Chiv Ossein Ram

[PlayerSkillFTW]

So, Pawain wanted to see the stats of a Chiv Ossein Ram. Here they are. Mind you, this Ossein Ram still has enough TP left to 120 all of his skills (asides from Tactics). I still need to train up his Chiv some more too. Since the Ossein Ram has Life Leech, any damage he deals will also heal himself. Chiv increases his damage output, and therefore increases his self healing.

 

[Pawain]

Like I also said. It cant be equal to other pets that have Chiv. Low mana but thats cheap. 600 points for scrolls. Missing 360 points for HP regen.
Interesting resist choices.

What is wrong for asking for more points on the Ram? How many do you see being used vs other pet types?

I just would like as many pets as possible being equal so we have more choices. Especially one with spread damage.

Thanks for the post. And it would work.

Just happen to have comparisons that are same. These do have scrolls The Cu has 0 HP regen. The Lesser has 10 HP regen. Knight is the Cu Valor is the Lesser.



I'm just asking for a Ram that would have those stats. If they did, we would see more.

And more importantly. Can you answer my question in post 13 here: [bcolor=rgb(204, 205, 205)]https://stratics.com/threads/building-the-ultimate-sampire-suit-question.400514/[/bcolor] they moved the thread.

Thanks

 

[Swordsman]

Does the life leech use mana ?

 

[Khaelor]

The problem is the way they weigh innate magery and necromancy, even if the pet doesnt have it activated, if it's 1 point to activate it's weighted against it in it's intensity for slot counts. that's 1500-1501 points. This is why so many magical and necro pets seem to be under intensity. If I had to guess, it would be because magery and necro are so powerful in pvp that they had to give the pets a drawback. Or they really think Magery is amazing in PvM .

Life leech is 5 mana every hit.

A Chiv Ram with no armor ignore (and the basic mana recovery setup) is always near topped off with mana.

Its a nice looking Ram

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

Like I also said. It cant be equal to other pets that have Chiv. Low mana but thats cheap. 600 points for scrolls. Missing 360 points for HP regen.

I prefer higher INT over Mana, since once the pet Mana dumps, all that matters is how fast it can regen it back. Ossein Ram doesn't need HP Regen. They have Life Leech. If he does a 200 damage EoO+AI, he heals for 100 Health. This allows him to out heal even the Cu. HP Regen would be completely redundant on them. Just don't use them against mobs with Corrupted Life, such as Exodus, Osiredon, Corgul, or Necromancer/Sampire Blackthorn Captains.

 

[Pawain]

I took 2 to TC and copied the build. This was the one with the most points left. There is not enough room for scrolls.

Do they have this much different starting stats? Thats 300 points or 100 less HP or str. Kinda like I said in the first place.




Here is the start stats:

 

[Khaelor]

View attachment 83326


Here is the start stats:

View attachment 83327

Need to show the resists also, on some animals that can be hundreds of points

 

[Pawain]

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

I took 2 to TC and copied the build. This was the one with the most points left. There is not enough room for scrolls.

Do they have this much different starting stats? Thats 300 points or 100 less HP or str. Kinda like I said in the first place.

View attachment 83326


Here is the start stats:

View attachment 83327

Ossein Rams can spawn as 2 slot or 3 slot. Yes, they have a large stat variation at spawn. I myself contributed much of the lore info to this. Ossein Ram - Stratics Community Wiki | Stratics Community Forums
I had to farm for around an hour to get a good 2 slot Ossein Ram to spawn. Their Health halves at tame. The one i have has enough TP to 120 Wrest/Anat/Resist/Parry/Focus/Med/Chiv. There's not another 200 points left to 120 Tactics.

 

[Pawain]

Just noticed you can put 3 specials on a Tsuki Wolf and any magic! (magery 1501 points so not it)

I wish they had more points. There would be a lot of builds.

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

Just noticed you can put 3 specials on a Tsuki Wolf and any magic! (magery 1501 points so not it)

I wish they had more points. There would be a lot of builds.

