Omens utility...

[Zanarnar]

Just 2 suggestions from someone new to these forums....

70: I got my frist 70 rune, and I can't even describe the disapointment at handign it in and getting a dot that sucked so bad i almost just destroyed it..... seriously.   I'd be a very happy kitty if that spell got changed into about anything else, perhaps an improved invis since we gotta invis so many places now? (GOD/OOW reley heavily on invis to get to raid spots)


As for a resist debuff, I wonder if anyone has considered giving us malA at 68-70.  MALA is -35s vs the -45s for MALO and -55s for MALOS.   Personally I don't think it would be too overpowering.. heck even if they changed it to just be -35MR and -35CR it would be worth while.  Definatly better then nothing and would help flesh out out 66-70 spells.

[Bengali]

an awesome pet, serious DPS

These are also the types of things that a) need numbers to back them up and b) have to be considered in the context of where comparable classes are.  My pet is "awesome" compared to a chanter summoned pet, but not so awesome when compared to "real" pets.  My dps is serious compared to a paladin in kunark armor, but it's not so impressive compared to rogues, rangers, monks, berserkers, wizards, mages, necros and yes, even warriors *in gear that is comparable to mine at the stage of the game I'm in*, i.e., Qvic+.  My "back-up utility" is also nonexistent *at this stage of the game*.

[Tastian]

Level 70 dot has already been made a lot better on test, but the dps is a bit low.  If ry goes ahead and bumps the dmg per tick up into the 180 range or so I'd mem the dot almost full time.  It has a much better duration, it's got an ok mana to damage ratio and becomes efficent a bit before running its duration so even if the mob dies its ok.  It's less initial aggro than a nuke.  I've sent more data along to ry just today about dot aggro based upon focus/CA so hopefully something good will come of that.  The issue of actually having dot focus would then become an issue for some, but I think it'd be nice to actually mem a non cold nuke for doing damage lol.

[Mojoejojo]

Its good to see responses to my post.  I hope it didnt come across negative in any way.  Like I said, I see some BLs that seem to be dis-satisfied with the class, (as I see from/about shamans on the shaman boards), and I think sometimes, focusing on the negatives, makes the positives seem less, well, positive.

A little about myself:  I play a 67 shaman with @156 AA, in a medium sized raiding guild on Torv.  Mojoe has been my main for over 4 years, out of about 4.5 years playing.  I am elemental flaged, and my guild is working through Elementals to Time.  We have killed MAoE, the "Big Flamer" in Fire, and we just had our first kill of Xegony in Air last night, and I'm flaged through trial 5 in GoD.  I dont have any of my GoD spells, and only have my 67 pet (still same stats as the 61 pet, unless they fix it in tomorrow's patch) out of the OoW spells, so my experience is from that perspective.

From my perspective, Shamans reached their peak of power during the Kunark/Velious expansions, and have been largely neglected since then, with the exception of a few much needed improvements in OoW.  We have seen our healing abilities fall far behind druids, and our slowing ability nerfed through content, through the increasing use of slow mitigation.  Our DPS has remained largely stagnant, and (at least untill the new buffs in OoW) our buffs, except for the HP component of Focus, were largely un-needed, since many of the people I play with, are at or near their stat caps.

All those negatives, or percieved negatives asside, I still enjoy playing Mo.  if I choose my fights carefully, I can still solo fairly well, even being able to solo (all be it with very high risk) at tables in PoFire, for very good experience.  The key is choosing my fights carefully, working within the abilities of my character, and accounting for the weaknesses of the mobs.  Shamans have become, I think, a relatively specialized class, built for the long slow fight, utilizing debuffs, slow, and DoTs.  When I built Mo, shamans were considered, sort of, the Swiss Army Knives of EQ.

Beastlords, I think have sliped into that role, at least in my view.  Like I said earlier, BLs have an awesome pet, are capable of doing significant burst, as well as sustained damage, with a slow nearly as good as Shamans, very good damage mitigation allowing them to tank quite well, with the ability to buff virtually every stat, with DoTs, DDs, and healing abilities to allow you to solo very efficiently, with little or no down time.  In short, BLs contribute a lot to virtually any group.  IMHO, you guys roxors.

Every class (with the possible exceptions of droods, necros and untill the swarm kite nerf, bards) has weak areas.  In the big picture, I think BLs work out pretty good.   I gave up my first character (a warior) for my shaman, because he was too 1 dimensional.  Now adays, I sometimes wish I had kept him.  heh  I guess what i'm trying to say, is that sometimes it is good to step back and look at the positives we bring to a group, and focus less on the negatives.  As a shaman, I can get agro and get smacked down easy, just slow early, and get a resist, or  I can let the MT get some agro built up, then attempt slow.  If it gets resisted, I can debuff and slow if dps is low, or throw in a couple DDs to finish off the mob a little faster, or toss some patch heals to allow the cleric to get in the big heal.   I try to play to my toons strengths, and contribute to the maximum of my character.

