true double attack

[Urim]

Again, I am only level 60, so I don't have enough experience yet to grasp the whole picture.

If it is not apparent from what I write, I have recently had conversations with people who feel that beastlords are overpowered.  I am struggling to find a metric whereby I may objectively decide if this is true.  I certainly don't feel underpowered, at least not at level 60, with my current gear and tactics.

And that is the major problem, lvl 60-65 was the height of the beastlord power and progression (and i can't even imagine how lvl 60 is with the easily accesible awesome gear floating around that was only a pipedream back in the Luclin/PoP days). At that point in time leading all the way up to and including PoTime, the beastlord was well balanced versus other classes, and quite possible a tiny bit on the high side in some situations.

Other classes saw this, and like you yourself said complained that they thought us overpowered. The end result ..... 5 expansions roll by with little to no improvement or what seems to be not even a casual glance at our class. Pushing us further and further behind the other classes as they get boosts and improvements whereas we are left with lackluster spell "upgrades" (if they can even be called that), and our class defining Paragon/Perfection being so ignored that it is hardly noticable if its used.

Back in PoP we were doing good, almost no complaints were ever heard from the beastlord class and that probably led to our downfall. Not hearing anything from us gave them the impression that we were good where we were and needed no attention but as we can now see we are in dire straights and need to be looked at if they want any of the higher end beastlords to stick around. I know many who are getting so frustrated with being ignored that they are contemplating leaving the game entirely, and its getting to the point where i might start thinking the same way.  :cry:

[Bengali]

If it is not apparent from what I write, I have recently had conversations with people who feel that beastlords are overpowered.  I am struggling to find a metric whereby I may objectively decide if this is true.  I certainly don't feel underpowered, at least not at level 60, with my current gear and tactics.  There is no single area in which we exceed another class, but our strength is in having so many different tools in our toolbox.  How do you evaluate whether two "second place" > one "first place"? 

Unfortunately, EQ is a game where min-maxing provides the most benefits, so having several second place abilities doesn't match up to having at least one first place ability.  Also, it's important to recognize that beastlords aren't really the second best at anything.  Slowing?  3rd place.  Haste?  4th place (bard haste is better, and that's not including overhaste).  Mana regen?  We're well behind enchanters and bards, and probably also behind necros (mind wrack).  Pets? 3rd in dps for sure, but perhaps they are the second-best in tanking.   Moreover, the tradeoff for being middle of the road at a lot of things is that we end up dead LAST in some others.  We're dead last in melee dps.  We're dead last among melees/hybrids in tanking.  We're the only slowing class with no resist debuffs.

People point to bards as the consummate jack-of-all-trades class, and while this is true to some extent, there are also several things that bards do best.  Bards are the only ones who can highsun.  Bards have the best resist buffs hands down.  Bards have the best overhaste.  Bards are the only ones who can increase others' DoT damage, and they are the only ones with a class ability to increase others nuke damage (druids can increase others' nukes using epic 1.5/2.0, but that can only be used every 5 mins and it's only usable on one mob at a time).  Bards have the fastest run speed in the game.  They have the best AE health & mana regen.  Bards aren't a jack-of-all-trades (and master of none), but they are the masters of several trades in addition to being very decent at a bunch of others.

Getting back to the point, sure, some groups may choose a beastlord over a shaman, but those people aren't making a very smart decision.  You only need one slower, and if you have a beastlord slowing then you aren't using their dps much (such as it is).  Just like you don't need your healer doing dps, you don't really need your slower doing it either.  You're better off with the best slower you can get (saves the healer's mana and provides the most survivability to the tank), and having the dps classes focus on doing dps.  Even shaman buffs will provide much more benefit to the group than beastlord buffs -- the idea that our buffs are "almost as good" is basically a myth.  It takes us 6 times as long to buff a group as a shaman does, and that's downtime that takes away from the group.  In economic terms, these are concepts of comparative advantage and specialization.

