NEW Top Ten (5/11/07)

[recoil silverclaws]

Our dps is far from lacking at the moment on most long fights i out damage a LOT of our current dps class's if the fight is longer then 5 min this is what beastlords are about we are not a burn type of class we realy shine on the long term. We have a few beastlords in ctv 2 of witch are prity well geared and up to pair at the level we raid gear wise and when im given a dps group on things like lether2 is when i tear it up, hell last night the only people that beat me where our best geared rogue two wizys and our zerker < we raid with 5 rogues and 5-7 wizys some nights> so saying we are in need of some dps upgrades dosent seem right to me unless 90% of my guild slacks off and im getting high on the parses because i dont. Not to say i wouldent turn down some dps upgrades but i just dont think its a huge problem once you have everything in order gear wise and play your class to its fullest.

[Epee]

Regular resists have lost thier value with many mobs having -500 + modifiers
250 ATK will still not add much dps, especially to those sitting at 2500
62 sta over cap would have to stack with shammy and other stuff, but wouldnt add much hp.

Exactly why would this be a huge fix and add any utility at all?

WEll lets see adding 250 atk to 5 other toons, resists are still a powerful thing and was a large part of why the spell was so powerful during POP.  Not to mention saving us mana.

The point is, if we cant all agree on something we get nothing.  So Why not push something good that can affect us in a positive way?

[Hanelce]

Regular resists have lost thier value with many mobs having -500 + modifiers
250 ATK will still not add much dps, especially to those sitting at 2500
62 sta over cap would have to stack with shammy and other stuff, but wouldnt add much hp.

Exactly why would this be a huge fix and add any utility at all?

WEll lets see adding 250 atk to 5 other toons, resists are still a powerful thing and was a large part of why the spell was so powerful during POP.  Not to mention saving us mana.

The point is, if we cant all agree on something we get nothing.  So Why not push something good that can affect us in a positive way?

Not saying that the aura is a bad idea, but pushing for something.. that hardly anyone thinks is an upgrade, isn't a good thing.  Jithathab was right when he said the resist mods aren't great because of the -500 resist check.  Unless you have the tier 5 don, then you are not going to resist the AE, even with max resists.

An aura with pet immunity to ae ramp, or fero + overhaste .. or fero + damage mod, would be somewhere I would want to push.  The AE ramp wouldn't get us put in the dps group (like some are wanting) but it would give us more of a utility, to other pet classes.  For those of us wanting more and more dps, the latter two would be the ones that we should push for.  I like the idea of the Fero + overhaste, *if* it stacked with our Frenzy of Spirit.  Just for that 2ish mins we would be able to burst hard core.

[recoil silverclaws]

Just a little fyi while on my info hunt today for ways to improve fero (check fero changes thread for what i came up with) i ran across spirit frenzy and turns out its not over haste just max haste and 250 attack nothing more so prity much if you have a 45% haste item and chanter haste all spirit frenzy dose is add 250 attack since your at max haste all ready. Here is the raw info showing it.

http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=3289&source=Live

I't is one of the aa ability's im hopping to have extended upon for the next expansion to have it made usefull agean funny how we have so many things that have been out grown and arnt to useful anymore to us and only gets worse. I may not be tasten or our beastlord CC but im sick of some of our stuff being the way it is and im working to do my best to gather what ever info i can to at least help solve some of it.

[Mewzee]

Wow I love the Fero AURA idea...that would be cool....and yes we need to decide more or less which direction we'd like to go with it if we'd like to reccomend the idea to the devs. Big props to the beasts who came up with that :)

Also I agree with Spirit Frenzy AA, I loved that AA back in the day and I still use it but I would like to see either a small revamp on the AA or a new improved line of that AA that is more useful than the current one.

[Dasquid]

Our dps is far from lacking at the moment on most long fights i out damage a LOT of our current dps class's if the fight is longer then 5 min this is what beastlords are about we are not a burn type of class we realy shine on the long term. We have a few beastlords in ctv 2 of witch are prity well geared and up to pair at the level we raid gear wise and when im given a dps group on things like lether2 is when i tear it up, hell last night the only people that beat me where our best geared rogue two wizys and our zerker < we raid with 5 rogues and 5-7 wizys some nights> so saying we are in need of some dps upgrades dosent seem right to me unless 90% of my guild slacks off and im getting high on the parses because i dont. Not to say i wouldent turn down some dps upgrades but i just dont think its a huge problem once you have everything in order gear wise and play your class to its fullest.

