Current Top 10 list(7-1-05)

[Tastian]

Here is the updated top 10 list for now.  Please keep in mind that the list does change and the list is far from everything.  Just because you don't see an issue on it doesn't mean it hasn't been brought up.  As always please keep your feedback/suggestions coming via e-mail/pm/pajamma-gram/etc  and I'll do what I can. 

1)   DPS

You know we have issues with it and we know you are working on it.  This is just here as a little reminder in case either side forgets.   

While looking at dps though please keep burst dps in mind as well as sustained dps.  At the heart of almost all beastlord issues is our division of power and burst dps is no different.  Most classes can use a disc to drastically raise their dps or mana dump beastlords can do neither.  Our nukes are tied to a 30 second refresh; our disc only raises our melee dps which is about 1/3rd of our total dps. 

Possible solutions:  Adjust bestial alignment AA so that it boosts more than just our personal melee dps.  It could auto cast a buff on our warder as well, provide extra focusing for our non-melee dps, etc. 


2)  Ferocity of Irionu

To put it simply this is an extremely weak "upgrade" to one of the only class things a beastlord has.  The line went:

Level 60 -  +25 sta, +100 atk, +50 resist all for 450 mana
Level 65 -  +40 sta, +150 atk, +65 resist all for 600 mana
Level 70 -  +52 sta, +187 atk, +65 resist all for 750 mana

Also going from the 60 to the 65 version we lost the peridot requirement and the refresh went down from 3 minutes to 2 minutes. 

The line clearly was designed as a mana intensive buff that granted both a defensive boost (hps via stamina and resists) and an offensive boost (via the large amount of raw attack).  However, the level 70 version falls very short.  The extra 12 stamina does absolutely nothing in most cases as people are stamina capped.  The resists didn't move at all.  That leaves us with an upgrade that costs 150 more mana to grant an extra 37 atk for a 6.5 minutes base duration.

Possible solutions:  Add some effects to the buff to help make the buff useful and desired again.  An effect to increase proc rate is one of the most popular choices as this would again make the buff desirable to both tanks (more agro procs) and dps (more damage procs).  There are lots of possibilities though and we welcome the chance to discuss and test possible adjustments to this spell.

3)  Spell Casting Reinforcement Mastery

Beastlords were a buffing class from the day they went live.  Hmmmm...ok not the day we went live, but after the first couple rounds of fixes lol.  Fact is beastlords overall have a very large number of buffs:  stats, regen, haste, etc.  Even though overall our buffing has fallen off some in the past few years we still have several buffs that we cast and this AA seems like a very obvious choice for us.  Many wondered why we didn't get it back in luclin as part of our class AAs when others who buffed way less got it.  It just makes sense for our class and is long overdue in many beastlords' eyes.

Possible solutions:  Grant us access to this AA.  Most would like to see this added in our class tab, but even as part of the next expansion if we have to wait a bit longer.


4)  AA cost/benefit

This is a large issue that pretty much goes back to our division of power.  Although this isn't just a beastlord issue it does seem to hit beastlords the hardest of all.

For AAs we see beastlords paying just as much for an AA that gives us a much smaller return for the AAs than other classes that can buy it.  For example we see beastlords paying the same number of AA for crit nukes that wizards do, then paying just as much for crit dots as necros and shaman do and finally shelling out just as many AA as monks and rogues do for melee crits. 

Please understand that we aren't asking to nuke like wizards or dot like necros.  What we are saying though is don't make us pay for what we aren't getting.  This situation reminds me a lot of the old hybrid exp penalty.  If we are getting 1/3rd or less in some cases from these AAs as others then please don't make us pay as much for them.

I know some will say "not every AA can be great" or something to that effect.  The bottom line though is that in many cases we simply don't have another choice.  Beastlords have very few class only AAs and many of them (i.e. feral swipe, see below) are very poor. 

Possible solutions:  Add some combination AAs that reflect our division of power.  These AAs could help our melee and our pet dps, help our nuking and our healing, or any number of other options.  Also consider cheaper versions of some AAs to reflect our lower return on them.  Theft of life verse healing gift is a good example of this. 


5)  Gear options

This is actually a two fold issue.  First is the issue that we are very limited in some options such as healing focus, beneficial spell haste, and several other effects.  Also, similar to the issue to #4 beastlords get a smaller return on most items than any other class and we also have more items that we have to acquire in order to achieve our full potential.  Again this isn't just a beastlord issue as some other classes can relate I'm sure, but this is the beastlord top 10.  8P

As an example lets say a beastlord wants to progress their dps.  First they have to get their melee effects such as a haste item, worn atk, some accuracy, a couple good weapons, a cleave item, etc.  Then they have to get some items to help their casting side of dps.  This means grabbing nuke focus, dot focus, mana pres, and some flowing thought.  Also we can't forget our warders so top it all off with a pet focus item. 

