Beastlords and Buffs

[DocMoriarty]

This is more a general rant about all the "work" a beastlord has to do that has nothing to do with actual fighting.

I maintain 11 buffs on me and 9 on pet. Our longest lasting buffs have a duration of 1:12 or around 1:34 or so max extended (SCR3, Shield of Valor). Alone 4 of the buffs are short term buffs, worst Ferocity followed by frenzy, celerity and regrowth.

Someone at SOE seems to think its fun to sit and swap spells after each fight to keep me and pet buffed.

Now if you are in a group with a considerable number of tanks (plus pet) it gets way worse, all that single cast stuff.

I really hoped that with GoD or OOW we would get either

a) longer lasting buffs
b) better buff combos that eliminate the use of some of the stat buffs
c) group versions of buffs

All we get is Tureptan Spirit (Group IoS) and that is inaccessable for non uber raid guild toons for a long time and when they get to it they dont need it that much anymore.

OOW spells are even worse, very uninspired, unimaginative as if designed during lunch break while focussing on killing away a sixpack hambugers rather than doing anything good for the beastlord community.

I am really increasingly getting tired of playing beastlord due to all that annoying work. If you buff a group with say 4 tanks + pet you have like 30 casts or so. It often happens especially in well unbalanced LDoN groups that i am the only buffer and haster and its a lot of annoying work rather than any fun.

I don't want to make suggestions with definite stats and values for new spells at this point. All i want is someone at SoE look into that buffing stuff, i think beastlords are really the class doing the most buff casts of all classes in game while we actually are supposed to be a fighting dps toon, less a shammy. But shammies have WAY less work buffing due to all these nifty group buffs they get over time.

So give us:

a) longer lasting buffs
b) better combos that eliminate single casts
c) group versions of some buffs that are actually accessable when it makes sense to cast them


Just my 2 cents

Gorgul
65-209
Morden Rasp

[Tastian]

This is a general problem that has been brought up (did I mention I want SCRM? lol).  Beastlords do a lot more buffing than many classes and put a lot more time/effort into doing such.  Some of the tediousness of buffing "needs" to be there to keep us seperate from shaman.  Although now with omens and how superior shaman buffs are it's less of an issue.  Longer duration really needs to be there on the SD minimum.  Lots of other suggestions have been made and once omens has been out for a week or so and things smooth out you will see a lot more talk about certain issues.  Some of the omens spells shouldn't have gone live as is, but I'm hopeful atleast a few will get some warranted tweaks.  One thing you can do is start making groups like I did. I ran up about 100 LDoN wins long ago with me as MT, a healer and a bunch of casters lol.  SD + me was about all I buffed.  8P

[Aneya]

For regular solo or groups I stopped casting Fero and Frenzy on myself a long time ago. Its just not worth it. I also drasticaly cut down the number of buffs I put on my pet. Its basicaly Proc, Haste, IoS. This made buffind much less agravating.

As for playing Gimp Shaman for a group, yeah it sucks all you do is slow and buff hardly any melee but that is what you get for playing a gimp shaman. If the others complain they don't get all the buffs that's their tougth they can either get a real shaman or make do with what you give them.

If you are annoyed at playing a beastlord, thats fine find another class or refuse to do the annoying parts. Trouble is I doubt you'll find any class that is less annoying to play than a beastlord and if you do, more power to you.

I fail to see how a beastlord can end up being the class that buffs the most. We basicaly have two buffs to cast on your average group. SD and Fero. Fero being optional. Other than that we also have Pet buffs. All our other buffs can be overwritten with something better.

I also find peoples complaints about SD and SV not being long enougth because its not as long as MGB to be a bit silly. I have never had problems SDing a full raid. MGB is saved for paragon anyhow so what does it matter if SD doesn't last as long as MGB? You where dealt a hand, deal with it.

Atleast provide some viable solutions instead of just complaining.

- One option is to argue that all groups spells should be set to same duration or extendable to the same duration as MGB. That means ranger pali shaman buffs too not just ours. This would be similar to the argument that got our weapon skill caps raised along with those of Warriors and Rangers.

- Another proposal would be to increase the mana cost of the spell relative to the duration increase. Thus really providing no extra power just convinience. Unless of course you have to cast SD every 30 seconds because those casters keep dying on the raid.

[Nusa]

Quick reality check:

SV does have a long enough duration to be MGB'ed. It's only SD that has a short duration.

Of the commonly cast group buffs for 65's, I challenge you to name some that are less than an hour, before extensions. I don't think you'll find many in the ranger/paladin/shaman lines, other than haste.

Note, I'm NOT complaining about SD, just your misstatement of facts.

[Aneya]

Quick reality check:

SV does have a long enough duration to be MGB'ed. It's only SD that has a short duration.

OK, I stand corrected, went a bit over board there.

Now, if you wanted SD extended:
Would you be willing to get a 1 hour duration SD that cost 550 mana?
or
Would you rather have a 45 min duration SD that cost 425 mana?

Somehow I doubt they would give us 1 hour SD at 425 mana.

[Dummkopf]

I would love to pay 100 mana more for a one hour version of SD to be honest. There are not many fights left where i would use mgb paragon (time its only tt and quarm) and if i know i have more than an hour til those fights i will mgb sd instead, especially after a wipe its a big manasaver vs. groupbuffing a raid.