Re-Evaluating Top 10?

[Shadowpaw]

I can no longer slow (at least not reliably or without agro). My buffs largely aren't needed

What game are you guys playing? Every group I get I'm buffing left and right, slowing, dotting, meleeing, nuking, dealing with my pet. I have yet to run into a situation where my buffs aren't needed. If anything I've got more people now than ever yelling at me for this or that buff because players are finally well acquainted with the kinds of things Beastlords can do. We are more highly valued now than ever before in the game.

[firebox]

The game I'm playing is with guildies who have already maxxed their stats with gear, making all of those stat buffs obsolete at this point in the game.

You're crazy. I have no problem slowing anything in Oow. I've never had a shaman taken over me for picking groups, nor have I ever had anyone say anything about my ability to slow. This is really doesn't belong on the top 10. There are so many better things for the dev team to address than the whinings of players who are unable to accept how to play their class or the fact that their class will never be #1 in every area of the game. We own on Shaman up and down the alley and they know it.

To clarify about slowing in the last two expansions, yes there ARE things that I can slow.  It is quite clear, however, that  I can't be a reliable slower when it regularly takes 2-3 casts to stick on a fast hard-hitting mob, plus occasional mobs that just resist every cast no matter what.  And nobody said anything to me about my ability to slow - I can see what is happening and don't need to be told.

Nobody is whining here - these are issues we see at our level of gameplay, in the zones where we play.  I'm sure no one (including Sony) would argue that the game dynamics are perfect and should be left untouched. There is nothing wrong with pointing out where our challenges lie and making suggestions that would make us more useful or balanced.  Your implication that I do not know how to play my class because I can identify some problems I'd like to see addressed is ridiculous. I don't know if you and I are even killing the same mobs, judging by the differences in our Magelo profiles, aa's and levels. Your opinion may change as you progress in the game as well.  In the meantime, disagree all you want but let's try to respect one another here - this board is for the benefit of the class as a whole, not so we can call each other names.

[cougerofeq]

What game are you playing?
your crazy.
You must be a bad player or have a bad rep..

Why is it happy people tend to say unhappy things?  

Insulting each other is fun, but not very constructive.  I know I have fallen into the same trap - but it seems to be a growing trend.

Maybe its the stress that some have seen dramatic changes recently and some see none? Voicing your opinion + or - should not be labled as bad. Clearly there are some who have had no issues and some many issues - could be server  population, claases available, level of toon, guild status etc. who knows.

One thing seems clear to me(but may not be so)- there seems to be alot more unhappy than I have ever seen on these boards before. I am one added to the newley unhappy ranks as before I only worried our silence would cause the vocal of the other classes to have a negative impact on us. I now feel its happened.

[Dummkopf]

Judging from your Magelo you play indeed another game Shadowpaw, and in that level of game you are pretty good as a beastlord. As you progress further however that changes a lot and in the mid to highlevel game we become more and more useless. First our buffs are no longer needed, then our dps begins to lack and finally we cant even slow (reliably) anymore.

This game offers a wide variety of playstiles now but it should make it playable at all levels, at the moment there is a big problem in the mid level game and up.

[Oiingo]

I must be the odd beast out, because I don't find myself losing out on slower positions in OoW due to our ``increased lack of slowing ability.''  Sure, mobs mitigate, but this isn't the first exansion where all slowers have had to deal with it.  Sure, it always takes us a few more tries due to the lack of tash or malo, but the rare ``unslowable'' mobs seem relatively few and far between, even in Riftseekers and Muramite Proving Grounds.

On the other hand, I often also receive tells for groups because I provide decent DPS and paragon, both traits that folks on my server seem to desire.

I'd say if anything, the one trend I've seen since Omens of War was released, is that I tend to group with enchanters more than I ever did in the past. Go go crowd control.

Oh yeah, if you have issues taking agro, try not casting Trushar's Frost when the mob is at 98% health and you have already bounced a slow with a warrior using non-high agro weapons.  Agro isn't just the tank's problem, it's yours too.  Control yourself.  Don't even use dots in groups unless you're tanking.  Waste of mana, reduction in DPS, and more agro. No darn good.

[Skarx]

yes shadow is playing a diff game... im 69+ only cause i choice to stay ther a while,  have 500 or so aa... And in OOW.. MPG and other higher end oow zones... I cant land slow for the life of me...

Had a chanter 3 levels lower then me that would Tash and land slow every single time.. got on avg around 2 resist out of every 15cast never once did he get a dbl resist,

Same group Same Tash on mob.... i would cast slow 4-8 times. all resist.  Out of a 3+hour exp group Chain pulling almost.. I landed Slow Twice on the inc pull... Thats 2 times in 3+hours on first try.  that is Total BS....

Whole time in group nota single person needed any buff but SD, cept the tank that asked for Kragg..

Ohh and to top it off... Thanks to a group buff from the cleric and chanter.. i lost slot for epic.. So i could not even use my epic since it keept going behind SOI proc.

[Wenian]

Shadowpaw, instead of treating people of crazy, plz compare your magelo and the zones you hunt in. Do you really hunt in MPG for example ?
Do you do MPG group trials ? I doubt it by your answers.
Yesterday, again, I was in one of those groups. At first, the warrior only used a hategiver with anger3 and a Vallon zek sword with no augment. I got aggro and kept it a bit only using 1 slow. I just thought the problem was it being a warrior and a warrior with low aggro weaps. However a bit later, I was grouped with a 13k hp warrior using dark blade + edge of eternity both augmented with anger3 and grabbed aggro in the same way.
Added to that fact, I had to do 2, 3 or 4 slows to get mob slowed fast.
You would say, just wait a sec to slow ? well the mobs do quad for 980 and can proc 4 times for 600 dmg, thats less than M1 / M2 trials I guess but they are more resistant so you gotta slow fast and multiple times so it gets slowed asap so tank doesnt die. I tried same thing with pally, I still had aggro long enough to get killed by it. Sure, I dont have 10k hp buffed but I do have 8.5k hp, I still cant tank those mobs long.
Shadow, you're thinking of us before oow (ldon, WoS, low end GoD), when I say oow, I say high end oow, MPG is a start but you got the trials after, you got the raids, you got raids in GoD too and you also have riftseekers / soon anguish.

