The Beastlords' Den

Just want to see some accumulated thoughts on our new skill Rake that we will be getting.


I for one like the idea, but I don't like how its a set amount of damage.  It just means we'll be left in the dust here in a couple expansions due to gear on other melee classes that have skills that evolve with their gear.  When we first came out in luclin we were awesome damage and our pets were on top and we were even considered over powered.  Well our pets never really changed in damage and our melee only got better with a double attack AA and some other stuff.  Rake might make us really favored for damage and pulling agro again, but in a couple expansions it will begin to amount to nothing.  I also believe making the damage of rake modified by our weapons will add a thrill to playing our class again.  Paladins get the thrill of getting their new awesome 2handers for slay undead and rogues for backstab.  Having something to look forward to keeps a person around and still playing this game devs.  I would also like to see feral swipe damage modified by our weapons too!  Hell to make things interesting make it so beastlords have to have a hand to hand weapon to make the combat ability stronger to keep things interesting for beasts when selecting gear. 

If they would make this a scalar item, based upon the primary weapon's ratio, then it would be very worthwhile imo.  They prolly would end up making it scalar however, up to a certain target dps at the endgame level.  Now, word atm is that it won't be baz bst obtainable... /shrug.. we'll see, but pre-release, its approx 20 dps, per tast.  This is at the level it is first obtainable... and in Demi-Plane as well.  If they want it to be 20 dps for someone who is not in end-game, that's fine... have it scale accordingly... tho mebbe it being (/calcs 170 dps (took my stuff & popped in paired ViCs for weaps instead and lowered accur to 20 & CE to 15 & lowered haste to 100% (i use 108 cuz of overhaste usually)) to 600 dps is approx 3.5X) approx 70dps is something they'd pitch a fit at.  But who knows... frankly, that sounds sorta fair to me tbh, but meh.

I think even 20 DPs might be a little puny at high end. If it starts at 20 DPs and then scales upward....then all good.

The thing about keepign it seperate from lower ends sort of worries me. I understand the reasoning behind it, heck I am doing to much damage as is thanks to the swarm pet.....thank you akward scaling  I gringe to see it drop so heavy like i know it is going to.

Just abilities seperating from high end and low end does carry alot of grief between the ranks. I am not to fond of the Ancient spells, but those never carry any important balance most the time.....but to treat an ability like this does sort of stink.

I think it should be obtainable low end with low return, but scale heavy as you go up in progression.

the separating you are talking about: that the part where its not intended for non-high end people?

sorry if that seems obvious.... brainfried bad atm

My thoughts on it, keeping in mind that I haven't actually participated in beta and had first-hand experience with the skill.

20 dps will be good for me, and I am in favor of something that makes my endurance worthwhile.  However, I also think that it should somehow scale to continue to make it viable as the game ages.  I don't mind spamming abilities though.  I still kick and have to be careful what I tie to the 3 key on other characters because hitting that button to kick is so reflexive.

As far as how we obtain it, I guess I am weird but I would like to see either rake or spirit of O able to be acquired by beastlords of any progression level.  I really liked the way they did our DoN spell where a decent version was available to all and the higher-level version was something you had to raid for.  I am fine with quest based rewards but I hate so see another system like DoDh where a casualish beastlord has a very small chance of ever seeing the spell/disc they released.  At least one should be obtainable by any beastlord willing to put in the time.

Or maybe that is the pansy in me speaking, I dunno.

Quote from: Kanan on February 20, 2006, 11:32:44 PM
the separating you are talking about: that the part where its not intended for non-high end people?

sorry if that seems obvious.... brainfried bad atm

Well I don't mind ancient spellls, because they aren't held in the scape of balance. A class doesn't need them really but gives you something for raiding the high end. I don't need the Ancient nukes and etc. There is no Ancient spell you need to succeed...if Ancients were slows and other important class attributes that would be a different matter.

This rake ability, if set to scale, might be one of those abilities that shouldn't be treated like an Ancient and only for highenders.

It really isn't a rant so much as a concern of how this ability might turn out to be something a little more balance oreinted then an Ancient ever will be. Grant it 20 DPS isn't huge, but if adjusted properly could be something entirely different.

Well, Rake doesnt scale and it will not scale since that is not supported by the game engine for discs like these. And that is the main concern i have about it. As is rake is around 25 dps and that is absolutely fine for the lower end but grossly underpowered for the highend right now. In the future it will be underpowered for all of us just due to normal mudflation with expansions.

Therefore in my opinion Rake is a very bad skill overall. We have of course see how you can aquire it and i am pretty sure its through some kind of mission arc since there are tons of those, some tied in with several smallish raids. At the moment we just have a vague hint from Rytan that it is intended for the highend beastlord but til we know how you can get it ingame that is just a rumour and shouldn't be taken into account.

