Bonedancer Questions

[Turamber]

Been reading the spell lists for the bonedancer ... very impressive. Of course compared to Alb casters ALL Mid caster spell lines are better - certainly in terms of variety anyway.

Bah, off subject. I was wondering -- does the healing and buffing pet just buff the bonedancer or the people he is grouped with too?

And yes this does mean I'm toying with the idea of rolling one. Will have to be on the dreaded PvP server however, until GOA give us a co-op server (hopes).

Thanks in anticipation

 

[Fafnir]

Originally posted by Turamber
Been reading the spell lists for the bonedancer ... very impressive. Of course compared to Alb casters ALL Mid caster spell lines are better - certainly in terms of variety anyway.

Bah, off subject. I was wondering -- does the healing and buffing pet just buff the bonedancer or the people he is grouped with too?

And yes this does mean I'm toying with the idea of rolling one. Will have to be on the dreaded PvP server however, until GOA give us a co-op server (hopes).

Thanks in anticipation

The buffer/healer pet(s) buff and heal you and your pets, none in the group gets buffed or healed by your pets.

 

[Shike]

the healerpets also have some very funny tricks they can do, they can start to argue with the bone commander (resulting in a dead healerpet), they can run around in circles for ages (looks hilarious), they run off and drag mobs on the group that causes a wipe, otherwise than that, BDpets are ok imo.

 

[old.tuppe]

wonder what variety when compare BD to alb/hib casters?
supp line has only LT and some debufs, there you go.
BA army? dunno if true but oh hell if you use archer pet, and those dont shoot arrows before commander is meleeing target?!
make some guestions
same whit darkness line, no nukes before commander melee?
dunno if true but read this alott and so far it looks like working that way.

as supp specced whit my bd, keep agro on me.
have notice you need alott gc or rich main
armour goes down fast, jewels are soon destroyed.
allready necklace, copple ring and some other itams what have cast away.

tryed xp whit buffpet and commader, was doing alott better under 30 what whit healer pet, commander miss alott but cast buff pet, voila! commander start hit alott more.
was pulling whit LT.

using /formation protect.
this move healerpet behind commander -> other side me what commander is!.
when commander hit mob behind and i am keeping agro, behind commander is healerpet! and closer pulling area this way!.
protect formation and healer pet is usually behind me now!
if healer pet get agro, he start run away you but this time not to agro area, instead more safe area behind, more time "try" take agro back.

dont yet have tryed dungeons but soon visiting varulv and lets see how pets work there, good guess its bugged like hell

 

[_anarky_]

hell yhea it is, when healers take aggro from mob they start running into walls and don't come back

 

[Sharma]

Originally posted by _anarky_
hell yhea it is, when healers take aggro from mob they start running into walls and don't come back

watched that happen last night in Varulv

 

[Roo Stercogburn]

Darkness: Debuffer and nuker pets
Suppression: Healer and buffer pets
Bone Army: Archer and tank pets

Healer and buffer pets only affect the Boney that owns them.
Healer doesn't just heal, but gives a health regen, similar to Friggs.
Also, regardless of how high you spec suppression, healer pets always heal 15% health each time they cast. By not speccing sup, you just get a healer pet that can be one-shotted by high level mobs.
The first healer pet appears at 18 sup.

Problem with healer pets is that they will try to get a reasonable distance from caster to work their stuff, unfortunately the AI isn't smart enough to stop them agro'ing extra mobs. They don't fight other pets. Archer pets can have this problem, though its not usually as often. Healer pets will get themselves permanent agro by healing immediately they get hit, rather than waiting to see if someone else gets agro.

Tank pet (Bone Army) will fight commander from time to time.
Archer pet (Bone Army) will cause all pets to run off randomly after the odd fight, only way to prevent is to set to passive immediately after each fight, this is crucial in tightly packed dungeons.

There's probably more, but I've been in the pub with Hound and Nico

 

[Turamber]

So ... yet another bugged-to-hell pet class. Hohum. On paper (err on screen then!) the spec lines all look rather nice.


And Tuppe - some Albion caster classes have some utility in their spec lines (theurgist - mezz/nuke/pets/root; sorcerer - mezz/root/power-regen/nuke/debuffs etc) but I don't think Albion can touch the number of different abilities available to runies and spiritmasters.

Not a moan, just admiration

 

[Marcus75]

After playing 37 levels as a suppression BD I find the "crazy healer"-pet issue not such a problem... I may be way off but with an SCed staff(looks boring), I pull with a dot and then just hold aggro with lifetaps if needed.

In groups I usually dont use pets as they are hard to control in caves and withs bafs.

Feel free to post your BD tactics here... Im eager to hear about stuff I have yet to find out.

 

[Roo Stercogburn]

My boney is lvl37 atm. 18 sup, rest in bone army. I specced pure sup to 20 to try it out then respecced bone army. Atm I have 18 sup, everything else in BA. I can take orange cons with no downtime since getting MCL.

