Beastlord dps progression issues...

[Tastian]

There are a lot of issues facing beastlords at the moment and lots of issues facing other classes.  I have provided a lot of data to other classes and have talked about a lot of other beastlord issues.  However, this post is entirely about the progression of beastlord dps.  I am not ignoring other issues or classes, but I feel this issue needs some clarification if we are to ever get anywhere.  

This is going to be a fairly lengthy post and I apologize for that in advance.  I beg of you to please not respond with speculation about what you've heard or think you know.  If you have data to the contrary, then please provide it.  If you read and understand all of the data and feel the claims are wrong then explain why in a civil manner.  

I want to mention that the dps numbers in this post are not "top end" dps figures.  The important thing is not the numbers themselves, but rather how they relate to each other through progression.  EQ has a very good RNG, there's tons of mob and zone diversity, and it is simply impossible to give a true "average" dps figure.  What I've done is my best at showing dps figures both OH and MH with these weapons against the same mob, with max offensive AA and maxed atk.  Dps figures could be higher by using things like pet toys or adding aug'd procs to weapons, but all that would do is raise the numbers and that's not my intention.  The fact is doing so would actually further prove the point of poor beastlord progression because then the % returns we see below would actually be even lower, but like I said I simply don't have the resources or time to make things perfect.

Also spell damage has to be approximated someway.  The method I am using for this is simply having the beastlord use their nukes.  Disease dots take too long to run their course in many situations and poison dots are extremely high aggro.  I know some beastlords will use dots in some situations, but the majority of beastlord spell damage will come from nukes because they are the overall best way for us to convert mana into damage.  My calculations will be done assuming FT15 and SD.  Again, I could factor in kei or whatever, but that would simple raise the total damage and make the % even smaller.  

Ok let's get started,

Ele Planes:

Pet focus - Summoner's boon
Spell focus - 35% via 1.5 or 30% via orb/cloak

Pet dps ~ 70
Nuke dps ~ 18



Weapons:

Zha's - ~115dps (all figures will be including proc dps)

SPF ~ 72 MH,  ~55 OH
EPW ~ 72 MH, ~60 OH
Epic 1.5  ~79 MH, ~69 OH

This makes the best dps combo for a beastlord being epic 1.5 OH and a toss up between EPW/SPF MH.  

Total approximate dps in EPs ~ 229dps  (Again I stress the number itself has little meaning as it could easily shift +/- 50 depending on other factors, but we are using it as a standard for looking at progressional gains as we advance).


Plane of time:

Pet focus - MoE
Spell focus - 35% on 1.5, 35% on time BP

Pet dps ~ 76
Spell dps ~ 18


Weapons:

SoT (off CT) ~ 125dps

ED ~ 84 MH, ~59 OH
Shinai ~80 MH, ~67 OH
epic 1.5 ~79 MH, ~69 OH

Best dps combo for beastlord is ED MH and 1.5 OH.  Total dps is ~ 247.  This is about a 7 to 8% boost in total dps.  


GoD:

Pet focus - RS on boots, then later drops of MoD.
Spell focus -  40% on qvic sleeves but they only work to level 67 then falls off to 32% for our level 69 nuke and 28% for our level 70 nuke.  Epic 1.5 still does 35% focus to 70.  

Pet dps ~ 77 or 80
Spell dps ~ 19 (I'm being extremely generous here in case people couldn't tell, but it'd be nice to see this number actually change lol)


Weapons:

Staff of secrets ~ 138dps

SSB ~95 MH, ~69 OH
HWoCM ~87 MH, ~74 OH
Spiked fists of Annihilation ~ 83 MH, ~70 OH

Best dps combo is SSB MH and HWoCM OH.  Total dps is ~ 268.  Which is ~8% boost from time and ~17% boost from EPs.  Also please try to realize what we are talking about here for weapons.  The spiked fists are:

Spiked Fists of Annihilation
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM NO DROP
Slot: PRIMARY SECONDARY
Skill: Hand to Hand Atk Delay: 21
DMG: 25 Dmg Bonus: 15 AC: 25
STR: +20 DEX: +15 STA: +20 WIS: +15 HP: +180 MANA: +170 ENDUR: +170
SV FIRE: +15 SV COLD: +10 SV MAGIC: +15 SV POISON: +20
Required level of 65.
Effect: Force Shock (Combat)
WT: 0.6 Size: MEDIUM
Class: MNK BST
Race: ALL
Slot 1, Type 8