Hmm, but why can't they turn it into a skill which can only be trained at lvl 70 at trainer after you handin something (make it a quest which is doable by the casual beast (and his friends)). Then I see no reason as to why it can't be made to scale like Backstab does..

On the other hand, maybe they already thought of scaling and put +rake dmg on our PoR quest armor  (if there is such a thing), or PoR weapons or other beast items (ones which are worth putting on though :P)

Cheers,

heh... where's our +feral swipe damage been? ;p

doubt we'll see something that useful tbh =/

sorry... feeling pessimistic today =/

I still think rake should have scaled :(

Another big question:

Does it have the same bugged range that Feral Swipe does?  If so it will be pretty unusable on many high end encounters, on mobs with a large hit box and ae rampage.

My question being is how is this being treated any different then Hail of Arrows and Detroyer Volley abilities that rangers and zerkers have. Both scale to the weapons they swing.

Or is Rake tied to the base damage of our bare naked hand to hand ratios? That the reason it isn't scaling?

Also according to Lucy this generates 400 hate? Somehow I can only imagine this as a bad thing in the long run, if it is truelly doing that.

Range from my parses is the same as on feral swipe so it has the same issue.

bleh.. yep.. both have range = 50 listed on lucy... <3 poorly designed, easy to fix abilities we'll prolly never see changed.

I really hope raid goes well tonight... feeling really pessimistic atm ><

I'm on board with the comments here.  Looking forward to bonus dps, but this looks like a poor fit for our current needs, namely scalable dps boost and raid functionality.  Seriously, how can devs duplicate past feral swipe mistake of gimp melee range and also put an aggro generator on it????  WTF?

To be honest, I don't see this expansion offering much to BL, and I probably will not buy it unless I see some sweet items coming out of the missions.  In fact I'm gettin so discouraged at high end BL issues (dps, raid utility) that I'm looking to transition into another game.

Aggro I'm not sure about off the top of my head, but on average it's less aggro per damage than nuking would generate.

It doesn't scale and that's a real pita.  One thing to keep in mind though is that this does blow feral swipe out of the water.

-  3 attacks instead of 1
-  Half the refresh time
-  Almost never misses

It seriously over 10X as good as feral swipe (closer to 20X depending) lol.  Lots of issues with it and believe me I spent most of beta trying to get it to scale somehow and I will continue to do so.  However, some people have been talking to me like this is just another single extra attack every 60 seconds with a 45% miss rate and that isn't close to true.  As I said if it weren't for us having dps problems this is kinda "fun" and at the lower end it's decent.  If it could be made to scale better it has the potential to be really nice for a lot of beastlords.  ATM though it's weak sauce.  *shrugs*

As there seems to be some confusion, I would direct folks to the Lucy spell data (http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=8782&source=Live) page for details on this new ability.

But to answer some previous questions: range 50 is confirmed, and it's 400 hate when you use it.

I still wish the number of attacks were relative to some sort of worn gear mod check, but Ryan already stated that it would require a code change to get that done. :(

Speaking as a current zerker main we have two abilities similar to this.  

Frenzy on a 6 second timer  has a can hit 0 - 3 times for random damage up to 250 steady and 300's rare,  
Volley as mentioned has a 12 second timer hits 4 times with a 0 miss rate but can be blocked/riposted etc from the front for random damage up to 399 w/ my throwing dmg mod gloves and aa's.

Neither ability is based on our primary weapon and volley is based on a 40ish dmg axe that's only used when throwing.  Only have 4 items all highend that give + frenzy damage and about the same that give the throwing mod.  The throwing mod hasn't been improved since GoD, and + Frenzy items only show up in DoN and DoD high end as well as our 1.5 and 2.0.

All that just to say depending on how you define scale, Soe has done very little to help in scaling of both abilites.  If you're asking for + rake Zerkers are having a hard enough time getting +Frenzy and that's a far older ability.  Having it scale with weapons might be you're best bet and I hope to see it scale somehow just don't hold you're breath.

I do feel this is a good ability and hope to get it for my beast even though he is just an alt at this point.  This and the dod pet spell are the best abilites beasts get atm I think because neither can really be resisted.  That's still the most frustrating thing I run into when playing my beast on those odd occasions.

Sorry if I'm posting where I'm not wanted just wanted to clear up the zerker misunderstanding that was stated ealier.

Real information is always appreciated.  The thing you have to remember though is beastlords have a much, much, *MUCHHHHHHHHHH* harsher division of power and piss poor scaling to begin with.  Zerkers are one of the best scaling classes in the game because of how much of their power comes from pure melee and the way itemization favors melee upgrades. 