None of that touches on the other aspects of being a beastlord such as tanking, healing, or buffing.  Simply put for a beastlord to progress by a certain amount they need to get far more items than others do.  Like with issue 4 we aren't asking for more than any other class we simply ask that we stop having to work twice as hard to get half as much.

Possible solutions:  Add focus effects that touch on multiple parts of what a beastlord does.  This is similar to the AAs mentioned above, but give us some focus effects that help our nukes and our heals.  Perhaps add some focus effects that boost our nuke and dot dps.   

Also please look at focus effect itemization, especially at the high-end.  Currently beastlords have a very hard time getting beneficial spell haste, and healing focus.  Meanwhile, there are over a dozen items that have +cold dmg or +fire dmg on them.

Finally, and most importantly when making beastlord items please remember the class they are for.  There are a lot of items that would be totally over the top on some classes that a beastlord wouldn't even wear or consider an upgrade.  The 2h blunt from MPG trials is a great example of an item lots of people think is great for beastlords, but most beastlords at that point in progression would lose dps by equipping. 


6)  Feral swipe

I think the biggest problem people have with this AA is how much potential it has.  This is one of a limited number of beastlord only AAs, but it unfortunately has so many issues that many beastlords either haven't bought it or don't use it; even after reaching 700+ AA in some cases. 

Possible solutions:  Please increase the range on the AA first and foremost.  There are numerous times where you will be melee'n a mob and trying to avoid AE ramp, but still be out of feral swipes range.  Also please look into the damage/refresh/uhhh everything on this AA lol.  Right now this AA does less damage over time than kick does.  This is one of our few class only AAs and it currently is quite poor in terms of AA spent to dps gained.  We have lots of ideas for changes to this AA and again welcome any chance to discuss/test/tune this AA further.


7)  Dots

Dots for beastlords are another one of those things that look ok on paper, but in actual application don't quite measure up.  There are several issues that really lower the viability of our dots.  One of the biggest issues is the lack of a resist mod on them.  SK, rng, nec, dru, etc all have resist mods built into their dots.  Most beastlords think that our dots don't have a resist mod because they are balanced like shaman dots.  Shaman though have a big resist debuff that can always be used to help them better land their dots. 

The second issue with dots is that focus effects and AA for dots skews the numbers more than many seem to realize.  There are over a dozen items with +cold focus damage on them, but almost no items that give beastlords a similar boost to their poi/dis dot damage.  Also with how AAs are set up beastlords will get SCF to help their nukes long before they get crit affliction to help their dots.  I know many beastlords that even at around 500 AA still don't have crit affliction.   

With all of these factors added up suddenly that extra efficiency that dots have on paper quickly dwindles away.  The recent changes to dots went a long way toward making them more useable and for many classes the changes were sufficient, but in order for many beastlords to give a spell slot to these spells some other tweaks need to be made.

Possibly solutions:  Add a resist mod to our dots.  They are on most of the other dots in the game and it just seems like they are MIA on the beastlord dots.  If there is a balance or tuning reason why beastlords should have a much harder time landing a dot than an SK or a rng or various other classes then please let us know as we simply don't understand and again welcome the communication.

Also please look at how focus effects and AA impact dots for us.  This was partially covered by a couple of the other issues on the list, but the almost total lack of dot focus effects for beastlords and the extremely high cost of our dot crit AA really hinder the current viability of dots in a beastlord's spell lineup.  Making it so that some of our existing effects (such as the focus on the 1.5/2.0 epics) increase not only our nuke dmg, but also our dot dmg would help a lot.


8)  AE rampage

This gets brought up quite a bit, but one of the biggest issues with pet survivability on raids in AE rampage.  We understand that you don't want having a pet to be mindless, but AE ramp is a bit much in some cases.  Having trash mobs do it in some places is a real pain(no pun intended).  Also you have to understand what our options are.  At the summit we were told that you would look into which models AE ramp so we'd have some warning and could "hold our pets back".  That makes sense for a mage or necro who's standing back and blasting the mob, but what about the beastlord who is up there melee'n the mob?  I mean by not having our pets attacking we are already losing dps; we can't be expected to not melee the mob at all and just drop nukes right? 