Every class has their high marks, and unfortunately, a lot depends on gear.  My shaman pet is a speed bump compared to any comparable BL pet.  My mele is laughable compared to a comprable BL.  I have nothing like the BLs SD/SA line, so I cannot contribute to group mana recovery in any way.  Canni means I have to stand still and click.  Do BLs have the BEST pet?  no, but can a mage take the personal damage that a comparably equiped BL can?  No contest.  The only thing shamans can still claim to be "best" at is slowing, and that is marginal at best, against mitigating mobs.  BLs may not be "best" at anything, but they are damn good at a lot of things, and more versatile than almost any other class.  So you cant do EVERYTHING, so what.  No other class (ok, maybe bards) can either!

Enjoy your class, learn what you can and cant do, and then try to find ways to push the envelope!  Thats what makes playing any class fun.

Gads, I didnt mean to ramble so much, but I'll let the post stay as is.  lol

[Tastian]

Moj the thing is beastlord have been very quiet for awhile.  If you check back during PoP you'll see very few issues, even through GoD when we were hurting it was only the very high end that saw these problems and sadly some didn't understand them back then.  With omens the problems have moved down because progression has gone on even further and beastlords again gained relatively less than other classes.  Right now there's a ton of mis-information and people thinking about how beastlords were back in BoT (probably the height of bst relative power) and totally clueless to how various things are now.  Let me take one of your quotes...

"Beastlords, I think have sliped into that role, at least in my view. Like I said earlier, BLs have an awesome pet, are capable of doing significant burst, as well as sustained damage, with a slow nearly as good as Shamans, very good damage mitigation allowing them to tank quite well, with the ability to buff virtually every stat, with DoTs, DDs, and healing abilities to allow you to solo very efficiently, with little or no down time. In short, BLs contribute a lot to virtually any group. IMHO, you guys roxors. "

We have a "nice" pet, but pet focus scales for crap in omens and our pets are still far worse than say a mage pet.  A beastlord pet takes ~40% more damage than a mage pet does.  The beastlord basically has to tank at higher end for their pet because even if the damage taken is close by not melee'n the beastlord loses a larger and larger portion of their dps.  Also to illustrate how great pet focuses are let me post some numbers from 68 pet with and without DPoC and you tell me which is which...

Focused?
avg dmg per hit = 74.7+/-1.3
"hitratio" = h/(h+m) = (57.8+/-1.3)%
dps index = hit_ratio*avg_dmg = 43.2+/-1.3

Focused?
avg dmg per hit = 75.1+/-1.4
"hitratio" = h/(h+m) = (56.6+/-1.3)%
dps index = hit_ratio*avg_dmg = 42.4+/-1.3

So here we have a pet that is performing ok in say BoT or WoS or the base of the game and seeing almost no actual upgrades as it goes on.  All pet focuses have scaled down in power with omens, but no new focuses have been found.  I've seen PoT focus off raid mobs, summoner's boon, etc.  Imagine killing a raid mob and getting an improved healing IV item or an affliction efficency IV item.  The pet focus effects did less than most felt they should before and now with omens they are doing significantly less.  

As for the dps issues please check the other thread this simply isn't true.  At certain stages in the game we are definitely a nice sustained dps class, but for bursting we fall short.  Our nukes are on a 30sec refresh.  Our poison dots are killer aggro (I'm sure you can relate).  Our "disc" only effect our melee dps and do nothing for our pet dps, our nuke dps or our proc dps.  Sustained dps at higher end is even hurting as similiarly geared beastlords are being out dps'd by warriors.  Again at the BoT level this isn't the case, but progression is what is causing these issues.  With all of the attuneable weapons and +raw atk items dropping, the augments adding ferocity and cleave just watch as this shifts downward.  Beastlords will continue gaining relatively less and it is through the lower relative gains that they fall behind.

Our damage mitigation is seriously a joke.  We take more damage on average than a bard lol.  We tank because we hold aggro extremely well (whether we want to or not sometimes), but even a ranger takes less overall damage than we do over time.  Now how many people tell rangers what good tanks they are?  Again it's one of those things that people see or think that simply isn't true.