Another way to look at it is to look at the issue in terms of roles.  Beastlords can offtank, but any NPC that a beastord can offtank can be just as easily offtanked by  8 other melee/hybrid classes provided they are in similar gear.  Beastlords can debuff, but really only if there are no enchanters or shamans around with better ones.  Beastlords can buff, but none of our buffs are unique (even rangers have a buff that is fairly unique, nature veil).  There isn't any situation in EQ where people would wish they had a beastlord -- sure beastlords can provide a contribution, but they don't have a role.

Even our most powerful ability -- slow -- is totally underwhelming during most of the time where people tend to think we're "overpowered".  For 50 levels, we use a level 5 shaman slow (drowsy) which is from 11% (level 5) to 25% (at level 60).  Then in the 50s we get a 30% slow.  At 60 we get a 50% slow (finally starts to be as useful as procced slows from other melee weapons)  At 65 we get a 65% slow, but while we start to catch up in this area at that level, but it's also the point were other classes start pulling away from us like Lance Armstrong at the Tour de France.

[Tastian]

"If giving rangers innate tripples at 60 doesnt unbalance anything, than giving us innate doubles at 60 shouldnt either."

You have to look at what the jump is though.  The gains from triple attack aren't as huge as some people think.  Meanwhile, true double attack 60 is about 4X the amount of extra double attacking we currently have via AA at 70th level. 

Some form of innate double attack could definitely work and as I said it would actually help balance some of the poor progression we have in terms of less from weapons, less from ferocity focus, etc.  You just have to be careful where you put it and how much.  If you simply add double attack to beastlords at 60 then their melee dps goes *WAY* up and at that point they are very high compared to other classes because of what pet dps is.  I think at 60 my pet was doing ~40dps?  Before AAs and other abilities that is a ton of damage even with current weapon setups.  We just have to be careful what we ask for and where so we don't overshoot to the point of asking for too much.  Right now a lot of classes are starting to agree and see that our dps isn't what it should be.  Hopefully the devs will agree as well soon and we can get tweaked. 

"Even our most powerful ability -- slow -- is totally underwhelming during most of the time where people tend to think we're "overpowered"."

The slow thing is great, but how about haste too?  8P  I did so many LDoNs and stuff with a beastlord where people were like "could I have haste"  "uhhh nope don't get it till 60".  "Hurry paragon"  "uhhhh don't get until 59atleast and a couple dozen AA".  "uhhh still don't have any double attack yet". etc etc  I think it's very safe to say that we are the most misunderstood class in the game overall.  I never get sick of being told how I do as much melee dps as a monk, and have a pet that out damages a mage pet.  Not to mention I have a slow that lands better than shaman and give more mana regen than anyone.  <3 how people can't even grasp that an sk gives more mana regen to a group than I do at this point.  Sooooo great to not only have your abilities scale for schit, but to have other classes flat out pass you over the course of progression. 

[waraura]

Thumbs up to Innate Double Attack, I /feedback for it nearly every day.

[hakaaba]

Oh just wait till warriors start passing your dps

[waraura]

Oh just wait till warriors start passing your dps

? They already do

[Bengali]

Oh just wait till warriors start passing your dps

? They already do

I think he was talking to Prelgor. ;)

Oh, and not to sound like a broken record, but I think we should confirm that level 60 warriors aren't passing your dps too (at the same level of gear/aa). I just have a crazy hunch that the results of parsing at the lower levels would surprise people (it's just a hunch though).  :P

[hakaaba]

lol at this point nothing would surprise me

[Strigori]

There are several ways they could impement doubles, and maintain balance.  One is simply having it a trained skill where the skill increases dont happen till higher levels.  But more AA is definatly not the answer.   As to the rangers tripples, its safe to assume they are close to trippling at our double rate.  Afterall, 15% really isnt much of anything.

I full heartedly agree with Bengali. We are a forgotten rellic in a now min/max game where we have the min on alot and the max on nothing.   Groups wil go out of thier way to get shaman buffs(bring in a bot, travel to another part of the zone exe.)  if they only have beastlord ones availible, and I cant blame them.  Ours are nothing special.   One of the biggest problems is that people equate agro to dps.  So as bsts are always at the top of the hate lists they must be top of the dps too.  Too bad that could not be farther from the truth.

