The Beastlords' Den

http://www.magecompendium.com/library/petheals.html

Seriously man.  I've done a lot of parsing and reading and everything else over the years, but this is seriously lame man.  There's wrong information, there's obvious bias toward mages and a complete lack of understanding of how beastlords function shown.  You focus on the numbers you want and you completely ignore the numbers that you don't.  Most high end beastlords complain about their heals as being unuseable atm because of casting time, yet you deem them overpowered.  It's seriously a bad joke man.  

A beastlord that heals their pet is LOSING dps.  They lose dps because if their pet is tanking they aren't doing melee/proc dps.  They LOSE dps because of the time spent casting the heal is MORE time spent not melee'n.  Well a mage ALWAYS has the pet tanking and because of how nukes work you can still heal and have almost no impact on your dps outside of mana used.  To give you a very easy example, I tank solo in HoH, blast myself, pet bites mob in the @$$.  I go can go almost non-stop.  A couple weeks back I decided to pet cleric one for S&G's.  Guess what?  Burned 80% of my mana, used pet mend, and had the fight take ~3X longer than it usually does.  

You throw in a bunch of information about clr/dru/shm well ignoring some of their heals, you make direct comparisions between heals that can land on anyone and heals that are pet only, you sigh.  Seriously man wtf?

You look at the bigger heal numbers and you completely miss the situations where a heal would actually be used....

If a pet is taking a little damage or a stray riposte you let it heal up after the fight.

If a pet has taken a lot of damage and you are about to lose it you blast it with Pet mend (Which all pet users get and is by far the best pet heal in the game).

If a pet is taking a ton of damage so fast that you can't wait for it to regen the damage after then a 9 second casting time heal won't save the pet!!

The only cases where beastlord heals are noteably better than mage heals is when you are fighting like a mage fights with pet on mob and caster behind it.  However, this isn't how beastlords fight, and it's not a situation you will see.  The mana to heal ratios are reasonable imo with beastlords having an edge.  The casting time issues needs to be addressed and I'm all for changes to all pet class heals (as are many here), but your direct comments againist beastlord heals that you obviously don't understand (or worse yet do and are simply ignoring basic knowledge to further your cause) is completely unreasonable.  The only time I've ever been upset with a thing you said and also the only time I've ever been disappointed in ya.  8(  

Here are the current OoW pet heals for both classes....

Beastlord
1:     Increase Hitpoints by 2730
2:    Decrease Disease Counter by 16

Mana:    531    Skill:    Alteration
Casting Time:    9    Recast Time:    2.25

Mage
1:     Increase Hitpoints by 1750
2:    Decrease Disease Counter by 24

Mana:    400    Skill:    Conjuration
Casting Time:    3    Recast Time:    10

Now the beastlord one is better if you fight like a mage, but (fights off using caps) beastlords are not mages.  I know a large number of beastlords that would rather have the mage heal than the beastlord one listed.  9 second casting time is a joke.  Ok I'm done, I'm sorry if this is considered a rant or a flame, but I was honestly shocked when I saw this and had felt it needed to be addressed.  You a good guy xal, you've done a lot of great things, but this was seriously wrong on a bunch of levels.

Actually no that post was extremely well written and well researched. I happen to agree with what it says.

Your right that some beastlords have problems with their heal being 9 seconds, and that may be an issue, currently the mages heal is 7 seconds, take note of the recast times though. I really consider that a seperate issue really, perhaps beastlords need an upgrade in casting time.

The fact that is shown very very very clearly here is that beastlord pet healing is way over powered in comparison to any other pet class. The devs have said multiple times that shamans healing is significantly LOWER because of SLOW and how powerufl it is. Why then are beastlord pet heals so incredibly high while the beastlords have slow? should the same logic begin applied to shamans not be applied to beastlords aswell?

I realize its hard to accept that your class may have been given a bit more then they should have, and i have no doubt that most of you will disagree but that matters little facts are facts. I use to play a 65 Beastlord on Ayonae Ro, so im well versed in how beastlords work, I play a mage now, and I see the horrible problems that plauge the class especially in comparison to the beastlords.

