Beastslaying: Is it okay?

Versalean

Speaks for itself: Is it okay to kill somebody's beast? (NB. We are not discussing pets or guild ents [unless they're beasts, of course]).

Kagato

If I see a beast that is owned by someone that is marked as a city/guild/order enemy somewhere they are not meant to be, generally I give the owner a single opportunity to recall it, then it's gonna go squish!

Daedroth

A beast that's just hanging around somewhere doing nothing isn't really a threat as far as I know. In combat is a different scenario. It's not like killing the beast really accomplishes anything other than inconveniencing another player unnecessarily. It's one of those things that you can do, but it's a bit of a "D*** move" and you should expect the golden rule to apply to your character from then on.

Maligorn

Given that some beasts are integral to peoples' offenses, I have very little problem with killing them if they're not where they are supposed to be, or if they've been left behind after running or dying in a fight. I fully expect people to treat me the same way.

That being said, there are some rare instances where people inform me to recall my beast after I've run or been killed myself. I tend to remember that and return the favor as often as I can.

Eritheyl

Maligorn said:

That being said, there are some rare instances where people inform me to recall my beast after I've run or been killed myself. I tend to remember that and return the favor as often as I can.

This. I don't tend to touch anybody's stuff outside of org territory, but if I see someone's something somewhere it probably shouldn't be...I let them know. No reason to be a dick, but I don't expect the same treatment myself. It is what it is.

Nyxari

Not just limited to Lusternia, but I've always been of a mindset that killing their mounts are perfectly fine if it's in the middle of combat; they serve their purpose as a combat aid, so removing that aspect to give yourself an advantage is a completely valid move, or if it was left in your city/org territory and they're an enemy of said org.

The rules I generally have are:

1. Randomly killing someone's beast purely because I dislike them, or they're an enemy to my city/org. That's just being a dick for no reason, plain and simple.
2. This overrides all of the above: If killing it will result in the beast/mount permanently dying, I'll leave it alone 99% of the time unless it belongs to someone who has a history of being an asshat to everyone else. Generally speaking I'll do my best to ensure everyone I'm with follows that, too. I don't really care what it cost; if killing will perma death it then I don't touch it. Period.
   

Enya

The wrinkle is that killing someone's beast out of combat isn't necessarily random griefing. In theory, it prevents them from using that beast for the next hour, including in combat.

IMO it's not a big deal to kill someone's beast, but it's really uncool to seek them out to kill their beast over and over out of spite. Because you can crit beasts, if you set out to track them down and attack their beast any time they're hunting you can pretty easily grief their beast out of existence and that's no bueno. 

Kagato

Nyxari said:

Not just limited to Lusternia, but I've always been of a mindset that killing their mounts are perfectly fine if it's in the middle of combat; they serve their purpose as a combat aid, so removing that aspect to give yourself an advantage is a completely valid move, or if it was left in your city/org territory and they're an enemy of said org.

The rules I generally have are:

1. Randomly killing someone's beast purely because I dislike them, or they're an enemy to my city/org. That's just being a dick for no reason, plain and simple.
2. This overrides all of the above: If killing it will result in the beast/mount permanently dying, I'll leave it alone 99% of the time unless it belongs to someone who has a history of being an asshat to everyone else. Generally speaking I'll do my best to ensure everyone I'm with follows that, too. I don't really care what it cost; if killing will perma death it then I don't touch it. Period.
   

Unfortunately it can be difficult to discern what current level a beast is at and whether or not another death would 'push it over the edge'.  Something to keep in mind is that if the owner of said pet had logged off, they would lose it anyway as soon as it died of starvation, so they will lose it regardless (this only applies if they logged off without sending the beast to the stable though.)

Nyxari

Kagato said:

Unfortunately it can be difficult to discern what current level a beast is at and whether or not another death would 'push it over the edge'. 

No it's not, the beast's level is proportionate to the CONSIDER message. Right down to the very level, I checked this even while I was leveling mine. It shows weak and feeble at level 1 (the lowest consider message), crushingly strong at level 12 (the 12th, going by HELP CONSIDER). Other point still stands: if it's gonna die of starvation, why not just let it? Why do you have to kill it, and force them to see that you specifically, have killed it? What exactly do you gain from it?

eta: Artifact pets have 'an air of extreme strength' being level 13, which further confirms that.