Also our slow being "nearly" as good as shaman is very misleading.  We get a 65% slow, and shaman get a 75% slow.  Shaman slow is gotten at level 51 and scales up to 75%.  Beastlords get their slow at level 65.  That's 10% more "slow", which means on a non-mitigating mob the beastlord slowed mob is doing 40% more damage.  Also shaman get debuffs and can land.  Not to mention balance with GoD and TA from time (nother progression issue here).  Even if all slows landed 100% of the time so that debuffs and resists weren't an issue shaman would still be way ahead of beastlords in terms of slowing.  Once you factor in the ~50% resist rate people are having in various exp zones things get even more out of wack.  Note that no beastlord wants to be a better slower than shaman, we are ok with slowing less efficencly, having a lower slow %, etc.  Notice that most of the complaints atm center around simply not being a reliable slower.  To have multiple people die in KT and PG groups because you are bouncing 5+ slows without even being surprised is just too much.  Atm even a bard with HoS is a better slower for a group than a beastlord is.

You list stat buffing which falls off at the highend to completely useless, just look at shaman and enc buffs at the higher end.  Stat cap is broken, direct bonuses to defense and offense and crits, etc.  Most of the things a beastlord can buff they simply don't.  Our str/dex/sta lines all stopped in the mid 50's.  We get no cap breaking upgrade to infusion atm.  We have a truely sad upgrade to fero at level 70 and that's about it.  Actually look at the differance in buff power between a level 65 bst and a level 70 bst and I think you'll be surprised how poor it is.

There are a lot of people like yourself that look at the spell dat or go off what they think they see or whatever, but the fact is there are problems now.  Beastlords have always been a very well thought out group and never asked for lots of extra stuff.  The fact that so many are now becoming vocal just helps illustrate that there really are some problems atm.  Please don't think I hate beastlords or I'm going to turn into one of those "woe is me's" people.  I like my beastlords and I continue playing them, but actually look further into what you are saying and what you think you see and you'll notice a lot of progression based problems that might not be obvious at first.

[Shieara]

I pretty much agree with what Tastian said.

However, I am not that interested in the curing lines.  I think that the priest classes + paladins pretty much have that covered.  If we get anything along those lines I think it would make more sense for it to be a pet only thing.  

In response to the above poster.  I would totally use a 6 second debuff in mpg.  In fact, I would probably use it in WoS sometimes too.  It's just too hard to land a slow in there for me.  The lightning guys are especially bad.  Without a debuffer I might not land it at all on them.  Usually it is hitting at 50% mob hps, and that is not good enough.  Maybe my 7.5k hps self doesn't belong in there though.  Mostly it has been my friends taking me and sometimes they overestimate my capabilities.

My burst dps is..well...more like a small 50 cent squirt gun then the super soaker 2000.  I can't really manadump because of the long recast on nukes.  My disc only effects my melee damage and, while okay, doesn't really stand up in the face of other melee discs.  I can hit roar of thunder for a free 500 damage.  I dunno maybe I am missing some good disc everyone else has?

Just my two cents.

[Tastian]

"Maybe my 7.5k hps self doesn't belong in there though. Mostly it has been my friends taking me and sometimes they overestimate my capabilities."

That right there is part of the problem though.  You are casting the exact same spell as everyone else.  It doesn't matter if you are a bazaar 65 bst or a tacvi 70 bst you use sha's and that is all you have.  Innoruk's sarcasm, TA, slow clickies, GoD dropped slows, etc.  None of that exists for us and our slowing doesn't really change.  A few more defensive AAs or a few more hps might help us live through failing, but we still fail just as much.  It definitely sucks to be main slower and die from slow aggro and force group to have downtime, but even living through it and having a cleric low on mana and a main tank that is scared isn't that great either hehe.

[Wuflar]

I agree w/ pretty much everything Tastian has on the list... I was thinking for the new Fero about possibly a +25 resist cap or something along those lines, on raids fero is very valuable for the resists and this could make it shine again...

I am a mostly Time geared, some ele / GoD. I am constantly the slower for my groups. Usually in WoS or RCoD I dont have much trouble slowing, id say 50% of the time slow does NOT land on first cast (lv 70 btw), common to get 2 resists, uncommon to get 3, quite rare for 4+. I dont find it too bad usually.

MPG on the other hand... I expect usually 2-3 resists before slow will land, and there are many times where it has been 6-7 and above, and my record being 14 slows on one trash mob. That just isnt right. I have yet to try Riftseeker's but im sure that will be even worse.

