Rough 1st draft of new top 10 (10/15/04)...

[Tastian]

Ok this is a very rough first draft, but I wanted to atleast get some of the items down and start to get more directed feedback.  This isn't everything by any means and it's not all that is going on or being done.  Feedback is very welcome, but do it in a way that allows for discussion and explaination not one that serves no purpose other than to fluff your post count please hehe.  The thread on other boards can be seen here...

http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=beastlordbalance&message.id=1872


1)  Beastlord slowing:

Beastlords currently are unable to perform the role of main slower in a group to a reasonable level in an increasing number of zones.  The problem with our slow isn't the % it does, but rather the resist rate on the spell and as a result of the high resist rates the streaks of resists we see.  

Proposed solution:

Add a new slow spell for beastlords in our omens spell line.  Make the spell have a higher mana cost than sha's revenge and put a -30 mod on the spell.  This will allow beastlords to better land slows and fuction as main slower for groups without having the beastlord actually debuff the mob or effect how other classes or even other beastlord spells are landing.


2)  Beastlord sustained dps:

This is an issue that comes about because of progression.  Beastlords simply gain less % wise from a weapon upgrade than other classes do.  We gain less from certain AAs, less from worn atk, less from melee focus effects, etc.  With the GoD expansion and now omens all of those smaller % gains have added up to beastlords at the higher end doing less sustained dps than they should be.  Please note that this is a problem that comes about because of progression, itemization and a few other factors.  Beastlord sustained dps is nice up through about the plane of time level of the game.  However, after that things start to fall off and beastlords dps simply doesn't scale up as well as it should resulting in beastlords doing less sustained dps than they should be.

Proposed solution:

There are actually a lot of changes that could be made to help address this issue, but most of them have their own issues.

-  Fix beastlord AAs so that they grant a larger % gain to one part of our damage so that overall the % gain to our dps is on par.  PoP gave us BF which was an awesome beastlord only AA that gave a large boost to one aspect of our damage (melee), but the overall boost was less.  GoD on the other hand gave us pet AAs that were very overpriced and did relatively little.  Feral swipe is another GoD beastlord only AA that does very little damage for its cost.  In omens beastlord offensive AAs are limited to a generic caster crit upgrade AA, a generic melee crit uprade, and a generic dot crit upgrade.  Beastlords are paying 2, 3, 4X the AA as some other classes and still not getting the same overall % gain and just like dressing your mother up in a reindeer suit that's not right!  8)

-  Fix pet focus effects so that they give a better boost to the pets.  This idea has a lot of merit because it allows for the boosts to be given where they are really needed.  Making major tweaks to beastlord AA could allow some lower end beastlords to gain a power boost that isn't really needed as a result of raising power at the higher end where it is needed.  Currently in omens old pet focus effects scale down in usefulness and no new pet focus effects have been found yet.  Adding new pet focus effects and upgrading how they improve the pet would allow our pets to see a similiar boost as our melee does through upgrades and help beastlords get closer to the overall % gain other classes are seeing.

-  Add more beastlord only items that help deal with our division of power.  The Bone-Studded Loop from omens is a great example of a beastlord only item.  This gives a boost to our atk, to our mana regen and our nukes.  More items that effect multiple parts of a beastlords damage would help address this problem and again allow the upgrades to be put where they should be.  Along these same lines please consider tweaking the focus effect on the beastlord epic 1.5 so that not only does it effect our cold nukes, but our dots as well.  


3)  Beastlord "burst" dps:

This is a similar issue to #2 in that it comes about largely because of the beastlord division of power.  Most other classes are able to burst damage by using a disc to raise their damage or mana dumping.  A beastlord, however, can't mana dump because our nukes are on a 30sec refresh timer.  Also our discipline only effects the melee portion of our damage.  That means that while other classes can disc to say double their damage for the duration of the disc a beastlord only doubles their melee damage, but doesn't see a boost in their pet's damage or their non-melee damage.

Proposed solution:

The easiest way to fix this issue is to make it so that beastlord burst disc and AAs effect more than just the melee portion of a beastlords damage.  Bestial alignment is a GoD AA for beastlords that raises just our melee damage currently and has roughly double the reuse time of most burst disciplines.  Lowering the reuse time on this AA to be inline with other burst disc type of skills and having it give our pet a buff would help raise our burst dps.  Another thing to consider would be adding an effect to it that raises our non-melee damage well the effect is going.  Again it's an issue of the division of power and beastlords need some way to "burst" the other aspects of their damage and not only their melee damage if they are expected to stay inline.