Beastlords on the other hand get the least amount from melee upgrades (tied with bards), gain from one of the worst scaling upgrades (pet focus), and already have pet proc, kick, and feral swipe portions of our dps that go basically no where(there is some +kick dmg). 

Really I think the biggest problem though is the fact that beastlords keep having the individual parts of their class "balanced", but the total package never is.  I also think that's part of the issue some beastlords have when looking at abilities because they want to see some gains made.  Rake is pretty "balanced", but beastlords simply aren't and until we finally have some aspect of our class that isn't "balanced" we will never be "balanced" overall.  *shrugs*

Scaling on rake really would help though, as it is this is another shot in the arm boost to our dps that will help some, potentially be too much for others, and border on an insult to the rest.  One of the real factors will be seeing just how hard it is to aquire the skill.  During beta we were told it was aimed at the higher end, so if the only beastlords seeing this skill are already pulling 500(ish)+ dps, then I think you'll see even more unhappy with it.

Frenzy damage may not scale, but zerkers are definitely not hurting for dps atm. Heck - for the 2.0 zerkers I've been w/, agro seems to be their main issue.

speaking of which, anyone know how to obtain rake yet?

Rake will help us with dps a lil bit yes there will be a few thigns wrong with it that most likey will not get fixed this is somethign we can try and most likey will never get fixed.

my biggest thing with it is the endru i am closer to the side of 11kbase hp and i only have like 7500 endru. with only base regen we need the endru Regen aa's like i like warriors rog berk get what not if we can use this a good amount 360 endru ever 1min will drain it away fast.

any one els have any thoguhts on this?

No, endurance regen is not a real problem. Chaining Rake for around 6 hours straight i was down to about 40% of my 8.8k (beta copied) endurance pool so i could have gone on for a few more hours. In the real world you have downtimes where you dont use endurance and it will really not be a big problem at all in its current state.

If it is really aimed at highend beastlords it should have at least double endurance cost and corresponding higher damage.

Blarp -  Like has been said it's only 180 END with a 30 second refresh.  That's 5 ticks.  Base END regen is 30 per tick.  That means you get back 150 of the 180 by the time you can use the skill again.  Chain using it (which will literally never happen) means you lose a whole 60END per minute.  10 minutes = 600, 100 minutes = 6,000  That's over an hour and a half of chain clicking the skill.  If you have even 1 tick of pause between uses you'll break even on END.  If you have downtime, if someone AFK's, if a mob dies just before rake refreshes and the next mob isn't immediatly in camp, etc. 

Using other disc will cut into that a bit, but really the cost of rake isn't an issue and it can be used a ton as others have said.  People should be aquiring the skill soon and we can see what they have to say.  Truth is without the higher end people in beta and the die hard parses a lot more people would <3 this skill.  *shrugs*

anyclue on were to get? ive done the casters aura spells arc and nothing.. just a hint

same here  tons of missions and nota i am sure some one will find out soon tho.

So far the best bet that ive found is from the tated skins that drop from red mobs in devastation the first time you loot one it gives you a task to collect more and turn them into to someone (the grand libaren in pok from what i have found) i have herd rumors about this task bein the way to get the 70 spells/disc's i am curently workin on this task as much as i can on off times when we dont have raids so once i finesh it and find out for sure ill post here and let you all know for sure on what the reward is and what not.

Heard the skin task is for the pet proc.

Somehow though I think it is wrong that the melees have to go through this arc to get their auras while casters got that easy 3 missions to get theirs....but that is a different rant entirely.

Now devastation is a little rough of a zone, so if the proc was meant for all the beastlord community....I really hate to see how beastlords are going to get the supposed "aura" and rake.

Devestation is simple enough on the edges, but in the middle where the mobs you need are it is indeed tough.

If you are not anguish dont go without a good chanter. Took down 10 mobs at once with only a druid for heals.

Skin tast is for rake.

and  the Library guy to do turn in is Down atm...

so saga skin task is for rake? that would be nice.  But can some one conferm this?

Been lots of reports now in various threads that the skin task gives rake as the reward.

Did the skin task and i got 2 books but no rake.  How do you actually get rake? heh

Turn in to Librarian Maelin (yes, the guy you visited for pop progression a few times and fell down the elevator after) for Rake, however Maelin is removed at the moment since he returned the (droppable) books as well as the spell allowing fast spell aquisition by a large number of players.

Well the Dev's have said that they are changing the quest sort of. The 9 skins will still give you your sepll/disc, but they are also putting the spell/disc reward on "Bring me the heads of...' quests.

"Maelin will be back up shortly.

Once he's back up, if you give him the books to get your spell, he will no longer return them to you.  After our next patch, the books will be made No Trade.

