Shepard, a viable build??

[Ruri]

Hi all masteries player, i have recently started playing masteries myself and are currently playing as a lv 18 staff using Shepard(Beastiary + Mysticism) at Act 1.

Things are going well so far with all my pets thrashing the mob while me staying back healing them with Words of Comfort and Healing from Mysticism. Relief buff works quite well aginst tougher opponent too.

It's this build gonna work later at Epic and Legendary too? since i really want a style of play which focus on the pet doing the damage and me as a back up.

I have put 1 point so far in each of the pet to try them out, which one should i max 1st?? or is it even worth it to go for this build?? all suggestion/advice welcome!

[The Rock-man]

Ruri; All in all they are all good, pal patine (SP?) as he really your damage pet type (you get more of him with skill points as well).
Turtle is a nice tank Beastiary core dweller. Beetles are inbetween tank/damage hybrid a bit like wolves, the horse is a dps pet.
The one pet you will want no matter is the Iaso due to his +regen and damage resistance for all pets.

[Ruri]

Thanks The Rock-man, I have just finish Normal level and i think the maxed beetles are crazily strong~~ i just group the 5 of them and roam them around together and everything will be dead in a few seconds! even bosses...

[The Rock-man]

Well as with all pets maxed out ones are strong at lest in normal and early epic and legendary.

[UZero]

Just to point out Ruri, if and when you take Iaso, consider him for his more passive effects and not for his direct heal. He doesn't cast it, so it's up to you to do all the healing :P

Also, AI will always be whatever the default for the pet is. They seem to have only one real personality, so if you noticed that your pets are randomly attacking even though you set them on defensive, that's why. Luckily, you'll usually have so many pets out at once, you won't have to worry about overpulling anyway!

Oh, and be aware that if you aren't running on a rather high resolution, towards the end of the character's leveling career you may end up with pet life bars running off the bottom of the screen. It considers each pet unique, and gives each its own statistics bar, so those tend to add up with this many pets XD

[Ruri]

Thanks The Rock-man and Uzero for your comment.

@The Rock-man, i am in the middle of Epic now and finally got all my pets and their passive maxed taken skill points out from the capped +4 with 10+ all skills (and extra 2+ Beastiary from items.) and like you have said, they're all awesome! I even added in the pink frog and the mad wasp (also from items.) in my army!! and basically i just stand there and they will do the rest!! i don't even need to heal them anymore... but do u think they can still manage let say late game legendary??

@Uzero, I like my set up now with the pet's behaviors~ everyone seems to be doing their bits! but like u've said may be they really only have one charcteristic! I know Iaso don't really heal but he is still doing an awesome job casting the regen passive and that nice damage resistance buff when things get tough! but about the pet's stat bar, i have high resolution but it seems that there is a cap on how many pet stat bar can be shown, as i can never see all 5 of my demonic phalanx stat bars.. it will only show 4~ is that normal??

[The Rock-man]

Ruri They should cope they just wont be as effective (Your get a good idea of how effective they be in last bit of epic.)

[UZero]

Yes, it is. Like I said, since it creates a pet bar for every individual minion you have, they tend to run off the bottom of the screen. I play in 1680x1050 resolution and I can only just barely fit all the pets (+1 bat from vampirism) on the screen. That also means if you play online, you won't be able to see teammate's stats bars!

As for higher difficulties, you pretty much know how they work by now. Regular mobs they can keep up with, bosses tend to shred them up, especially if there's an AoE involved. That'll stay true to legendary, with the only difference being that their attacks are now going to be weaker. They should be able to last, yes, but it's going to be slow moving for the most part :P

[Ruri]

I am about to arrive with my army at Epic Hades palace now~ The pets are actually doing quite well still, able to thrash mobs at higher lvls even without too much of my input.

As for Epic boss fight, Typhon is really the only hard one, in saying that, the fight still only lasted around 2 mins before he become another orb~ ;P i think skills like Relief/Conviction and Protective Circle from Mythicism really help with the pet's surivlibilty. And in contrast they are the ones who actually "shred" other bosses apart with everyone staying alive

I can't wait to go into legendary with them, i really think this Shepherd build has huge potential to do the full long haul!! one more question in regard to pets, i take it they only get another boost of health in legendary but no boost for damage??

[The Rock-man]

Pets get a boost like monsters do but a lesser one. So there damage does go up a bit (if my testing is right).