4)  Beastlord aggro issues:

Seems kind of funny to talk about aggro problems right after talking about how beastlords aren't doing enough dps in various cases, but oh well.  The fact is beastlords generate far too much aggro for the damage they are doing.  In fact, part of reason many people think beastlord damage is higher than it really is currently is because beastlords are generating so much more aggro than they should.  The main cause of this is because of how much aggro is associated with non-melee damage and the fact that beastlords have to be close and melee'n well doing their non-melee damage.  Please note that beastlords are ok with getting aggro well slowing or doing other things that generate aggro, but doing 100+dps less than another class and still pulling aggro off the MT isn't right.

The largest cause of aggro problems currently for beastlords are poison dots.  Many beastlords simply can't use these in a group or raid setting because the aggro they generate is so much higher for the damage done than other forms of damage.  Initial aggro tests done showed the level 61 poison dot having roughly double the aggro to damage ratio of our nukes.  Add in the fact that extra damage from crits/focus don't raise nuke aggro, but tests have shown extra damage from crits/focus to raise dot aggro and things just get worse.  Actually things get worse even without factoring in focus/crits because the level 66 beastlord poison dot has 80% more poison counters on it than scropion venom had.  This spell should be a proc on an uber warrior weapon, not spell for a dps class that has no reliable means of actively lowering aggro.

Proposed solution:

Again there are a few options here and I think the solution lies in a doing a combination of things.  

-  Look at dots, please.  The aggro they generate for the damage they do is simply broken.  The fact that repeated tests done using various classes have shown the increased aggro from focus/crit on dots is wrong.  The number of poison counters should either be adjusted or some -hate needs to be added to these spells like tigir's insects was given because atm almost no beastlord can actually cast these spells as a means of doing damage.

-  Consider giving beastlords some AA/Spell/Skill that lowers aggro in a reliable way.  Roar of thunder with omens was a nice start, but the amount of aggro it actually lowers isn't that great and it's only available once every 15 minutes.  


5)  Perfection of spirit:

This is a 3 tiered omens AA that upgrades beastlords existing paragon of spirit AA at a cost of 5AA per rank (15 total).  The problem with this AA is the amount of mana this spell is currently giving.  Paragon of spirit was an original beastlord only AA back in luclin.  Paragon of spirit gives 200hps and 80mana per tick.  That was back in luclin when complete heal (400 mana base) was the main heal being used in CH rots, when most wizards were using sunstrike (450mana) or maybe GSS(540 mana).  Back then having paragon give back ~480 mana was a nice boost.  Also back then the healing of ~1200hps was a solid amount as well.  Now skip ahead through luclin, through PoP, through LDoN, through GoD and into omens and we finally see an upgrade to one of the only unique things a beastlord has.  After waiting all this time and spending 15 more AAs a beastlord is now able to heal 267hps a tick and 110mana per tick.  For referance in omens a cleric is likely usin a 740 or 890 mana heal, and wizards are paying 800mana for a nuke.  

Perfection of spirit doesn't give enough to justify the AA's spent or the time spent waiting for an upgrade to this.  Paragon used to heal a sizeable number of hps, but hp pools have gone way up and so has AE damage.  Beastlords understand that other classes have gained heal over times and most can even deal with the healing portion of paragon lagging behind other classes, but the mana returned is simply too low.  Through most of beta this AA was giving twice the boost to mana it currently does at each rank, but then right before omens went live this was changed.  

Proposed solution:

Please raise the amount of mana this spell returns.  Most beastlords were ok with paying 5AA per rank for the +20 mana boost the AA originally gave.  Changing this AA back to how it was throughout most of beta would make the AA far more worthwhile.  


6)  Ferocity of irionu:

Just like paragon/perfection above ferocity is one of the few special things a beastlord has.  Sadly this omens upgrade to our level 65 "ferocity" spell from PoP falls well short of being useful.  Ferocity of irionu has the same base duration and the same recast as the level 65 version, but costs 150 more mana per cast.  For that extra 150 mana every 6.5 minutes base a beastlord buffs an extra 12 stamina and 37 raw atk.  That is just an extremely poor "upgrade".  