Also, after the next patch the "Bring me the head of..." quests within Devastation will reward you with this spell drop as well.  The current quest will continue to reward the spell so those of you working on Razorthorne access can get the spell as you're working through it, but this quest wasn't originally designed to reward spell drops and is more time intensive than we'd like for access to those spells.

Rashere"

who is the NPC that gives the "...bring me the heads of.." quest?

I wish I knew  :-(

Just got rake.. My thoughts?  It's a dud. 

Any chance of some more feedback on rake besides "dud".  Looking at your gear and AA it's in the range of a 5% dps upgrade to your total damage dealt and you still lack some AAs that will make it even better.

How much damage would you expect it to do given the scope of the expansion?

Is it the fact it uses END?

Is it the 30sec refresh?

Like I say you gotta give me more to go on than "boo" or "hiss".  Also, the main problem most people have had with rake is it's lack of scaling, but unless your magelo is way out of date you are actually at the part of the progression spectrum that will see a more sizeable boost from the skill, so that rules that out.

I have had rake for about 5 days now i think i got a chance to mess with it in beta allso. Now that ive had a chance to realy get to use it in a normal invierment (groups,raids est est) its nothen awsome not much of a added dps upgrade unless you happen to get a crit off one of the three hits from rake. It is a added dps no matter what because it dose do damg no matter how small so i will use it but have to say im still not enpresed by this skill in any form just another feral swip type of hot key to click and hope it dose some damg worth clicken.

Some might not agree with me but i realy wish thay would make the min damg at leasts a little higher for the amound of end it use's because as of right now you can only realy use it for short bursts unless your in a group that has a little bit of a break between pulls to try and keep your end up for when you need to use that big shoot of end for the dodh disc named escaps me atm.

All and all its a good idea just poorly exacuted realy wish rytan had tryed to fix the scaleing problem befor he left maybe the new spell/disc guy will try and do something about it per tasts info and pokes in the right direction heh

Endurance shouldnt be any problem for you since it only uses up 30 endurance a minute. With your gear you should have around 9.xk endurance thus enabling you to chain rake for several hours straight before going ooe.

Endurance is certainly not the real problem on rake, in fact it is pretty well balanced and by any means should be higher cost/damage if possible. The real problem is the lack of scaling and it seems there is nothing we can do about it. I just hope they never come up with a bad idea like that since it is one of the worst things especially for classes with a big division of power.

Took me a while to decifer what you were trying to say there Recoil, but endurance should be the last thing you would be worried about while using rake. Unless I am in demi-plane and just rezed, i'll hold back using it, otherwise it's chained like kick or...feral swipe.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v520/Dreead/rake.jpg)

There's a nice little hit for it on myself. I had lion's on as a damage modifer, so that helped. But otherwise I love the skill. Any dps boost is a dps boost.

The way I see it, Rake can be easily fixed to make it more of an upgrade.  Decrease its refresh timer and alot of the problems will be solved.  However, I still do not like that it doesn't scale with your weapons. Its really a marginal upgrade at best.

I think i worded it wrong lol what i ment was i dont like the idea of 180 a shoot for a maybe 300damg to 1600 random amount of damg would realy rather have a higher min damg amount if you have to watch the usege on it. Im not saying i dont like the disc i will be useing it to its full potintal, just saying i wish we would get a bigger return for usen it. I allready had feral swipe flash backs where i went 20 min in a exp group chainin rake with no good hits then bam one crit for 1k and a few 300's hate haven that feeling of small hit, small hit, small hit boom big hit  yay finaly. Just my opionon on it i know its not the same as most but just putting it out their hehe

All though rake + damg disc = good fun sometimes when it has a hit crit for 2k =)

Everyone keeps saying that rake "only" uses 30 endurance a minute. 

Remember, this effectively eliminates all of your endurance regen, so if youre using other discs too, you can run out over the course of a relatively short time.  Especially if you died recently and arent starting from full end.

Also,now that we have endurance based abilities, i'd like to see +end on bst only items.  Theres no reason for us to be required to count on the fact that monks can also use an item for it to have +end on it.

It is really "only" 30 endurance, just not use it for one tick and you have that endurance regened back, it is really not a real problem at all. I could run constant rake parses for over 6 hours with only dropping down to around 30% endurance on my very old copied char with only 8.8k endurance. Of course, if we use discs we spend endurance a tad faster but it still far from being a real problem, yes, we have to manage it a bit but i dont really see a problem with that aspect of the skill (and i use it constantly, just because its on my kick button).

If they're not going to add that last 1hp/1mp to SA because they think there's too much mana regen around already (yet they just added 5mp ench aura... ... ...), they filling SA in with like 1-2 points of end regen would also help with the cost of Rake.  But so far in my time using it, I've had no end issues.