So, when I say we got a problem with slow, its not a % slow only, or its not the resist problem only its the addition of :
- no resist debuffer or mod on our slow >ench / sham have 1<
- no AA to reduce hate >ench / sham have 1<
- no focus on our epic to reduce hate >ench / sham have that<
- lower percentage slow than ench / sham
- no aggro mod on other spell thus if we can slow without aggro, we cant cast other spells (dot, dd, incapacitate) without getting aggro

This is no problem when you talk WoS mob which you can tank in case theres a problem, this is no problem also since you can actually wait for mob to be tanked for a sec
before slowing, however in tougher zones you gotta insta slow or your cleric cant keep up with mob dps on tank.

[Keryn]

Since this thread got a little derailed I will somewhat try and get it back on track. If you look on other class boards and see what they so desire the most you will see that they are more focused on what they do best, ex. Melee want dps upgrades while casters want more nukes and not as much aggro for clerics healing. What do we focus on, naming our pets. I like the idea of pet names but why even hint about this when there are a number of other issues.

Slowing- we have a decent % slow, just unless you are hunting old world it takes sometimes 2 all the way up to 6 times for it to land. After the 3rd time you are now tanking cause alot of the tanking classes's snap aggro is weak.

Pets- our pets use to be one of the biggest complaints from Mages cause they were equal to and sometimes better then theirs. They whined and cried enough where they giggle when we mention our pets are decent cause they know they aren't. Our pets have a huge amount of HP's but our Healing line of spells take to long to cast and it is easier to cast another pet then it is to heal the one attacking. Our pets dps is a joke, we get 2 new pets in OOW but the 68 pet just barely hits better then our 64. This needs to be seriously looked at.

I know Tastian is working on our DPS and a few other things in the background, I applaud him for starting this, its been a LONG time coming, hopefully he will give us updates as to the progress so we don't think it was forgotten.

Before I forget to add this. There is a rant forum, if you feel it in you to go off on somoene for a post why not take it there. Just cause you can get a group anytime doesn't mean that someone on a different server has problems cause of over population.

[Zyvox.]

no AA to reduce hate >ench / sham have 1<

Doesnt roar of thunder have a hate reducer on it?

[Tastian]

Yeah it does, but it is only up once every 15 minutes, rank 1 is minor, rank 2 is "ok" and 3 is "decent" from most accounts.  I'll try to finish up aggro tests on roar by the weekend.  Roar alone though isn't nearly enough to address our aggro issues.   Chimera blood is some uber warrior weapon proc, not a beastlord dot atm lol.  Crits/focus still busted on dots.  We stand in melee range and nuke away, we still generate far too much aggro for the damage we do and currently our damage is below what it should be in some cases.  Part of the reason people think we are such uber dps is because we get aggro all the time lol, but that really isn't the case.

[Dorrogtr T`A]

Heh, when I was 65, I had no problem landing slow in WoS/MPG  :roll:

[Essant]

Ok, one thing about MPG that you all may not have noticed is you gotta belly cast on the mobs.

Ie, the closer you are .. the greater chance slow is going to land reliably, and your nukes will land for more damage.

This goes against conventional wisdom for most expansions in the past for beastlords.  Perhaps you (like me) were used to stepping out of melee range when slowing to reduce your agro, because we all KNOW that hate is range and position based as well (right?)

Well, it dont work well in MPG.  You tend to get more resist that way, and if you do it 3 times in a row, you can sure bet you gonna piss the mob off good.  Better to step in, let the tank get agro for even just 5 seconds, and carefully launch your slow in melee range not swinging.

[Essant]

One other thing .. Firebox, I really dont understand what you are talking about.

I know of you, but I dont know you real well.  Your gear is roughly on par with mine, but you've got about 1/4th the aa's that I do.  I know your guild, I know what content your guild is doing.

I dont think the aa's count for a whole heck of a lot.  Who knows maybe they do.

But dps sucking?  No.  Not even remotely.  Not when you talk MPG and dps in the same paragraph.  I was parsing consistently 250-300 dps (thats me + pet + nukes combined) in MPG in mobs that dont mitigate melee damage like the Ikaav's do and SOME of the lighting dudes (you can tell if you seem to hit often .. but not for nearly as much damage) .. and these parses were done BEFORE i completed 1.5 .. so im guessing that my overall dps has problably gone up by about 50 with the 1.5.

Shoot me a tell sometime, lets group together, more than happy to see what it is you are talking about.

And I use EQAnaylser for parses.

[Kylaz]

Ok, one thing about MPG that you all may not have noticed is you gotta belly cast on the mobs.

That may be a good observation. I can confirm I do not have lots of issues with slows in WoS, but I usually run to the mob, hit attack, pet attack (while tank gets aggro) and then throw slow .

I remember twice having problems slowing (3 bounce) because I was slowing from far away a mob hitting on the drood.

Can anyone confirm ?

[Dummkopf]

250 to 300 dps consistently? I really cant believe that figure. I do around 180 to 230 dps in MPG including all spellsdamage and pet (thats an overall figure, not single fights). Even bellycasting i get up to 14 resists on slow without debuffer, as soon as i get a debuffer in my group i can slow reliably again.