The best thing about Xalmats post, is that it calls for upgraded mage healing of pets within reason and doesnt call for any nerfs to beastlords or  any other classes. I think that is well done and something that beastlords should be able to agree on, if they are objective. if mages got the exact sme heal as a beastlord the fact that a beastlord has slow is just so far ahead.

No kidding. I think its safe to say that just about every beastlord would rather have the 3s pet heal then their own 9s heal. I'd gladly pay twice the mana for it as well.

Im also sick and tired of people using our ability to slow mobs when we're soloing as justification for demanding upgrades of their own power. Soloing ability is nice to have if you cant find a group, but its not a valid argument to use in class balancing, because any upgrade you'd get based on solo ability alone works thru in groups and raids. Equal power in soloing ability gives a huge advantage in a group, completely destroying theclass balance there where its most important.

Xalmat must think we're pretty gullible to be impressed by pretty numbers alone. Unfortunately for him we're not; his pretty numbers are meaningless, as they don't apply to any realistic situation. Take his mob dps numbers against mage vs beastlord pets for example. They would apply only to the situation where a beastlord is pet-clericing, in which case the beastlords own dps would be no more then 60-70 dps, easily 2 to 3 times lower then a mage solo dps. The beastlords pet would take far more damage then a mage pet over the duration of the fight despite the fact that the mob was slowed. Who needs the bigger heal? The pet that takes the most damage. Who needs the faster heal? The pet that takes more dps.

I don't have Tastian's self-control so im just gonna say it for what it is. This write-up is the biggest piece of junk I've ever seen. I'm also pretty sure Xalmat is smart enough to have considered the things I've said above, so i consider this a deliberate attempt to get more goodies for your own class by trying to put another class in a bad light thru misinformation.
This is extremely bad form for someone with such influence over a class community.

ah yes, so the mages want more pet power, already done (but they want still more..., and they want BETTER petheals TOO :!:  2100 heals castime 2,75 sec or so..ROFL what stuff are they smoking??

You know what? I'm not gonna sit back while my class is being nerfed to oblivion and becoming so underpowered that we are a mere shadow of our former glory. If you don't like my methods, I can't help that.

LOL what NERF?

your pets got a HUGE Boost some months ago :!:

(noway will SOE turn Mages in a "Godlike-class" with huge dps AND superior petheals..)

"Actually no that post was extremely well written and well researched. "

Well written I'd argue because it's more less propganda.  The well researched I call BS on too.  The whole thing ignores several key facts and actively focuses on the points that he wants.  It's "well written" in the sense it delivers his message and shows what he wants it to show.  It's poorly written and researched because it ignores several key facts and is overly biased toward mages.

"Your right that some beastlords have problems with their heal being 9 seconds, and that may be an issue, currently the mages heal is 7 seconds, take note of the recast times though. I really consider that a seperate issue really, perhaps beastlords need an upgrade in casting time. "

The 9 second casting time is THE BIGGEST issue with beastlord heals atm.  The casting makes the spell almost completely unuseable for almost every besatlord.  Check the threads on these boards, check class discussion, I guarantee you less than 10% of beastlords have healing of sorsha mem'd full time.  The recast timer is much less of an issue.  If you are chain healing your pet then things have changed a lot.  For a beastlord that means they are doing zero melee dps, they are also doing nothing else (no slowing, no healing others, etc).  Yet a mage can heal pet, drop nuke, heal pet, etc.  

"The fact that is shown very very very clearly here is that beastlord pet healing is way over powered in comparison to any other pet class."

BS again.  I guarantee you almost every mage in the game heals their pet more than a beastlord does.  Beastlord heals have several things going for them and they even look ok on paper, but in practice they aren't useable currently.  You have some people like beng that have been trying to find a use for their pet heal, but some beastlords even before they get pet mend have the spell perma un-mem'd.  