And they lose out to the P3 drop of ED MH for a beastlord.  The other uber hth out of GoD are:

Handwraps of Captured Magic
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM NO DROP
Slot: PRIMARY SECONDARY
Skill: Hand to Hand Atk Delay: 19
DMG: 25 Dmg Bonus: 15 AC: 25
STR: +15 DEX: +20 STA: +25 WIS: +10 INT: +10 AGI: +20 HP: +200 MANA: +185 ENDUR: +185
SV DISEASE: +15 SV COLD: +15 SV MAGIC: +20 SV POISON: +25
Required level of 65.
Effect: Serpent's Bite (Combat)
WT: 0.0 Size: MEDIUM
Class: MNK BST
Race: ALL
Slot 1, Type 8

And they just manage to beat out the ED from P3 in terms of MH damage for a beastlord.  

Also I haven't had time to personally parse it a lot yet, but the beastlord only weapon from tacvi is:

Zun'Muram's Scepter of Chaos
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM NO DROP
Slot: PRIMARY SECONDARY
Skill: 1H Blunt Atk Delay: 22
DMG: 31 Dmg Bonus: 15 AC: 36
STR: +20 DEX: +15 CHA: +10 WIS: +25 AGI: +20 HP: +260 MANA: +230
SV FIRE: +25 SV DISEASE: +25 SV COLD: +25 SV MAGIC: +25
Avoidance: +10
Required level of 65.
Effect: Sting of Ayonae (Combat)
WT: 1.3 Size: MEDIUM
Class: BST
Race: ALL
Slot 1, Type 8

In the same situations as the other weapon tests this appears to come in about 90dps MH and about 80 dps OH.  Meaning a beastlord with this would throw it OH like we do oh so many of our "uber" beastlord useable weapons and see another small upgrade to dps.  


Omens:

Omens is still new and there is lots left to be discovered.  Sadly old world pet focuses like MoE and RS are still dropping off raid mobs, no real boosts to non-melee have been found either.  There have been a few items though so I'm going to list those below.

Weapons thus far:

Cudgel of the watchful dragorn ~ 158 dps

Crystal hilted shinai ~ 102 MH, ~88 OH

There are other weapons like despair, but they all fall below what a beastlord previously had access to.  


Now maybe it's just me, but to say beastlord dps progresses poorly is an understatement.  We see almost no change in pet dps once we get MoE focus, we see no real gains to spell dps, and our "melee" dps doesn't even progress as much as other classes because we rely much heavier on procs.  Proc dps simply doesn't improve nearly as much as ratios do.  Also I left out a lot of other factors that skew things even more.  Beastlord dps is divided into:  melee dps, proc dps, warder dps, warder proc dps, spell dps.  And most of these simply haven't seen a real boost in a couple of expansions now.  If the intent is for classes to progress say 30% from point A to point B, then beastlords either need to have all aspects of their dps receive that gain or they need to have a few select parts of it receive larger gains so that the overall boost is the game.

This isn't the be all, end of all analysis and to be honest it's impossible to do so.  I could factor in dot ratio or add in outside buffs, I could fight lower AC mobs or I could do thousands of different things, but all that will change are the numbers and the %'s will remain about the same.  Truth is I left out several things that would actually make these % returns even smaller.  Adding pet toys to pet would raise the total dps by a few points, but it doesn't improve with progression.  Procs on weapons, the pet proc, etc.  

Some people simply don't understand beastlords and how the class functions.  Having our class only tacvi weapon put out ~5 dps more than a P3 time drop MH is just insane.  Add to that the fact that the weapon is only boosting our "melee" dps and does nothing for our warders/spells/etc and things get even worse.  

There are many, many ways this progression issue could be handled and they've all been brought up before.  What most beastlords want right now is just some confirmation that this is being looked at and is seen as an issue.  We have always been a very understanding class, but this is getting to be too much.  Please take a beastlord with an ED + 1.5 and MoE pet focus and throw them against a mob for a few hours.  Then take that same beastlord, swap in GoD weapons and pet focus and do the same.  Heck, send me a plane ticket and I'll go run these tests for you on your own systems.  

*shrugs*  I just don't know what else to say.  The fact that a beastlord that has never even killed quarm can put out within ~20 dps of a beastlord who has cleared tacvi multiple times blows my mind.    

I have and will continue to provide more specific examples and issues, but I think this is a solid overview that highlights a few of the problems.  I guess I'll end on this note because I think it sums things up fairly well.

