LET ME PREFACE THIS BY SAYING YOU DO NOT HAVE TO PICK THESE SKILLS IF YOU LIKE YOUR BASELINE PETMASTER THE WAY IT IS, PLEASE DO NOT SEND ME ANTHRAX LETTERS PETMASTER LOBBY
30 (0, maybe?) CP skills that enhance your pet types, to the detriment of other pet types.
So let's say, a Wyrm Master can specialize further in his Hellhounds, giving them a cheaper summon and mutation cost and better stats, but his wrackwyrms and imps and tentacles would be more expensive to summon, or have weaker stats.
Way I see it, at least for good and evil PMs (neutrals are more finnicky) there's 4 kinds of pets they can summon. Titans, which, well, are titans. Frontline pets, the ubiquitous Hellhounds and Judgemasters, Support pets, which are Sprites and Imps and I guess defense pets? Foo Lions and Tentacles. So you can have 4 skills that cost zero or 30 CP and lock you out* of the rest of the skills and do that kind of stuff
* Another idea I was floating around in my head was, you can buy your first specialization for free, and your second one at a 30 or 60 CP cost, which mitigates or does away with the maluses that your first specialization gives to that pet type. So you could be a titan summoning LS with, idk, 2 wheels that are stronger and also have good Judgemasters if that's what you wanna do, but then your Foo Lions and Sprites are going to be shit
AS FOR THE ACTUAL NUMBERS man idk I'm just the idea guy
"what about neutrals, kharn?"
Elementalists already have their own specialization thing going so I don't think that's necessary for them?
Liches, uhh... Liches don't really have the same clear cut pet types as LS and WM do so I really don't know what to do for them. Maybe just two specializations, titan and frontline?
[Skill] Specializations for Petmasters
[Skill] Specializations for Petmasters
FOO LION DELENDA EST
Re: [Skill] Specializations for Petmasters
I'd rather go for the scaling cost approach, but with more focused, pet-type-agnostic skills (akin to Elementalist's Enhanced and Tenacious summoning).
That might somewhat make the pet upgrade skills obsolete, but it'd open them up for more unique bonuses. For example, the Bone Seeker upgrade could make it so that Skeletons gained damage when repeatedly attacking a single target; the Ghoul upgrade could apply a zombiefication debuff where the target would spawn as a Ghoul on death (rather than when last-hit by a Zombie/Ghoul).
That might somewhat make the pet upgrade skills obsolete, but it'd open them up for more unique bonuses. For example, the Bone Seeker upgrade could make it so that Skeletons gained damage when repeatedly attacking a single target; the Ghoul upgrade could apply a zombiefication debuff where the target would spawn as a Ghoul on death (rather than when last-hit by a Zombie/Ghoul).
A Parrot with a Blade - Melee/Touchcaster Holy Champion || GrayScimitar - Heavy Sword Tlac IB || RustyWire - Gunwiz
Re: [Skill] Specializations for Petmasters
I do have to add that Buyback has done away with the historic reason not to do things like this.
Katerina Hasheen - Necromancer Advocate, champion of a better Hashaa
Serena Hasheen - Sword Revenant, Freedom Array booster
Isabel Hasheen - Gunwizard Councillor, infusion's #1 fan
Kandarin - Unformed potential, Crusader, fontnet architect
Erduhr-Khazai - Fire-breathing Dragon DO, Evil Overlord, pillager of planes
Serena Hasheen - Sword Revenant, Freedom Array booster
Isabel Hasheen - Gunwizard Councillor, infusion's #1 fan
Kandarin - Unformed potential, Crusader, fontnet architect
Erduhr-Khazai - Fire-breathing Dragon DO, Evil Overlord, pillager of planes