"Why then are beastlord pet heals so incredibly high while the beastlords have slow? should the same logic begin applied to shamans not be applied to beastlords aswell? "

I'm sure most people get this, but beastlord heals only work on the beastlords pet.  We can't even heal other pets with our heal.  A shaman slows a mob and it effects everyone.  Every heal the shaman would cast, every heal the cleric would cast, etc.  The warrior can tank it the shaman can tank it, etc.  However, a beastlord has to have their pet tanking to use these heals.  That means that the beastlord as well as everyone else can't be tanking.  That means you are doing signifigantly less damage, that means you are fighting longer, etc.  The healing efficency beastlords see is similiar to the reason bard dots are lower than most classes, it factors in the total picture.  Beastlord heals have to be very efficent to ever be used over simply blasting ourselves or someone else.  As it stands now they aren't even close to useable in almost all situations a beastlord will ever find themselves in.

"I realize its hard to accept that your class may have been given a bit more then they should have, and i have no doubt that most of you will disagree but that matters little facts are facts."

BS again.  I am without a doubt one the most level headed overall EQ players you will ever meet.  I've played every class and I'm not some beastlord lover that just wants his class to be the best.  I'll be the first to tell you how good beastlords have it and I'll be the first to tell you what's worng with them.  I don't go around yelling for malo or SoS or anything of the sort.  That's the problem with xal's writing it's completely biased, it totally ignores several main points about the game and comes across as a "I wanna be better" whine to anyone that has any real comprehension of all the things in the post.

"The best thing about Xalmats post, is that it calls for upgraded mage healing of pets within reason and doesnt call for any nerfs to beastlords or any other classes."

It is using artifically inflated beastlord data as means of justifying those mage bonuses.  That completely changes the tone of the post to "see mages should have this because of mage issues and mage definition" to "hey beastlords can already do it, so should we".  The problem is it ignores too many facts and is using beastlords to try to get mages boosts.  It strikes a cord and becomes completely unbareable when you realize that the beastlord data he is using is something beastlords can't even use. If he'd used slows atleast beastlords would go "well we do slow and mobs do less damage slowed", but he used our heals which are all but unuseable atm.  Don't you see why this is such a problem?

" if mages got the exact sme heal as a beastlord the fact that a beastlord has slow is just so far ahead."

This just isn't true, and one of the biggest problems with the post is it compares mages and beastlords as if they are the same.  They aren't the same, they don't fight the same, they aren't balanced the same.  Slow well solo is a very powerful thing, but the game isn't built around solo, yet it seems mages constantly go back to this point whenever an issue arrises.  I have said before that I felt all pet heals needed to be looked into, but there is no way on earth a mage should heal their elemental almost the exact same as a beastlord does.  If that were to happen it would signal a change in the game and the direction things were going and other changes would have to happen as well.  Simply giving mages the same healing as beastlords when they are in a better position to use them and the heals are more powerful for a mage is simply wrong.

Like I said before beastlords want pet heals (all pet heals) to be looked at and have said so before on these boards.  However, using manipulated data and overly leading writing to make a point is simply poor taste.  I'm as disappointed in xal as I am upset that beastlord healing was misrepresented.

The biggest issue is that mages keep talking about beastlords like we are the same.  The closest thing I could liken this to is a RNG only tunic that clicked a nuke.  Druids could use and would highly want.  Yet, the casting time would take away from melee/archery dps and be much less desired on a ranger.  If the tunic were made druid useable it'd be substantially more powerful on the druid than it ever was the ranger.  This is the same thing with beastlord heals.  They would be substantially more powerful on mages than they ever have been on beastlords.   Mages keep looking at beastlord heals in terms of mages and that's a HUGE no-no.    

Beastlords melee, and we are a utility class that is often called upon to buff, debuff, and even heal others sometimes.  Our spells are designed around that.  This is kind of like people that complain about how fast hybrid spells cast with no clue about the recast time or the fact that if they didn't cast as fast as they do they'd be unuseable because of how the interfer with our melee damage.  Do you have any idea how many rangers can't cast any of their nukes because once you factor in resists they are using mana to lose dps.  Then realize that their dps is balanced around melee'n + casting.  This is a big ranger issue atm, but it's very similiar in that one class is looking at something another class does in terms of themselves and not in terms of the class that actually gets it.  