Beastlords have a built in division of power that is not being properly weighed when making AA and itemization decisions about the class.  An understanding of how the beastlord class functions is needed so that we can see a correction to the current issues facing the class and avoid more problems in the future.

[flush]

wow great post, Tastian

[Skratchen]

I knew this intuitively for years how the seperate components of the way beastlords do their damage would require special progression upgrades different from what other classes have been accustomed to.   I regret not doing more to help and break these issues down by the numbers and do the thorough analysis like you are Tast.  Thanks for doing the work.

[Tastian]

I just hope it helps make some of the issues clear to other players and a few devs.  Weapon upgrades alone as they are currently being done simply are not sufficent to preserve a beastlords place in the dps ranking.

Our spells, our proc dmg, our pet proc and even our pet have seen very minor if any upgrades in the past two expansions and we gain less from weapon upgrades then almost every other class in the game.  Lots of ways this can fixed and corrected, but the first step that still hasn't happend yet is sony looking at where beastlords are and were and admitting it's not intended.  *shrugs*

[Tardar]

Great job Tastian, and thank you for all your hard work.

Just out of curiosity, how do other classes progress compared to us?  For instance, are Mages or rangers or druids seeing this kind of disparity?  It seems impossible to me that any other class could see this kind of difference, because we are the ONLY class where our DPS is divided up into so many different areas.  

If we are seeing an average 17% dps increase from EP to GoD, what are others seeing?  Specifically other classes that divide their dps.  I'm not too worried about a rogue or a monk, because their dps is solely dependant on one aspect.  However, isn't it fair to consider other classes that have to split their dps into different areas?

The other thing that this doesn't address of course, and it shouldn't, is the need for a beastlord to spend dkp and aa to maximize his/her potential.  If I have to have 3-4 different focus effects, and max out 3-4 different kinds of aa to fully realize my power, then is this different than the Wizard or Monk who's sole purpose is based around one set "skill" set?  

Anyway, sorry for the slight derail, but obviously I am feeling frustrated.

Great work again Tastian.  Much appreciated sir!!

[Jkal_Shihar]

Like always Tastain, great work but my head hurts looking at those numbers :LOL:

Never been much on parsing and glad you and cop have dedicated yourselves to all the work that is involved.

[Hereki]

Weapons:

Zha's - ~115dps (all figures will be including proc dps)

SPF ~ 72 MH, ~55 OH
EPW ~ 72 MH, ~60 OH
Epic 1.5 ~79 MH, ~69 OH

This makes the best dps combo for a beastlord being epic 1.5 OH and a toss up between EPW/SPF MH.

This is going to be a digression, so I am going to start a separate thread elsewhere later.  But I am early/pre Elemental gearing-wise, and my total melee + proc dps is about 70 with the buffing described (I assume celerity as well).  From the above I see 141 melee/proc dps (with somewhat better weapons than me).

[Tastian]

Like I said there is no way to get "perfect" numbers.  What I did as best as possible was keep the situation the same and keep the situation as universal as possible.  No test data from ssra where AC is insane, no data from PoW where nukes don't land, no fights againist RZ in time where time lapse proc won't land, etc.  

Like I said in the thread I could easily shift these numbers 50 either way without changing too much, but the point isn't what the numbers are, but how they relate to each other.  I did some rough runs at bazaar level, but the numbers seem skewed because most people in bazaar gear don't have 1900 atk, maxed AA, and 101% haste.  

This actually isn't nearly as complete as I want it to be, but to be honest I'm slippin.  8(   Just one too many PMs claiming inaccurate schit and one too many posts where someone claims we are asking for rogue level dps.  I am by no means done and I have other things in the works, but I needed to atleast get this much out here now so I can referance it some and people know what I'm talking about.

Tar-  The 17% figure is actually being semi-generous as it doesn't factor in things like pet procs or pet toys.  Those are both things that add to our total damage, but don't increase at all with progression.  

Rangers have a dps issue right now that largely stems from a lack of proper weapons and poor hybrid nukes for them.  Rangers are coming in very close to warriors for dps in many cases, but a vast majority of their dps is melee so atleast their progression is smoother, but the progression curve for them needs to be moved upwards imo.

Mages have the pet/cast issue, but casters start off much higher naturally because of spells.  Sadly beastlord spells don't grant us nearly the initial edge because we didn't see a pet upgrade in GoD and the omens ones aren't that great.  Our non-melee dmg has hardly moved in terms of ratio, so outside of the abillity to load an extra nuke to help our horrible burn dps we just haven't seen much.  

