Bestial Alignment changes on Lucy

[Tytallia]

Does anyone else see this situation for us in the future with this AA?

Raid Leader says, "DISC IT BURN IT"
Beastlord_01 dies.
Beastlord_02 dies.
Beastlord_03 dies...

What kind of aggro will using this in conjunction with our level 60 disc do???

I agree this should be split into 2 AAs, one for Illusion and one for suicide DPS.

[Trahma]

Combining this with frenzy of spirits and bestial frenzy will put most BL personal DPS up by x3 - the best equipped BL should be pushing out 350 ish DPS

the best monks will be pushing out 360 ish and rogues zooming up to 500 during their max damage effort

so - no - I dont see it as killing off all BL

[Argach]

As far as I understand, and nothing I've seen has contradicted the theory, melee creates aggro by the damage potential of the swings and stuff like having 2500 atk or running a burst damage disc don't change that base number of hate per swing. There was a long thread on SK boards about it ... anyways, I've never gained aggro by the use of FoS and bestialfrenzy and I doubt this AA will kill me either - at least our MTs have built up plenty of aggro to spare towards the end of the encounter.

[Llorath]

Firstly, i am not in beta, so i am commenting on the "public" data that sony has to be aware is in lucy.

Secondly, i fully agree with tastian.  Either make the illusion sustainable with minor stat boosts, OR get rid of the illusion all together.

Adding shrink to the END of the burst dps / illusion AA this is currently wouldnt do anything, because.. well we all shrink on big raids for a reason, and unless i STAY SHRUNK when this AA gets popped, i will be in other melee's way at a time everyone would be trying to do the most damage.

I certainly cant take time out of a 5 tick aa to cast shrink, either.


I can live with it if it becomes "just another burst damage AA".. really i can.  I both raid ( our guild  / alliance is elemental ), and exp group quite a bit.  Having another way to pump out damage, even if its short term, would be ok... HOWEVER, if the AA stays short term the illusion portion needs to go.

The "want illusion" people are not going to buy it to be in an illusion for 5 ticks, and the raiders certainly dont want it unless you pop in illusion shrunk, and stay shrunk when it wears off.  If those 2 conditions are met, the raid / min max people wont care what you look like probably.

Give us one or the other... or an AA for both.  Personally i see nothing wrong with people running around as tigers, bears, etc at all.. Hell they made project illusion so neither does sony, at this point.

[Vorph]

Does anyone else see this situation for us in the future with this AA?

Raid Leader says, "DISC IT BURN IT"
Beastlord_01 dies.
Beastlord_02 dies.
Beastlord_03 dies...

What kind of aggro will using this in conjunction with our level 60 disc do???

No, the only way you're gonna see that is if you're chaining 3-4 ice DDs and both poison DoTs.  Discs/AAs are a drop in the bucket compared to the aggro generated by a decent warrior now, and for a fully Time-equipped one, there's nothing in the world you could do to pull aggro once he's got it locked.  Second DoT might change that though, heh.

I still think this AA is going to suck no matter what they do.  I get people crying about the size of my bear during the 6 seconds it takes me to click my SoAS twice and shrink him after un-suspending.  No amount of dmg increase over 5 ticks (that SOE would be willing to give us) would be worth the hassle of being an ogre-sized bear.

[Vecsus]

we asked for the ability to "become" our warders for so long that they decided to give it to us...but at the same time they appear to be doing it in such a way that it's a joke.  At least we'll have something neat to use at costume parties.   :wink:

[Choppin]

if its on a 10 minute time I d buy it how it is, if its 30 or more minutes, gonna be way down on my list

I mean really, sinister strikes, feral swipe and weapon affinity gonna be the first 100 points to spend heh the the pet dmg enhancers and then maybe this one

[Lukna]

So who's feedback are they listening to to make these changes? It's definately not mine.

Anyone else in beta suggest such a ridiculous change to Bestial Alignemnt?

Wasn't me.