Sks have the aspects we have, with several variances. 
1 - they wear plate and can tank in any  situation that a paladin can.  Thereby tieing them as the #2 tanks.  Sk pets are not really even factored in to thier dps.  Look at their weapons.  Exactly the same as paladins as far as ratios, not to mention they share half of them. 
2- Sk dots all have  neg mods to the resist checks, ours do not. 
3- Sks  lifetaps also have neg mods, some in the neg200 range. Our nukes do not, and SK's have disease resist nukes as well. 

Sk pets are largly dots with a grafic, or used as pulling tools. 

Rangers have some dps issues, although the recent addition of innate tripples at lv60 should help that.   The biggest issue with rangers is the arguemnt over bow vs melee they are having with the devs.

Bards....well bards are something all unto themselves.  They can do a bit of absolutly everything.  Ever see a group NOT want a bard? And they are flat out deal breakers on alot of raids.  In some cases its more or less, No bard = no raid.    we shouldnt even be comparing ourselves with them at all. 
 

[Bengali]

You can really put things in perspective when you take a look at the other hybrids and see that they actually do have abilities that that help them perform specific roles, and that these roles aren't totally made up like "pre-slowing" or some nonsense.  Moreover, adding a single member of another class, even their "parent," doesn't automatically make those classes obsolete.  Again, this is because the other hybrids are the "best" at something, and they often tied for first or second place at others:

Shadowknights -  Best pure hate spells.  Unique atk debuffs/group atk recourse buffs (better than necro).  Best aggro increasing buff (better than chanter).  Unique lifetap procs.  Unique DD/mana increase procs.  Second best tanks (able to tank any non-raid content, and serve as offtanks on raids).  Capable pullers (I'll let monks/sks/bards argue over who's best and when -- BUT I'll point out that they can feign exactly as well as their "parent").  Tied for first-place at summoning corpses.  Second best snare percentage (70% -- better than druids, wizards and rangers, and second only to necros' 75% snare).  Unique ability -- harm touch.  Unique disc (Unholy Aura) that enhances their unique ability (Harm touch).  Mitigation discs that help their primary role (tanking)-- Soul shield/Soul guard/Ichor guard.  AAs to enhance their unique ability (harm touch).  Second-best lifetap spells.  Tied for first in invulnerabilty spells (harmshield).  Full double attack, *and* AAs to enhance double attack *and* AAs to enchance 2h double attack on top of that.  Special-ratio 1h weapons to compensate for a lack of dual wield.   Can access all the level 70 focus effects that they need (except for reagent conservation, it seems).  Tied for best fear immunity (which makes them the preferred tanks on some encounters).  Often called upon to serve as tank, offtank, puller, aggro/non-damage tank, mob positioner or snarer in raids or groups.

Paladins -  Best pure stun spells.  Unique class ability (Lay on Hands).  AAs that enhance unique class ability.  Unique undead proc DDs.  AAs to enhance abilities versus undead (Slay Undead).  Second best pure hp buffs.  Second best group healers.  Tied for first place in curing curses (remove greater curse).  Second best overall curer (Crusaders Purity -- 32 disease/32poison/16 curse counters).  It's actually the best single target cure in the game, but shamans have group combination cures which give them a significant edge overall.  Again, this cure is better than the cleric/dru version (Pure Blood) in that it not only cures more disease/poison counters, but it cures curses on top of that.  Second best tanks (can tank any non-raid content, and serve as offtanks on raids).  Mitigation discs that help their primary role (tanking).  Tied for first place in invulnerability spells.  Full double attack, *and* AAs to enhance double attack *and* AAs to enchance 2h double attack on top of that.  Special-ratio 1h weapons to compensate for a lack of dual wield.   Can access all the level 70 focus effects that they need.  Tied for best fear immunity (which makes them the preferred tanks on some encounters).  Second best non-damage root.  Often called upon to serve as tank, backup healer, aggro/non-damage tank, curer, mob positioner or backup CC in raids or groups.