I understand beastlord type heals would be more powerful for mages, but as it stands beastlord heals are crap for beastlords lol.  There's a ton of things like this in the game.  If that isn't clear I'm sorry, but it's very obvious what the problems with the post are.  I'm not out to incite a riot and I still respect xal and the work he has done.  However, this definitely the "thott graphs" of his career.  Things like this are the reason you see the class hate and sniping and X verse Y debates you see currently.  There was no need to mention beastlords, no need to poorly represent facts, but that's what was done.  There were many ways to deliver this very point and possibly even reach the same conclussion, but the manner in which it was done was very poor.

"You know what? I'm not gonna sit back while my class is being nerfed to oblivion and becoming so underpowered that we are a mere shadow of our former glory. If you don't like my methods, I can't help that."

Xal bro I love ya likes the fat kid loves cake.  I've agreed with many mage changes.  I've parsed and ran numbers.  Long before the pet cani nerf, god long before beastlords.  The problem is this isn't how you get it done.  Mages had a LOT of beastlord support in the past and that is diminishing because of all the attemps at direct comparisions and nerf calls coming from mages.  Now having a very respected mage do this kind of analysis that ignores so very much pertinent information is just going to make things worse.  

I don't want mages nerfed, I don't want them useless or unfuctional.  However, I don't want them getting things they don't deserve or to be trying to take shortcuts and con their way into boosts either.  That's exactly what I feel your post did.  

Mages have some issues still, so do a lot of classes, but they aren't in nearly as bad a shape as some are making it out to be and things like this only take away from the overall community support the class has.  Mages are a dps class that is capable of sustaining a very high dps number for awhile and bursting quite high as well.  They also have the ability to solo, something a lot of the other high dps classes like rogues don't have.  Mages aren't the best, they could of course get better, but this just isn't the way to do it.  If you can't already see that your post did far more harm for mages than it could good then I'm truely sorry that you are that frustrated with the state of mages atm.

QuoteYou know what? I'm not gonna sit back while my class is being nerfed to oblivion

This says it all really. You're just so blinded by class envy that you consider someone else having a better toy (on paper only) then you to be a nerf of your own class, and never mind that in other areas of expertise such as pet dps the gap between mages and beastlords is only going to widen.
If you cannot build a case for getting better heals without making false accusations towards another class, then you have no case for getting better heals.

QuoteYou know what? I'm not gonna sit back while my class is being nerfed to oblivion and becoming so underpowered that we are a mere shadow of our former glory. If you don't like my methods, I can't help that.

Im all for it, give mages those heals but to work around the powerup they have to block all spell gems for 30 seconds (like frenzy), that would about equal the dps loss a beastlord gets for petclericing and thus equal the usability of the healing spells. Or just give beastlord pets an upgrade instead of a nerf (like last time) and let them backstab, normal max hit unfocused like mage pets and add innate nukes (which of course stack with the pet proc).

Seriously, this is one of the worst class envy posts i've ever seen.

Forgive me, but every beastlord I've played with has cared more about their pet than mages.  We invest a lot of mana into it, and try our best to keep it alive.  Recasting a pet is losing large chunks of our own DPS, and quite a mana investment.  By your own classes admission(chain summoning strategies), yours are expendable.  So shouldn't it follow that we have better pet heals?

Going a little bit farther down that line, from 49-61, our pets are more expensive mana wise.  We also aren't likely to have summoning eficiency, and mana efficiency as well, to a lesser extent.  Throw in speciliazation, and our effective summoning cost is much more.  So shouldn't we have the ability to maintain our pets more-they are just as vital to us as you, and a larger investment.

A question of my own:
I thought we were our own, individual class, not a hybrid.  Spell circles non-withstanding, didn't sony come out and say we were unique, no more a hybrid than bards?

Quote from: SarrikThe devs have said multiple times that shamans healing is significantly LOWER because of SLOW and how powerufl it is.

Uh, if the devs said that then they need fired.  The issue with shaman healing is related to the efficiency of shaman's mana regen (Canni line).  

Quote from: SarrikI realize its hard to accept that your class may have been given a bit more then they should have, and i have no doubt that most of you will disagree but that matters little facts are facts. I use to play a 65 Beastlord on Ayonae Ro, so im well versed in how beastlords work, I play a mage now, and I see the horrible problems that plauge the class especially in comparison to the beastlords.