My feedback consisted of me letting them know that the reuse time is WAY to long, and believe me, it's WAY WAY too long and that the duration was too short. I reminded them of the comparable Ranger aa and that the reuse time on it was much shorter.

So who told them to that the duration was too long?

Or... Are they ignoring the feedback that they asked us to provide?

[Dummkopf]

Just tested it and feedbacked, its not usable at the moment in my opinion. At least i wont spend the aas on something totally useless.

[Bengali]

So who's feedback are they listening to to make these changes? It's definately not mine.

Anyone else in beta suggest such a ridiculous change to Bestial Alignemnt?

Wasn't me.

My feedback consisted of me letting them know that the reuse time is WAY to long, and believe me, it's WAY WAY too long and that the duration was too short. I reminded them of the comparable Ranger aa and that the reuse time on it was much shorter.

So who told them to that the duration was too long?

Or... Are they ignoring the feedback that they asked us to provide?

The ranger aa that has a short reuse/effect is closer to Frenzy of Spirit than this aa, and Frenzy of Spirit does have a short reuse.  Rangers have long duration illusions, but those are spells.  Maybe that's why they did it this way, I don't know.

As for who they are listening to, if you read the boards you see two camps, one that wants a burst aa and another that wants a long illusion with minor stats.  You have people who think turning into warders is the best thing ever and you have people who think it's totally stupid.  Just because the end result didn't end up what you thought it was doesn't mean they were ignoring anyone, nor does it mean that it was a tester's idea either.

Anyway, like I said in another thread if the illusion added any worthwhile stats and lasted a long time then you'd always see people in that illusion the way nowadays you always see mages in an elemental form.  Putting aside your feelings on how "cool" that is, there are practical issues with it.

I don't want to be cryptic, but if you have ever attacked in wolf form or bear form or scaled wolf form, you'll see that the perspectives vary, and kind of match the animation you'd see in 3rd person view.

So, one moment when you aren't doing anything else, look at how a tiger warder attacks compared to a wolf or a bear.  Then imagine yourself inside it's head.  Attacking.  For a long time.

[Pojodan]

So, one moment when you aren't doing anything else, look at how a tiger warder attacks compared to a wolf or a bear.  Then imagine yourself inside it's head.  Attacking.  For a long time.

Hence why I think it ought to be basically free-mana Ferocity with an illusion, that way if I grow sick of the illusion in one way or another I'll be able to drop it and just cast Ferocity instead as I've always done.

[Bengali]

Mana free ferocity with an illusion (long lasting and/or short reuse) gives an extraordinary advantage to those people who either like being in illusion form or whose illusion form isn't totally spastic and disorienting when attacking.  It would mean that:

1.  You could keep Fero up on an extra person since you don't have to keep it on yourself, or

2.  During those times when you don't have to keep Fero on a bunch of people, you could still save a fair of mana by having a free cast of our most mana intensive spell.

If that's what it was, then people would be totally stupid not to get it, and not to run around like that all the time.  Sure no one is forcing you to buy the aa, but you'd be at a severe disadvantage if you didn't.  Because of that, nearly everyone would get it, and if the perspective in warder form wasn't roughly the same for everyone then there would be issues.

[Trahma]

Well - lets cut to the chase

What we really need is eye lasers.  Big ones.  Planet destroying superlaser eye beams.


Aaaaanyway - I would love to look like a tiger every now and then - but the whole shrink issue is going to be a pain.


The duration needs to be long enough that I can go feral, shrink, and get some results out of it - this means that the duration of the thing has to cover 3-4 fights minimum so it becomes worth putting it up before a pull and running shrink.

It needs to represent an overall improvement sufficient to justify the seemingly inordinate AA costs.  Currently - 100% damage increase for 30 seconds out of every 7200 seconds is such a tiny blip I would be better off buying more crit AAs.


Of course - we get several quite nice AAs out of GoD - and plenty of other classes get a lame as sheit AA - but still most of our AAs are the same ones that everyone gets, it would be nice if this BL only AA was kinda unique.