Truthfully there is just no other class in the game atm that has such a division of power.  Beastlord dps as I mentioned is divided up into:

Pet dps -  Focus effects for us after MoE have always done very little and now in omens we see rehashed focus effects doing even less.

Pet proc dps -  This just doesn't change at the higher end.  It saw a boost from PoP to Omens because we got a new buff at 68, but there is no ancient pet proc.  The effect on our 1.5 epic doesn't last permantly, but is rather a burst buff.  I've yet to parse out a discernable difference in procs landing via focus because of the level shift in pet or a higher innate proc rate.

Melee dps -  This is the main thing that gets upgraded via progression, but sadly a melee upgrade for us does less than for almost every other class in the game.  If you hand a beastlord a weapon that is 10% better ratio wise than what he previously had then he'll see maybe a 3% overall boost to dps and that's assuming this new weapon has the same proc as their previous weapon.  

Proc dps -  As mentioned above we rely very heavily on proc dps and proc dps simply hasn't scaled.  In plane of time a beastlord can have combat effects 30, weapon affinity 5 and time lapse proc.  By the end of god and now even into omens the only boost they'll see in proc damage is that a SSB doesn't have the -15% proc rate penalty that the ED has built in.  

Spell dps -  Focus effects haven't hardly moved and neither have our spells.  Glacier spear finally gives an increase to mana to dmg ratio on our nuke, but it's still less than what the line was at previously (comes in at just under 3 to 1 base).  We have almost no dot focus items, and dots have so many innate issues for us that they don't weigh in as they should.


So there you have 5 different forms of damage all coming together for beastlords (could even make it 6 if you seperated dots/nukes) and of them only melee dmg has seen any real progression in the last couple of expansions.  

Also the issue you have is work invovled to get the % increase.  I've got another write up on that in the works atm, but we have to spend AA for our melee, for our pet, for our dots, for our nukes, for our procs, etc.  We have to get max worn atk, melee focus, caster focus, pet focus, new weapons, etc.  Also after doing all of this we are still tied to our pet for a decent amount of our dps.  Even with full pet AA and gear the pet dies in one round againist many of the higher end mobs currently.  Our pet heals just don't keep up and so we fall short on dps in that way too.  It's really a lot of different things, but all of it could easily be fixed, but it just feels like sony doesn't understand it's broken.  I mean seriously you have a monk/bst only weapon.  Here's a weapon that can be wielded by a class that maxes at 15% DA via 10AA points and the other class gets innate triple attack at level 60.  /boggle  It just don't make no sense lol.  They need to recognize beastlords as their own class, with their own style, with their own needs.  Beastlord only weapons from tacvi should *NOT* be a 5(ish) dps boost over a tier 3 times drop that can be used by war/mnk/rng/rog/bst/kitchensink/etc  lol.  

Sorry for all the rambling, but I honestly can't take it anymore, I want a response.  I want them to test this out in house and see what they get for results and then let us know what they feel about it.  If they feel this kind of dps upgrade is acceptable after all the time/effort/etc that goes into it then great, I'll go back to being a bard lol.

[Zurash Kittenclaws]

I appreciate all the effort you are putting into trying to get this resolved for us Tasti. Unfortunately, it seems as though Sony no longer cares, shown by the total lack of response to almost any posts across all developer class forums, not just ours.

Really seems as though they want us all to simply pack it in and move to another game, which is looking more and more attractive as time drags on with no response from them.

[Tastian]

I personally think something like our dps issue is a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.  You don't have dev classes at EQ.  There isn't a dev that does beastlords, or a dev that does tanks or a dev that does healers.  Instead, you've got one dev who does AAs, one dev that does equipment, one dev that does spells, etc.  

Now if you look at each individual area then beastlords aren't "that" far off by most numerical analysis you do.  Kind of like how perfection was brought "inline" supposedly, but the no regard for how perfection for a beastlord is totally different than ancestral aid for a shaman.  You have us still getting weapon "upgrades", but they are the same ratio upgrades that monks and everyone else get.  You have us getting the same offensive AAs other gets and some thrown in.  It'd take a decent understanding of how highend beastlords function to realize that "hey this looks skewed toward the beastlord over others, but it has to be".  