Also understand that people are losing pets even when paying attention and doing what they can.  There are times where you have your pet set up right and they are pounding away outside AE ramp range, but they keep trying to sneak up because of how pet coding is.  I don't know how many times (going back to earth B warlord) I've been doing good, doing good, poof there goes fluffy.

Things like pets putting themselves into AE ramp without us having time to fix it, pets pathing so poorly that they run into AE ramp sometimes while positioning them, pets being slow to move and respond so even when we back them off and try to make them run and hide they still buy it, etc all make it very difficult for a beastlord to keep their pets up in many cases even when they are paying attention and doing what they should.

Possible solutions:  Make pets immune to AE rampage.  I know some will think this is a bit extreme, but with all the issues stacked against pet control and avoiding/surviving AE rampage this seems to be the easiest solution. 

If making pets immune is just too much then please put a check so that if the pet isn't on top of the hate list then the damage they take from AE rampage is greatly lowered. 


9)  Pet buff control

The ability to now see pet buff timers is a nice change, but pet classes are still wondering if changes will be made that allow us to manage our pet's buffs like we do our own. There are many stacking issues, ninja buffing happens and especially with pet affinity it's very common to have a buff on your pet that you don't want for whatever reason.

Proposed solution:  Please allow us to selectively remove buffs from our pets.


10)  Raid utility

I don't like how this sounds, but I honestly don't know another way to say it.  What exactly is the point of a beastlord past the first on a raid currently?  We don't expect raids to need as many beastlords as clerics, or be as desired as rogues.  One beastlord can SA a whole raid, perfection does far, far less now than paragon did then, slow clickies and better slow spells are all over, level 70 fero is a top 10 issue, etc. 

Possible solutions:  Please reconsider perfection of spirit.  We understand that you have to keep mana regen in line for various tuning reasons, but perfection of spirit isn't just a HoT to us, but rather the main thing we brought to raids.

Please look at ferocity of irionu.  Yes it is already on the list, but I can go weeks without getting a request for the buff anymore.  The spell should be something that people want and that multiple beastlords are able to do thus allowing us to stack better at a raid.

Content is another issue that can impact a beastlords utility on a raid.  In plane of time for instance when groups got split up people that are second and third best at various things got a chance to step up and use those abilities.  In a time trial being a "jack of all trades" was actually useful at times as you could off tank a mob, re-haste a raider that died, possibly be the main slower for that trial, etc.  When you have a raid of 54(ish) people together though and several of the best class at something then classes that are second and third best simply don't get to use their skills.  Not every raid/zone can involve splitting up, but there are many other ways to actually allow classes to use some of their skills that they don't usually get to and thus take the focus off of max dps.

[hakaaba]

nice work as always Tastian

[waraura]

Possible solutions:  Adjust bestial alignment AA so that it boosts more than just our personal melee dps.  It could auto cast a buff on our warder as well, provide extra focusing for our non-melee dps, etc. 

If talking dps for Beastlords, it should include some kind of Innate improvement, our pets have been getting all the attention like were some kind of Solo class.  When Beastlords came out SOE focused on the Soloist and thats the way the class went and still seems to go with all the pet improvements, lets get away from that.
There are times when we can't use pets, and unlike Necros and Mages our dps is minimal.  They can cause serious damage without pets unlike us.

Melee have got alot of upgrades in the past year, for Beastlords they have given us a limited attack boost spell ( Which will not work unless our Warder is up), a new slow spell which is harder to resist, Increased our skill caps which alot thought in itself would put us even.  Correct me if I left something out.

What we need fixed is innate, not more AA, not a better pet, not better spells. 

[Tastian]

There are a lot of issues with our dps and lots of ways to fix it.  I mention the BA thing because it is a way to deal with our burst dps and adjust a class only AA.  We can't chain nuke, we don't have disc that boost multiple parts of our dps.  There are tons of ideas that have been put out there for spells, AA, innate, etc.  I just mention BA as one thing.  The issue of dps is covered to death and there are tons of ideas out there already.  As I said the top 10 list is just one part of what is going on.

[Zanois]

Possible solutions:  Adjust bestial alignment AA so that it boosts more than just our personal melee dps.  It could auto cast a buff on our warder as well, provide extra focusing for our non-melee dps, etc.

Pets dont live long enough on 90% of raid mobs to even make this worthwhile, unless our pets become immune to ae ramps or they mitigate 90% of the damage and the AE's then its not worth it.

[waraura]

I wanted to add that busting out Bestial Alignment on a raid is a rarity, the fact is most raids go in shrunk.