Kagato

Ehhhh... I tend to squish first, CONSIDER later, admittedly  

Nyxari

So you're saying you don't even check whose beast it is, before you go and kill it? Because it shows that line when you probe it, too.
:thinking:

Aeldra

Generally I tend to let beasts be, unless I get a good combat reason not to. I feel like that killing beasts simply because you found them unattended somewhere outside of org territory is not something I personally find justified, but I suppose I get why people do it. Permanently killing anothers beast is abhorrent though and I'll not stand by it.

Tremula

Echoing the above statements, but I tend to only kill beasts that I know are artefact beasts or belong to someone who has been troublesome. In combat, I understand getting rid of that poison spit/gust/trample is really useful. Otherwise, I always try to send a tell, and if they're not online then I'll bugger off and leave them be. The golden rule and all that.

Esoneyuna

Killing beasts that are used in pvp is common sense. I would not bother probing or considering those.  Same for beasts left in enemy org territory.

Going out just to kill beasts though is not nice. However if it is not continious I would not be overly bothered by it nor would I dislike the person doing it.

Doing it continously would be going to far, but then continiously attacking people is going to far in general for me.

Yarith

Most people with pvp invested beasts will take a significant amount of bashing to kill, usually far longer than coming back to life and summoning back.

Maligorn

I see @Shuyin has an opinion in this poll. I see you. Show yourself

Moi

If you bring a beast along on a raid, I'm going to treat it just like any other raider and try to kill it. If you bring your beast with you to influence Tosha or go astral bashing, I'm going to treat it just like any other enemy who's off influencing or bashing: Not causing problems, no need to interrupt.

Nelras

I think that it depends on the beast and the situation. Combat beast while combat is going on, definitely. Influencing/bashing/whatever beast that was left somewhere accidentally, why bother? Combat beast once combat is over, it is nice to have the chance to dismiss it instead but sometimes it helps to kill it if there is going to be more combat.

Lerad

I have two pvp beasts, and a third, bashing beast that can be hot-rigged to be pvp ready (at a slightly sub-optimal setup) using Beastmaster. Killing my beast, in combat or out of it, is hardly going to make much of a difference, and will only really make my life a tad bit more inconvenient. For that same reason, I am hardly ever the first to tell people to start killing enemy beasts - though if people start hitting enemy beasts in my room, I might join in. Sometimes, I just sit there - the beast will die eventually without my help anyway. Might as well save some keystrokes. Either way, if the person is determined, he'll be back with a different beast anyway.

I don't know if the mage beasts or the cavalier beasts have a limit that prevents you from having more than one, but if there isn't such a limit, and you're really that concerned about getting gimped out of beastmastery skills in combat, just grow another PVP beast. All the other classes, for sure, can do that at least. It takes 100 gold a RL day to upkeep a beast. Not... that difficult to maintain one or two extra ones.

Killing a beast permanently... is almost never going to be possible to do intentionally. Like someone pointed out, if a beast is level 1 and left out somewhere you can kill - it'll die permanently in a couple of hours or less, anyway. If it's not level 1, well, it'll go on cooldown for a full hour after you kill it - after which the owner has to take it out of the stables manually. I don't know about you, but if you can camp a beast 13 times, over 13 full hours, with the owner actively trying to stop you from killing their beast... I don't know, it just sounds incredibly unfeasible. There's probably a dozen other easier ways to grief a guy than to go to the effort of killing his beast permanently.

Even if I notice someone consistently killing my beast if I forget to dismiss it, I would hardly bother to spend the effort doing the same back to him - if I had the time and effort, I'd probably join in a raid or something instead.

Naevari

Killing mounts in the last IRE I played really rubbed me the wrong way, but there were no beast levels there, and they died permanently. I still think that it's not very nice to go around killing mounts, but given their combat functionality here, and given that they lose levels before dying, I'd say it's perfectly okay in combat. Bringing a level one beast you wanna hang onto into PVP strikes me as a bit reckless. I'd say it's different if you're jumping someone and they have, like, a young beast with them or something. That'd be uncool.

Cyndarin

All the time, every time.