Just a small question

[Bengali]

I agree, Cougar.

It's funny how nearly every class points to something that beastlords get when trying to justify why we don't get any upgrades, even when those things are less and less useful.

[a_moss_snake_001]

BST were added and now we always hear that the Mage pet has to be best - even if the mage overall has more utility and DPS.

Was all down to a few devs mouthing off a LONG LONG time ago and now they feel they have to honour their so-called 'commitment' and boy do mages like to kick that dead horse.

Imho Sony handled this badly, they should have just told mages to "STFU. We are in charge of this game not you and we've decided that theres 3 pet classes with pets of equal power, live with it and make the best of what you have".

Beastlords are JUST as reliant on our pets as mages are, don't they realise that? Probably even more so. A mage without a pet in a group or raid can do tremendous dps regardless, for a beastlord we pretty much cripple our own damage when we go without a pet.

I totally disagree with this king of pets crap that mages love to spout. They need to stop balancing mage pets around the mages so-called 'inability to solo' -- which btw is a complete lie. When in a group/raid the chances are the mobs are being slowed so one thing and one thing only reigns supreme: how much damage you can dish out.

Oh did anyone else notice the stealth pet upgrade they gave mages in GoD: the latest Monster Summoning spell. That thing is a demon, saccording to my mage friends it has as much hp/mitigation as the earth pet and procs a stun that also casts protection of calliav on the pet. Sick pet. And still the mages on the boards complain... god its annoying.

[Skog]

Untill you've walked in someone's shoes...

Necro pets being better was in very very early EQ and due to a bug- Mage pets were bugged and unable to dual weild. Otherwise they have always had the "best" pet. Get used to it because you sound like a bunch of Paladins wanting to tank like Warriors.

The MS4 pet is a marginal upgrade. From actual data it appears to have a tad more HP but no real mitigation. There shouldn't be 3 classes with equal pets- it simply blurs class lines too much. You guys need to look at actual data and not what you hear from a friend. Mages are far from Wizards with pets, they lag behind Wizards consistantly in DD, and because Mages are designed to be  one of the big DPS classes (as it says in Sony's descripstion) they need the best pets to keep up. Ignorance is the father of anger.

We need to stop getting so uppity about classes that do things "better" than us, it will only hurt us in the long run (unless a serious issue comes up, but Mage pets aren't).  I don't see whining about Shaman slowing better than us. Why? Because they should. I don't see whining about Cleric healing better then us, so why do I see whining about Mage pets?

(Also if some of you are wondering "Why do Mages not like Beastlords, aside from the pets?" It's because they made us. Sony took all of the Mage balance ideas after Velious, tossed slow in, and made Beastlords.)

[gnomersy]

lets put it like this ... show me your epic there i win  :D  the fact is our epic was a pet it showed what our class was based around what was yours a fist(right?) showing what they intended for you now things are getting mixed up and yeah mage pets always beat necros minus the bug it was just necros used to fear in duels =( happened once to me never dueled a necro again

[Kylaz]

There shouldn't be 3 classes with equal pets- it simply blurs class lines too much.

WTH about blurring class lines.

Things are simple enough:

 Mage= Pet class that casts.
 BST= Pet class that melees.

How can this be blurred ?

[Skog]

Having the strongest pets and the most pet support was a Mage area untill we came along. I don't even think that we should get all of the same Pet AAs as Mages, or the benefit the same from focus items, Mages need to have a niche too. I know no one likes hearing this, but when we were born we firmly stomped both Mage and Shaman toes.

[gnomersy]

and on the note of the melee with pet thing actually if you want that give up almost all of your non pet utility spells and we can call it even eh? like yknow slow etc then you can have equal pets

[a_moss_snake_001]

Having the strongest pets and the most pet support was a Mage area untill we came along.

Sorry but that doesn't cut it, by that logic you could never add any new classes to the game without making sure they were 100% unique in all ways and didnt overlap any other class abilities at all (even slightly).

Lets say we have class A that does 350 dps, has a solo ability ranking of 500 and has a pet of power 1000. Suddenly the game devs decide to make a different class (B) that is quite a lot different to play than class A, does 200 dps, has solo ability ranking of 600 and owns a somewhat different pet that also has 1000 power.

I ask the question: "What has Class A lost?".

They still have a pet of power 1000, still do 350 dps and still have a solo ability ranking of 500. Their situation HAS NOT CHANGED ONE BIT.

People don't want Mages or Beastlords in a group because of the pet. They want mages because of their consistently high spell dps, summoned gear, decent damage shield and CoTH (very useful on GoD trials btw). They want beastlords for slow, buffs and some reasonable melee dps.