Ranger -  Best tracking.  Best archery.  Unique class ability (innate increased archery damage).  AAs to enchance unique class ability (endless quiver, archery mastery).  Discs that enhance unique class ability (Trueshot).  Unique hate reducing procs.  Unique Stun/DD procs.  Tied with "parent" for second best lull.  Second-least resistant snare.  Unique AC/DS buff.  Second best non-damage root.  Second-best damage root.  Second best group attack buff (although it's more efficient and less restricted than champion).  Unique hate-lowering defensive proc (nature veil). Unique beneficial-only dispel (this is *huge* in later expansions.  NPCs will be self-buffed or buffed by their friends --- for example, caster mobs will often have resist magic + major/arch shielding which combined will give them 60+ magic resist.  Dispelling these buffs on inc has more of an effect than tash or malo, and dispelling haste on inc can be more of a lifesaver than slow (especially since slow might bounce).  Rangers are the *only* class who can dispell these buffs (not to mention innate mitigation buffs that some mobs cast, like ikaavs, mastruqs, etc.) *without* risking dispelling other buffs like snare, cripple, malosinia, etc.  Plus the more rangers you have, the faster the buffs will get stripped in complete safety.  Can access all the level 70 focus effects that they need.  Often called upon to serve as dps, ranged dps, mob positioner, snarer or backup CC in raids and groups.  Sometimes called upon to act as tank, offtank or backup healer in groups.

Bards -  if I listed all the things bards could do then I'd basically list every ability in the game.  It's easier to list what they *can't* do.  They can't rez, they can't root, they can't sacrifice, they can't really buff hps, they can't heal directly and they can't port.  There may be a few others but that's all I can think of right now.  Also, as mentioned in my earlier post there are things that they can do that no one else can, and they are at least second best mezzers (some enchanters will argue that bards are better, but I don't really buy that).

Beastlords -  No unique class ability.  Best pet heals.  Tied for best single target disease only cure.  Best uh, duration pet buffs.  Maybe the second best tanking pets.  Maybe (but still way worse than we are, so not particularly useful as tanks).  No discs to enhance the unique class ability that we don't have.  No AAs to enhance our primary role, unlesss that primary role is dps, in which case we have AAs to enhance it but we're missing a few, such as 2h-enhancing AA.  Unique atk/Resist buff.  No double attack, except via AA.  No 2h-AA to increase double attack rate on top of that.  No special ratio weapons to compensate for the lack of dual wield or Punishing blade.  Unique mana/hp regen long duration buff (I had to say "long duration" because bards get the same thing only it's very short duration).  Often called upon to act as slower or dps in groups.  Often called upon to act as buff bot on raids.  Sometimes called upon to act as tank, offtank, or stat buffer in groups.  Cannot access all the level 70 focus effects they need (missing an entire level of heal focus; missing any beneficial-only spell haste).

I dunno, I read posts about us being "overpowered" (at any level) and I raise an eyebrow in skepticism.  I read posts about how there's all these roles we can fill and yet I don't see rangers inventing ludicrous jobs for themselves ("yeah, the other night I was pre-snaring for the druids").  I read posts about people passing up shamans because we're "almost as good", and yet the first thing I hear upon joining a group is: "hey, I'm gonna go see if that group's shaman will trade buffs with us.  Ben, will you give that group SA in exchange for shammy buffs?"

The reason so many players (not just bsts) fall back on "more DPS" is because it's an easy concept to grasp and it's stackable.  With the exception of a few encounters that I won't spoil for those who haven't done them, you really can't do too much DPS for the most part, so if you're putting out crazy damage then you'll at least feel like you're contributing.

But you know what?  A few months ago they talked about a "re-envisioning" and by all that's holy we should hold them to that concept.  Now is as good a time as any to do what should have been done back in 2001, which is come up with a reason why a beastlord should exist.  People should enter a zone and say, "wow, there are a lot of angry beasts here.  A beastlord would be perfect for this situation because [insert on of the trillion ideas that we've come up with in almost 4 years here]."  There should be a reason that people want me to have my pet out and alive and attacking.  Maybe they want it because it has some beneficial effect on players.  Maybe they want it because it has some detrimental effect on the mob.  But they should want me to use it, and they should want me to use it even if there's a mage pet around or there's a shaman in the group or if there's a bard singing or whatever else is going on.

