Ok, so having read all the comments since last night I wanted to test out some ideas in Covetous and see what happened. With a bit of trepidation I grabbed my old cu and off we went. Bear in mind my bard tamer has old equipment and I've only just brought her account back in game so I'm rather out of practice playing a bard. In fact, she hasn't been to Covetous level 3 at all lol.
Ok, first trip I took a cu, and between not being up to speed and the cu not doing a ton of damage level 3 was rather dicey to start with. Only died twice though, both caused by monsters targeting me directly rather than while I was vetting. I took care to pull my pet back a bit so the spawn moved around to the other side and gave me space to vet. I wasn't really barding much with the cu, just watching how he fared against the different spawn in there and trying to observe any vetting issues. And we started off with a whole pack of spawn at the entrance so the start was a lot more challenging initially. Once everyone was spawning more evenly over the level it was a lot easier.
I went back to the stables to see how I got on with a greater dragon. I know, Wenchy using a greater... mind the flying pigs in kilts
But the only issue I had there was keeping up with loot and watching the residents didn't target me over the room and jump me. If my pet was swamped I was careful, but Huffenpuff isn't an uber dragon, he never went below half health with me taking care to time my vets to safer times. And taking care to not swamp him in spawn. Once I was started provoking and discording the spawn too then it was a blast. Challenging and keeping me on my toes but damn I liked it!
Some tactics to try...
Firstly, rather than send pets in to a group of spawn and going to them to vet, call the pet back to you. This sometimes gets the spawn to the rear of your pet so you have a clear spot to vet from. It also saves your pet collecting too much spawn. Sometimes just taking a step or two back and calling a pet will give you time to slap on a bandage while the spawn regroups around you. I tend to give a kill command, target one critter in the spawn then immediately "all stop/all follow me" to pull the pet back. That tends to pull a few of the surrounding spawn onto my pet but not the whole dungeon. This is a similar tactic I used for paragons so I didn't have to move and get them re-targeting on me. You can also let your pet chew the group of spawn till it's thinned out, then pull it back to try creating a space and then vet.
The other tactic more suited to areas where you have a longer path you can retreat along, is lead vetting. In other words if your pet is struggling you tell it to stop/follow you and vet while walking away from the spawn. That does two things, it takes your pet out of melee range of the monsters and reduces the damage it takes while you're vetting. It also now helps you avoid being close to spawn while you vet. Once my pet is at full health I'll tell it to guard me and spawn starts dying again. I kill the spawn normally and if necessary do more lead vetting. You need to keep yourself walking at a steady pace then you'll remain in vet range.
Always keep your tamer in a position where you have a clear area to retreat to. Sometimes it's not possible but if you can back off and break up a group of spawn it's much easier to tackle.
I know some of the above is obvious to the more experienced tamers, but I figure it's worth sharing for those who might not know it.
Yes, taming is now more challenging in some situations. I think we still need to test and give more feedback, but I think hunt and pet handling tactics are much more important now. And they should be. What we need is for more tamers to give detailed feedback of what they were hunting, the pet they used and any tactics they found which worked or didn't. If you want to throw your hands up and say it sucks, please try and say why and in what circumstances
Wenchy
