Discussion: is worth to swap the eagle for the bog?

I am sure that there are more posts than the ones that I already went trough....saw a lot of numbers and opinions but cannot really get out of it what is better for me.

I play mainly solo; since when I have the eagle slotted I use it all the time; finding useful the rez skill and the frequent flank that helps me to heal during fights.

I am not sure if swapping the eagle for the bog is a good idea...some are pro, others are against it, but I can't figure out if for my play style I should swap or not, so I would like to ask to who already tried both, and has a similar play style to mine, what are they suggestings.

So far, seems that the bog has a greater survability compared to all the other pets, is ranged and has attack skills.
The problem is that i gotta unslot all my MoNF and AC abilities to get the bog, and this would reduce considerably my fire skills (which are my main attacks: burning embers, sticky gourd, sticky tar and cracked earth), so I wonder why someone would like to reduce their effectiveness in combat to get a pet that is inferior in some aspect to another?

I am not stating anything more than what I read around the forum, so feel free to correct me if I am saying something that is not correct.

Thanks!

Something that may help you. It is often said that blue line brings the most suvivability with a strong pet that can tank while you support it. The truth is that a full monf build with eagle pet is also an extremely durable build for soloing based on the fact that you can bring down enemies faster than they can damage you enough and also heal pretty well. The bog has been significately nerfed in terms of flanking rate since ROI and isn't as good a soloing pet anymore as it was.

The trick with these things is to try them out yourself, people can tell you their opinions but like you said, to get what's best for you you have to test them and see. While I tried all builds, including full KoA with bog/eagle I always came back to monf+raven. The eagle wasn't worth a legendary slot for me.

As you noted "my play style"...... All our opinions will not matter much if you are not happy with a style that is not warm and fuzzy. I would suggest you trait The KoA line and Lurker. see what it does for you over 3 - 4 days and then you will know whether you can live with it. Two hours of play wll not be enough the get the finer points of the KoA line. I know when I use the Bog lurker, I am almost invincible, I have to want to die with all the flanks and FMs it produces. As you noted this comes at a DPS cost, so the battles take a bit longer.

Personally I never felt the need to try the bog lurker. Even when levelling from 65-75 when all the stats and gear changed and my morale dropped, the eagle provided enough flanks to heal me through any dodgy bits and the MoNF traitline meant I killed stuff quick enough to not need to worry.

it's only now when I'm raiding and doing raid skirmishes that I've swapped the eagle out for improved sticky gourd otherwise it was a constant companion.

Envoyé par darshie76

I play mainly solo ...I wonder why someone would like to reduce their effectiveness in combat to get a pet that is inferior in some aspect to another?

The reason to go KoA is to learn your class skills and a different playstyle. MoNF isn't always the best for group stuff. Having that knowledge of KoA, AM and hybrid will be invaluable. It's funny, but recently, I've had a few people comment to me, "it's refreshing to see you play a LM like a LM." I was puzzled by that comment, but after some query, found that they meant that I was willing to heal, share power, debuff, and such. The undercurrent was also that I didn't feel the need to burn through stuff if other duties were more important. Certainly, debuffing etc. is standard LM stuff, but it reinforced the notion that some LMs underutilize many of their key skills.

Even if you don't want to group, there are times where KoA is better than MoNF -- you can't burn stuff fast enough and really need to use your pet to its fullest.

The reason why there are so many advocates on either side is that solo content is easy enough that it doesn't matter which traits you get most of the time. MoNF setup is nice because you burn through stuff faster. KoA is slower, but does the job just as well.

I agree with Tatuje that you should try it for a while. I suggest a week.

I use the eagle less than I used to. For me it seems they changed the eagle, it seems to do far more flapping of its wings than it does attacking anymore. I usually use the bog lurker. I have been using the bear lately also, it seems stronger than the bear used to be for me anyways.

Edit: I am traited with koa.

eagle can be good while youmissing the leggendary trait of improved stycky after is usefull like the bog

ps
i talking about soloing :P for raid atm eagle still be a fail pet raven is more better for tactical resist but eagle can help for cc with fear nothing more.

IMHO, I personally feel (your mileage may vary) that BOTH the Bog Lurker and the Eagle are Epic or should I say "LEGENDARY" Fail...

I tried them out in the beginning... but in the end its not worth giving up a Legendary Slot for them...
Lets take a look...

1. Sword and Staff - might as well be perma locked in
2. Improved Sticky Gourd - buffed with LI goodness and the dps from this attack is omg, short CD, its always up
3. Ents - I know not the best damage but its also a stun

This and Bear, Raven, Lynx more than handle anything I need to kill... as for raids it seems like they dont want Eagle or Lurker and if you group regularly, how much time and gold are you gonna spend at the Bard...