Seems like you have the spell person saying our spells are "inline", the AA person saying it's "inline", and then you've got the issue of well our pets can't be better than mages, our nukes can't be too good, our melee weapons can't be better than monk, etc.  EQ is a huge project and I understand how these things can happen.  My issue is that they aren't being addressed and I'm spending 50 hours a week and paying 13 bucks a month to test this for them.  They have a testing department.  How an expansion goes live without each class having various dps benchmarks done is beyond me.  *shrugs*  

Things are happening still though, they haven't abandoned EQ1 or anything.  GoD AA refunds are on the way, there are changes to backflagging in the works, there are further fixes to the collision system and falling damage.  Also, I know of atleast one long standing beastlord issue that will be answered friday.  Just have to wait and see how it works out.  I don't know why, but I honestly just feel like when it comes to beastlords they don't quite get us because we are so different dps-wise from other classes.

[jitathab]

Do these people just ignore what you are writing then? Because what you have posted above very clearly summarises the whole issue.

The only remaining questions is to put the stats in relation to other classes.

If we get a 17% overall power increase

Rangers get 18%
Wizards get 25%
Warriors get 30%

Then it is obvious that Rangers and Bsts need looking at as an overall package.

This evidence would conclusivley prove your argument, however I dont have access to any of these toons at all the level to come up with the results, SoE does though.

[Tastian]

One of the issues is other classes progress differently and we are now looking at a multi-expansion spanning issue.  For instance casters didn't gain a lot focus effect wise in GoD, but there were new pets, new nukes, new ancients, that all have a far bigger impact for them than their was for us.  The problem is we seem to progress like casters do.  Lots of power in spells, then smaller increases from gear.  Unfortunatly, our spells/AA don't give us nearly enough of an initial boost to support these minor progression based upgrades.  

As for what other classes are seeing it's not even close.  Rogues in EP are looking at an ifir off FR as their big poker...

Ifir, Dagger of Fire
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM NO DROP
Slot: PRIMARY SECONDARY
Skill: Piercing Atk Delay: 19
DMG: 18 Dmg Bonus: 15 AC: 15
Skill Mod: Backstab +12%
STR: +20 DEX: +20 STA: +20 WIS: +20 HP: +155 MANA: +130 ENDUR: +130
SV DISEASE: +25 SV COLD: +25 SV POISON: +10
Required level of 65.
Effect: Flame of the Efreeti (Combat)
WT: 1.3 Size: SMALL
Class: WAR RNG BRD ROG
Race: ALL
Slot 1, Type 4

Now you have things like...

Soulskive
MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM NO DROP
Slot: PRIMARY SECONDARY
Skill: Piercing Atk Delay: 21
DMG: 26 Dmg Bonus: 15 AC: 20
Skill Mod: Backstab +12%
STR: +17 DEX: +19 STA: +15 WIS: +22 INT: +22 AGI: +17 HP: +275 MANA: +275 ENDUR: +275
SV FIRE: +20 SV DISEASE: +20 SV COLD: +15 SV MAGIC: +15 SV POISON: +15
Required level of 70.
Effect: Life Sap III (Combat)
WT: 2.0 Size: MEDIUM
Class: WAR RNG BRD ROG BST
Race: ALL
Slot 1, Type 8

And type 8 +4dmg augs for primary hand.  


The thing it's really a combination of factors.  You can look at where beastlords are relative to other classes at the highend and see an issue.  You then look back at how that happend from plane of time where things were about right and see these issues.  The very minor gains in non-melee damage.  No gains to proc damage.  Minor gains to melee dps.  Relatively minor upgrades to pet, dated pet focus effects dropping, etc.  Our division of power always made us work harder for our gains because we needed to get cold focus and maxed worn atk and 2 new weapons and FT and pet focus, etc.  Now though some of those options just don't exist.  A beastlord in plane of time can have their proc dps maxed except for one item, they can have their pet within 5% or so of top pet dps, they will almost no gains to non-melee dps, etc.  

The "issue" is that at highend beastlord dps is below what it should be.  The cause of that is poor progression.  It would be very possible for beastlords to see a 17 or 15 or even 10% upgrade and be where they should be, but we'd be totally overpowered at the lower end of the spectrum in that case.  Also realize the shifts we are talking about here.  The jump to Ele planes is pretty big.  The jump to time is huge.  Then we are talking about the entire GoD expansion lol.  If we got more progression out of our spells and AA then we could afford to get less out of items, but currently we spend tons of AA to try to get the same overall boost other classes see and our spell based dps has hardly moved in years.