No ... beastlords are pretty well balanced where they are.  Mages have problems, yes, but are better off than their whining implies.  They vastly out gun us in DPS; I'm often left in awe of mage's sheer damage output ... something I can't even get close to.

Quote from: XalmatYou know what? I'm not gonna sit back while my class is being nerfed to oblivion and becoming so underpowered that we are a mere shadow of our former glory. If you don't like my methods, I can't help that.

The whole article was a complete hatchet job on Beastlords.  It's so nice that of one of the Mages' top representatives would go out of his way to ask for a stealth nerf to another class.  I wonder what we could dream up over here about mages......
Nah nevermind, I'd rather not focus on other classes; I prefer to discuss the class that matters to me most.

The problem is although it is (I think) asking for mage buffs it reads like it's asking for BL nerfs (maybe it is).

Quote Coprolith:
<<Im also sick and tired of people using our ability to slow mobs when we're soloing as justification for demanding upgrades of their own power>>

Welcome to the world of Shamans lol.  People have been using their slow as a justification for either nerfing shaman or upgrading other classes sinec Kunark.  And yes in Kunark and Velious the slow was super powerful, but it's only 5% than chanters and 10% better than Beastlords.  With slow mitigation the differences are even lower.

Quote Incite:
<<Uh, if the devs said that then they need fired. The issue with shaman healing is related to the efficiency of shaman's mana regen (Canni line).>>

Canni just doesn't give shaman the big mana regen lead anymore.  Yes it's great (especially once you get the canni AA) but with Bot9, Beast crack, Kei/VoQ, and lots of self mana regen buffs etc every class can have great mana regen.  Still not quite as good but shaman canni is active, not passive mana regen.  They can't do anything else while they canni.  Necromancers take the mana regen cake tho ;)

Sorry, /derail off... my old shaman coming out in me.  By all means increase mage heals a bit, but we really need to stop "this class has X and my class has Y, nerf that class or upgrade my class" comparisons.  Just in my opinion.

QuoteNo ... beastlords are pretty well balanced where they are. Mages have problems, yes, but are better off than their whining implies. They vastly out gun us in DPS; I'm often left in awe of mage's sheer damage output ... something I can't even get close to.

Aint that the truth, blords are nicely balanced...

I have a 65 necro also and have accidently ksed grps with blords in them as the dps class on more than one occassion, but on the same mobs grouped with a mag the necro was out damaged nearly 2 to 1 and I was summoned twice and the mage never. Mages went form being the poor kids on the block to being one of the richest, sadly they havent realised it.

Instead of comparing themselves to beastlords they should copmpare themselves to necros and after they are back in hte same situation they where a year ago they will realise how good they have it atm.

Remeber EQ is a grping game !

Quote from: GrifdaddyQuote Coprolith:

Quote Incite:
<<Uh, if the devs said that then they need fired. The issue with shaman healing is related to the efficiency of shaman's mana regen (Canni line).>>

Canni just doesn't give shaman the big mana regen lead anymore.  Yes it's great (especially once you get the canni AA) but with Bot9, Beast crack, Kei/VoQ, and lots of self mana regen buffs etc every class can have great mana regen.  Still not quite as good but shaman canni is active, not passive mana regen.  They can't do anything else while they canni.  Necromancers take the mana regen cake tho ;)

Irrelevant.  All of those stack with canni (except necro regen of course).  Having both a 65 shaman and 65 necro, shamans have better mana regen*.

* Necros have better innate mana regen, shamans better mana regen when other buffs are added.

**  Just looked over the numbers (been some time since I have) ... shamans clear and away have better mana regen than necros, innately or no.  The downside is of course, the can do nothing else while casting canni 4.

Can some one explain to the mages that we arent a monk/ shaman hybrid and that we are a new class called Beastlords.

That was one big lame post IMO. Guess the mages tried to suck up to SoE with their pathetic miss informed post.

QuoteInstead of comparing themselves to beastlords they should copmpare themselves to necros and after they are back in hte same situation they where a year ago they will realise how good they have it atm.

you mean we should compare ourself to a class that  can FD / evac  / snare / root  and can do  comparables DPS as mags in the long term

I'm sick of the mage/beastlord discussion.  I just want to make 2 comments.