I strongly agree with the need of a new slow at lv 70. A level 70 spell would make it tough for the "casual player" to get (not needed as much), and is needed for places a guild able to farm lv 70 runes will hunt. In my opinion, it would make slowing "fun" again... like back in the day when few were lv 65 and finding that bst w/ shas revenge would be a obvious working replacement for a shaman.

Just my thoughts so far


Wuflar <Gorilla Warfare>, Fennin Ro
70 Beastlord

[TalleyRN]

I think my biggest problem, by far, is the fact that these new upgraded spels, simply aren't worth the mana they cost. Fero is a very good example.....37 extra attack for 150 more mana. New SD is only 1 extra hp/mana regen, and costs a bit over 100 mana. Even if they did cut mana cost down to a reasonable lvl, our oow spells would still need tweaking.

Just posting frustrations.

[Rarrum]

Some form of upgade to slow is needed badly.  Slowing is one of our main roles, and it's been 4 expansions since we recieved any upgade to this spell line.

Another thing that irks me is the whole group heal over time thing... paragon used to be the only group heal over time.  Back in luclin is was an awesome ability... about the only thing unique to beastlords.  Nowadays cleric, druid, and even shaman have a group heal over time thats better than our new best one.

SD line is definatly not keeping up with times... lets look at how it compared to spell costs:
--luclin era--
best cleric group symbol (marzin): 575 mana
best bst hp buff in luclin (tuna): 250 mana
Spiritual Purity (after it was changed from 3/3 hp/mana) adds 7hp/7mp
--omens era--
best cleric group symbol (balikor): 2340 mana
best bst hp buff (alladnu): 468mana
Spiritual Ascendance adds: 10hp/10mp
--conclusion--
Spell costs have gone way up... our sp line has barely moved.

Ferocity is the last big issue with our spells.  Back in luclin Savagery was drool-worthy ...  dps melee wanted it, some to the point some people would bring their own peridots to get picked first.
Ferocity was an improvement (though at this point the sta component lost it's worth)... main improvement is lack of peridot cost, making it in groups instead of just raids.
Omens... Ferocity of Irionu is a downgrade, in that it it costs significantly more mana for a tiny atk improvement.  This spell needs some major changes.  Just making it group version might be ok, but I'd really prefer to see several of the "new shiny abilities" on this spell (things like increased accuracy... spell shield... any of that type of stuff).

[Sikkem]

I really like the list Tastian.

SoE are trying to make the game more of a group environment than solo and while I still tend to solo a fair bit (I like the quiet sometimes) I believe our buff upgrades should be taken in that direction.

As for the Haste-  Yes the shaman grp haste works for me,  It is only Alacrity and  we already have a better single haste and shamans have 2 better single target hastes so it shouldn't tread on to many toes.

Spiritual Ascendency - Yes 11/11 and last 72 mins. I dont know about other raiders but I get less tells for SD as the fight for buff slots increase and casters get better gear. My Raid Leader  has told me that Paragon is near on pointless these days (handy after a wipe is about it) and the Perfection of Spirit as it stands has left him with the same opinion.

Perfection of Spirit - See above let get it back inline with the game shall we, honestly it doesnt' make much of a dent in my mana pool either when soloing.

Ferocity - OMG yes please on the Group Buff, my guild has just broken into Qvic and I am the only raiding beastlord atm. Ferocity is all I am really ever asked for in the buff stakes, for certain raids  I am grouped with 3 rogues to keep it on them round the clock, casting Ferocity every 2 mins for 4 or 5 hours is oh so tedious. Again its a grouping game make it  a group spell. Accuracy bonus maybe? then it would be a great buff  for rangers on ranged fights also?

Cures- Personally I have no real problem with the ones we have, adding Remove Curse would be in line with where we are in the shaman spell list on cures.

Slow - YES !!!

Suspend Minion - Get rid of it and refund the AA's, pets not poofing on invis has made this nearly worthless at 8 aa's. Keep Persistant Minion as the only AA in that line at 7 aa's its a  good buy for CoH and camping.

Thanks

[Jataan]

Either a longer lasting version of Celerity or a group Celerity that lasts the same amount of time as the current Celerity would be a boon in exp groups.

Casting celerity on 4 Melee's every 20 minutes is a royal pain in the butt.  At least Allendru and Vitality last ~93 minutes if i remember correctly. Recasting Celerity so often is so annoying that if i have 6 ppl LFG in front of me that i'll give preference to those with CBQ melee belt =p

[Rhoam]

Personally I think we will never get the kind of increase in Spiritual Ascendance that would make it worthwhile to include on the list. They may PLACATE us by giving the 11/11 increase you are asking for and ignoring other things on the list that are more important. We need to avoid giving them an opportunity to make the most meaningless and easiest changes and then being able to say we gave you some attention. I would remove ascendance from the list altogether and focus on only the things we must have to bring us up to speed in the highend game. I may be wrong but a one point increase in SA is not going to dramatically change the problems that you uber beasts are encountering, or will it?