At the least though.. if they changed it.. maybe I could convince the half of my guild that has SA blocked to unblock it ;p

Quote from: Tastian on March 04, 2006, 05:36:10 PM
Any chance of some more feedback on rake besides "dud".  Looking at your gear and AA it's in the range of a 5% dps upgrade to your total damage dealt and you still lack some AAs that will make it even better.

How much damage would you expect it to do given the scope of the expansion?

Is it the fact it uses END?

Is it the 30sec refresh?

Like I say you gotta give me more to go on than "boo" or "hiss".  Also, the main problem most people have had with rake is it's lack of scaling, but unless your magelo is way out of date you are actually at the part of the progression spectrum that will see a more sizeable boost from the skill, so that rules that out.

I think the damage suffers, it seems to be missed a little too often and the damage just isnt good enough to boot.  I would like to do great damage outside of using it with a couple of combat discs.  The refresh time of 30 seconds sucks too.  My fights last like 10 seconds and then theres another pull coming.  I think it should be lowered to like 15 or 20, and also like recoil said the minimum damage is way too low, and of course scaling would be nice.

One thing people constantly miss though is looking at the road and not the end.  They look at "how" and not "what".  For example, people saying things like,

"I think i worded it wrong lol what i ment was i dont like the idea of 180 a shoot for a maybe 300damg to 1600 random amount of damg would realy rather have a higher min damg amount if you have to watch the usege on it."

Or

"The refresh time of 30 seconds sucks too."

The spell is balanced around an average return on dps.  In this case it happens to be ~20-25(ish) dps.  Call it 20 for sake of easy calcs.  That means 20dps X 60sec = 1200dmg a minute.  With that number in mind the ability could easily be:

-  1min refresh 1200dmg every time 360 END

-  15sec refresh 300dmg every time 90 END

-  1 minute refresh  2400dmg  360 END  50% miss rate

-  5 minute refresh 6000dmg 1800 END

And of course tons of other possiblities.  The point though is that you can't argue one aspect of the spell without seeing other aspects effected.  Unless you can get people to agree that the dps needs to go higher (which is very hard to argue without scaling) then changes that effect the dps:  refresh, damage range, damage, etc simply can't be changed. 

If people wanted to see it be more reliable via a higher min damage, for example, then that'd mean the higher max damage went down. It'd mean the sustained dps would be the same, but those triple 1k+ hits wouldn't happen ever(not saying they are common now, but you get the point).  If people want a lower refresh, the again the damage would go down. 

Having said that we have to look at where the skill stands now:

-  Very low miss rate, so it is already pretty consistant.  Especially compared to things like normal melee and feral swipe with a 40(ish)% miss rate.

-  30 second refresh.  Long enough that people don't feel the need to spam, but low enough where we don't have to make a major END commitment and decision every say 3 or 5 minutes and can instead throw it out and really tailor our END useage.

Also we have to realize that PoR wasn't a dps expansion for hardly anyone via spells/disc/etc.  Lots look at PoR for us compared to depths for us, but if you look at PoR for us compared to PoR for others it's a much different picture.  Rogues saw no real dps gain, wizards didn't,  monks say ~1.8dps upgrade, zerkers got an aura that will vary some, but help others as well, necros nothing, etc.  Atm we actually got two dps upgrades(one of which may be changed still, but is live atm).  No it doesn't "fix" our dps by any means, but it is almost impossible for an expansion to do that.  Yeah rake would be much better if it scaled and that's something I will continue to try getting addressed, but at the sametime, some of these problems people have with rake are things that can't really be addressed.

If people want rake to be a different recast I'm willing to consider that and see where others stand on the issue.  If people think that there are previously exisiting END issue that never really came up, that's definitely something to look into as well.  If people feel there are existing dps issues(which I agree with and continue to try getting addressed) then we can continue working on that, but to hang our dps "fix" on rake is like hanging our old aggro issue "fix" on roar.  Rake is one part of the puzzle for us and although it could be better, it could also very easily be worse.  Just the fact that we even saw a dps upgrade in an expansion very light on them goes to show that they are aware of the issue.  It isn't "enough" by any means, but it atleast shows that they went "not a lot of dps this expansion, but it's ok to give beastlords some more".  *shrugs*

Please keep the feedback coming and I'll try to see what we can get done.  Already on the list are:

-  Scaling
-  Possible END issues with gear(would like some examples if possible from people on this)

Any other new issues I'm willing to hear and if more feel that the range is too low and are willing to give up the higher hits and have a lower potential burst via the skill then mention it, but realize that you can't just change one aspect without seeing other changes made to bring it in line.  If more would like to see a 15sec or 1min or whatever as a duration change then let me know.  Some think the END to dmg is off, we can see.  I know some want it to basically keep the end to dmg ratio, but take larger chunks at a time thus raising the dps, but that's a larger change where first they'd have to feel the dmg on it needs to go up.  Possible mind you and I'd like to see it, but it's a much broader issue than just adjusting the spell dat.

