OoW AA's?

[Tastian]

Mostly agree with the list, but I still feel...

"An AA to raise the cap of Piercing, 1hb and 2hb to our hth cap. "

Is simply a balance issue that should go to test and then be pushed live with a patch.  It's silly to make beastlords pay points for skill cap adjustments.  Bards didn't pay when they got it.  It's not an AA issue or an expansion issue imo, it's an overall game issue and that should be addressed as part of a patch.

[Garl]

If everything had to be based on lore, there would be lots of classes, including beastlords, that wouldn't have the skills/spells/aa that they have today.

Lore is in the past... let's get over it and move forward.

[Rhaynne]

It's not an AA issue or an expansion issue imo, it's an overall game issue and that should be addressed as part of a patch.

I agree, but I'd pay for it nonetheless =P

Lore is in the past... let's get over it and move forward.

By lore, I mean class concept.  Changing the core concept of the class to do something that isn't in any way in character for the class is nothing but abilities for abilities sake.  I had the same argument with Bestial Alignment.  It just doesn't make any sense for our class, and neither does pet swarm or summon animal.

[a_moss_snake_001]

Given today's EQ and the style of play SoE are aiming for I see no real reason why for all pet classes they cannot simply recode pets to zone with us complete with all gear, buffs and level.

It would certainly eliminate a lot of the PAIN associated with being a pet class without affecting our balance whatsoever. My one and only major gripe with playing a beastlord is the sheer amount of time it takes to re-summon the pet and give him even the min of buffs (Haste + Proc + Ios + SoW/Shrew). And we have to do that EVERYTIME we zone for any reason (evac... grrrrr). Shamans are in the same boat as are mages and necros to a far lesser extent (losing pet gear is a pain though). It really is a huge  downtime handicap for pet classes - it costs me at least 20% of my total mana to re-summon and re-buff the pet after an evac in an LDoN, meanwhile the other group members are quickly off and running back to where we evacced from ready to fight.

We have seen that this is possible and I can't think of any real exploits or problems with this. If they want to be overly cautious and truly safe from exploitation then just kill the pet if it is 'the focus of somethings attention' (ie. has aggro with a creature) when the owner zones (however a group evac spell should bring the pets also). Of course such code would only apply to our true summoned pets and not charmies or the temporary pets (such as procced pets, cleric hammers, wizard swords etc).

[bham]

Cant remember who said it first but..


OMG warder FD!


The ability to FD my warder to split a camp would be an awesome ability.

Give it a 10 min reuse so you cant be a main puller or something but so you have a chance to at least check aggro radius on mobs.

also:

-zoning-proof pet suspend would be great.

-combat stability mastery, combat agility mastery, planar durability

-spell casting reinforcement mastery

[Taislir]

That horse was beaten dead long ago. It doesn't fit with the lore of the class and we have enough bitching from the shaman and monk communities as it is, I'd prefer not to start hearing it from rangers, druids and bards too.

Not sure where you get it doesnt fit as, a direct quote from our class lore on eqlive is:

'Beastlords are the masters of raw nature'

now to me that gives us alot more reason to have track than someone who spends all his time singing and scaring away any nearby animals  :lol:

[Rustycat]

After spending 45 aa points in healing skills I have found that it totally changed the way I play my character. With a Healing 4 focus item I drop 1100 hp heals all the time and 5 k heals on my pet.

I  would like to see more healing aa

A Paragon Upgrade or a way to boost the output of our current paragon or an aa to reduce the timer on paragon by 5, 10 and 20%.

SCRM <<<< if you are not gonna give us group buffs hook a brother up
                   this would also help Paragon output.  Fero also will stick longer

An aa Based offensive disc or an active aa that can cause our warder to go offensive for 30 seconds wirh 4x damage to max hits.  Warder rage or something along that line.

Give  us an aa that will alow us to specialize in magic type

Just a few things to mull over

Rustycat

[Caali]

Haven't seen much of this in the ideas... What I'd really like to see are some AAs that boost our defensive capabilities (along the lines of LR/ID etc.). Right now I'm getting the crap kicked out of me in GoD. Granted I don't have the best equipment around but it ain't terrible, and I do have all our defensive AAs. I know that GoD was designed around level 70 but...

How about an AA that sends a portion of the incoming damage (~30%) to our warders. Like the warrior's shield ability but clickable for about 30s with a timer fo say 10 mins or so. That along with PoS should give us a decent chance to survive more than 5s in GoD.

[Tastian]

I'm quite hopeful that with OoW there will be generic AA upgrades like 5 more ranks of LR/ID for everyone.  Possibly a few more ranks of ND or other hp AA.  The idea of a warder divine arbitration type of AA has been tossed around.  It has some merit imo, but I worry about it being balanced to the point of being almost useless.