Keep up the good work, Glad someone has the initiative to do what your doing.

[Tastian]

I have to admitt that one of the problems with the top 10 list or discussing any issue is that sometimes you have to talk assuming other issues get fixed or are balanced.  For instance when talking about AA cost issues you have to kinda be like "well if we are balanced on dps" which we aren't lol, and things like that.  I think it is easy to see how our division of power works and in theory a way to adjust our burst dps would be to make buffs/effects that burst pet/spells/something.  *shrugs*  I'm honestly not quite sure because some of the issues do overlap and depending on what(if anything) they do about it then it impacts what should be done to a few other things.

[Zanois]

I wanted to add that busting out Bestial Alignment on a raid is a rarity, the fact is most raids go in shrunk.

Well I wouldn't let this stop me from using it, easy to re-shrink after the mob is dead, your not gonna be that big a hinderance to your raid if your not full shrunk for a minute or 2.

The biggest problem I see with Bestial Alignment is the re-use timer, if it were reduced to 20 mins our burst dps would be at a lot better place, couple this with Bestial Fury discipline were also reduced to 20 min re-use timers, we would be able to use our full dps on almost every raid mob, excluding pet.

I know when were in tacvi (I use this as an example, cause there is 1 trash mob to clear and you move onto the next mob), I prob use the aa twice, and the disc 2-3 times depending on what order we do the clearings, I can't use it anymore cause it simply just doesn't refresh quick enough, what sucks more is if you burn it, then the bunny hits the fan and the raid wipes, your disc/aa aren't even close to being re-usable by the time you have recovered and ready for the second attempt its just so frustrating ><.

I would really like to get an insight as to where SoE are right now in terms of what there going to do with our DPS, what their recorded data looks like, its getting annoying as hell, looking at the parses we do on raid mobs, actually its getting more and more depressing.  I am sure if they would talk to us more, or share with us the information they have ascertained thus far, it would help us understand what should/shouldn't be on our top 10 list.  I mean 3 parts of the top 10 are to do with our DPS to a degree, part 1, 6 and 7.

Anyway its early and my brain is struggling to function properly.

[Oiingo]

Possible solutions:  Make pets immune to AE rampage.  I know some will think this is a bit extreme, but with all the issues stacked against pet control and avoiding/surviving AE rampage this seems to be the easiest solution.

If making pets immune is just too much then please put a check so that if the pet isn't on top of the hate list then the damage they take from AE rampage is greatly lowered.

I had suggested before, and I still think it's a valid option: If one round of damage is enough to kill a pet, instead reduce it to 75% of the total.  That still leaves your pet in dire straights, but it doesn't automatically kill them on the first AE rampage.  If you, as a pet owner, aren't smart enough to save your pet at that point, you get what you deserve.  Risk versus reward.

[Tastian]

Because of the holiday they said top 10 wouldn't be updated until tuesday now, so I'm probably going to make a few more tweaks. 

Like I said BA is another one of those things that gets brought up a lot and that you sort of talk hoping/figuring they'll tweak somehow.  The refresh is too long and right now the effect isn't enough.  However, if they changed other things and decided to add new spells or disc or something then BA can more/less stay how it is we can still be "balanced". 

I hesitate on putting possible solutions to many of the issues because there are so many and because so many depend on other changes that happen.  BA seems like an obvious way to address some of these issues considering it seems built to be a burst type of AA.  The refresh is too long though and it doesn't grant us nearly the bonus some people seem to think. 

I guess the issue of how to fix us is almost as big an issue as what to fix in all honesty.  We already have a metric fugton of AAs we need and I don't want to see this fixed via needing another 200 AA.  We already have itemization problems and they aren't likely to go back and re-tune numerous weapons so I don't think that really helps.  Some passive changes could definitely help, but then you have to watch out for imbalances along the path, and other issues.  In the cases where you have a clear problem such as "burst dps" and you have an AA already in game that is clearly designed to raise burst dps, but isn't quite getting the job done it seems like a reasonable (atleast partial) fix to tweak that AA to better do what it was intended to do. 

I look at it kind of like how we keep asking for pet focus to be looked at and upgraded.  We don't see pets scaling and there is already a system in place by which to upgrade them.  Sure I see some people asking for 3 more lines of AA to help hps and mitigation and stuff like that on the pets and some coming up with some interesting new ideas that could help pets scale better, but if they'd just adjust what is already there that could atleast partially solve the issue.  *shrugs*

[Tastian]

"That still leaves your pet in dire straights, but it doesn't automatically kill them on the first AE rampage.  If you, as a pet owner, aren't smart enough to save your pet at that point, you get what you deserve.  Risk versus reward."