Bleh, I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but this is hella long as it is lol.  Please do keep the feedback coming, but keep in mind where the skill falls and offer up suggestions that might help the skill that fit within its scope.

I guess the "possible END issues with gear" means the fact that our class only gear doesnt has endurance on it. There are 2 examples in my magelo, the 2.0 and the bst range from DP.

I don't think endurance is really an issue. I got almost 7.7k endurance. Even when I trigger protective and Empathic Fury I still got almost 2k endurance left.....that is still al ot of room to use 130 endurance every 30 seconds. The only time you will see a problem is on endurance drain AoE's but really you should be then *shrug*

My problem is not the cost, just the scaling and the range.

Range is the biggest issue I have with this disc. Now I don't expect to use it as far range, but I don't expect to be examining the inner working of the mob to use it. This is the only abilty of this type with such a restriction on range grant it that is has other restrictions, but nothing as limiting as range.

Scaling on the other hand does need some work, might not need to be great but it does need to show some signs of change over time.

The range issue is one they are aware of and I know they are considering tweaks for.  I can't say much at this point, but it is something I do expect to see fixed.

The scaling is an issue that has been brought up since beta and I think almost everyone agrees with.  There was some talk about what to make it scale with though because for beastlords the "best" weapon isn't always the highest damage or best ratio'd weapon out there.  Atk power scales poorly, worn atk can cap very early in progression, etc.  If there were someway to have the skill check spell focus and then deal combat damage still that might work, but that's still iffy.  Basically at that point it takes them not only deciding to make it scale, but setting bounds and putting in code to make it work because that mechanic doesn't exist currently that I'm aware of.

Anyone know of something to tie scaling to that hasn't been mentioned?  Atk has issues, weapon dmg has issues, ratio has issues, etc.  Their are still ways those could be made to work, but if there's some way of getting the scaling to work that might have been overlooked maybe that will make it even easier to get changed. 

Yeah the problem with endurance is our class only armor doesn't have  it.  Yes, i still have ~8k endurance but theres *no* reason why i have to depend on monks for that.

Thats like saying oh its ok if half my gear doesnt have mana.  The other half does.

What about adding a few + to rake items for example adding +5 to rake on the 1.5 +10 to the 2.0 and +15 to the bst only ranged in demi (insted of the +15 to kick thats curently on it atm heh) this would mean a lower bst with no epic would get a desent return, a semi raiding bst with 1.5 would get a little bost, 2.0 semi/ high enda lot  better and a demi lvl high end beast with this item would get te highest return. Not sure if this would work but it makes sence to me so i thought id throw it out their for yea.

Could it scale with your current maxhp?  It seems to me that hp is a pretty decent way of determining the 'tier' a particular bst is at, and no one's complaining (that I know of) that our hp isn't commensurate with other classes as far as advancement goes.  Buffs would provide the same level of bonus across the board regardless of your level/raiding status.  It merely comes down to the more damage you can take, the more you can dish out!

I would go with other worn values...Cleave, Accuracy, Kick mods, combat effects etc.

Worn mod2 are more than unreliable. Each player has different things he wants so his worn modifiers are different as well, that is absolutely no way to determine progression.  Max HP could work but that will change quite a bit with current charms and group/raid boni.

This is just my personal playstyle, but I'm not looking forward to hitting a key every 30 sec for 20 dps, I'd rather it be 2 or 3 minutes.  BL have alot going on to play our class well as it is.  We already cast our dod pet every 18 sec, cast growl every minute, position and heal warder, contant movement to keep ourselves in melee positon, etc etc.   I don't use kick or Feral swipe for this reason.  If it stays as it is with 30 sec refresh, limited range, and unscaled damage, I won't use it.

If you need to scale it, you could tie it to worn pet focus.  While they're at it, maybe scale warder dps to pet focus too!  Now theres a concept.

While i'd like to see more things scale with pet focus.  I'm not sure that  makes much sense.

And hitting a hotkey every 30 seconds isn't really a big deal imo.  The hardest part for me was finding a hotkey to boot from my set of 20 to make space lol.

Bye bye slowed message.

heh.. I'd dumped the slowed key a long time ago.

And hitting a key ever 30 secs isn't an issue at all for me.  I've had kick tied to my spring look key (5 on numpad) jes about since I started playing.  I spam that key so much, out of pure habit, that I can't have anything else in that hotkey spot (I've broken invis a time or 20 by not getting off the front pad & re-centering my view ;p)

I really like the method someone else recommended, tying all 3 keys to one kb key, just having feral swipe & rake on different hotkey bars (ones I never use anyways ;p)  Yeah, I'll still get spammed, but I've trained myself to hit the key for feral swipe pretty regular too.  At least that one should be changeable ;p

Hear anything new or have any progress with those stubborn developers tastian?

