoy people at best.
7) Pet specials don't last long when they stick. So you need to spam them.
8) Train pets and /tellpet command. Macro that stuff so you do it quickly. Learn to control pets early so you don't lose the ones that took you ages to buy.
9) Don't expect any pet to be the jack-of-all trades. Pets perform functions very specific functions. Know what you want it to do and and pick the right tool. Don't whack in a screw with a hammer and complain about the hammer or the screw!
10) Make a decision before engaging - who is that target going to try and kill me or my pet. Make sure the targets focus is on the one who can survive its attacks. Creature Handlers can take down all Master Bounty Hunter marks, krayts, and DJMs with ease. Not always as fast as some other templates for sure but you can often do these things without great weapons, unbuffed with a bit of food, and you don't even need armour for a fair bit of it too.
Plenty of Creature Handlers are doing end-game content every day. They likely won't tell you how they do it - that's for you to find out. Sometimes it's about the journey not the destination
Possible templates or ones we use:
M.CH/M.Rifles/Ranger0040/Marksman4004
M.CH/M.BH/Pistoleer0010
M.CH/M.Rifles/Scout4444/Squad Leader 0013
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Bio-Engineer will likely make most of the "functional" pets you use. You only really 'need' very few "wild" caught pets. I believe of the wild ones only 3 are functionally better than what a Bio-Engineer can make. They are:
1) wampa (Hoth) - great damage sponge; high health + medium armour, annoying KD attack and weak AOE damage
2) nerf (Tanaab) - very fast mount
3) birds (Naboo, Endor, etc) - birds can only be tamed from the "wild" not made.
Bio-Engineers use DNA to make a pet template they then apply that to a pet "skin".
Pet Skin for the Creature largely determines:
1) The pet's appearance.
2) The pet's speed (kimos and cats being the fastest)
3) If the pet is potentially mountable.
4) If the pet can do a ranged attack (ranged attack can be turned on and off).
5) What special attacks the pet can do.
Pet Defence
Resists cap at 100% with the exception of kinetic and energy which both cap at 60%. You will never get all the full caps on a pet. You need to decide what it's for and what it's not and chose accordingly.
Health, Action, and Mind cap just over 17000.
Only light armour is achievable.
Pet Offense
Power/damage caps around 840. This is hard to get unless compromises are made elsewhere.
Damage and attack speed govern DPS. Damage alone governs DOT strength for disease and poison along with the actual DOT attack. Don't accept anything other than Plague Strike for disease or Strong Poison for poison DOTs. Anything else is underpowered or won't actually apply in practice. There is no point having something that appears good if it doesn't actually work
If you want to DOT just look at damage. Damage will never be maxed out on a pet with for example with 100% electric resist unless someone does an awful lot of work.
To Hit is obvious but you have to accept pets don't hit accurately because they can spam attacks for no cost to your HAM. That's the balance.
So what exactly can a BE do for you that is useful:
Make 100% Electric resist pets for Master Bounty Hunter missions.
Make DOT pets that will tick like the top-end MCM poisons and diseases even if they are using exceptional components.
Make pets that will AOE intimidate, AOE stun, AOE blind, AOE dizzy, and AOE knockdown all on the same pet.
Make ranged pets to pull end-game NPCs
What can't a BE do for you:
Make you all creatures you can tame in the wild. Some things are just nice to have because you want them. Not everything has to be functional. Aesthetics does have a quality of it's own.
They can't make you birds.
They can't make you a wampa.
They can't make you something that will do DPS of any significant amount bar using DOTs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think it's an important concept to decide before any engagement who engages and who is designed to take agro from the target. Do an /examine - who can take that on best you or your pet? Whoever, that is will likely attack first.
Let's say you want to take a krayt on as a rifles/ch template. Well no pet is really going to stand and bang with an ancient krayt by itself let's make that clear from the off. Even when guarding a Mando as a support it a single heal over the course of a fight from someone. Don't forget that /embolden works as a heal and should maybe be used as such. A single /embolden is all I need for an ancient.
Now krayts have tasty resists - our T21 is going to diddly squat to that krayt until they've dropped - so how can a pet help us here? Well our pet can apply disease - this will accumulate battle fatigue on the krayt and this will halve it's resists over time. Poison will also bypass these resists. Also battle fatigue acts as a multiplier on our disease and poison so what may be underwhelming at the start of a fight will be taking chunks out by the end.
Also, we need to think a little about game mechanics here - do we open up with our T21 when resists are high? That would be not ideal - why don't we get a Tenloss with maxed wound (damage really doesn't count here) and put some wound increase powerups on it - mine does just under 99% wounds. We then chip in and help that battle fatigue accumulate from the off when the resists drop to 70% then we switch to the T21. Weaponsmiths always seem to make +++ damage stuff so you are going to have to approach them to make this for you. For some reason no-one makes this stuff - I am not sure why?!?
Also have a chat with a droid engineer - if you have scout x4xx in your template you can make some adhesive traps and put them in a trap droid and tell that little chap to spam traps at the krayts and root it in place. Krayts are quick you won't be able to kite them effectively without this.
However, say you are doing the Master Bounty Hunter missions and specifically the Rogue Bounty Hunter mission recognise that chap uses a pretty brutal Lightning Cannon. You don't want to get hit by that - however, a 100% electric resist pet won't care and take no damage - use one and go afk.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I can't emphasise enough - name your pets. When you /tellpet attack what the game first does is look for something in the immediate environment called attack - then second it goes Oh no you want the pet to attack. How often in discord do you see people saying the can't move furniture and it's always the backpack on the floor because /move back is first trying to /move backpack but how do you want to move it you never said as far as it's concerned.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I usually spare fully grown grind pets on me so if you want to start message me on Discord. I've put this here because it may indicate you've read this properly which implies attention to detail and that you are more likely to succeed. Or check the HTFU vendor if you've cash to burn.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hope this helps.
Discord - Volcane - **BIO-ENGINEERED PETS XF-TQL, Lok: 4476, -5476**