Update on top 10 list (8/6/04)...

[Tastian]

Beastlords -

1) Weapon skill caps –

Currently the difference in skill caps does very little as far as beastlord power is concerned. However, it has a very negative effect on weapon selection. HtH weapons are quite rare and if you look at the case of PoP progression you see Battle fists on TZ, pet weapon in fire, followed by wraps on Xegony, then shinai in time. That's it. Now a beastlord who is duel wielding needs two weapons and like most weapons all of these are lore. What happens is you have Beastlords looking to other weapon types such as 1hb and piercing. The problem becomes a weapon that is a clear upgrade for another class might actually be a downgrade for a beastlord. HtH weapons will always be highly desired by Beastlords because of the quality of the weapon.  Having 1hb/piercing and 2hb capped the same would simply allow Beastlords to help fill the gaps at times when hth weapons simply aren't available. Also it would make most upgrades much more intuitive. Other classes don't have to ask around before going from a 17 on 20 to an 18 on 20.



Currently being evaluated
2) Pet buff box –

The recent changes to pets have been wonderful and I think it's safe to say all pet classes are very happy with the changes. What most of us were wondering is if it's possible to have the pet buffs display their remaining time and to also be able to click off pet buffs like we do our own buffs.



There are a lot of situations where this would be very useful. For example pet haste is a very important buff, but it has a big refresh timer when you first memorize it. If it fades during a fight the beastlord will be in a much harder situation. Spell slots are already pretty limited as it is and not everyone has half a dozen egg timers around to keep up with pet haste, fero, haste, regen, etc.



Also you have situations such as with hobble of spirit and other buffs that once they land on the pet you can't get rid of them or overwrite. When a paladin lands Brells on the pet there is no way to get vigor on the pet for the extra attack outside of waiting for Brells to fade or dispelling the pet down to the buff you are after. With all the ninja buffing going on, pet affinity and now pets zoning it's simply become more and more common to find a buff on your pet that you simply don't want or that is blocking something you do want from taking hold.

Currently being discussed


3) Agro issues –

This is a big beastlord issue that a lot of people don't quite understand. Beastlords are ok with getting agro from high agro spells such as slow and incapacitate. Beastlords are also ok with getting agro when they are simply putting out more damage or doing things that obviously should draw the mob's attention. The problems with beastlord agro become clear in raid situations and many grouping situations though. What you'll have is the beastlord operating in a total DPS role. By that I mean the beastlord isn't on slow duty or de-buffing the mob, but rather is just contributing damage via melee/nukes/dots. In this situation a beastlord is generating far more agro for the damage they are doing than most if not all other classes.



Again the problem isn't when a beastlord is doing 200dps and they get agro over someone doing 150dps.  Rather you have situations where a beastlord is actually doing less damage than many other classes, they haven't de-buffed the mob or done anything else to generate agro, yet they are the ones that pull agro off the MT or get summoned and killed first on tank changes. Some would say that the beastlord simply has to do less damage or watch their agro with that tank.  However, this same tank that can't keep agro off the beastlord doing X damage is successfully keeping agro off the wizard doing X+100 damage or the rogue doing X

+ 50 damage, etc.



There are currently several reasons for this issue.  The first of which is how Beastlords do their damage.  Melee, nukes, and dots all generate differing amounts of agro. DoTs are currently very high agro, poison counters are high agro, and it's been shown that focus effects and crit DoT AA add to agro well nuke focus/AA does not. Also you have the fact that Beastlords are the only offensive melee class that doesn't have any means of lowering their agro outside of simply doing less damage. Rangers have jolt, rogues evade, and monks FD.

Currently being discussed


4) Improve pet heals –

Currently healing of Sorsha (62 beastlord heal) is all but unusable by Beastlords. The spell sees some use as the beastlord levels up, but as the beastlord progresses the spell gets used less and less. The main problem with the heal is its 9 second casting time. In almost any situation a beastlord would find themselves wanting to cast a heal on their pet 9 seconds is just far too long to wait. As such many Beastlords simply don't memorize the spell at all.

