BE Combo's?

[Narph]

Ok, so I'm working my way to MBE before I really start seriously on CH, but as I read various boards and start to understand what a BE can and can't do, I can't help but plan how best to use that to my advantage as a CH. What I'd like to know, is how effective is it to attempt strategy with a trio of pets? For example.... I had thought that making a tank and 2 ranged pets might work well..... the tank would have minimal dmg and no specials to keep his cl down and the reverse for the other two.... would the tank be able to keep aggro? would the other two stay back and shoot? or would it just turn into a gagglefook with everybody randomly attacking whatever happened to look ugliest to them at that particular moment?

Narph

[Nytar]

I made it to MCH and am still working on MBE atm.

In some scenarios, I take 2 pets out: one tank and the other ranged support. Since the tank doesn't have a ranged attack, when I order pets to use \"ranged attack\" only the support pet turns on its ranged. The strategy works well against a single opponent.

However, if there is more than one target, this does not work as we would like it to. Your support pet has a good chance of getting attacked.
It especially gets chaotic when I do faction missions. As a rebel, I do Stormtrooper missions. As stormies tend to run, pet management gets very difficult.

From my experience, using a tank and ranged support(s) works well against \"one\" tough mob, but not against multiple targets. For multiple targets, I would use two (or maybe three?) equally tough pets so both of them can tank.

[Lantyssa]

If you use one tank and one ranged pet, you have to send the tank in first. Otherwise the ranged pet will draw aggro with its attack and end up the tank. This gets more difficult to accomplish as you fight more things as Nytar said.

I prefer to have two pets of roughly equal abilities as either can act as the tank and neither has a major weakness. (I have not tried to make triplets and pairs work well enough for me.)

The damage output will be roughly the same regardless of whether you have one, two or three pets that add up to the same CL. You can shuffle the damage around, but there won't be much benefit unless you have a spare high-damage non-tank pet and use all three of these when someone else is acting in that capacity.

[Narph]

Ok, that makes a lot of sense to me now that I think about it..... what about specials that work well in combo(I realize not entirely reliable atm, but still)? Any thoughts on that? Are we able to clone any of the AE specials? Are they worthwhile at all? is it better to have all 2-3 pets have the same specials? or a wider variety? Have you found with these multiple tanking pets that armor and resists is better or higher damage? Again, thanx VERY much for the info.

Narph

[larsonny]

I've hunted quite abit, and I prefer two pets. Though one as the attacker, and one as the bodyguard. I've trained the bodyguard pet with a different attack command then my attackers. This keeps the bodyguard next to me just incase I get aggro, otherwise he usually doesnt go in on the initial attack.

I find that this works well with 2 - 3 target nests. Also you have to watch where you and your targets are to help ensure that you draw the least amount of aggro. Four and 4+ target nests are a little trickier, make sure that you give your attacker a minute to draw aggro or use a 3 pet team (2 attackers, one bodyguard), if your pets can handle the damage.

As far as types, I've found that wild rancors work just fine as attackers and my bodyguard to this point has been just a wild Mountain Dewback. This combo works well up to about CL 55(+ a little) critters. Though I've also a MBE toon which is now creating highly custom pets for my MCH.

In my experience ranged are nice for grinding and added damage, though not powerful enough for tactical importance in most groups or even solo. Use that 2nd pet as a bodyguard with /tellpet guard. It will save on trips to the cloning terminal.

my 2cents, happy hunting
- Lars

[Lantyssa]

My current combination of specials is one pet with stun/intimidate and a second with dizzy/cripple strike. The first pet gives a 70% damage reduction while the second gives me a big advantage against NPCs. It doesn't help much against creatures, but I don't have to do pet swapping since the first has the specials I want.

A good combination might be strong poison/intimidate and strong poison/stun to get the benefits of those and the possibility of two DoTs. They will stack, but unfortunately you cannot command poison to go off. (In this set-up, a third pet with poison/blind could be very useful.)