Proposed solution:

There have been a lot of different suggestions on how to improve the usefulness of this spell and return it to the "wow", high demand spell it was before.  

-  Add a new effect to the spell.  The main suggestions are adding a +proc rate mod or +double attack mod to the spell.  The spell originally raised hps/dmg/resists.  Staimina is easily capped, the resists didn't improve and the small boost in atk just isn't enough.  

-  Change this spell to be a group spell.  This would make it less tedious to main the buff on people in a group and also add a bit of raid functionality to the spell as well.  


7)  Epic 1.5 effect:

The effect is bugged and doesn't play nice with our spirit of xxx line of buffs.  Whichever buff is higher on the pets buff list is the proc that will actually fire.  If epic 1.5 falls below rellic/irionu/etc then the proc won't fire.  If it comes first in the buff list then the pet gains the epic proc, but loses their stun proc.  We were told code would be going in to fix this with the 13th patch, but then changes never even went to test.  

Proposed solution:

-  Fix the stacking so that a pet can have both it's spirit of xxx proc buff and the epic 1.5 click.  Many beastlords simply don't use the epic effect atm because they might lose their stun proc when they don't want to or might fall to gain the epic click when they want to, etc.  

-  If possible please change the click so that it doesn't target our pet.  We have AAs like mend companion and hobble of spirits that don't change our current target to the pet.  If this isn't possible because of how weapon clicks function please let us know that.

-  Consider changing who gets the benefit of the epic click.  At the level of play where most beastlords will get this item their warders simply don't tank very much.  Many beastlords would much prefer seeing this effect divided up like bond of the wild is so that the pet receives the offensive portion of the buff, well the beastlord gets the defensive portion.  This change makes the effect fit better with how beastlords actually play at this level of the game.

-  Finally the epic 2.0 effect appears to be mismarked currently.  The effect is currently listed as having a -10 resist mod on it, but since the epic 1.5 has a -50 resist check it seems likely that the effect is meant to have a -100 check on it.


16/2)  Hobble of spirits:

Hobble of spirits is a beastlord only AA that grants our pets an extremely unreliable snare.  As it stands the AA is largely a waste of points because it doesn't stack with our current spirit of xxx pet proc buffs, and the duration of the snare is random.

Proposed solution:

Please consider changing this AA so that it stacks with our spirit of xxx proc buffs.


9)  Pet buff box:

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 pets 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:

Allow us to click off or somehow selectively remove the buffs we want from our pet.







Okies that's pretty much it for right now.  A couple items on the list might actually change, some suggestions might change, etc.  Please post your feedback/e-mail/PM me/whatever.  Please also be sure to explain your position or suggestion as it makes it easier for others to discuss possible changes.

[Kitvear]

I have issue with this part of the draft.  I really want to rant about this but will try and be constructive.

Making major tweaks to beastlord AA could allow some lower end beastlords to gain a power boost that isn't really needed as a result of raising power at the higher end where it is needed.

Fixing it so the EP and Time flagged people can get exp groups is nice but I want to get exp groups too and I fail to see why on earth anyone would think that it's ok for someone to not get exp groups because they aren't a hard core raider.

I have read in other posts by various people that, non-raiders or casual players are balanced.  Balanced in my eyes means that I can make a meaningful contribution to a exp group.   Balanced doesn't mean I am lucky to get a ldon group and if not lucky have to spend my time soloing in old luclin zones.  

Sorry that was really a rant, but I honestly do not understand the apparent sentiment that it's ok for me to sit lfg in WOS for 3 hours as long as everyone else gets groups.  I shudder at the thought that SOE might actually get the idea that we as a community are actually happy with the state that non-raiders are in.

[Tastian]

Slowing is an issue that all beastlords have.

Dps issues are a progression based problem.  At the BoT level of the game beastlords are in relative good shape for dps.  Even in EPs and time where they fall for dps is decent.  The concern some have is that the changes to fix higher end beastlord dps relative to other classes would result in beastlords at the lower end doing more damage relative to others.  The point is to smooth out the curve, not to just raise it up higher.

[Graace]

An upgraded LDON focus aug for non-raiders would probably be a good idea to throw in MPG or WOS---something attainable by non-raids, or quested.  Or perhaps a level 70AA that granted the similar bonuses earned from the LDON focus to their pet.  That'd be good for all the pet classes.  Since OOW and GOD are where things are falling short, might work.