View attachment 83370

Problem is, stuffing too many abilities on a pet causes it to use each individual ability less frequently. Since AI is generally the hardest hitting ability, you'll want your pet to spam it as much as possible, which means you don't want a bloated ability page.

 

[Lucivius]

How were you able to put AI on the ram? Mine doesn't have that option.

 

[SouthPaw]

How were you able to put AI on the ram? Mine doesn't have that option.

You have to add Chiv first in this case.

 

[Lucivius]

You have to add Chiv first in this case.

I see. Thanks SouthPaw. I'm also considering taming another ram and leaving battle defense on it.

 

[SouthPaw]

I see. Thanks SouthPaw. I'm also considering taming another ram and leaving battle defense on it.

I've got 2 with AI/Chiv right now, one has HP regen and one doesn't. I'd like to get another and put necro on it, just to have 1 necro pet and maybe another with battle defense-it's not bad at all in my opinion. If these guys had 500 or so more training points, were rideable, and were in an easier place to tame we would see a lot more people using them.

 

[Lucivius]

I've got 2 with AI/Chiv right now, one has HP regen and one doesn't. I'd like to get another and put necro on it, just to have 1 necro pet and maybe another with battle defense-it's not bad at all in my opinion. If these guys had 500 or so more training points, were rideable, and were in an easier place to tame we would see a lot more people using them.

I'm hoping to have plenty of training points on the with battle defense since I won't be adding magical ability. Shield bash is as powerful as AI, just wish it would trigger more often.

 

[Pawain]

If these guys had 500 or so more training points,

Weren't you trying to prove me wrong by building yours? U turn or I misread...

I'm also considering taming another ram and leaving battle defense on it.

Many pets can get Battle defense if you get the wrestling to 100 before you choose stuff. All horses I think can get it. I made a KiRin that could just stand and let 2 greater dragons pound on it.

 

[Lucivius]

Weren't you trying to prove me wrong by building yours? U tu
rn or I misread...


Many pets can get Battle defense if you get the wrestling to 100 before you choose stuff. All horses I think can get it. I made a KiRin that could just stand and let 2 greater dragons pound on it.

Weren't you trying to prove me wrong by building yours? U turn or I misread...



Many pets can get Battle defense if you get the wrestling to 100 before you choose stuff. All horses I think can get it. I made a KiRin that could just stand and let 2 greater dragons pound on it.

I'm hoping that the Battle defense + life leech will make a very strong tank. So far I've trained only resist & added a little strength, wrestling is still in the 70's and this guy hits like a freight train. Shield bash is hitting for 200, just wish it would do it more often.

 

[SouthPaw]

@Lucivius My experience was that shield bash hits hard as well. Can save 600 TP by staying with battle defence, makes one heck of a tank pet and still get a good shield bash hit in now and then.

@Pawain, AI/Chiv rams are very strong and life leech is a very good ability. That being said, my Ram that has 20/5/30 regens only has 500 HP and 200 Mana. The way they "charge" necro pets for necro that don't even have it, is messed up. He's a very good pet, but if I had that 1500 TP he's losing for the necro/ss which I didn't even activate, Rams would likely be the best pets in the game; could max stamina regen and get a lot more HP/Mana. Same thing with magery/eval; I'd love to have a AI/Chiv Unicorn, poison resistant and it wouldn't have any other abilities that waste time/mana + rideable, amazing! But instead they don't have the points for it unless you want to make a major HP/STR/Mana sacrifice.

Some big changes that I'd like to see implemented, is instead of making pets spawn with a certain number of slots with 1501 TP per level, make it so every pet has the same max imbue value. That way we don't have to farm them to get one with good stats-they would all have the same max imbue instead of a range. Add the ability for tamers to remove abilities/magics and free up the imbue value so we can add what we want. Review and improve abilities so they're on par with armor ignore so there's a better variety of abilities being used. Decrease imbue value of magery/eval and necro/ss to 500 like the rest. Currently necro sucks on pets, no reason for it to have 1500 cost. Magery isn't terrible, but no reason for it to cost 3x as much as Chiv and do less damage. I think we can all agree, the current pet training/leveling system leaves a lot to be desired.