My suggestion make Eagle and Bog NON-Legendary pets and replace them with nothing for all I care

my .04 (inflation)

/edit oh and most raids like 4. Force of Will for obvious reasons

Envoyé par Jayvani

Lets take a look...

1. Sword and Staff - might as well be perma locked in
2. Improved Sticky Gourd - buffed with LI goodness and the dps from this attack is omg, short CD, its always up
3. Ents - I know not the best damage but its also a stun

Not really sharp look.... Your look is too MONF-centered

I agree with Sword and Staff, but imp Sticky Gourd really depends on playstyle. It's good, but I just don't like MONF.

Ents are... really depend on traits. It's just worth slotting with at least 3 MONF. Otherwise Eagle or even Noble Savage aren't bad. I used to trait 3blue 3 yellow, 1 red and never had Ents. 5min CD are way too long. I prefer Noble Savage cause it helps all the time, not only every 5 min.

The Eagle is still legendary, but petscaling(Dmg,Aura,and so on) is a big issue. The poor lynx hasn't any use at Lvl 75. His damage is too low and he doesnt offer anything beside damage. Eagle offers a lot more than his (nonscaling) aura.

linx is good only for kill a enemy cause when start attack from stealt can give a good damage but nothing more.
After that or in a raid they never can come back to stealt and his skill have a really big cd and his damage is a shame

Eagle can be good in raid only for trash pull while you don't need tacticale defence else is better the trait for improve the pet and have the raven with more heal armor and no knock and better aura.

About the bog in raid he have only good thing ranged attack. He need only a better AI ... atm is so stupid to go undeer a boss in melee range for nothing and go to take aoe damage !! But bog give you the summon in combat and if turbine improve the koa trait line for have more support can become a good pet cause while you heal/cure/protect or buff your party your pet can attack and give damage for you in the same time.
The point it's easy the pet need to have more damage of the another lore master traited for debuff ... not like now ...

Depends, depends, depends. On what? Your play style, your opponent, and your level.

Eagle has advantages of its own. It has auto-interrupts, an almost matching flank rate to the Bog-lurker, a in-combat Revival for you, another CC, and can self-heal with its AoE attack.

Bog-lurker's advantages tend to honestly fall short in comparison. It can attack at range, thus outside of any dangerous AoEs that might kill off any other pet. It can potentially start an FM, but otherwise is a Stun, with one skill. It has a high flank rate, when in MELEE. Comes with a Combat Summoning Skill. Lastly, it has better DPS then the eagle.

To be honest? I find the Eagle to be much more useful then the Lurker in most situations. It allows you to go in a different combination of Traits other then 5-Blue, for Ancient Master or MoNF Builds. Its in-combat Rez can be a huge boon when in fellowships/raids. Its extra CC has come in handy quite a bit, whether I'm in MoNF or Ancient Master. Further, its auto-interrupt is nothing to sneeze at.

So when would I ever use the Bog-lurker? Solo, Duo, or 3-mans and I'm likely to be the only guy with a Heal. Especially when facing creatures that are rather AoE happy. FM chance, high flank-rate, and choice of less flanks at range vs. dead pet in melee means I can at least still get flank heals during combat rather then wishing my pet hadn't died in an AoE. If its a kite-happy target, the lurker tends to be favored by me, as its damage is kept up much more easily then the eagle chasing the creature in question. It can take a decent beating, when its receiving Flank heals, if it gets aggro from me using Inner Flame. Lastly if it does die, I can still pull it back out with Combat Summoning and get the flank heals going once again.

Thus, my Bog-lurker tends to come out when I start soloing Elites and higher (such as in Limlight), or acting as the only healer in a duo/trio fellowship depending on the other two. It really doesn't have a place in a 6-man or raid. Especially as the damage it deals is still rather subpar at level 75, especially for a Legendary Trait capstone skill. I wish they would fix LM Pet damage.

That said, don't be afraid to try out the other pets. Personally? I tend to find the Sabertooth Tiger and the Lynx to be my least used pets for a LM. Lynx at the moment is really only good for a solo target, but its damage doesn't scale to make it worth having out at 75. Sabertooth is ... yeah. Limrafn is a nice pet to have during Raids, while the Bear has come in handy in quite a few situations for me.

Does combat summoning allow you to dismiss and summon different pets while in combat? This can be very useful strategically in long fights

yes if you like you can summon another one pet but skill have a cd !

Envoyé par Tatharil

Not really sharp look.... Your look is too MONF-centered

I agree with Sword and Staff, but imp Sticky Gourd really depends on playstyle. It's good, but I just don't like MONF.

Ents are... really depend on traits. It's just worth slotting with at least 3 MONF. Otherwise Eagle or even Noble Savage aren't bad. I used to trait 3blue 3 yellow, 1 red and never had Ents. 5min CD are way too long. I prefer Noble Savage cause it helps all the time, not only every 5 min.