Currently being evaluated


5) Feral swipe -
Feral swipe is an AA that has a lot of potential, but unfortunately suffers from several issues. The first problem with feral swipe is that its current DPS boost is very minor. In even the best of situations the skill does notably less damage than kick does. The skill being on a one minute refresh is very streaky and it's not unheard of to go 15 minutes without having a single feral swipe land.  Also the AA still has a small range issue. The range was increased once, but it wasn't quite enough. There are still monsters that you can melee, but you can't land your feral swipes on. Spacing is extremely important in these cases and as such feral swipe becomes completely useless. Finally, feral swipe takes up yet another hot key space that is getting to be in almost as much demand as spell gem spaces. When a beastlord has pet controls, kick, prot spirit, possibly spells and macros along with other AAs in their hot key bank they simply don't have room to add another button. I know several Beastlords that haven't purchased this skill simply because they have no room to actually activate it well playing.

Currently being evaluated


6) Pet run speed –

This is mainly an issue indoors, but what happens is you have Beastlords with various ranks of AA run speed and swift journey that leads to the pet simply getting left behind sometimes or taking awhile to catch up.

Currently being evaluated
7) Suspended pets zoning –

I know it has been stated that currently there is no desire to have suspended pets zone, but Beastlords would like this looked into a bit more, or at least more of an explanation as to why this isn't allowed. The real issue with this comes about while running through several dangerous zones, or if your invisibility drops while you are leaving a dangerous zone. In those cases you either have to try to un-suspend your pet before zoning or lose them.

Dev notes - An AA that upgrades Suspend Minion to allow a suspended pet to zone is under consideration for a future expansion






8) Hobble of spirits –

This is an AA for Beastlords that again sees very little use because of a few major issues. First of all the proc buff overwrites relic, but you can't overwrite hobble back again. This would be a non-issue if #2 from above were done, currently though being locked into hobble and losing your other proc for its duration is a problem. Also hobble doesn't stack with relic. The beastlord gives up a lot of damage and a stun to get a semi-reliable snare currently.

Currently being evaluated


9) Tureptan Spirit –

This spell is the result of the KT rune turns in for Beastlords in Gates. The spell is a copy of our level 61 spell "infusion of spirit", but hits the entire group instead of a single player. The

main issue with this spell is that by the time almost every beastlord can acquire it they simply don't need it. The spell was something lower level Beastlords had requested, but for where the spell comes from it has almost no use. Beastlords simply want this looked into and made into something that is at least worth looting the rune for.

Currently being discussed


10) Bestial Frenzy bug –

Last and certainly not least is the beastlord double attack AA. This issue has been brought up already and we have been told that it was passed along, but we still have no word back as of yet. This issue is actually just a bug that has recently come up. Originally this AA granted its bonus to both the main hand and the offhand. However, a patch changed that and now Beastlords are unable to

double attack with their offhand even after purchasing this AA. This same issue affects bards currently. We suspect that it had something to do with the changes that were done to allow the "ferocity" line of worn effects to work for bards and Beastlords.

Currently being discussed

[Tastian]

The BF bug is fixed on test last I checked and should go live on the 11th, but I won't say for certain until it happens.  Suspend minion zoning with a future expansion via AA possibly.  I've got a couple points I wanted clarified so I might have more of an update by monday.  In the meantime feel free to post other things you'd like to see on the list.  BF should be fixed soon and with them talking about adding suspend minion zoning via AA possibly in a future expansion I'm not sure that's an issue many will want to keep on the top 10 list.    *shrugs*

[Oneiromancer]

I find it interesting that #10, the Bestial Frenzy bug, is "currently being discussed" yet as Tast says it's working on the Test server.  I wonder what else that is being "discussed" or "evaluated" has been already fixed or nixed?

Game on,

[Liga]

Fero being greyed out if the target runs OOR during cast!!!!!!!!!!!

And to a much lesser extent, Spell recast time not met when casting immediately after suspended minion(ex:Casting Invis right after SM2)

[Hereki]

Is spell recast still a problem?  It was on other lists, and a fix went in which seems to have solved the common problem.