 

[Pawain]

I completely agree. They could just let us build everything to caps and we would be fine.

 

[Khaelor]

@Lucivius
Some big changes that I'd like to see implemented, is instead of making pets spawn with a certain number of slots with 1501 TP per level, make it so every pet has the same max imbue value. That way we don't have to farm them to get one with good stats-they would all have the same max imbue instead of a range. Add the ability for tamers to remove abilities/magics and free up the imbue value so we can add what we want. Review and improve abilities so they're on par with armor ignore so there's a better variety of abilities being used. Decease imbue value of magery/eval and necro/ss to 500 like the rest. Currently necro sucks on pets, no reason for it to have 1500 cost. Magery isn't terrible, but no reason for it to cost 3x as much as Chiv and do less damage. I think we can all agree, the current pet training/leveling system leaves a lot to be desired.

What we want and what is doable with code generally turns out to be two different things, unfortunately. I know the pet database for tamed pets seems to be very limited in the information they keep. It's why you cannot revert a pet back and start over.

As for review and improve abilities so they are on par with armor ignore. Dexxers could ask for the same thing. How do you make abilities on par with Armor Ignore when AI ignores armor and still does 90% damage. But honestly, there are little to no encounters that need crushing blow or any other special move like that, and that is partially due to pets pretty high health buffer.

If you look at old cliloc files from the taming patch/tc, they actually had more special abilities and moves that they removed or changed:

Trains the creature in the Flurry Force special ability, causing the creature to attack with a flurry reducing a target's physical resist and causing physical damage.
Trains the creature in the Infused Throw special move, causing dismount or paralysis and extra damage.
Trains the creature in the Mystic Arc special move, causing extra chaos damage to nearby targets.
Trains the creature in the Double Strike special move, causing dual attacks but at reduced damage.
Trains the creature in the Firestorm area effect, causing fire damage to nearby targets and setting the terrain ablaze.
Trains the creature in the power of Arcane Pyromancy, a combination of Necromancy and Magery that harnesses the power of fire.
Trains the creature in the power of Healing.
Trains the creature in the power of Magery.
Trains the creature in the Dual Wield special move, increasing its swing speed.
Trains the creature in the Lightning Arrow special move, causing energy damage to nearby targets.

So, if you look at these, it looks like their original design was to allow a lot more abilities, but it was pared down. The thing is, we don't know their exact reasoning why. They didn't allow plain magery or healing to be trainable. They straight up nixed the idea of a lot of special moves, abilities and area effects.

Without knowing their reasoning for these decisions it's hard to present a counter argument. Deemed too powerful? Not enough time to test?

As for Magery and Necromancy's cost. It could be something regarding how powerful they were in pvp (especially before the pvp pet nerfs) Both offer a lot of interrupt potential. Or it could be as simple as the fact Mesanna puts a lot of value into the Magery skill and thought it would be a performer. As for Necromancy being free to train on Necromatic creatures, "Hey wouldn't it be nice, if we allowed necromatic pets to get necromancy for free?!" without realizing the implications to their training, or perhaps they fully understood it and wanted "pure caster" pets to be like Mages typically are in games, vulnerable low hit point high damage creatures. But tamers know that isnt the reality of magery pets (or at least I hope they do).

The current pet training system is actually vastly complex, lots of nuances. It's light years ahead of what we had before April 2017. Tamers just went the way of Sampires and figured out how to min/max their effectiveness and it all comes down to the a few templates.

 

[SouthPaw]

Necro is awesome on a player, but on a pet casting randomly without any of the forms and no animate dead, it sucks. Hands down the worst magic you can put on a pet.