Sometimes I parse high also, but usually, Im very far down the list. Sometimes, Jagged Claws hits for a 7k crit, but it isnt something I can count on. When a class is pretty much unversally recognized as not being a good DPS class, you gotta figure its true. Although you may not be willing to accept it, the fact is, our DPS is lacking in a raid setting. If this wasnt the case as a class we'd be in greater demand. If you look at recruiting sections for a very large percentage of raiding guilds, guess which class they arent recruiting? Thats right, beastlords.

I looked through a few of my guild's parses, we currently have 2 active bl's and we finish DPS wise right about the same spot every time. We beat bards, ench and few druids who are backup healers. When you think about how many classes are ahead of us on DPS, its not surprising we arent in demand as raiders.

This is my magelo, just to prove it isnt a gear issue. http://eq.magelo.com/profile/1014857
The other active BL uses 2.0 and Brumnal Fists of whirling sleet as his weapons, he is about the same as I am gear-wise.

[Dilgartownguard]

Only problem with adding dps is that we have no way to drop hate. As it is now, I can steal hate on the raid if I'm not careful enough. I'd like to see us get a better defensive discipline or maybe roar of thunder knocked down to 45 second recast or so. That is assuming we do in fact gain dps over basic upgrades to crap we already have.

[recoil silverclaws]

Dasquid on 80% of our fights when im not doing other things that take me out of the fight i parse in the top ten if you do not belive me i can post 10 parse from the same mob to show you its not a random thing. Looking at your magelo im not one to nitpick because i know im missing a det pres (damn bst only ring wont drop grrrr) but seeing as your gear is very nice your missing any type of a fero item and a posien focus two things that could be a good jump in dps the fero item especially.

The point of what i said wasent to say we don't need help because the other beastlord's in my guild one of witch has a better wepon set up then me tend to parse way lower so im sure they could use some help. The point was that while we could use some help we are far from horablely off on our dps area when a beastlord can out damage a rogue a wizy and a monk consistently on most long fights when there gear is on pair with each other i don't think we need a huge dps jump <this is adding me+warder+rage pet since these are all things we bring to a fight and thats how we should be parsed imo>.

What dose bug me is the work involved in doing so from just getting every last little bit of dps out of our class to how much ''fun'' it is to juggle melee focus's and caster focus to try and keep up to date with everything. We have to work much harder then anllmost any other class as far as im aware to do the best we can.

[Jili]

If you are top ten then you don't have 10 dps classes in guild or they are slacking horribly.
Also if you are parsing with Yalp you can not add BotM to your dps since that is already counted into your total.

[recoil silverclaws]

We normaly field 5-8 wizerds, 1-2 zerkers, 5-6 rogues and 2-4 monks every raid and no i hardly ever look at the dps part of most parse's since anyone can do great dps with a few big fast nukes at the end of a fight and get great dps i look at raw damage done its the most fair way to compair parse.

[laissez]

I agree its not about the dps but rather the dmg done.  But higher dps useally results in higher dmg.

[Bumkus]

If you are top ten then you don't have 10 dps classes in guild or they are slacking horribly.
Also if you are parsing with Yalp you can not add BotM to your dps since that is already counted into your total.

Please explain.  BotM is added to your total and also separated out by pet?  I do use Yalp, but I don't understand what you are saying.

[hakaaba]

This is the top 10 list i made up a few months after TSS, obviously alot of the things on it are still problems  :/  Steeltrap has been "fixed" in that they added extra charges, and theyve given us mammoth hide guard (with a uselessly long cast time  :/) so the 9 that arent steeltrap still apply imo

1: Savage Ferocity:
Attack at the mid to high end (1250+ atk) sees significantly decreasing gains, such that the benefits of this spell really aren't worth the huge cost anymore.  It's a shame because this spell line used to be a great limited but powerful single target buff.
Solution: stacking accuracy mod or other offensive mod (not DA because that would conflict with ranger buffs and its essentially capped for some)

2: Aura of Spirit
Mana and health pools have grown so much faster than the paragon line's upgrades that the spell is no longer noticed by many.  In addition, ooc regen has further trivialized the spell by destroying its secondary use as a downtime reducer.
Solution: Increase its duration or reduce the recast.

3: Taste of Blood
Doesn't stack with Unparalleled Voracity or Growl of the Panther.  Pet doesn't get kills because it's weak.  You usually don't pull fast enough to benefit at all.
Solution: significantly increase duration and damage mod, make it stack.