Be realistic, mages lost NOTHING when beastlords came along. We don't even share the same roles. Beastlords are very much melee, mages are pure spell damage. In a group the pets are just some additional dps that can sometimes act as a meat shield/offtank (but not usually).

[Zatrik]

Actually, the air pet's not a rogue, it's the water pet that is the rogue.  The air pet doesn't have as many hps or mitigation as the earth pet, but it has better avoidance and it has stuns, and it has better dps.  Only pets I see mages use are air, water, or epic (for sub 60 mobs).

[gnomersy]

do you know what class a lost? the fact that they were unique in having the powerful pet class b took that away and henceforth everything class a gets will be balanced against class b because 'there pets were even before that shouldnt change' so you just killed the uniqueness of a class thanks alot and go play a warrior you bland bland person you leave a bitter taste in my mouth

[a_moss_snake_001]

You are making the mistake of mixing up power with uniqueness. Mages were never the only class with a powerful pet, and for a long time neither were they the class with the most powerful pet - the Necromancer pet was far more dangerous.

All classes have a theme and in general all of our spell and abilities revolve around that theme. For the three main pet classes those themes are as follows:

- Necromancers are masters of death and decay, they call their undead servants from the depths of the underworld.

- Magicians are masters of the elemental forces (air, water, earth and fire) and thus they summon elementals from the four elemental planes to fight on their behalf.

- Beastlords early in our life form a soul bond a benign spirit from the spirit world who manifests on this plane in the form of a lethal predatory animal. This is a similiar bond that shamans have with their spirit wolf but far deeper and more primal - we literally *become* part animal and that is reflected in our fighting styles.

Nowhere is it stated that an elemental should be more powerful than an undead spectre or a spirit tiger (or wolf/bear/alligator/dinowolf) and Mages were never promised that. When I see the title "king of pets" spouted in posts it really makes me scratch my head and wonder where the heck they got that from.

Imnsho all the three major pet classes should have pets of roughly equal power (maintaining theme differences of course to provide interest) and the classes should be balanced against each other in ways that do not count the pet to any large extent. Mages do not need a more powerful pet, what they need (and indeed what the smart mages have been asking for) is greater UTILITY. Their spell damage is fine the way it is, their pets are fine the way they are (as far as all pets go) just give them a little more flexibility in some other areas (this is especially visible when you compare mages to druids).

Sony really havent been listening to mages. Mostly they really didn't ask for bigger pets. Sony simply decided "Oh what the majority of you really want is X, but some of you have also asked for Y. Well we don't want to give you X so we are going to just give you Y and piss off the other pet classes while we do it".

[Skog]

How many times must you bring up the bug about Mage pets not dual wielding (that only existed in the very early game )? A bug means that it is an unintentional error in programming, so it was not intended that Necro pets outpreform Mage pets. If you even look at raw stats the Mage pets have always been ahead, however the margin that they have ahead of us is too little. All of the info is there to prove that Mages are supposed to be the premier pet class, it's in the spells and lore (however argueing lore and "it makes sense if you roleplay it like this... is useless).  The epic is a pet. They have lower level pet focus quests. They recieve slightly more from certain areas of pet focii then we do. They have no defense besides the pet, and gate, something all casters have.

Before you whine about not having gate, keep in mind that we are Melee Hybrids. We "pay a price" to have our abilities- how many Paladins have CH? How many Knights are the equal tanks of Warriors? How many Rangers do you see healing or nuking for Druid levels? Now, why should we have, essentially, the same ability as our "parent" class?

I'm only posting this because of Beastlords like you that think that everything is fine with taking steam from other classes. I'm against Druid CH and higher nukes for this reason, and Paladins getting /defensive. In no sane concept of class balance should a hybrid equal its parents!

[Rhaynne]

Now, why should we have, essentially, the same ability as our "parent" class?

Since when did we become mage hybrids?

Beastlords don't exactly fit the hybrid mold.  We're supposedly monk/shaman - but we aren't.  We're in our own little niche.  We are heavy pet users - every bit as much as necros and mages, so comparing our pets to theirs is valid.

[gnomersy]

bl are a mage shammy monk hybrid meaning in each roll you in essence will be a third as good but thats unfair and would be such a huge nerf its not even funny as is you are half shammy 3/4 monk and like 1/3 mage so you are pretty much overpowered in that you have too many abilities you a highly versatile and have alot of utility as such other places need to take hits your melee damage must remain below a monks to preserve balance your spell casting must remain below a shamans for balance and you pets must remain below a mages to preserve the balance that is the way of the hybrid

[Rhaynne]

I wasn't prompting for an percieved diagnosis of what the beastlord is.  Considering I've been one, as my main, for several years now, I am probably in a bit better of a position to explain my roll, my abilities and my limitations than you are =P