 

[Khaelor]

Necro is awesome on a player, but on a pet casting randomly without any of the forms and no animate dead, it sucks. Hands down the worst magic you can put on a pet.

Not for pvp.

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

Trains the creature in the power of Arcane Pyromancy, a combination of Necromancy and Magery that harnesses the power of fire.

I had Arcane Pyromancy on a Phoenix on TC during the Pub 97 testing. He'd spam FS/Exp/Fireball/Magic Arrow while using Corpse Skin to debuff the opponent's Fire Resist.
I also had Whirlwind on a Saurosaurus. That was pretty ridiculous, he was basically unkillable in spawns due to the combination of his high Resists, Life Leech+WW. Then they made it to where Saurosaurus couldn't have any more abilities added to them, and Whirlwind became unique to the Bushido magical ability.

 

[Ang7]

Pretty old thread, but I had a thought to do a PB / FWW ossien ram.

Would the life leech ability synergize with FWW hits? Or does the life leech count as an ability itself and does not stack with something like an armor ignore?

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

Pretty old thread, but I had a thought to do a PB / FWW ossien ram.

Would the life leech ability synergize with FWW hits? Or does the life leech count as an ability itself and does not stack with something like an armor ignore?

Life Leech triggers on melee hits, so it works with Armor Ignore. The area effect of Frenzied Whirlwind however isn't considered a typical melee hit though, so Life Leech doesn't trigger on the secondary damage. Your pet queus FWW and lands his melee hit on his main target, and that triggers an area effect which is guaranteed to deal damage based on Ninjitsu skill, requiring no Hit checks vs the secondary victims. It technically functions differently than the usual Whirlwind (which did pair with Life Leech). The actual Whirlwind ability (which is now unique to Bushido Magical) would trigger upon the pet hitting it's main target, and then trigger the usual Hit checks vs the surrounding enemies (WW can miss secondary targets, FWW can't).



One of the great things about the Chiv+AI Ossein Ram, is that they can actually make use of the Taming Mastery "Combat Training: Berserk". Normally, Berserk triggers while the pet is under half Health, and it'll ramp up the pet's damage resistance (against all elements, unlike Empowerment/Consume that only function against Physical) and damage output, but also greatly cripple any healing the pet receives. The pet will remain Berserk while under 50% Health and in combat, or until they die. If they exit combat while under 50% Health, they have to be healed above 50% before Berserk can trigger again. While Berserk, HPR is reduced by 90%, and Veterinary/Greater Heal/Cleansing Winds/Gift of Life/Close Wounds/Heal only heal a sliver of health. For most pets, Berserk just transforms them into a Kamikaze, they're eventually going to die, but they're gonna dish out some serious damage before then.

The only form of healing that seems to bypass this restriction for pets, is Life Leech. I've seen my 120 Chiv+AI Ossein Ram (Zeliek) deliver a 347 damage EoO AI (highest damage i've seen any pet deal in a single hit) to a Paragon Balron before while under Berserk, and simultaneously heal himself for 150+ Health. While under Berserk, a 120 Chiv+AI Ossein Ram becomes both incredibly lethal and tanky at the same time. They have to be able to reliably land hits though to keep themselves alive, so 120 Wrest is practically a must and foes with extremely high Wrest/Parry cause them problems. When combining a berserk 120 Chiv+AI Ossein Ram with a 4x120 Bard's "Inspire" (+22% HCI/+58% DI/+15% Damage Modifier) or an Archer's "Play the Odds" (+45% HCI/+30% SSI), they're incredibly nasty, a damn near "God Tier" pet then.

 

[fugazi70]

Life Leech triggers on melee hits, so it works with Armor Ignore. The area effect of Frenzied Whirlwind however isn't considered a typical melee hit though, so Life Leech doesn't trigger on the secondary damage. Your pet queus FWW and lands his melee hit on his main target, and that triggers an area effect which is guaranteed to deal damage based on Ninjitsu skill, requiring no Hit checks vs the secondary victims. It technically functions differently than the usual Whirlwind (which did pair with Life Leech). The actual Whirlwind ability (which is now unique to Bushido Magical) would trigger upon the pet hitting it's main target, and then trigger the usual Hit checks vs the surrounding enemies (WW can miss secondary targets, FWW can't).