4: Animals
All animals not on a specific faction before TSS were friendly to beastlords, druids, and rangers.  TSS animals are only friendly to druids and rangers.
Solution: add beastlords to tree-hugger faction

5: Haste
Potions of Haste X last longer than celerity and do the same 50% haste.  All other hasters have gotten upgrades.
Solution: make celerity's duration scale by level ~(15 mins at level 30 -> 45 minutes at level 75)

6: Cures
Beastlords used to be pretty good at curing.  We got the best cure disease spell, but we've never since gotten any kind of upgrade to our cures.  Rangers have gotten every single cure they get at a higher level than beastlords get that cure, but with TSS, rangers just got a cure curse spell, pushing them far ahead of where they have always cured.
Solution:  Give all druid and shaman hybrids appropriate cure upgrades at appropriate levels.

7: Mitigation
During luclin, monk and beastlord mitigation was reduced.  Since then, monk mitigation was returned to its original value.  Several other classes have seen mitigation boosts, as well.  Beastlords still mitigate like druids.
Solution:  Restore beastlord mitigation to its original level.

8: Steeltrap Jaws
This spell is bugged.  If your pet has multiple procs and both steeltrap and another proc succeed at a proc check on the same round, only the other proc occurs, but a steeltrap charge is wasted.  Also, this spell does not report resists/fades to the user since it's pet based.
Solutions:
Best solution: Ask code to fix the proccing bug and add the ability to report resists/fades of pet based procs and appropriate filters.
Realistic solution: double the charges on steeltrap to make up for bug wasted charges and add a recourse to the pet which does nothing other than last exactly the same duration as the slow

9: Pet Survivability
Pet survivability is a bit better, but its still pretty much a joke to try to use a pet in alot of raid encounters.
Solution:  reintroduce mammoth hide guard (or equivalent) for all 3 pet classes, make it stack with spellbreaker's guard.

10: Raid Utility
This is a bit of a Meta-Problem.  As problems with many of our core abilities have appeared and increased with with time and inattention, general beastlord raid utility has declined proportionally.  Some would prefer that you invent some new utility and give it to us, and while that would be great, it'd probably be sufficient to fix our existing problems.   
Solution: If fero, perfection, cures, and mitigation are solved, this will be solved also.

[Denti]

Point 7 has been proven wrong. Again here the relevant quote from Maddoc about that issue:

The initial comparison was between beastlords and druids, not beastlords and monks.

The post that you dredged up (by Kavhok, as I recall) is an accurate account of the events that took place up to that point, though it is at least a couple years old, so it may not be 100% accurate now.

The data that I'm looking at right now says that monks and beastlords have the exact same softcap, which is slightly (roughly 7%) higher than druids. The data also shows druids as having the lowest soft-cap modifier, followed by beastlords (roughly triple the druids return), and then by monks (roughly double that of beastlords).

That said, there seems to be some discrepancy between that original post and the current data used by the game, which I'll try and see if I can clear up. I did some initial digging and I don't see any changes being made to the ac data for any of those three classes, however... All of this data, which is now conveniently located in a database where I can modify as necessary, used to be hard-coded values and formulas that we couldn't change.

Right now, it looks like the change to bring monks and beastlords up above druids were done prior to us converting all those hard-coded formulas and values into a data driven table, which ultimately means it's not going to be so easy to track down when it changed.

The end result is that it did change at some point, and this is what it's currently at.

[Khauruk]

Point 7 has been proven wrong. Again here the relevant quote from Maddoc about that issue:

The initial comparison was between beastlords and druids, not beastlords and monks.

The post that you dredged up (by Kavhok, as I recall) is an accurate account of the events that took place up to that point, though it is at least a couple years old, so it may not be 100% accurate now.

The data that I'm looking at right now says that monks and beastlords have the exact same softcap, which is slightly (roughly 7%) higher than druids. The data also shows druids as having the lowest soft-cap modifier, followed by beastlords (roughly triple the druids return), and then by monks (roughly double that of beastlords).

That said, there seems to be some discrepancy between that original post and the current data used by the game, which I'll try and see if I can clear up. I did some initial digging and I don't see any changes being made to the ac data for any of those three classes, however... All of this data, which is now conveniently located in a database where I can modify as necessary, used to be hard-coded values and formulas that we couldn't change.

Right now, it looks like the change to bring monks and beastlords up above druids were done prior to us converting all those hard-coded formulas and values into a data driven table, which ultimately means it's not going to be so easy to track down when it changed.

The end result is that it did change at some point, and this is what it's currently at.

We mitigate like crap, and from what I can see, far worse than our overcap return should allow for.

Once (if ever!) I get back in game (or next beta), I'm going to try to do a series of defensive parses...I'm guessing they'll show a return far lower than the numbers are supposed to show.  It's bugged, I tell ye (mad cackle)! :)