1.  I almost never use my pet heal.  I don't even mem it unless I think I may need it in a very rare emergency.  It's much more efficient for me to tank things down myself and therefore the pet heal argument is irrelevant.

2.  I love mages in my group.  When I have a mage in my group things die a lot faster.

QuoteThe only advantage Clerics have over Beastlord pet heals is the 5% bonus.

I think this sums up just how ludicrous Xalmat's entire point is right there.

This disappoints me as much as it does Tastian.  Xalmat has always been the one Magician I could look at and say "See?  They have rational people so I can ignore all the idiots".  Frankly, this is gone in an instant.

I have been a long time lurker at the Tower and always respected your views Xalmat.

This however, is bollocks. I don't usually get involved with discussions like these - I'd rather post an Ebaums link or laugh to myself. But this got my goat.

Quote from: XalmatYou know what? I'm not gonna sit back while my class is being nerfed to oblivion and becoming so underpowered that we are a mere shadow of our former glory. If you don't like my methods, I can't help that.

There's a right and wrong way to go about getting what you want/need. Wildy lashing out while negating other factors doesn't help your cause - it hinders it.
If your looking for a power boost from Sony, FINE. Go for it, and I sincerely wish you the very best of luck. Just don't come out with biased reports like the one you posted on your board.

And for anyone in doubt of whether a nerf was called,

Quote from: XalmatBeastlord heals are too powerful given that they have near-magician strength pets, AND slow.

Like the others here, I'm surprised at you.

When someone over at the Tower posted a link to this thread, you said

Quote from: XalmatLet 'em whine I say.

So, you make a post as artificial as the one you did, and your response has so far been "Ya boo sucks to you"

I haven't seen Tastian this riled since I stole his Precipitation Guage, and I'm not surprised.

EDIT
It's MITIGATION.

Quote from: SarrikThe devs have said multiple times that shamans healing is significantly LOWER because of SLOW and how powerufl it is

Link?  I'd like to see your source of the "devs" saying this...

Quote from: XalmatI do not believe it appropriate for Magicians to be more potent healers than Clerics; however, Magicians should at least match the healing rate and healing efficiency that Beastlords can do.

Fine.  You can have Beastlord level heals if I can have Mage level nukes.

Take about a 1-dimensional comparison.... :roll:


Kinal

Also, isn't it fascinating that in his Cleric/Druid/Shaman/Beastlord tables he doesn't also include Magician pet heals, which *ALSO* are as efficient as cleric heals.

Example:

Cleric 30 Greater Healing 315 150 3.75 2.1
Druid 30 Greater Healing 300 150 3.75 2
Shaman 30 Greater Healing 300 150 3.75 2
Beastlord 30 Herikol's Soothing 300 75 3.75 4
Magician 30 Renew Summoning 300 150 3.75 2

Gee look, the only advantage that a Cleric has at level 30 over a Magician is the 5% bonus!

Cleric 55 Divine Light 945 350 4.5 2.7
Druid 55 Chloroplast 428 175 3 2.446
Shaman 55 Chloroplast 428 175 3 2.446
Beastlord 55 Sha's Restoration 1250 300 7.5 4.167
Magician 55 Transon's Elemental Infusion 900 350 4.5 2.57

Seems clear to me that Magician heals are already overpowered, by his own logic!  I mean, again, the only bonus clerics have is the 5% healing bonus, and Magician are already caught up to/ahead of Druids and Shaman!  Ah hah!  The light has gone off.

Note:  Sarcasm detected in this post.

Gonna have to agree with everyone else on this, you cant compare my beastlords heals to my mages heals (bl 65, mage is 63 as of 2 hours before the servers dropped, w00t!) because of the fact that I can cast my AE rain on my mage, and while i wait for it to come back, heal my pet. i dont LOSE my dps (this is the way i choose to solo most of the time, its not as effective as i could be, but its fun :D ) by healing my pet. vs if my beastlord is soloing, I really CANT heal my pet. because if he needs healing, hes OT'ing another mob. and Im sorry, id like to see a mage without his spellcasting AA"s channel a 9 second heal spell thru a mob beating on him. My mage cant do it (see also:gate) when it matters. even if i have my heal spell up, and my pet is tanking the only mob i pulled (uncommon) its usually something my DPoC'ed pet cant take WITHOUT Heals.