The Eagle is still legendary, but petscaling(Dmg,Aura,and so on) is a big issue. The poor lynx hasn't any use at Lvl 75. His damage is too low and he doesnt offer anything beside damage. Eagle offers a lot more than his (nonscaling) aura.

agreed its monf centered... but it saves me time and money at the bard based on my playstyle (kill fast - collect loot)...
as for ISG it cant be described in words you have to all out trait LI it to understand the level of dmg
Ents is a 3 min CD (traited) which means its up every other fight at least and as I said, I use it for a stun mainly
Noble Savage is good... but my dmg totally outweighs it (petscaling poor), so if the pet is just a distraction its done its job, plus I dont have to wait for my pets to attack... most mobs are pretty much dead b4 pet reaches it

dont get me wrong pet vs pet eagle is great... but (and again imo) eagle or bog vs other things I can get in their place... eagle and bog lose...

/edit sry posted reply on wrong account... just take off the 1 at the end of my name

I really enjoyed the whole thing...thanks to you all for the invaluable info!

Now since many asked about play style and such; this is basically what I think, so you can tell me if i am good with the eagle or not (I wish to try the bog thou, at least for a bit).

My main is 62, I play 90% solo, including small fellowship and fellowship quests...I just wait to be strong enough to go in and take care of it, so for me the pet needs to have 2 important features:

1) gotta do damage; and help me to wear down the enemies (especially elite), or keep busy one or 2 while I kill the 3rd (I know, LM should not go alone when is dark...but I am not always able to not pull other mobs; it is better at higher levels compared to when I was in my 30s but still I may end up pulling 2-3 enemies and I usually have to work all my tricks to get out alive

2) gotta flank to help me healing! Since I have a low regen, I need the flank to get back hp and if I am almost full, to use the staff abilities to either stun or give a good deal of damage to the creature

Now I have noticed that for the LM, the best combos are done with fire skills combined with LOTRD and TOW to stun, BF to interrupt eventually some creatures, and for the elite I usually dig into the skills to increase the damage of fire, frost and to freeze the opponent; so if I swap the eagle and slot all the KOA traits, I basically nullify the only thing that keeps me alive, which is my offensive potential.

Thats why I was surprised (and enraged at times), when I see that the cool feature to call the pet in battle is only given if you get the KOA, like to say that you are limiting the development of the character putting on the table choices that in fact are not complementary....let me explain.

If you want to orient your LM more on one type of play, you should have something else that compensate: for example, if you go for the MOTNF or the other with the deep lore (sorry, forgot the name), you have a so-so pet that does it's job, you get good cool downs and bonuses for your fire attacks, and in general it seems more appropriate if you wanna be the "wizard" of the situation; but your pet remains in the meh realm

Now if you want to switch for something else, like you wanna be a more resilient warrior with longer cool down for your skills, and have a strong pet; you can't haz it! if you switch and want the in battle summon, you gotta slot the KOA, which gives good aids to your pet, but in exchange takes away your strong points (quick CD and increase damage), without giving you at the same time the advantage of maybe having stronger attacks, getting crits more often or being harder to hit/more resilient.

Look at the rune keeper; it can swap between offensive and defensive without loosing anything that is not complemented by an advantage on the other side; so I wonder how come that with the LM they have all these limitations?

I mean, if you wanna specialize in the Radagast style, you gotta have great pets and be hard to hit, when your enemies try to overlook the pet and come at you; or wanna be like gandalf and be great in melee attack, with strong light and electric based attacks; or you can be like the other 2 guys that we never see, that maybe were elementalists and would have a ###### pet used for diversion, but uber skills to shoot damages on their foes, like improved BE, GOW, CH and such, and being also not that great from close distance (kinda like a ranger?)...wanna be a crowd control like Saruman, then you loose in melee power, lore power and pet but you get super buff and debuffs.

I always keep as reference the system in AD&D, where even if you are a magic class, you can sacrifice something and get a specialization to become better in something else...sadly with the LM this won't happen no matter how hard you try, and the pet problem seems to confirm this issue: they are all more or less relatively close to each other, except the 2 that requires the trait slotted...and even among them you cannot swap between the 2 without loosing a lot, from what I can read from the comments.