Although I'd say Fero of Iron should be thrown into the entire "OOW spells suck" category for missing spells, new fero, SA being a subpar upgrade, how much we hate single buffing, etc.  But We could just wittle all the spells down one by one. but that'd seriously take months :)

[Gimrol]

Given, I'm an ogre, but I only count 9 issues of our top ten.  Did I miss one somewhere?

So, the first thing I'd do is add:

10) Pet scaling.  There is no pet focus that I'm aware of that is targeted at the 68 and 70 pets.  Given the history of pet focii, it's highly unlikely that the focus when discovered will let a beastlord pet scale in a way that keeps up with the increases of player power as they get new and better gear.

Proposed solution:  Increase the availability and effectiveness of pet focii.

Also, I think we should combine issues number 7 (epic effect) and 8 (hobble of spirits) into a single more comprehensive item.  It would say something like this:

7) Pet buff stacking issues
--- Epic 1.5 click effect doesn't stack with any other pet buffs
--- Hobble of spirits seem to be broken, especially since the introduction of the level 68 pet buff (See Mhordel's post for more details).  This takes an already marginal AA and makes it completely useless.

Proposed solution:
---  Reorganize pet proc buffs into 3 lines.  THe 3 lines would be a)epic buffs, b) beastlord pet buff spells, and c) AA pet buff spells (i.e. hobble of spirits).  Allow one pet buff from each line to stack with the other lines.  Allow higher versions of pet buffs to overwrite lower versions.

Example:  you could have up to 3 buffs on your pet:  epic 1.5 click effect, spirit of rellic, and hobble of spirits.  They could all proc if they werew on the pet.   If you had this setup, then cast spirit of alladnu on your warder, it would overwrite rellic and leave the other two intact.

FInally, I'd add one more item to the list:

8)  Beastlord buffs.  
-- Omens of war beastlord buffs all pretty much, well, suck.  They at best marginal upgrades to the previous spells.

Proposed solutions:
-- Increase the duration of Spiritual Ascendance to match the MGB timer and/or increase the mana/health regen to 11/11
--  Add some sort of combat effect (maybe strikethrough or cleave) to Spiritual Vitality, or increase it's hp component so it has more hp's than the level 65 paladin spell BSS.
--  Group Celerity please, or a longer-lasting haste buff.  Faster haste isn't the problem here, duration is.
--  Give us an update to our resist buffs.  I think we could use a version of Talisman of the Tribunal, even if it's a single-target version.

edit:  clarified my example

[Tastian]

Pet scaling and pet focus effects are already mentioned.  Thinking about filling out a few points and examples still, but wanted to try to keep things as to the point as possible and then giving more information as requested.

It's at 9 right now because I'm debating how to regroup somethings and adding/removing a couple things.

Beastlord buffing was going to be number and deal with convinece of buffing that'd include group hp buff, SA upgrade, SCRM AA possible, etc.  That's still debateable atm depending on how other items go.  Also got told not to throw lots of things together under one heading.  Like I say the top 10 list is only one thing and beastlord spell issues are getting talked about in other places.  New over the cap group infusion type buff, etc.  *shrugs* we'll see keep the feedback coming.

[Breko]

What about pet size? gators still have a HUGE ogre-size footprint, but look tiny. If they're not going to make them as large as the other pets, at least they could reduce the collision box so I stop taking falling damage or getting boxed in if I zone with my pet before shrinking it.

[Rarrum]

I think the list pretty much hit most major issue I can think of, good job.  

Since theres a spot free on the list, I would put something about Spiritual Ascendance in it.  While our other buffs could use a little work too, when theres a shaman around our kragg and stat buff lines are useless anyways. 10/10 is terrible... even 11/11 is weak comparatively.  Spell costs have gone way us (2x-4x costs) since the original spell (7/7 at lvl 59).  Raising it to 12/12 or 13/13 would be more appropriate, but that would be a bigger leap.  Adjusting sd up to 10/10 then sa to 13/13 would even out the progression at least.  Adding a few minutes to the time on it is also something many people want for mgb-ablility (though personally I'd never waste mgb on sd unless the raid was over).

[Moffett]

On the spiritual Ascendence thing I would still like to suggest endurance as a regen effect. I bet you beastlords wouldn't be totally left out of 54 man raids after that...