Why couldn't they have the abilty look at total attack?  If you have 325 worn, have that be whats used instead of 250.  It would be like a bonus to those over the cap.  Most at the high end are well above it anyway I am guessing, even while focusing on other mod2s.  This would offer some sort of scaling to it.  I am only at about 150 or so worn attack because of where I am in the game... Hakaaba because of his gear and where he is may be 75 over tha cap, a difference of 175 attack on the abilty (while maybe not as much scalablity as we might like) may offer some.

After a lovely fifteen hours in Devastation I finally picked this up.  After some messing around with it in groups and during a time clear I must admit that its nice...but could be alot better.  Tast I believe the suggestion given above is probally the best way to scale this ability.  Also I like the way the ability works (30 sec reuse with its base damage) I don't see any need to change that around.  They do, however, need to add either scaler items like monks get with +flying kick or mod it with some other stat (again the suggestion for attack power is a good on).

+Rake damage gear isn't opened to everyone though and I myself dont wnat to have to be a "cookie cutter" class and wear all the same stuff my other fellow beastlords wear to get the maximum performance out of my character.

we allready do for the most part tho lol

i mean if you want a pet focus item your prity limeted on whats avilable to you wether its a time ranged or boots (CoA qvic est.) unless you get the Redfang focus belt thats prity much all the options you have. (unless thay ever fix the type 12 aug for pet focus heh)

I just used those as options off the top of my head thay could probly add it to other items tho. Those just seemed to make the most sence sence their bst only items and ones that most bsts tend to allways use because of how valuable thay are so it would make sence to add + rake to them.

add it to them tho, and the magi & necri would have to be given something special on them as well.

"add it to them tho, and the magi & necri would have to be given something special on them as well."

That sounds a lot like the logic that leads to items that see us gaining less than others that aquire them.  I'm not saying that some items couldn't be tweaked or that all items couldn't, but if they decided to add +rake dmg to items that have ferocity does that mean something extra has to be added to help rogues and monks? 

Quote from: Tastian on March 31, 2006, 04:17:05 PM
"add it to them tho, and the magi & necri would have to be given something special on them as well."

That sounds a lot like the logic that leads to items that see us gaining less than others that aquire them.  I'm not saying that some items couldn't be tweaked or that all items couldn't, but if they decided to add +rake dmg to items that have ferocity does that mean something extra has to be added to help rogues and monks? 

Alot of monk gear allready has +Flying Kick on it,  Rogues allready get backstab mods.

Good point guys.  Guess that would work... tho given that, I would like it on more items than just the pet foci items.

Items with +rake damage is just more reason for a new beastlord to jump ahead 6 expansions in a game and not build a guild from PoTime+.  I still stand behind making it scale with your weapon damage which will forever be evolving in the game and easier for every other beastlord to upgrade on.  Makes all beastlords happy.

Quote from: whiskaz on April 04, 2006, 01:06:07 AM
Items with +rake damage is just more reason for a new beastlord to jump ahead 6 expansions in a game and not build a guild from PoTime+.  I still stand behind making it scale with your weapon damage which will forever be evolving in the game and easier for every other beastlord to upgrade on.  Makes all beastlords happy.

I believe a way to avoid this Whiskaz would be to add the +rake damage onto the armor sets from each expansion and increase them with each expansion.  This is how it was done with monks and the such.

"Items with +rake damage is just more reason for a new beastlord to jump ahead 6 expansions in a game and not build a guild from PoTime+.  I still stand behind making it scale with your weapon damage which will forever be evolving in the game and easier for every other beastlord to upgrade on."

The benefit of +rake damage would be so minor overall though and all rake does is dps.  If someone wants to jump ahead for dps then they'll jump ahead for dps whether that means pet focus, weapons, or some +rake mods.  They could also be added retro style, but *shrugs*

Also, as has been said many times weapon damage isn't a feasbile way of scaling rake damage.  2h weapons, better ratios, proc weapons, etc.  There are points in the game where your melee dps increases, but the actual damage of your weapon goes down.  By tieing rake to these weapons you create more screwy beastlord itemization issues where weapon_A  is better than weapon_B, but almost no one knows it or understands why.  Suddenly instead of bst looking for procs or ratio or whatever they are looking for high damage or dusting off a 2h weapon and wasting several AAs they already picked up.  Those are just a few of the potential problems with tieing it to weapon damage. 

I'm also still not sure if there is a way to actually tie a +mod to a disc like rake has, but that's about three problems down the road.  8P

kill unlocked AA? e.g. Quarm = 1 level, Tunat another and so on.