Sorry for the rant, I love this class, has been the first that I have played since beta and it is my favorite even today after so many years

I guess that I must take the bog for a ride, and see if in fact my ability of playing as I usually do is affected or not...after all 2 of the main selling points for the eagle (rez and interrupt) are totally useless to me, so what is left is the high flanking

Thanks again and sorry if I've gone off topic with my complain...LM are harder to play in the beginning so I just hope that the devs will realize that and give it advantages when it hits higher levels (no need to slot sword and staff; remove limitations to use the bog and the in combat summon, and things like that).

let me suggest this to you... take your eagle and your bog lurker and for kick toss in raven and lynx...

go find a boss that has a lotta HP but isnt gonna kill you all that fast and instead of you just trying to kill it fast... kill it slow and see how long (practice) staying alive... try this with all the different pets and see who performs the best...

for example in forochel while i was much lower level i solo'd Torahammas (pre-update 5 - and I had a champ I was with pull off his entourage so I could drag him away) using the eagle it was a long long slow slow fight but the eagle flank heals, +power, and dont forget your pots in the rotation kept my health bar full and enough power to keep up the fight... sometimes I hadda toss the eagle heals as well...

find a mob like that and put your pets to the test...

Envoyé par Jayvani

IMHO, I personally feel (your mileage may vary) that BOTH the Bog Lurker and the Eagle are Epic or should I say "LEGENDARY" Fail...

I tried them out in the beginning... but in the end its not worth giving up a Legendary Slot for them...
Lets take a look...

1. Sword and Staff - might as well be perma locked in
2. Improved Sticky Gourd - buffed with LI goodness and the dps from this attack is omg, short CD, its always up
3. Ents - I know not the best damage but its also a stun

This and Bear, Raven, Lynx more than handle anything I need to kill... as for raids it seems like they dont want Eagle or Lurker and if you group regularly, how much time and gold are you gonna spend at the Bard...

My suggestion make Eagle and Bog NON-Legendary pets and replace them with nothing for all I care

my .04 (inflation)

/edit oh and most raids like 4. Force of Will for obvious reasons

Personally feel much the same - I mostly solo and have used my bear 95% of the time, with his damage buff as default, use his stun and/or taunt as required. I have tried most of the other pets (save the eagle) and find the lvl 70 pet most in demand in groups for the auxiliary heals.

I didn't even bother tracking down the eagle when I found it took a legendary slot, have the bog beast but don't use it for the same reason - the rest are good enough not to waste a slot.

I have ents, sword/staff and Noble Savage (or whatever it is called that buffs my pets - dinosaur here - please bear with my dodgy memory) as my 3 slotted traits.

With those and my bear I have had no troubles thus far.

How often can the eagle pet flank? I havent slotted him in over a year so idr

Envoyé par Erasluindor

How often can the eagle pet flank? I havent slotted him in over a year so idr

About once every 15 seconds, similar to the Bog-lurker.

Envoyé par RobertLie

About once every 15 seconds, similar to the Bog-lurker.

May be very worth it for me to trait when healing then. Our fancy healing pet has a 45 sec CD on flank.... sure you can choose to use it when you want and not just sit back and wait for one to come up but the difference here seems a little too vast.

For 3 man-instances eagle is much better than the dimlight. The dimlight is just good in raids (the more people the more it heals)

Having just hit 75 (yay - only took me 5 years) I have finally gone back and done my level 50 quests to get the eagle (never got around to it before as I mostly play solo).

I am having fun with the new pet and think I prefer it for solo play over the bear that has been with me most of the way. It is tough, flanks well, makes bothersome stuff run away if needed etc. Maybe it is the novelty as well, time will tell.

I have also changed to MoNF, and have Sword/Staff - Eagle - Improved Gourd slotted at the moment. With improved Burning Embers now, plus fire-based staff and book I find that the loss of the Ents is not noticeable.

I do think they need to de-couple combat summoning from the Bog Lurker and maybe make it a skill in the new expansion.

Envoyé par trcanberra

I do think they need to de-couple combat summoning from the Bog Lurker and maybe make it a skill in the new expansion.

I really don't think combatsummoining should be "for free".
But i agree, that it should be de-coupled from the lurker. Combining combat summoning with Noble Savage would be a good way to buff Noble Savage and to make combatsummoning available for all LM, but not for free.
It fits quite well with the petfocussed legendary trait Noble Savage and Savage does really need a buff.

The blue capstone needs to be reworked then, of course.

IMHO the LM is in a pretty good state at the moment , the only change i'd wish for is to have in combat Pet Summonning tied to the Noble Savage Leg Trait rather than the Bog Trait

Envoyé par Tatharil

I really don't think combatsummoining should be "for free".
But i agree, that it should be de-coupled from the lurker. Combining combat summoning with Noble Savage would be a good way to buff Noble Savage and to make combatsummoning available for all LM, but not for free.
It fits quite well with the petfocussed legendary trait Noble Savage and Savage does really need a buff.

The blue capstone needs to be reworked then, of course.

Envoyé par Bedlamb

IMHO the LM is in a pretty good state at the moment , the only change i'd wish for is to have in combat Pet Summonning tied to the Noble Savage Leg Trait rather than the Bog Trait

Agree with this suggestion - makes a lot of sense to me.