One of the great things about the Chiv+AI Ossein Ram, is that they can actually make use of the Taming Mastery "Combat Training: Berserk". Normally, Berserk triggers while the pet is under half Health, and it'll ramp up the pet's damage resistance (against all elements, unlike Empowerment/Consume that only function against Physical) and damage output, but also greatly cripple any healing the pet receives. The pet will remain Berserk while under 50% Health and in combat, or until they die. If they exit combat while under 50% Health, they have to be healed above 50% before Berserk can trigger again. While Berserk, HPR is reduced by 90%, and Veterinary/Greater Heal/Cleansing Winds/Gift of Life/Close Wounds/Heal only heal a sliver of health. For most pets, Berserk just transforms them into a Kamikaze, they're eventually going to die, but they're gonna dish out some serious damage before then.

The only form of healing that seems to bypass this restriction for pets, is Life Leech. I've seen my 120 Chiv+AI Ossein Ram (Zeliek) deliver a 347 damage EoO AI (highest damage i've seen any pet deal in a single hit) to a Paragon Balron before while under Berserk, and simultaneously heal himself for 150+ Health. While under Berserk, a 120 Chiv+AI Ossein Ram becomes both incredibly lethal and tanky at the same time. They have to be able to reliably land hits though to keep themselves alive, so 120 Wrest is practically a must and foes with extremely high Wrest/Parry cause them problems. When combining a berserk 120 Chiv+AI Ossein Ram with a 4x120 Bard's "Inspire" (+22% HCI/+58% DI/+15% Damage Modifier) or an Archer's "Play the Odds" (+45% HCI/+30% SSI), they're incredibly nasty, a damn near "God Tier" pet then.

Sounds like you need a tamer with a bard or archer in order to have that. Since you can only have one mastery active rules out soloing

which would help the ram more inspire or berserk?

 

[celticus]

I think you can have an Archery 120 and archery mastery with taming/lore etc. So playing the odds may still proc? Pretty hard to fit 4xBard 120's in tamer templates.

 

[Seraphina_152]

I think you can have an Archery 120 and archery mastery with taming/lore etc. So playing the odds may still proc? Pretty hard to fit 4xBard 120's in tamer templates.

you cant run the archery mastery while also running the taming mastery. so if you're solo its either run berserk or run play the odds. cant do both on one character

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

The 347 damage EoO AI was during Berserk. I wasn't even running a second char with Inspire during that. They can hit even harder with Inspire as well (any pet does), but what's unique is how the increased damage output also increases the pet's survivability due to how Life Leech works. The 120 Chiv+AI Ossein Ram is basically a pet Sampire, the more damage they deal, the tougher they are to kill due to leeching.

 

[celticus]

you cant run the archery mastery while also running the taming mastery. so if you're solo its either run berserk or run play the odds. cant do both on one character

I know. But I wonder if archer-tamer could use the playing the odds, to boost pet, but likely not.

 

[celticus]

The 347 damage EoO AI was during Berserk. I wasn't even running a second char with Inspire during that. They can hit even harder with Inspire as well (any pet does), but what's unique is how the increased damage output also increases the pet's survivability due to how Life Leech works. The 120 Chiv+AI Ossein Ram is basically a pet Sampire, the more damage they deal, the tougher they are to kill due to leeching.

But when they would run out of mana, then what? Would have to withdraw them and try to regen mana? Would 1xBard mastery be able to help them regen mana fast enough for long fights? Thinking solo again, not in group.

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

But when they would run out of mana, then what? Would have to withdraw them and try to regen mana? Would 1xBard mastery be able to help them regen mana fast enough for long fights? Thinking solo again, not in group.

