What is a Beastlord?

[Noxdowne Draggout]

I am hoping to link to this thread from my guild site.

What I would like is for EP flagged level 65 to post what it is that they bring to the table in a raid.

Factual DPS numbers would be great.

On overview of when you like to use MGB Paragon. What I mean is do you save it for wipes or use it to re-enforce long duration battles.

I am mostly looking for Beastlords that are EP flagged to respond here, because that is where my guild is.

The purpose of this thread?

Simply put to allow other classes to read what we Beastlords can do without creating a nerf me post.

I have sat trying to think what I can post on my guild website under the beastlord class and instead of trying to list what I am doing I would rather have a link to show what all beastlords are doing as a whole in raids.

Any feedback from you EP guys would be greatly appreciated.

Here is a chance to shine.

Nox

[Laba]

Just wanna throw in my 2 bits. I don't feel like making a huge post like i could, so i'll keep it short and sweet (I'm in a time guild just to let you know). First of all, our DPS is decent. We are by no means the best or even near the best classes in DPS, but we can do relatively well. MGB Paragon can be handy at times, but my guild doesn't really notice it or think anything of it. We get a great spell called Ferocity at lvl 65 which gives a bunch of attack and resists and stacks with Avatar. We get a spell that regens 9(?) hp/mana per tick(correct me if im wrong i haven't looked up BST spell information for years). These are the obvious things which we can do and the things that most average Raiding BST do. The things that seperates the Great beastords from the decent ones are the utilization of 2 things, our above average damage mitigation and our excellent, excellent fast casting low mana aggro spells. We can pull aggro faster and hold it better then any other class when using the right combination of spells. Numerous, Numerous times have BSTs in my guild saved raids from total wiping by pulling aggro off clerics / chanter / shaman and keeping it. We also have Protective Spirits, a discipline with a  4ish minute refresh that reduces the damage we recieve GREATLY for a short period of time. This has let me keep mobs in time phase 3, which hit for over 1.5k FAST off the vital classes and kept me alive at the same time. I can't begin to imagine how many cleric / chanter / shaman lives have been saved by the BSTs in my guild, but i'm sure its a really really big number :) . I don't know what more to say atm since im pretty tired, I think the reasons i listed are more than enough for BST to be an extremely valued part of any high end guild.

[Argach]

EP and Time flagged (but not quite geared) beastlord here. -_-

DPS numbers (beastlord + pet):

LDoN easy, not slowing and max burn (25 min mission): 175 dps
LDoN hard, slower, nuking as much as possible: 145 dps
PoTime earth trial, slowing, feroing only other melees, healing: 135 dps
LDoN hard, slower, mainly feroing other melees: 125 dps

Pet procs would boost these numbers.

Not fully AA'd or geared though, using weapons from Tactics and NToV, 185 worn atk, missing ambi, CF/FotA not capped - check my magelo.

I'd say I can do sustained 150 dps if all I am concerned with is my own damage and that's enough for me, with the gear I have. On raids our mana regen/slowing capabilities are far more valuable than dps, at least in guilds with low number of beastlords.

[Mallahki]

Hmm...what is a beastlord?  The most obvious thing a beastlord offers a raid is Spiritual Dominion (9hp/9mana regen buff).  That is the one buff that the extreme majority of players know beastlords have.  Paragon (approximatly 1200hp/600mana group heal over time, depending on the bsts SCR) is another tool that that we have to offer.  MGB paragons the most advantagious when used during an encounter with a mob with a mana drain or just an extremely long winded fight (Xegony comes to mind).  It can also be used for its hp heal over time, but more often than not, it is called for based on its mana regen (druids and clerics mgb better heal over times).  

Beastlords can even act as main slower when the situation arrives.  One such situation which occurs most for me, is in Plane of Time, during the first Tier, you must split your raid into 3 smaller raids to clear the first tier trials.  You may not have enough shaman to cover main slowing adaquatly.  A beastlord can do this job just fine, as well as offtanking.  Beastlords can create some pretty good snap agro (slows cast in less than 2 secs) which has hepled save the clerics in my trials more than once when one of the tanks go down.  

I feel I am ramblin a bit, but would like to list 2 more things beastlods offer.  Ferocity is possibly the best all around resist buff in the game.  One beastlord can easily keep ferocity on 3 ppl, and if they wanna time them down to the wire, 4 ppl.  There are many times when 65 to all resist types bring a cleric or tank type to 500 in all resists (with all other raid buffs/songs).  

Lastly, beastlords used to be gimped in high end PoP due to outragous AoEs from the mobs, and our pets not benefiting from AoE or group heals.  This has been rectified in LDoN by one simple spell, Protection of Callaiv.  Dont be disheartened, as i was when i first tested this spell (i didnt know much about it).  This spell protects your warder from a set number of hits, including AoE type spells that mobs cast.  Let me clarify, this is not a rune.  It does not protect a set number of hitpoints, like chanter runes....BIG difference.  I will give one example of the power of this spell.  Quarm is the final boss in Plane of Time.  He AoEs 1 of 4 different possible AoEs every 30 secs or so.  One of these AoE's is a 3k DD.  With callaiv your warder could survive 3 of these 3k DD, (9khp) w/out gettin touched.  I believe the number is 3 hits.  Hehe, when i tested this spell....the first thing i did was cast callaiv on my pet, and sent him in on a spider in PoN.  Callaiv lasted 2 rounds of combat (like 5 secs, prolly around 600hp).  Repeated, with same results.  I guess what i am tryin to say is dont use callaiv for melee type hits against your pet.  I believe it was added to the game specifically to address the problem of our warders (and other classes pets) surviving raid encounters.  Anyways, that was way more than i really expected to type, but I just wanted to try to curb the belief that bsts can really only offer their own melee dps durin a raid, because their pets cant survive mobs AoE's, that is no longer the case.  