This is one of those issues that comes down to how do they really see it.  I mean they've said they don't want pets to be mindless and automatic or whatever.  However, we seem balanced around having a pet up.  That leads me to wondering how exactly they see AEs and ramp and stuff fitting into it.  I mean if I'm totally balanced on a mob that doesn't AE rampage when I'm using all my mana to nuke and my pet is fighting the whole fight, then how can my dps be balanced when my pet is dieing, I'm un-suspending a spare, I'm using nuke mana to heal, etc?  I honestly don't quite see how that fits in.  I mean as a melee we are already at risk of AE ramp and sometimes need to heal ourselves which I can understand, but just seems like we take 2X the AE ramp and certain AE damage others do in a way.

Also I don't know about anyone else, but I've had my pet die during the spell refresh.  Yup, nothing like chain casting your heal spell and still seeing your pet buy it for various reasons lol.  This is definitely something that I think we need more feedback from them on to see where they really see pets.  If our damage is "balanced" around having a pet up 80% of the time or something and if we manage to keep it alive 100% we do more than expected or something then that changes things.  Of course, by keeping a pet alive we automatically lose dps because we back the pet off, make a new one, use mana for heals, etc. *shrugs*  The issue is clear, the solution...not so much I guess lol.

[Yzak]

Our raid utility (item number 10) sucks because 3/4 of whats mentioned on the top 10 list.   So putting that for the number 10 spot is just somewhat redundant.

- Our dps progression teeters between bunny and broken.  As Tastian has already described here

http://www.beastlords.org/forums/index.php/topic,4531.0.html

and guess what, it will only get worse with time.  As your neighborhood rogue/monk/berserker/ranger/warrior sees greater benefits with increased weapon ratios;  us non-double attack classes will just fall farther and farther behind.

[Khayden]

Some very good work again Tast.

I think we really need a fundamental change to the way we can do DPS.  Our problems are fairly unique in that we have to upgrade weapons, melee focii, pet focii and spell focii, no other class has to do all 4.  Combine that with our low melee DPS and the scaling problem occurs, compounded by the fact that each of those streams of upgrades only gives us a fraction of the increase a more specialized class gets.  I think we need a look at our basic melee dps before AAs etc, either through crits or enhanced double attack.  We just do too little to start off with before you add focii and mods and such to it.

Also I was thinking the other day about something like pet stances.  How about a way to switch the warder into an offensive stance where they get something like a 100% bonus to melee damage (an increase of what... 40-50dps?) but lose alot of tankability, or a defensive one where AE ramp/AE spells do half damage to them but they only do normal or slightly reduced damage.  By timing stance switches we could make pets live through harder encounters easier but not without effort.  It wouldn't overpower solo/group content either.

Khayden

[aleg]

I really just think that we should get double attack. something that sticks with us not somethin as simple as a AA disc that can't last. it seems like the only class we have more dps then is clerics and shms. When it comes to raids, we would be more useful with massing sa and sitting out the raid for another class. thats how useless we seem to be. tanks should not be doing more dps then us, but they do. We could get all the dps aa's and all the best weapons but we would still be craptastic when it comes to dps. Yes we are good for soloing but dang, druids,sk's,and even monks can solo as good as us if not better. Yes, they made us a soloing class which is useless seeing as if u are maxed aa's u don't need to xp anymore and soloing doesn't mean jack because u can't solo anguish lvl upgrades. Beastlords seem like SOE's blind spot. They do not see the many problems we have. Like our buffs lasting not nearly long enough. I find myself frequently recasting SA and everyone wants fero but everyone can't get it. I'm sorry but i can't find a class more useless than a beastlord when it comes to raids.Most of our dps comes from our procs and spells, but seeing that our spells are constently resisted that makes our dps horrible in raids. I have my 2.0 and mace of tortured nightmares and see myself doing  less then 200 dps some times when everyone else is doing 300 and up, thats including tanks. Most of eq seems like it came from ideas taken out of stories, but in what story have u read or what movie have u seen that a beastlord or beastmaster was so weak and useless?

I agree that our pets are useless on 90% of the raids we do. I have to highest pet focus and all the pet aa's but they don't help jack when they get killed all the time. i've stoped getting em out on raids because all it is is a waste of my mana.

Thank you,and i'm sorry if my grammer sucks.

[aleg]

oh yea, SOE takes forever to help people that have been hacked. even though that has nothing to do with this subject lol.