120 Chiv+AI Ossein Rams with the usual 370 INT/30 MR/GM+ Focus/GM+ Med actually regen their Mana fast enough to reliably dish out damage with AIs. Life Leech doesn't proc on every single hit, but when it does, it consumes 5 Mana and heals for about 40% of the damage dealt. Not much different than a Triton or Cu spending 10 Mana for a bandy heal, but can be a lot more powerful heal if dealing high damage (plus the Leech heal goes through Poison, Mortal Strike and Berserk).

 

[Zorminius]

As we know these spawn with innate battle defence, which also gives them necro and SS. When trained, do these use necro spells? If I wanted to keep the ram with battle defence, should I train battle defence as a magic ability? It only costs 1 point, takes off necro and SS, but adds disarm.

What’s best, leave the innate battle defence or add battle defence to remove necro and SS?

 

[Billy Butcher]

Necro and Spirit speak are not active you would have to choose in menu and thus no longer have battle defense to my knowledge. Or it is on most pets able to have necro at least. Been a while since I played with the Ram.
You have to use taming mastery to run berserk thus you can not use playing odds or bard masteries. You would have to run a second account for those if you want to enjoy the effect berserk has to offer with this unique pet.

 

[Pawain]

As we know these spawn with innate battle defence, which also gives them necro and SS. When trained, do these use necro spells? If I wanted to keep the ram with battle defence, should I train battle defence as a magic ability? It only costs 1 point, takes off necro and SS, but adds disarm.

What’s best, leave the innate battle defence or add battle defence to remove necro and SS?

As said Battle defense and Necro and SS are not related. The devs designed the Ram with the ability to get Necromacy cheap so they put placeholders on them for Necro and SS. Battle Defense is an ability that only pets can get, It is a mix of Wrestling Mastery and Parry.

Rams already have Battle Defense you do not have to "train" it.

If you put any other magic ability, such as Necro, on the Ram the Battle Defense goes away.

Life Leech is an innate ability that Rams have and it does not go away when you add other things.

They start like this: (Things on the Black print Lore and Knowledge screen are what abilities a pet has active.)

Battle Defense ------ Trains the creature in the disarm and paralyze special moves. Also trains the creature in the Heightened Senses & Shield Bash mastery abilities.


You have to tell the pet to Guard you to activate Body Guard.

Body Guard on pets cuts the damage taken by 50% for pet and owner. (It is not the same as the one Toons can get.)
I made one to test it. The Ram had 3 Greater Dragons on it and it needed very little help with HP.

If you put any other magic on you lose all but LL.

A Ram does not have Wrestling Mastery.(which also gives paralyze and disarm) Not all pets can get Battle Defense.

Battle Defense on pets is kind of like Parry Mastery on Toons.
__________________________________________________________________
Parry This describes the way it works on Players not pets. But pets get these in their own way.
Title: The Deflector

Shield Bash When activated the shield user will execute a shield bash on successfully hitting or parrying their opponent causing physical damage and paralyzing their opponent, interrupts spells if players are not immune to paralyze, based on parry skill, best weapon skill, and mastery level. Damage is capped in pvp at 35.
Body Guard The shield user chooses a protectee to absorb a percentage of damage done to the protectee based on parry skill, best weapon skill, and mastery level.
Heightened Senses Toggle ability that provides the Parrying Master with increased chance to parry based on parry skill, best weapon skill and mastery level that consumes mana while active.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I do not know the damage values for Shield Bash or the parry gained with Heightened senses.

Body Guard (when active) on pets does not split the damage. The pet and owner receive 50% less damage taken. If the pet is the only thing taking damage the owner takes no damage.

This 50% works for melee and spell damage. I have tested Body Guard on my toon in Fel with melee and spell damage.

Someday someone will discover Battle Defense could be used in PvP. Many pets can get it, including Equines and Vollems.

