PETITION IDEA - Bestial Alignment

[Trahma]

I bought the first level because it provides basically the same benefit as the 2nd and 3rd level

tiger illusion
20 pct greater resist (although I have no idea exactly what this does)
practically zero change to your damage per hour


And now I pop it any time it is up and I feel the need to look like a tiger for various humourous reasons.


Oh - and the resulting jumbo mega tiger is bigger than the 64 pet even - yay.


Dont use it so much on raids unless I am pretty sure space issues are fine or its just some trash and the raid needs the benefit of watching a massive tiger gamboling around.


I disagree with making it permanent illusion - I personally dont like the idea of beastlords always being in their illusion form - thus it either needs to have limited duration compared to reuse, or it needs to have drawbacks.  Personally I hate drawbacks as a balancing tool.

So - limited duration it is - but 30 seconds out of 72 minutes is a bit too limited :)


Also - I am not sure I like the effect - I think I would have preferred either the AA giving us greater crit rates and chances to cripple blow, or to flurry, or at the very least, the ability to shoot eye lasers.  Or - a vastly improved accuracy rate would have been nice too.  Basically - something that is not just the same as a /disc we already had that cost 2 copper, could be used from lvl 60, and has a faster reuse time.


I would like to see the duration go up - maybe to a minute or so (basically for 1 fight) and the reuse time go down (30 ish minutes)

OR

I would like to see the magnitute of the effect go WAY up - like 4 times what it is currently

either of these would actually give the AA value beyond its fun jumbo tiger state.

[sarjent]

and while we're at it..fix the barbarian wolf form.  That grey warder is ghey totally! I wanna be a huge ass white wolf for 30 seconds!

[Ghoat]

Sarj is just jealous because when I pop mine in the middle of a raid full of shrunken melees I block out the sun ;)

[cougerofeq]

GoD seems like a raid focused expansion and yet this AA is anti raid.

There has been and always will be many who want a pet form and those who dont... thats a debate that will never end as its just personal preference.

[Scalewulf]

"I ask you all this. How often do you NOT have Ferocity permacast on you right now? I'd be willing to bet that if you have the spell, it's on you if you are about to get into a fight, or are already in a fight."

Ditto

And I agree with everything else Tot said as well, simply because her suggestions would improve on what is a junk AA, atm.

illusion, no illusion, whatever.  That's just a non-issue in the effectiveness of the AA itself.  

Personally, I'd like to see it made useful first, then tweaked as to whether it has an illusion or not afterwards.

[Bengali]

The problem with the illusion being a long term self fero is twofold.  First, it substantially increases the effectiveness of a beastlord's attack buffing because they either a) can buff more people since they don't have to buff themselves or b) will save a lot of mana by not having to cast their most mana intenensive spell as much (assuming no focus effects, aa, fizzles, etc, it would save about 11 casts of fero over 72 mins or 6600 mana total or about 9 mana/tick).  This aa wasn't meant to be that good.  None of the aa's from this expansion are meant to be that good for pretty much any class.  They are moderate gains.  Mana regen/efficiency in particular has been on lockdown, and this is an "effective" 9 FT for the self-feroing bst crowd.

The second problem is that being in illusion form has definite issues.  The fighting perspectives vary substantially by race.  This is unlike a ranger or druid wolf form, because the wood elves have the same wolf as the humans who have the same wolf as the half-elves.  There's no benefit (or punishment) tied to a particular race.

That's not the case with bestial alignment.  Fighting in tiger form is absolutely miserable for Vah Shir over long periods of time.  From what I understand, it's not that bad for trolls, ogres, and iksar.  Wolf form is sorta spastic for barbs, but they are all substantially easier to use than tiger form.  You can't see what you're fighting, it's hard to find the right distance to attack and so on.

Putting aside whether you like or don't like the idea of all the beastlords on a raid or adventure or whatever being in animal form the entire time (unless they die or zone of course), if the only way to have self only-fero would be to assume tiger form, then people who can't stand the illusion for one reason or another are at a severe disadvantage to those who decided to pick a different race a year ago or whatever.  I knew what I was getting into with my warder, but no one ever suggested that I was going to have to fight like that.

Now I realize people are going to say, "don't buy the aa if it's that bad, then."  But again, the point is that the other races can buy the aa and won't suffer the same disadvantages, and the benefits of the aa are so significant that you'd be a fool NOT to get the aa in that form.  It's our most expensive and high-maintenance spell, on a hotkey.

That last part is probably the biggest reason why we didn't get it that way.  I think (this is just speculation however) that the devs don't want to use aa's as a way to replace people's best spells, even in limited circumstances.  A free evac or snare is one thing, but I suspect they want to be careful in handing out mana free abilities like that.

(NOTE:  for those of you who are thinking, 'why not give self only fero without the illusion then?' all I can say is that we've been asking for that forever and the idea just hasn't gone over very well with the devs.)

[Incite]

The only thing BA needs is a supporting "Quickened Beastiality" AA lowering reuse time by 10 mins for each level (3 levels).  Beastlords are in a very good position over all, we're not going to see any huge improvements on BA such as reuse time lowered to 30 minutes with no cost.

Oh, and you can quit smirking at my AA name.   :P

[Silresa]

Well, I did end up buying the first rank, and I do use it now and then, as it does add some more damage, but eh..

And just as a side note, the iksar first-person view is -VERY- horrible, all the upside down V shaped bobbing around our warder's head makes while attacking, our view does as well. I can't imagine it being any better than the Vah Shir's. ;) Though, even with that in mind, I'd love a perma or sustainable illusion, but that's just me. :D

As far as the AA goes, after having it a little while, I agree with Beng. Lower reuse time, please! >< It's pretty okay, but a re-use that would put it nearer to Bestial Frenzy, 20, 25 or even 30 minutes would all make this AA far mort wortwhile, and make the later levels much more appealing.

[Voidstalker]

this shit is broken. It costs me 11m to use the AA WTf ....?

nothing more then a toy in it current condition. No need to get over 1/3

3 aa's for a toy ain't bad.

[Aldur]

I personelly love it.  First level at least is well worth 3 aa's  On some of the trial names where burst dps rather than sustained dps is the key - this really feels lovely.

Whilst I won't be maxing it until pet aa's and wa are done - it aint completely useless.   And yes lowering the reuse to 36 mins wouldn't be completely out of wack either.

[Drakh]

IMO they would be much better off doing the following ...

Change Bestial Alignment to 30-40 minute reuse and remove illusion component

Introduce a new AA ("shroud of the warder" :wink: ) with a reuse time of 1 hour 30 that provides the bst with an illusion of our warders, SoW, and a duration of 30 minutes

This restricts the warder illusion to outdoor zones - provides something extra than just the look and makes Bestial Alignment useful while under illusions.

keep bestial alignment at the cost it is currently and make the new one 3 AA.


Personally though i would much prefer they gave us a self only ferocity spell with an illusion component similar to the combat enhancement spells enchanters get (boon of the garou, tricksters augmentation, etc)

[Valsuvious]

You can just look to the shaman having an AA called Rabid Bear.  For those unfamiliar with it, it gives us a 2 min bear form with double attack, 99% haste, +something to CR.  However it's on a 2 hour timer or something like that.  So, it's basically worthless for me.  I'm sitting at 424 AAs and still do not have it yet.  Kinda seems like this AA is the same for beastlords.

They did introduce an hastened rabidity, but I mean, they'd have to lower the recast on it to about 45 min without hastened for it to be worthwhile for me.