In order for this to happen, someone is going to need some cajones.  Right now, we could come up with unique ideas -- for example, a pet proc that "burns" a target's mana by lowering its mana by X and doing damage in that same amount.  Or a debuff that decreases a mob's accuracy.  Or perhaps (my personal favorite) pet proc that has a very short duration "wounding strike" that increases the damage that an NPC takes from physical attacks -- which would help solve issues about our stackability with other debuffers, other beastlords or both.  There would be a reason for groups/raids to want a beastlord to tackle certain NPCs, and if they are short duration debuffs, or moderate dd/drains like I described, then there is a reason to have multiple beastlords with multiple pets proc'ing for maximum effectiveness.  If we had a different (and unique) debuff besides slow, then we wouldn't immediately be obsolete if a shaman or enchanter were around, and in fact it would be beneficial to have those classes working in conjunction with beastlords to get the mob debuffed.  But the current regime of having two debuffs (slow + incapacitate), both of which are overwritten by shm/chanter slow + cripple, has got to go.  If beastord pets provided some passive benefit to the group (or an active detriment to the mob, as described above), then other players would care about me keeping it alive and might even (heaven forbid) help me keep it alive.  If beastlords had useful abilities against *beasts*, then there would be a situation where you might actively seek out a beastlord's help that wasn't based entirely on misinformation or bass-ackwards thinking.

But like I said, if the devs did that then they'd need to navigate the raging rivers of tears from other classes whose "toes would be stepped on" even though we can't possibly be taking away a role that doesn't even fracking exist at the moment, and of course nothing would prevent those same classes from getting similar brand-new abilities added to their repertoire.  There would need to be a paradigm shift such that every debuff idea doesn't automagically get allocated to shamans, or that every new pet ability doesn't default to mages or that every animal-based talent doesn't have to go to druids or rangers.   But those types of things should be what a re-envisioning is about, not busting our healing progression, making it slightly easier to be the third-best slower there is, or implementing "improvements" to pets that are basically like guardian angels -- they can't be detected but we have to believe in our hearts that they are there.

[Prelgor]

Bengali, I completely agree that what our class needs most is some definition.  What are we for?  As it stands now, most other classes excel at only one or two of the things we can do.  Beastlords seem to be constructed as a jack-of-all-trades class - we can do a little bit of many things passably well. 

I see three options.  We could pick a role to excel at (e.g. DPS) and let other abilities wither, as we are balanced around that role.  This is probably the easiest one to accomplish but also the least satisfying.  We could resign ourselves to being third-best at everything, with our strength being that we can do just about anything decently, if not excellently.  This could make us the ideal "backfill" class - substitute for a shaman, or a rogue or... - but this is devilishly hard to balance.  Perhaps what I said above was inaccurate (two "second best" > one "first best"), but the idea is the same.  How do you balance multiple weak strengths against a focused specialist, and when is a generalist welcome in a party of specialists?  One idea might be to look to the idea of the druid "stances" - perhaps we could assume postures in which our DPS is boosted, but our utility is lost, for example.  We would rise to second-best in one area at the cost of our abilities in other areas.  The third possibility is more nebulous - finding some new area that we particularly excel at (e.g. Bengali's idea of a special strength against animals).  This might either pigeonhole us, like a druid who loses utility indoors, or reduce to the first option. 

I really want to see *something* that makes beastlords unique.  Paragon and the Spiritual Light line are unique to us.  No matter who I'm with, no other class can give a buff that makes those obsolete.  I like the idea that someone suggested of one-at-a-time debuffs on our warders, swappable with Hobble.  This would help maintain a role of flexibility to let us tailor our utility based on what else was missing from the group.  However, this train of thought would require that all of these are superceded on raids, when specialists are available.  I agree that any new "something" to differentiate us would be most "in-character" if it somehow went through our pets.  I also think it's premature to discuss what we need added before we finish evaluating where we stand.  And, we can't evaluate where we stand until we have both an idea of where that should be and a metric for deciding whether we are there.  It's much easier to evaluate "best tank" or "best nuke DPS" than a combined role. 