[CillianFV]

How about an AA that sends a portion of the incoming damage (~30%) to our warders. Like the warrior's shield ability but clickable for about 30s with a timer fo say 10 mins or so. That along with PoS should give us a decent chance to survive more than 5s in GoD.

This idea interests me.  Our pets already have the innate ability to use the /shield command, the problem is that they rarely use it as we have no control over when they use it.  Perhaps they can add an AA along the lines of Pet Discipline that adds a new pet command, /pet shield me.  You could possibly even add a second level, /pet shield target.

[Jatrulak]

AA that makes pets affected by our AA Innates(Run5, Regen5, Resists etc)

Perhaps a steed/mount of some kind?

[Aliveer]

I am torn on a few issues with OoW AAs(am I the only one that calls it Ow?)

On one hand I really don't understand why a Bard can have tracking, and it's fully accepted, but we don't. It just doesn't make sense. Couse I feel the same way about foraging as well. Even if we capped at the 50 like Iksar racial, it'd be something. (Shadowknights as an example get a class Hide to 50). I don't think this would be damaging to the delicate psyche of the Iksar, as AC bonus, and regen are the main unique abilities of that race... (sorry for the humor impared, that was sarcasm), however it's not really worth the fight anymore to champion a "dead" issue.

I like the little things GoD added to the pet. Any way to improve the pet would be highly beneficial, and I'm pretty much happy with that.

Now, onto the pet issue. All character recrods have a 150 (some) character WASTED field. It's a field I'd bet 80% of the players don't even know about, and of the 20% remaining I'd bet 90% don't use. It's a description field for when you are inspected. That's more than enough to put pet data into including armor, weapons and buffs and is saved along with every character. There is the data field for SM3.

Here's one for you. I'd like an AA I can toggle on and off "Tiny Companion" with this AA on, the pet is summoned at the level 9 pet model. Useful for raids. Hell useful all the time. I'd spend 9 points on that long before I'd spend it on some of the AAs we get.

[Caali]

I'm quite hopeful that with OoW there will be generic AA upgrades like 5 more ranks of LR/ID for everyone.  Possibly a few more ranks of ND or other hp AA.  The idea of a warder divine arbitration type of AA has been tossed around.  It has some merit imo, but I worry about it being balanced to the point of being almost useless.

That would be ideal really, but if they want to implement a more unique solution...

I agree that the ability would have to be balanced in a fashion that's fair. My issue is right now is this (not including plate classes who can mitigate more effectively)...

1. Druids, Mages, Wizards, Rangers and Enchanters all attack from a distance and while their defensive skills are a pittance (except rangers)they USUALLY not being hit unless they overnuke.

2. Necros and Monks have feign death. I'm not saying things are perfect but at least they both have a mechanism to lose aggro and survive a GoD mob beating on them.

3. Clerics get DA/DB.

4. Rogues get evade, escape.

5. Beserkers have some kind of aggro shedding special attack but for the life of me I can't remember what it is. (Could possibly be wrong)

6. Beastlords are in melee range, often swallow ripostes and have no way except to run away to avoid dying and we all know how well that works. The "Pet Shield" would allow us at least a chance to survive until a proper tank can regain aggro.

I see this transfer of damage to the warder as a viable alternative. Being a leather class we are hit significantly harder, unless I'm mistaken, and I usually can last 2-3 rounds in a fight in GoD vs level 65 mob.

Switching topics, I'm not too keen on AA's that duplicate in game spells like Tiny Companion and those that give you a mount when you can purchase one. I just rather see something more useful and not something that can be bought or cast already. If you want that mount or to shrink your warder you can do it, don't be lazy  :P  Although a selection of different mounts might be neat.

[kizh]

I'd like:

Spell Casting Reinforcement Mastery for longer buffs
Fury of Magic to increase frequency of crit nukes

Pet Obedience: (Requires Pet hold)

Causes the pet to attack the mob you send it after and ONLY that mob.  Warder would resume its 'hold' state after the mob died or you backed it off.  Nothing I hate more than mashing pet hold & pet back off after every single mob on a raid!

Paragon II:

I think they are weary of having too much mana regeneration in the game, if they just beefed up the amount it healed I would be happy

Hobble of Spirits II:

Make this work a little better, stopping mobs before they get too far.


I don't have a problem with us paying the same price for aa's as pure classes.  I think of it as the penalty for having so much variety.

[Skratchen]

I'd like:

Paragon II:

I think they are weary of having too much mana regeneration in the game, if they just beefed up the amount it healed I would be happy

Or, SOE could make it that Paragon II just refreshes sooner.   Instead of 15 minutes, make 2 advancing ranks of paragon:

12.5 minute refresh for 5 aa's
10 minute refresh for an additional 10 aa's

15 aa's to shave off 5 minutes from Paragon refresh; I'd do it.