[wolverine9981]

Why couldn't they increase BF until we are inline for DPS.  I know this would mean more AA's to get where we should be but as long as they keep it 2 AA points for 3% melee increase I don't see a problem with that.  I know this is only part of our DPS but if they increase every part of the beastlord's damage every other class will scream bloody murder.  For instance if they increase our lvl 70 nuke to 1500, which wouldnt be a 50% dps boost like it would be to pure casters, casters would freak out.  Same thing with pets, making bst only weapons with higher ratios than a pure melee gets, etc.  Would anyone here complain if there was 11,12, what ever it takes to get us inline lvls of BF.  This would be a good, easy way to increase our DPS without having the changes effect other classes.

[Tastian]

Increase our base melee abilities would help address the problem.  It would also make it so going foward we would gain more than we currently do from gear upgrades.  One of the big problems with using just AA like BF or something else though is that it hits every beastlord.  A beastlord in the EPs atm and in time is doing what they should for dps.  In order for a generic fix like an AA to make it so high end beastlords were where they should be, then it'd also make it so that lower end beastlords aren't where they should be.

Also I want to comment on this because it's something that keeps coming up and I think is one of the biggest issues we face...

"making bst only weapons with higher ratios than a pure melee gets"

Everyone looks at ratio and that is part of the problem.  They have the oppurtunity and the ability to increase our gains from weapons in the proper spots without ever having a ratio near what monks or others see.  Let me just post a few made-up weapons for you...

Weapon_01 - 30dmg 19del  100dd proc
Weapon_02 - 22dmg 22del  800dd proc
Weapon_03 - 17dmg 20del 1000dd proc

Weapon 1 and weapon 2 are almost even on dps depending on AA for a beastlord.  Weapon 3 beats both weapon 1 and weapon 2 by a few % points (again depending).  Also you don't even have to look at face value, take a weapon like...

Beast_weapon_02  -  20dmg 25 del  Proc:  600dd & -200 hate  Proc rate: 200%

That weapon above would out dps the 30 on 19 mentioned above for a beastlords, doesn't even have a huge proc in terms of DD, it's proc rate mod isn't out of hand by any means (zha's is 150% proc rate for instance) and yet it's flat out own most things a beastlord can currently get.

I've said this before and I'll keep saying it until the right people understand it.  Beastlords do not want "better" weapons, we want weapons that are "better" for us.  That means built around how we function and how the class plays.  A modest ratio weapon that generates solid proc dd without tons of uneccessary aggro is perfect for the beastlord class as it currently is.  There's no need for broken ratios or insane numbers that make melee weep.  Do you realize that in order to have a "ratio" weapon that was on par with the 20/25 I mentioned above it'd need to be along the lines of 35 on 20?  lol  Now the game is getting to that point, but when monks are using 35 on 20's then beastlords should have 25 on 20's with 1k DD procs.  We aren't talking about doing more damage than other classes, but rather doing the damage we should be doing.  

Another good thing about going with the weapon type of upgrade is it allows itemization to place the boosts where they need to be.  A time beastlord can have an ED, a qvic beastlord can have weapon_03 or whatever, etc.  You could even add beastlord only AAs/gear that work with this.  A self buff that helps procs more or lowers aggro or imbued procs with a recourse.  Sigh, it doesn't even have to be a huge change in many places.  With a few changes to spell and AA data and re-working of a few higher end weapons beastlord dps could easily be inline with where it should be and most classes wouldn't even know about it.  Heck some beastlords would complain if they looted a 20/25 weapon out of tacvi, but once they actually saw how it worked you wouldn't hear too much complaining hehe.

Like I said though the first step is getting them to just admitt this is an issue.  Take a top end time beastlord and let them pound on a mob for a bit, then swap in god weapons and pet focus and let them go at it again.  The gap is just too small.

[jitathab]

Why not have a new proc effect on charm,  or a new type of aug, or some additional AA unlocking flag, based on what you have defeated.
The more "key" mobs you kill the better the proc. This means the top end bsts would then get a better and better proc, and stay ahead of the rest.

A "key" mob could be any mob determined as "tough" or in a "progression", the exact mobs could be argued for ages and is irrelevent to the concept, as long as theres enough overall gain.

This way we could benifit more power from shared_weapon_03

So there are mechanisms to sort the problem, it seems though that SoE does not believe what they are being told or demonstrated by all the solid evidence you have provided.
Perhaps we need to send some heavies round to thier HQ and force them to listen :)