Another idea - make this AA 2 hour reuse mass AE and have it do both the melee damage boost and a spell damage boost (or perhaps better, a sisable effective caster level boost to help overcome resists or something).  That way - the shrink issue becomes a raid wide problem - and shammies can have something to do with their group shrink spells.

KK so maybe that isnt any good.  But the crux of the matter stands - no matter what problems may or may not exist due to short duration illusion, if the end AA has a trivial effect copmpared to its cost, it will be the gimp AA that no one gives a rats about.

[Tastian]

" if the end AA has a trivial effect copmpared to its cost, it will be the gimp AA that no one gives a rats about."

This is part of my point though.  *IF* this is a maintainable illusion you *will* see people buy it.  Heck I'll give 3/5/ maybe 9 AA just for a sustainable illusion.  Give it 40 atk 15 min reuse time and 30 min duration and it works.  People that want a permanent illusion don't need 100's of atk, double damage, spell avoidance or anything else.  We have a *LOT* of aa's at this point for damage, we have bestial fury, Frenzy of spirits, we have lots of ways to burst dps well.  I'm very pleased to see the boost in offensive AA's for bst, but this AA could easily be a fun little AA for people.  Some people will get a decent boost from it, but it's not earth shaking.  I honestly would prefer a mage elemental form type of AA.  Heck make it sustainable and give it the bonuses that original BA gave over fero (+atk/saves).  If they do decide to make this a burst AA though the illusion basically has to go imo.  However, that defeats the entire purpose.  People asked for an illusion, no one was asking for another burst AA.  In fact the only reason this even became a discussion is because SoE dropped the ball in my opinion and overshot the stats on it, then had to bring it back in line with silly duration/refresh.  

There are lots of AA's I want and I like, but BA has simply gotten out of hand imo.  There's no need for this to be an issue, or even a balance issue.  Giving it an illusion +stats allows everyone to get something that they want.  People that want illusion get it.  People that are looking for a boost get it, but they don't have to keep it up full time.

[Trahma]

Ahh - but it currently isnt a sustainable illusion

I personally would be quite happy if the ONLY thing it did was cast an illusion - it doesnt have to have anything else (except maybe eye lasers)


But I also like to look at things as they are.  And as this AA currently is, it is a poor AA for the amount it will cost.  Not only is the illusion component saddled with the PITA drawback associated with shrink and terribly short duration, but its cost to improvement ratio is abysmal.

Mind you - I wonder how effective the improve spell resist 20% is?  I actually suspect that if I have no chance of resisting a spell, then 20% more of no chance is still no chance, but if it doesnt work like that - it might be kind of interesting (although right off the bat, I will say that even a flat 20% chance to resist even unresistable stuff is actually not that useful - how many times does your typical AE mob proc their AE?  thats right - a LOT - getting hit by 4 2k AEs is not really any different to getting hit by 5 of them - the raid will still be popping MGB heals left right and center, or hiding away from the AE all together)



Anyway - its a mostly free world, and I am willing to speak in loud voice that in the current form, this AA is poor value, and as much as I want to look like a tiger, I will be vastly better served to get other AAs before considering this.  Still - the AA has changed and changed and changed - which is why I am also happy to point out exactly why I think it is flawed, and what possible alternatives might be available to fix it.

Duration is an obvious one, but given the direction SoE is currently taking it, I dont think it is the right choice.  Now maybe SoE will go in some other direction for it.  Check out the divine avatar lines on Lucy for something the same yet different (these appear to be the shaman ones).


I dunno - I have a million ideas, too many really.  So I basically can only give my thoughts on where the AA is currently at.


Oh - and on duration - 30 seconds makes the illusion suck, but pernamently sustainable means the BL will ALWAYS be in this form, unless there is some downside to it.  available for roughly 20 - 25% of the time, with a minimum of 10 or so minutes, seems about right from my point of view.

Blah - as I said - I could just go on about this all day - better I dont.