It all comes back to the same question.  What are we *supposed* to do?  Knowing the answer to that would make evaluating where we are much easier. 

[Gungagunga]

Heh well I think SOE has taken care of the withering part already Pelg tho they did it gradually over the last 5 expansions... now we are just waiting for them to decide what area our power should be in. 

[Strigori]

Well first thing Gung, is they have to accept thatwe are fairly well broken at high level and the game ahs left us behind.  Something that they certainly do not seem ready to do.   

I disagree with Preg on the spiritual/paragon thing.  While another class can not make it obselete, the game itself did.  SA isnt the big deal SP was in its day.   Mana regen is now buyable in the bazaar, and at LDoN/DoN and having high worn mana regen is so much easier than it was in luclin.   Paragon was absolutly amazing when it first came along right before PoP.  But with manapools on casters easily breaking 8k+ on higher end  toons, the 480 base mana isnt going to cover 1 spell most of the time. 

Bengali has some great ideas in there, but  I somehow doubt they will alow any of them.  They always answer stuff like this with "but if we did that we would have to rebalance the whole game, so no".  Other abilites would anger other classes, and yet they have proven resistant to angering the higher population classes for a smaller one that is dwindling.   And it certainly will take someone with some big cajones to set it right.  Maybe I'm a pescimist, but I dont get the impression that the current dev team has them.

[Bengali]

While it's true that no other class makes SA obsolete, it's true that the game does with so much mana regen coming from elsewhere.  Melees instantly click it off on our raids, and now that I get the "your spell has worn off" messages from everyone I've noticed that a lot of mana users will click it off too, particularly if they are hurting for buff slots.

It's also true (and this is a raid perspective more than a group one), that one other beastlord will make you obsolete.  That's part of the biggest problem we have.  While everyone can point to SA as a useful buff (it certainly is), it doesn't justify having a beastlord around except as a buff bot.  That's why people focus on DPS -- if adding a beastlord added a significant amount of DPS then it would be worth the trouble.  But instead, you're better off adding another warrior and getting better dps and an extra tank.  Or adding a monk and getting 2x the dps, etc.

Anyway, I sound grumpy and all but you guys have to realize I'm an old beastlord.  It took them 3.5 years to realize something simple such as "hey, all our weapon skills should have the same cap so we can tell whether a new weapon is an upgrade w/o parsing for 100 hours."  I'm kind of torn on whether we'll see anything that truly helps us out.  On the one hand, there's examples like the above, but on the other hand we've made a lot of strides, but it has taken forever and four days just to get them.  Our pets don't take up a buff slot, we don't have to level buff them, they zone with us with their buffs, they no longer aggro mobs by running by them, they no longer take riposte damage (except enrage) and so on.

Still, I'm not a betting man, and even if I were I wouldn't bet any money on getting anything except more heavily resisted cold nukes, poison dots, and disease dots.  If they add new hybrid abilities they will give them to rangers (nature veil, nature's balance), and if they add new pet abilities they'll give them to mages, and if they add new debuffs they'll go to shamans.

[Prelgor]

Oh just wait till warriors start passing your dps

OK, here's a dumb question.  Everyone seems to concur that (high-end?) warriors exceed our DPS.  Fine, I'll take that as a fact.  By how much?

As long as we're only talking about, say 10-20%, even 50%, I think that's just fine.  What I keep remembering is that my warder does a lot of damage too.  My personal DPS is only about half of the total DPS that I bring to a group (I understand that high-end pets deliver proportionately less).  Is that being factored in when people say that warrior DPS > beastlord DPS?  Can someone provide (or link to) some indication of relative class DPS?  How badly, numerically, are we being left behind? 

I guess what I'm trying to establish is, are we looking at, say, (numbers all just made up)
not very broken:
warrior 100 DPS, beastlord 90 DPS (+70 DPS from warder), rogue 200 DPS
or wholly left in the dust:
warrior 100 DPS, beastlord 50 DPS (+40 DPS from warder), rogue 200 DPS