I'm sorry, but I'm going to talk about Animal Handling.

[supple crypt]

I have been playing anything/AH since 2017. I've tried lots of different builds and talked to lots of different players about those builds. Ultimately there's very few things that even make AH viable let alone competitive at true end game.I've only found a few okay combos. They all feel underwhelming compared to what I will call a 'real' comp like ice/knife or spider/druid or any number of other things.

Once you hit end game, having AH slotted in is not only a DPS loss, but a liability because of the way the pets can behave due to pathing, fears, etc. During parts of dragon run, if you are using AH the party will ask you to dismiss your pet for extended periods, and that's an entire skill that is then doing nothing.

Citan, you talked about Chopjaw being overpowered, and at early levels it is, and I don't think nerfing it is bad, however, by the time you hit end game a half decent bee/wasp has more survivability than Chopjaw, being able to dodge one shot skills, while also dealing more damage. Chopjaw is not a great pet except for lower level content, and its clever trick requires very careful management to even be used.

I'm not saying that fixing AH is a priority, but it is by far the least useful skill I've encountered, and I say that as someone who loves pet skills, and won't play a game without one.

Obviously there are mods that enhance your pets damage from basic attack, sic 'em and clever trick, but there is no gear with base stats (white stats) and no generic mods that buff pets. This applies to necro pets as well.

Talking to friends, we talk about x or y build being busted, and destroying things, and all I can say is I don't mind builds being busted, but I want all builds to be more equally busted. lol

I am kind of hoping that balance is something that Citan and the rest of the devs are waiting to focus on post Statehelm, but I worry that AH has kind of been left to stagnate as an early game 'good' skill but late game crap skill.

[pastel carbon]

You could probably double the base damage of every animal handling ability and it still wouldn't be good enough. It's absurd that 100+ bees are only a collectible, rather than being a legitimate option. The skill could barely compete at 80 if you spammed anchor runes then they nerfed pets when genetics came out because... reasons. I understand it in theory, but in practice it fucking ruined AH.

What might be even more important is that pets have very few (any?) good AoE's... AH is basically a trap for new players with current chopjaw.

[supple crypt]

Lol yeah it is incredibly underwhelming late game and legit feels like a waste of time if you want to be competitive with other players. Right now the only purpose for it is to get 50 and get animal husbandry for horses.

[dense lintel]

As a high-end player that uses AH in my main build let me give some perspective from a different angle.
Yes AH damage is comparatively much poorer since a few updates, and perhaps even Pig can do better... But, the variety of pets gives it a lot of flexibility and many times you can choose a damage type to which your target is vulnerable. That's good for solo, and indeed I feel I'd be a liability in group were it not for the few tricks an animal handler can pull up (unfortunately, nobody let me do it).
I'm sure Citan is aware of the issue and I suspect the answer is more tech that needs to be implemented before AH pets can become on par again, damage-wise.
In the meantime I feel the skill suffers more from a few bugs that frustrate the fun out of us: the pet doesn't move at the speed of the owner (cosmetic pets do), the pets can get stuck (cosmetic pets never do), rats Clever Trick often fails (though I haven't checked in a long time), the "stance" icons are so small they are almost invisible, and the unsummon icon has transparent pixels that make it even less clickable. And I'm probably missing some.
Yet, thanks to another bug that has existed since day one and that I exploit shamelessly, AH shines in dungeon crawls and can do things that no other skill can. If your problems can be solved with DPS - and let's face it, the majority of them can - then AH is definitely the wrong choice. But in dungeons sometimes hitting everything in front of you will just get you killed, and then you need to restart from the beginning. This is where AH shines.
So in my opinion AH is good at solo dungeon crawls, and even if it sucks at everything else, it has its niche.
On a final note, this was before Vampirism, and if Vampirism can do better as I suspect it can...

[supple crypt]

I feel like people who think AH is good are playing a different game than me. lol