'As One' Is it really worth it?

[Akiho]

Decided to have a play around with it, for my experiment I trained up a Lesser Hiryu to 2 Slots and a Beetle to 3 Slots. The basic logic was that my Tamer/Disco bard would synergise with Rune Corruption and Grasping Claw to massively reduce the physical resists of any given target. The first part of the experiment failed miserably as the damage output between the 2 pets, regardless of how low the targets resist was, remained relatively low.

Anyway, dealing with 'As One' specifically, first thing I noticed was how high the upkeep was. At Level 3 Mastery it is 14mps to maintain it compared to 8 mps for every other Taming Mastery. Now, while maintaining it is not impossible any other magical actions you take drains your pool rapidly making it unsustainable in a busy area.
My main observation is, It doesn't reduce any damage at all it just splits whatever your tank pet would take between them all so now you are committed to healing between 2-5 pets (depending on your own configuration), this became annoying quite quickly even with just 2 pets.

So what? I hear you say, well I believe it makes far more sense to just send the tankiest pet in first, with or without Consume, for the following reasons:
1. Your tank pet is the focus and gains all the benefits of Consume Damage if you have it.
2. You get the benefit of only having to maintain 8mps to keep Consume up which is waaaay easier than 14mps.
3. You get the benefit of only having to heal 1 pet. Even if you did not have a Level 3 Mastery book for Consume Damage I would still rather heal 1 single pet than 2-5.

So the question is... What is the point of 'As One'? Am I missing a fundamental Pro? Even if the upkeep was the same as the other masteries at 8mps I still wouldn't use it purely because it's far easier to heal 1 pet than 2+.

Interested on your thoughts and prepared to be educated.

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

"As One" is mostly useful in a duo character situation. As in two characters in the same party, a Tamer running "As One", and a full Bard running "Invigorate" to keep all the pets healed. The more pets that are used, the easier it'll be to keep them all up with "Invigorate" (except in the case of AoE spells, such as Wither). Pack Instinct pets are the best to use it with currently, with Wolf Spiders currently being the strongest 1 slot Pack Instinct pet. I'm currently in the process of testing the damage output of a 5 Wolf Spider pack with "Inspire" and "Invigorate" being used to buff and heal them against a Discoed opponent.
"As One" is also useful for slot leveling multiple pets at the same time, since pets can get Level Exp from taking damage.

 

[Akiho]

A mastery that relies on another player to be effective seems a little backward but I do see what you are getting at. Seems to me if 2 players are there you might as well take 2 tamers with pets that compliment each other. I'd be very interested to see or hear about your results with wolf spiders though. I still can't imagine them lasting long against a 'crunchier' mob given their particularly low resists.

I'd personally like to see some viable pet combos out there, unfortunately with the exception of some people using unique pets for their looks you pretty much see the same pets everywhere, cue the queue of cus.

I was aware of the leveling of multiple pets but unfortunately It didn't benefit where I thought it might the most, with weak 1 slot pets. Unfortunately they die just as quick even with 'As One' active, sometimes even getting one shotted from shared damage! Once a pet has trained the first slot it is all down hill from there and takes no time at all so I never utilised it thereafter. As a mastery use, it's pretty weak.

 

[MeTheGreat]

I use As One to quickly and easily train 1-slot pets to 2 slots.

Send in a tank to aggro a hard-hitter, then let the 1-slot reap the combat training benefits.

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

I'd be very interested to see or hear about your results with wolf spiders though. I still can't imagine them lasting long against a 'crunchier' mob given their particularly low resists.

Finished training up the Wolf Spiders. With Inspire/Invigorate buffing them, they rip apart a discoed General. Each Wolf Spider is doing 100-130 damage every hit, so 500-650 damage every 1.25 secs as a pack, as opposed to the 230+ damage every 1.25 secs a 120 Chiv+AI 5 slot pet deals during EoO. "As One" paired with "Invigorate" keeps them full health almost the entire time, the only time i have to vet them is if the General uses Frenzied Whirlwind, due to it's AoE nature.