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

Here's my 120 Chiv+AI Ossein Ram dealing a 436 damage EoO AI (174+ heal if Life Leech procced) during Inspire. He wasn't even Berserk yet, so the damage can go even higher. None of the Balrons (not even the Paragons) could get his health low enough for him to go Berserk. He was at full Health the entire fight even against Paragon Balrons, even without me Discording them.

 

[Aestra]

Where is that screenshot ?

Here's my 120 Chiv+AI Ossein Ram dealing a 436 damage EoO AI (174+ heal if Life Leech procced) during Inspire. He wasn't even Berserk yet, so the damage can go even higher. None of the Balrons (not even the Paragons) could get his health low enough for him to go Berserk. He was at full Health the entire fight even against Paragon Balrons, even without me Discording them.
View attachment 116118

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

Where is that screenshot ?

Just North of the Chaos Shrine in Ilshenar. There's a little pass there that always spawns a Balron, with a pretty fast respawn.

 

[celticus]

Nice. Looking at the buffs looks like you are running taming mastery plus inspire. Is the inspire from the same character or a different one that is a bard?

 

[celticus]

Just North of the Chaos Shrine in Ilshenar. There's a little pass there that always spawns a Balron, with a pretty fast respawn.

Know the spot..Easy to get there from the gate there. When paragon Balie spawns get ready for they grey robes quick, he reveals and also retargets pretty fast. Nice area to gain honor, fame and train also..

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

Nice. Looking at the buffs looks like you are running taming mastery plus inspire. Is the inspire from the same character or a different one that is a bard?

My Disco/Tamer was running "Combat Training: Berserk" on the Ram, which only triggers below 50% Health. My other char standing there (Vetrinus) was running "Inspire" with a 4x120 Bard template. I did that on Test Center, so that A) i could get the PS to fully 120 the Ossein Ram (other than Tactics) to see his full potential, B) i wouldn't care if the pet died, and C) so i could easily modify character skills for further testing.

I tested the Ossein Ram vs Putrifier, to mixed results. Ossein Ram under Berserk and Inspire, can still die to the Putrifier, but will stomp the Putrifier if the Putrifier is discorded. With Berserk (under 50% Health), Inspire, and EoO active, the Ossein Ram was delivering 360 damage auto attacks to the Putrifier.

I also ran some experiments with a Bushido+Life Leech Tsuki Wolf, hoping that it'd make a good AoE Tank due to Whirlwind+Life Leech. Looks like they completely nerfed that combination though, while Whirlwind will still suck down Mana like a hog with Life Leech, the heal will only trigger on one enemy. Looks like they changed how Whirlwind itself functions for pets too, they don't even need to land a successful attack to trigger Whirlwind anymore. Overall, the test with the Tsuki Wolf was a disappointment.

 

[Tabin]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge and research!

 

[celticus]

My Disco/Tamer was running "Combat Training: Berserk" on the Ram, which only triggers below 50% Health. My other char standing there (Vetrinus) was running "Inspire" with a 4x120 Bard template. I did that on Test Center, so that A) i could get the PS to fully 120 the Ossein Ram (other than Tactics) to see his full potential, B) i wouldn't care if the pet died, and C) so i could easily modify character skills for further testing.

I tested the Ossein Ram vs Putrifier, to mixed results. Ossein Ram under Berserk and Inspire, can still die to the Putrifier, but will stomp the Putrifier if the Putrifier is discorded. With Berserk (under 50% Health), Inspire, and EoO active, the Ossein Ram was delivering 360 damage auto attacks to the Putrifier.

I also ran some experiments with a Bushido+Life Leech Tsuki Wolf, hoping that it'd make a good AoE Tank due to Whirlwind+Life Leech. Looks like they completely nerfed that combination though, while Whirlwind will still suck down Mana like a hog with Life Leech, the heal will only trigger on one enemy. Looks like they changed how Whirlwind itself functions for pets too, they don't even need to land a successful attack to trigger Whirlwind anymore. Overall, the test with the Tsuki Wolf was a disappointment.