Quote from: jitathab on April 04, 2006, 12:14:07 PM
kill unlocked AA? e.g. Quarm = 1 level, Tunat another and so on.

Tieing an upgrade to progressive keys is sort of bad, considering backflaging rates now and days.....you seriously are only helping the people who went through progression rather then dragged through it.

again, it makes sense to me to tie it to pet focus.  thats one thing that does progress nicely thru expansions and will continue to do so.  while their at it, I'd like to see our warder's dps tied to pet focus /wink.

Quote from: Pakratz on April 04, 2006, 06:20:03 PM
while their at it, I'd like to see our warder's dps tied to pet focus /wink.

/cackle

whatever happens to it, I like it as it is, though I'm always down for makin it stronger =)

my high crit so far is

(http://home.ma.rr.com/charleslong/1558crit.bmp)

Its nice the way it is but a scalar would be badass (please?).

Personal best so far (with bestial running...pet got raped)
(http://www.forgedinfire.org/img/crit.jpg)

On some tanks, that hate add can be a lil annoying.  If someone not in high end were to get it, I wonder what effect it would have on aggro on raids.  I did a bertox raid for grins a week or 2 ago with my GF's guild and even on the named, when the tanks were battering away for a lil bit before I went in, I would snap agro over with rake.

Anyone in that similar content (pop, god, etc) that has rake had issues there?

There are times I will get aggro with rake, but usualy under the premisis of using my other abilities a bit to often. It not to good to use consistantly on a long fight with a paladin tank or to start off with it, with a warrior tank.

Most Time plus tanks should be able to handle it, I just use the above as a general rule of thumb because how those 2 classes aggro function on the more casual end.

other then that the hate portion really isn't to much, just can push a lot of aggro after a while and starting right off with it can cause some problems.

Havent had any issues with the hate really.  Truthfully I havent noticed any on it at all.

Did any other class get a disc in PoR that increases sustained DPS by about 20-25?

The only classes that got a disc where melees. Warrios got Mock, taunt disc. Monks got Heel of Konji, upgrade to their rapid kick. Zerkers got Bloodthirst, defensive proc that increase all damage mods by 30%....long recast time. Somewhere I actually think rogues got screwed, because all I can see they got was the lame trap lol.

Put yeah, casaul beastlords have been saying there hasn't been much of an increase in our group DPS abilities. Rake isn't to bad for that.

Assuming casual beastlords can get rake. I am in a small guild and we cant do devastation yet, nor can I even sniff a group in that zone with all the raiding guilds farming the skins atm. I tried to get a pickup group in devastation for about 10 nights and decided to give it up at this point. Its very frustrating to feel like I have to leave my guild and join a raiding guild to progress my character at this point. I have farmed the heck out of don for gear and done the tasks in PoR for nice gear, but I cant get my dodh pet or the disc as those missions are not really tailored for casual players (those end bosses hit way too hard)

I've done the level 68 and 69 spell progression missions with a 10.5-11k tank.  It can be done.  They do need to be nicely aa'ed though and the group has to be familiar with each other and very carefully crafted.  You won't win with a marginal group at that gear level, and you may have to make a couple tries to win.

Now rake I can't speak to, as I haven't gotten it yet.  I keep meaning to put a group together and go but the thought of farming it is rather daunting.  Anyone know if they ever put it on that mission other then skins (bring me the head or something)?

Actually Rhaom try bring me the heads set quests....it will reward you will the Rake disc as well.. Basicallly it will give you a set of quests any 70 group can do killing on the outskirts of Devastation. I can't find a right up of these quests but they are a small series of quests that take place in Devastation....you just have to get it from the headhunter in Sverg I believe. Have to take down some of the destroyable objects, loot some heads from varies mobs and etc. All the stuff easy to get to and drops from even the blue cons.....soem you can do solo and some you can have a decent group to get.

It is true you don't need a raid group to do this stuff, just a well geared and AA'd group.....course a good puller helps as well.

Now DoDH I will admit is a bit of a challenge compared to PoR and takes some thinking. to handle but is doable.

I see how tieing it down with weapons would be kinda iffy if u say it that way, but that just means u need to do the math differently from the kind of weapon u are using.  2hb would be cut in half of the dmg of the weapon to balance it out a bit.  Give 1hbs h2h piercing a bit of a bonus to the rake dmg to balance it out with the total 2hb dmg, so a 80dmg 2hb would be like a 40 dmg 1h weapon.  the h2hs would get an innate +base number which could be figured out by a certain ratio of the total dmg, for instance for every 5 dmg on a 1handed weapon u get a +1 bonus to the rake scaling damage.  This way it will balance it out a bit.