I think an increase in SA would more benefit my level of play than you uber beasts in the highend game. If you want your condition to be addressed limit your requests to issues that really are a problem and you may see some correction. Then again, we may get the warrior treatment and get ignored for three years before they do anything to help us out.

[Tastian]

That's actually part of what I was going for rhoam and why I tried to include a bit of everything in this list and see where people fell.  Truth is SA even at 11/11 isn't a huge upgrade, but it does keep the spell in-line.  Slow seems to be by far the biggest issue as we simply can't function to a reasonable degree as main slower in several zones now.  Fero upgrade is a total joke too.  I won't use, I won't take the rune, I know guilds that refuse to give the runes to beastlords.  Ferocity is one of the only "beastlord" things we've ever had and it used to be drool worthy and you'd get spammed with tells for it.  The upgrade simply isn't nearly enough.  Keep the feedback coming, I'm going to try getting a very re-worked top 10 list up by monday so people can look it over a couple days before it's submitted.

[Mojoejojo]

You all make some very good points, and in large part I agree and feel for your situation.  That being said, I dont think it is at a crisis point yet.

Beast lord pets:  I never really thought of a BL as a made-over mage.  I always saw mages as almost totally pet dependant, and the pet as the primary source of their abilities.  Yes, they have rains, that like a shamans, has a hardwired in 25% or so resist rate, making them less than useful, and some decent DDs that with AAs, can do serious burst DPS.  They have a pet heal, but no self heals.  Mod rods got nerfed into uselessness well over a year ago.  They do have good debuffs, but usually depend on malos or tash before Malisinia can reliably land.  Furthermore, without a pet, a Mage is mob food.  
I always think of BL pets as part of a BL "team".  They can split tank effectively, or dual tank, and when the BL gets low on HP, he can step back and heal, pet heal, or fill in as back-up in several areas.  True, upgrades for BLs tend to not stand out as much, since only half of the team sees it, but BL and pet are a team.  Like a military fire team, working in concert, they are highly effective.  Separated, they are conciderably less so.

BL buffs/debuffs:  At the high end game, which I feel like I'm just barely entering, most stat buffs are virtually useless.  Increasing my agility by 50 or so raises my AC by 4.  I agree, shamans finally got some effective buffs in OoW, and I think they were very overdue.  Having buffs that increase stat caps, or increase dodge, or strike-through, or atk, will likely be the norm in the future.  Fero is a great buff, and has some notable advantages over shamans FA.  It can be cast on rangers in dog-form, while FA cannot.  Its stats are actually better I think than FA.  I agree SA should be a bit better than it is.  As we move into the high end game, mob resists do increase.  I would not be at all opposed to BLs getting Malo, or somthing like it, at 67 or 68.  As levels and gear, and AAs increase, mana becomes less of a factor, especially in raiding situations.  Enchanter, Druid, and BL mana regen buffs along with bard songs can boost standing mana regen to close to 80 per tic, and that dosn't include self only mana regen that many classes have.  EQ is all about incremental advances.  When all those incrimental advances from each class are combined, the improvements become more noticable.

Every class has periods where they are somewhat more or less powerful, compared to other classes at the same level.  Sometimes our improvements are more noticeable than other times.  I know this isnt fully the case, but sometimes when I read here, I see people saying "BLs pets arnt as good as a Mages, and Monks can tank better than us, and Shamans slow or heal or buff better than us" etc etc.  While those things are certainly true to some extent, BL is, I think,one of the most well rounded classes there is.  If I didnt have 4+ years invested in my main, BL would be one of the 3 or so other classes I would want to play, Druid, Necro, and BL being those 3 classes.  Shamans were awesome in the Kunark/Velious days, but I dont expect those days to return.  BLs were virtually unmatched in the PoP/GoD days, but the EQ wheel turns.  BLs are still a well balanced class, that can fill many roles, and I always welcome them in my groups.

Just a quick addition:  Content in EQ is pushing groups harder toward the "Holy Trinity" combination, especially in high end content.  In many situations/zones, a group MUST have a cleric, warrior, and enchanter, as well as (situationally) a slower, and high DPS classes for the remaining 3 spots.  BLs can reasonably fill 2 of those support slots.  Many other classes can only fill one of those abilities.  Most other classes are only considered for one ability.