Info greatly appreciated.

 

[railshot]

Life Leech triggers on melee hits, so it works with Armor Ignore. The area effect of Frenzied Whirlwind however isn't considered a typical melee hit though, so Life Leech doesn't trigger on the secondary damage. Your pet queus FWW and lands his melee hit on his main target, and that triggers an area effect which is guaranteed to deal damage based on Ninjitsu skill, requiring no Hit checks vs the secondary victims. It technically functions differently than the usual Whirlwind (which did pair with Life Leech). The actual Whirlwind ability (which is now unique to Bushido Magical) would trigger upon the pet hitting it's main target, and then trigger the usual Hit checks vs the surrounding enemies (WW can miss secondary targets, FWW can't).

The way Life Leech is described in the official wiki as "leeching the incoming damage" always led me to believe that it's incoming melee hits that trigger it. In fact I remember some brief testing shortly after the pet revamp where one way to almost instantly drop the mana on a pet with Live Leech was to wade it into a crowd of mobs who would all hit on it at the same time. Has that changed or my assumption was incorrect to start with?

One of the great things about the Chiv+AI Ossein Ram, is that they can actually make use of the Taming Mastery "Combat Training: Berserk". Normally, Berserk triggers while the pet is under half Health, and it'll ramp up the pet's damage resistance (against all elements, unlike Empowerment/Consume that only function against Physical) and damage output, but also greatly cripple any healing the pet receives. The pet will remain Berserk while under 50% Health and in combat, or until they die. If they exit combat while under 50% Health, they have to be healed above 50% before Berserk can trigger again. While Berserk, HPR is reduced by 90%, and Veterinary/Greater Heal/Cleansing Winds/Gift of Life/Close Wounds/Heal only heal a sliver of health. For most pets, Berserk just transforms them into a Kamikaze, they're eventually going to die, but they're gonna dish out some serious damage before then.

I had no idea Berserk is even more useless than I thought. For most tamers, whether they admit it or not, the pet's number one, two, and three priority is to tank. Taking it down to below 50% and nerfing the healing at the same time to increase damage seems asinine. Thank you for outlining how it works though.

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

The way Life Leech is described in the official wiki as "leeching the incoming damage" always led me to believe that it's incoming melee hits that trigger it. In fact I remember some brief testing shortly after the pet revamp where one way to almost instantly drop the mana on a pet with Live Leech was to wade it into a crowd of mobs who would all hit on it at the same time. Has that changed or my assumption was incorrect to start with?

Yeah, the description is incorrect. It's not "incoming" damage that triggers Life Leech, but "outgoing" damage. Repel procs on "incoming" hits, and so can rapidly drain a pet's Mana. Nothing like sending your pet into a crowd of low end mobs, just to watch it instantly spend all it's Mana reflecting low damage hits. One of the reasons Repel sucks. Explosive Goo also procs on incoming hits.

 

[Gossamer Moonfly]

These rams look very interesting...

When I read newsletter #2 regarding the artists being told to look into making these rams and frost mites ridable I was very excited and wanted to get a stable slot increase token.

Thankfully I didn't rush out to get one as they now have no intention of making either ridable (newsletter #5).

So sad.

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

These rams look very interesting...

When I read newsletter #2 regarding the artists being told to look into making these rams and frost mites ridable I was very excited and wanted to get a stable slot increase token.

Thankfully I didn't rush out to get one as they now have no intention of making either ridable (newsletter #5).

So sad.

Yeah, i sold 3 high end Frost Mites for 15 Mill each. They're still beastly 100% Cold Damage pets, but disappointing that they won't be made rideable
Imagine this as a rideable. Still has enough TP to 120 all it's skills too.

 

[Gossamer Moonfly]

Nice mite... But I'm not going to bother with either pet for now... Dev's loss of some income.

 

[celticus]

The Devs do not know what is good for them and the game. They suffer from some type of perverse capriciousness that is really counterproductive.
They consistently keep missing the boat!