I found lots of downtime with bone army until I got sup back to 18 for the healer pet. This meant levels 25-29 were a bit hard while I recovered my spec to something viable.

When I hit level 30 it all came together and bloody hell did it rock.

Boney pets have some serious problems, but the important thing to remember is that ...

... they are seriously good fun.

I haven't decided what my final spec will be. I can only get online at weekends to play these days so levelling is slow.

I wasn't quite accurate in previous post:

Tank pets (not archer) fight commander pet once in a while and though you can set to passive or wait for commander to kill tank pet, as soon as you summon a new tank pet it will start fighting the commander again. The only way to fix this is to unsummon the commander and resummon all your pets. Without MCL, this is quite painful.

The pet team only ever runs off if an archer pet is summoned from my experience, though I can't comment on darkness pets.

And Healer pets ARE a pain in the neck: in DF they keep running into walls and getting agro while inside. You can't target the agroed mob and have to hope your commander can kill the agro. Healer pets need much better AI than they currently have for usage in tight spaces. In open field, they are fine though. Regardless of whether they actually bump into agro, you always have to keep one eye on them to make sure what is going on, in addition to tracking your current crop of mobs.

And like I said, despite these annoying problems, the class is LOTS of fun

 

[Fex]

Dark Boneys are the way to go. Respecced from supp to dark at lvl 20 mainly because i felt i was not a true caster, after tanking mobs for the first 20 levels. Anyhow the dark DD's work well together. Start off with the DD+Snare then use base DD untill the mob dies. The debuff pets are a little dangerous tho, one of there debuffs, the disease i think is AE so dont use them if your in a dungeon or a highly populated area. The Nuking pets are decent IMO they dont tend to do alot of damage but they do help to get the mob down.

 

[Cadire]

32 Supp Bonedancer here.

I usually fight with one healer and one un-named one

Tactics are a simple DoT, nuke, Lifetap, melee/lifetap until dead. The Bone Commander is smart enough to dispatch a fighter minion to any adds, which is nice.

The Healer minion can be a pain, especially in dungeons, as it tends to run away when it gets aggro. The ensuing 'Benny-Hill' style chase can be tiresome. I suppose it would help if the Healer pet actually called for help when it got hit, like the fighter pet does. Usually if the Healer gets aggro, the others stand idly by taking no notice at all.

The Bone Commander has styles which include stun and bleeding on the target. The fighter pet may have this ability also, though I've never seen it.

Power consumption is horrendous on the Bonedancer. I think this must be a bug, as specline power usage should preserve more power than it does.

Oh yeah, and it's great fun

 

[dozigden]

...

Tank pets (not archer) fight commander pet once in a while and though you can set to passive or wait for commander to kill tank pet, as soon as you summon a new tank pet it will start fighting the commander again. The only way to fix this is to unsummon the commander and resummon all your pets. Without MCL, this is quite painful.

...

BAD ROO!!!!!!

First rule of pet fight club - you dont talk about pet fight club!!

 

[Roo Stercogburn]

My pull style varies.

Me, as primary tank:

Load Bone Army staff.
Baseline DoT
Specline DoT
Send pets
(Optional, depending on distance to mob:
Load Darkness staff
1 nuke)
Load Suppression staff
Enter combat mode
Lifetap as required

Commander as primary tank:

Load Darkness staff
Send pets
Once commander hits mob, dex debuff mob
Load Bone Army staff
Once some damage done, baseline dot then specline dot.
Next it varies:
I may load dark staff and nuke a bit or load sup staff and go into combat mode.

These are both very power efficient ways of pulling though if you want to be lazy no need to switch staves, you just end up sitting down a while. Both these styles can take orange and red con mobs.

 

[Urgat Rip-Eye]

Tip

A tip for all you Sup Bonedancers...

If your healer gets aggro, and proceeds with the "Benny Hill" chase...

Set your pets to "Stay" - This usualy stops the healer from running around.

If that fails...

Set you pets to "Passive" and "follow" - This will stop the commander from attacking, but it will also ENSURE the healer pet returns to you. (Which will bring it out of walls - etc - thus ensuring you can see and target the mob to try and regain agro)

Also worth noting - While on passive - your healers still heal you/themselves/commander.

 

[Roo Stercogburn]

Yeh, those moves are lifesavers, especially when you've got those blasted quasits eyeing you up for lunch

 

[old.tuppe]

hmm different pull types i see

personally pull whit LT, send pets to mob, keep agro on me whit uber basestyle staff hits .
checking my health bar ( healer pet is forgotting me/too slow), if getting low, ~60% do LT again, same if healer/commader is getting agro.
next pull fill my hitpoints whit LT, reason why using LT pulling.
1 mob usually need 1-2 LT, include pull.

fights may last longer what dot, dd pulling but i am chaining yellow/orange continously.
MCL offcourse help some times, but example today 1 hour pulling wolverines, yellow, 2 time use MCL (baf).