I hope this sheds a little light on what beastlords can do (along with what everyone else posts).  This is not all a beastlord has to offer, but it is what i believe to be the most obvious.

[Murkk Dakruul]

Beastlords in my opinion are probably the true "Jack of all trades" in EQ. For most the role on raids is mainly DPS, We can achieve monk-like DPS if we really focus on that. But I think, more than any other class, our role changes depending on the encounter.

On the average raid my main goal is to keep SD on everyone at all times, re-casting for deaths etc., and to keep Ferocity on 4 of the rogues/rangers/monks at all times, And between me and my pet, do as much damage as possible.

But in EQ there really never is an "average" raid :). Random things happen and thats where beastlords really shine.

For example Xegony, Half the adds will cast a nasty AE DoT, Beastlords can cure this with abolish disease. Same thing on Bert's ring event, I play main curer, all the while keeping fero on 4 people and adding in a good 175 DPS.

An even better example would be any fight whith adds. Time trials, xegony, Earth rings etc. Beastlords are one of the best classes at helping to get adds under control. Beastlord slow casts very fast, faster than any other slow, it's under 2seconds. They also have Stonestance discipline, which refreshes really fast. Both of these combined allow each beastlord to grab an add almost immediatly and tank it petty much better than anyone else in that situation. A stonestanced beastlord, tanking a 65% slowed mob, is going to be taking much less damage than a pally or SK who just aggro'd the mob with a stun or DoT or what have you. Stonestance easily lasts long enough for the enchanters and shaman to get everything under control.

The use of Ferocity also changes quite a bit. Sometimes it is used mainly for resists. On fights like Saryrn and Terris thule(PoTime versions) I'll cast it on any cleric/druid that isn't max resists. On Xegony it goes to the MT, Same as on TZ(PoTime).

MGB Paragon gets used on alot of fights. Blazzax, Pyronis, Tantisala Jaggedtooth, Grioihin the wise, Dust ring, Air avatars, The rathe council, Solusek ro etc etc. On fights where mana is an issue like Xegony, Saryrn and Arch mage Yozanni to name a few.

In my guild MGB paragon gets used alot, almost every raid, But not as much as single target paragon, Which I personally use every 15min(unless of course im saving it for one of the above mentioned mobs). If a cleric was just rez'd and is OOM, I give him a shot of paragon. It just further increases the efficiency of the raid.

One of the smaller benefits is Spiritual Vigor. Sometimes you don't have a paladin and the tank will want SV over SoT. Sometimes you don't have a ranger and the rogues will want SV over BSS. This tends to happen in time trials alot, from my experience.

One other thing that gets brought up alot is the pet. Alot of people don't like pets, they think the raid is going to wipe just by the presence of pets. Alot of people are wrong  :). A well controlled pet is a benefit on every single raid. All of them, Every single one, No exceptions. With the addition of Protection of Calliav, Beastlords can use pets on every single mob.

People think pets cause massive push, yeah, pets that arn't controlled. A pet that is under control prevents push. With good pet placement the mob will stand right where you want it to, the whole time, and not budge at all. Or on the flip side of things, you can use pet push to your advantage. If you want a mob put in a certain corner as fast as possible, pets will make it happen. Pet push is the opposite of a problem, Infact I would say without pets pushing we would actually be worse off on raids.

As far as DPS, I would place us at Sub-monk DPS. In many cases we can outdamage monks, but I would place us just a tad lower because many times we can't really focus on DPS due to rebuffing/slowing/whatever. Personally I average about 200 DPS, + or - about 10 depending on the raid(yes I parse everything). In a low resist environment and with full buffs, I can sometimes pull off 250 DPS, but it's rare.

As far as having multiple beastlords, Beastlords actually do stack very well on raids. infact the only thing that isn't really going to stack is SD.


All in all, I think it's really hard to put beastlords into one of the roles that we assign classes for a raid. We are definatly not just DPS. A well played beastlord, using all the tools, will make a raid run much smoother. And can even save the raid on many occasions.

[Kryq]

My role on a raid is generally to keep ferocity and SD up, add to dps, and help keep the raid healthy on any boss with a nasty AE with MGB paragon.

Off all those things, the only thing that I am doing constantly is meleeing and tossing in the occational nuke.  Since I tend to get a bit bored just doing that, I also like to try and land slow before the shaman's do.  I die a bit more that way, but it keeps my on my toes, and interested in whats happening, instead of tuning out and watching TV on a raid.

-Kryq

[Man0warr]

Ditto here, my raid day usually consists of keeping everyone SD'd, pre-slowing trash mobs, working with druids and other beastlords in guild for paragon/sotw chaining, keeping ferocity on rogues , and meleeing when i can :P

[Lunani Snowfyre]

not really what you wanted, nearly ep flagged bst here. only rz left.

at a raid my most obvious role is to keep everyone buffed with SD. rebuffing them as soon as possible if someone dies

depending on fight we make a mgb paragon chain. the boost in hp/mana regen is highly appriciated

haven't tried it on boss mobs but for trash mobs we can make a pretty good main slower. most of the fights are too short for shamans or chanters to cast their slow effectively. I can do almost the same job in less than 2 seconds

although we're not very good healers I make patch heal sometimes. especially at the start of a fight it helps to keep clerics not on top of the rampage list

and last but not least we can be offtank or even rampage tank. highly depends on AA and gear