[Graace]

Perhaps making a group IOS that's no longer stats since they're about go-nowhere anyway... but one that would stack with the shaman line of buffs... since IOS buffs STR, STA, and DEX.

Increase Minimum hit by 5%
Increase Damage Mitigation/Reduce incoming damage by 5%
Increase Combat Effects by 5%

Hopefully stacking with shaman so as we are able to stack with them more appropriately rather than have all their stuff overwrite all of ours.  I'm almost 100% sure they'd complain though as they want to be king of buffs in all ways.  But I dunno that having similar yet different stacking buffs would be a bad thing.  Something so that a shaman would WANT us there.  SV only gets us so far in groups, is very rarely prefered over brells and hunter, SA/SD most people can do without if they wanted as they have Steeloak and Clairvoyance.  Sadly the above would have to be a group buff, as every melee would be screaming for it.

Rgiht now I'm just trying to think of something "not better but different" in the way of our buffs.  Same thing for Fero, add different mods to it so that it's desireable like champion.

Just another idea to throw into the fire.

[hughman]

4)  Beastlord aggro issues:

Seems kind of funny to talk about aggro problems right after talking about how beastlords aren't doing enough dps in various cases, but oh well.  The fact is beastlords generate far too much aggro for the damage they are doing.  In fact, part of reason many people think beastlord damage is higher than it really is currently is because beastlords are generating so much more aggro than they should.  The main cause of this is because of how much aggro is associated with non-melee damage and the fact that beastlords have to be close and melee'n well doing their non-melee damage. Please note that beastlords are ok with getting aggro well slowing or doing other things that generate aggro, but doing 100+dps less than another class and still pulling aggro off the MT isn't right.

OK Tastian, I need to start out with saying that I think you are doinng a GREAT job with the Correspondent role and I really appreciate all the hard work you are doing for all of us.  I wish that the bards had as active and communicative correspondant, then maybe I would not be as frustrated with the bard class as I have been.

That said, you opened this up to constructive criticism and the paragraph has an error in it that I have seen repeatedly on this board.  The problem is a gramatical one.  In the above paragraph, I highlighted the sentence then underlined the problem word.  That word should be while, not well.  The thought you are trying to convey is not one of relative values (well) but of being at the same time (while).  While that is the only place that stood out, I might have missed other places with this and other grammer issues.

I personally believe that how well people react to your writing is directly effected by your written grammar.  (for example: how do you react when you see posts where the person clearly hasn't a grasp of basic spelling, much less english grammar.  I know I do have to force myself to even understand what they are saying.)  By cleaning up this problem, and any other grammar issues, you will give our Top 10 List more strength to see that it gets worked on.

Other than that, I like what you have to say in the post.  And, like I said, Over all you have been doing Great as Correspondent.

Tahnel 55 BL, Tenosh 66 Bard on Prexus.

[disclaimer: I am not a grammar expert by any means and am typing this late at night in a hurry.  I am willing to admit that there may very wlll be grammar issues in my post that I don't see.   I am a Computer/Data person, not an editor]

[Smudmack]

Hughman, remember alot of us doesnt even have english as our 1st language.

Id like to see if you could write up a post in Danish, with the same amount of gramma errors I have when typing in english.

[Dummkopf]

I have to admit Smud has a point here (although its german in my case), nevertheless the use of "well" instead of "while" is something i noticed a lot on Tastians post. I just never thought of it as something important.

[Hereki]

I've been playing with this Internet thing for long enough to know that spelling and grammar criticism never works as you intend; but also that, as people get more capable using online systems, their appreciation of perfect English spelling and grammar increases.

For people who aren't English native speakers (I would include badly schooled native speakers in this category): sorry, but this isn't about acceptable levels of communication between friends.  This is business communication with a hostile adversary.

Oh, and one more thing: "lol" isn't punctuation, a semi-colon is (sorry, I couldn't resist).

[Tastian]

Hehe This has been brought up before.  It's actually a regional issue that carries over into the net as I try hard to keep a smiliar "tone".  For posts on these boards I try to keep a more casual tone, but usually before I submitt to sony I make a few changes including editing out some "lol", changing a few words, correcting spelling, etc.  

I do think things like grammer or sentance structure though should be done via e-mail/PM since it does nothing for the content of the post and can easily turn into an off-topic debate.  Please keep the feedback coming.