Congratulations on getting a dev comment included as part of one response, Tastian!  Please try to push for more dev commentary on these items, it would help community relations far more than the usual responses.

Translations:

"currently being evaluated": SOE aren't opposed to a fix, but haven't decided if they will or not, or how, or when.

"currently being discussed": they haven't decided to reject it yet.  It might get promoted to "being evaluated", but will probably be kept on hold for longer.

[Tastian]

I think the actual dev comments are huge.  Instead of seeing "no change planned at this time" seeing that they are considering it in a future expansion helps a lot.  In some cases I feel like we are asking the wrong questions, but we can't tell because of the answers we get.  Will have to wait and see.  Please feel free to use this idea to bring up ideas for items to take the spots of certain items.  At this point it looks like we should have atleast 2 open spots for next list.  I will probably start a thread on the various boards shortly to get specific responses to some items that might make the list, but fire away here if ya want.  8)

[Dummkopf]

Dev notes - An AA that upgrades Suspend Minion to allow a suspended pet to zone is under consideration for a future expansion

At least it seems possible to introduce it if they already plan to do it in OoW. But it is a big issue now especially in GoD where you have to cross several zones at once invis and therefore either lose your pet or have a very big chance to die on the run. I have nothing against paying some more aas, but i would rather have it now than in a couple months.

[mythral]

yea, i really done see the need to have to pay for an ability that seems like it should work as is, its just a pita to have to stop and unsuspend a pet before zoning now ;p just a hassle that serves no real purpose from what i can tell.

that said, i dont really think its a big deal, id rather put some emphasis on our skill caps ;p

[Dysz]

Maybe we could make two of our top 10 the skill caps?  :D

[Braedan_VZ]

Shouldn't we maybe hold off on tureptan spirit untill we know for sure whether the uber beasts will need to cast it after their cap raises because of level 70?

I think 70 gives you another 25 to stats? It sounds small but most people don't take the time to figure out how much over the current cap they are.

Just maybe they'll need it to reach the new cap.

If any of the uber beasts can tell us how much your currently over the STR/STA/DEX cap it might help us figure out this spells validity at level 70.

[Rhaynne]

Well... currently, if there were no cap, my stats would be:

Str: 401
Sta: 440
Agi: 344
Dex: 343
Wis: 461
Int: 235
Cha: 164

So even if the cap were raised by 25, I'd still have no need for TS.

[Rarrum]

unbuffed, my stats are (without cap):

str 348
sta 372
agi 354
dex 326
wis 421
int 282
cha 236

Even if they raised the cap by 50, tureptan spirit would be useless, as new gear in omens would provide even more un-needed upgades to stats.  I still like the idea of it being replaced by a heal (either direct or over time).  If you were really arguing for a stat buff, a cha buff would be most useful...

[Urim]

STR: 358 (cap+53)
STA: 388 (cap+83)
AGI: 410 (cap+105)
DEX: 337 (cap+22)
WIS: 444 (cap+139)
INT: 276
CHA: 196

So if they upped stats by 25 the only stat i would be hurting for would be dex but only by 3 and that can be resolved by 3 AAs burned into innate dex. Even an increase of 50 my only problem would still be dex although that would be a bit hard to overcome with AAs but im sure the new gear will reflect the new stat increases.

[Gnarlena]

Here is something I would appreciate you considering for addition to our list:  In the past expansions, we have had at least one or more spells that could be purchased in some manner.  As a casual beast, I don't have a regular group to work with and have not had access to GoD spell drops.

I would really like to see them change a couple of the useful GoD spells to lore so that they could be sold in the bazaar.  This would give me access to an improved DD and give others some recompense for their efforts.

Note that I am not asking for all spells, nor am I asking for GoD level armor to be lore, I am ok with the intent of the expansion.  It would just be nice to have an option to buy a couple of good spells; that would make it feel like I got more out of an expansion that was clearly not intended for the casual player.

[Lithale]

FYI: I've been talking about to a few guild necros about the DoT agro issue.  They have a problem with it too.  Especially when the DoT's crit.  They feel like it is broken as well.

-Lith