For all I care, SoE can TAKE my pet heal, and I wouldnt miss it one single second.  Its BS for someone to say that because beastlords have a better heal than mages, that they are a better pet class.

Im sorry, my friends air pet beat the unholy hell out of my warder, both unbuffed. maybe im doing something wrong, but why am i a better pet class?

Because i get a pet proc? Summon:Blade of Walnan

Because I get pet haste? Burnout line.

Oh wait, its mana regen! Elemental draw, Phansons phantasmal line, mod rods

No, maybe its nukes! 675 damage frost nuke vs Sun Vortex? SV, please :D

Tankability? Okay, you got me here. Im a melee, im a better tank than a caster. guilty as charged, bring forth the nerfbat!

Yeah, Xal, pull your head out of your elemental long enough to take into consideration how the pets work and how the class as a whole works before you call for a nerf to a class, because remember, when SoE nerfed something, they were heavyhanded about it.

Next thing you know, mages will B*tch that we shouldnt even HAVE our pets and neither should necros or shadowknights, because they are the TRUE AND ONLY HOLY PET CLASS or some such crap.

The basis of the argument is you have multiple ways to sustain your pet.  You can slow a MOB (this is the most overpowering ability in the game next to complete heal) heal your pet and tank for it.  Without a pet you are not defenseless.

As a class magicians give up pretty mush ANY form of defense for thier pets, shouldn't  it also follow that they have a way to sustain said pet/defense?

We have two heal spells worth casting - 60 and 65 with massive recast timers.  Even figuring in the OOW proposed heal we still have a really pathetic pet heal line.  Even our Pet "Lay Hands" AA does less than 25% of a heal on a 65 earth pet because the dam thing is capped at (Level x 33 + 1) HP of direct healing to your pet. At level 65, it does 2146 HP instantly.  At level 70 it will heal 2311 HP.


Healing our pet also negates our ability to nuke because we have to chain them against unslowed mobs which by the time you really need the pet heals to tank something its a mob that is generally hitting for several hundered per swing and probably quadding.  I.E. eats the pet to fast to sustain pet heals.



[code:1]
Class - Level - Name - Amount Healed - Mana Cost - Cast Time - Recast Time
Magician  60 Transon's Elemental Renewal 900    400 7     7.5    
Magician  64 Planar Renewal   1200  300 7     7.5    
Beastlord 58 Sha's Restoration 1250  300 7.5  2.25  
Beastlord 61 Healing of Sorsha 2100  425 9     2.25  
[/code:1]
[EDIT] sorry I can't get the dang numbers to line up right


Sustained Pet healing rate for the pet cleric playstyle:

Magician Chains:

Magician  60 Transon's Elemental Renewal
Magician  64 Planar Renewal

Starting with the level 60 heal we heal 900 HP in 7 seconds. Ignoring spell gem reset we immediatly begin casting level 64 heal for 1200 HP in 7 seconds.

At this point: Seconds = 14 HP Healed = 2100 or 150 HP healed per second.

Beastlord Chains:

Beastlord 58 Sha's Restoration
Beastlord 61 Healing of Sorsha

Starting with Sha's you heal 1250 HP in 7.5 seconds and again ignoring spell gem refresh you cast Sorsha for 2100 HP in 9 seconds.

At this point: Seconds = 16.5 HP Healed = 3350 or 203 HP healed per second

You also have to note that the magician healing per second will actually be reduced because the spell refresh is longer than the cast time (7 cast vs 7.5 recycle) so the mage Heal Per Second will be reduced a bit further.

However, even from this first cycle using the spells availible in game now you can see Beastlord healing is 26% better than the magicians.  Add in slows and the ability to tank starts really showing the limitation placed on mages.
[/code]

Xalmat's post is the biggest crock of sh*t I've ever read on any forum about class balance.  And that includes the worst of the monk boards.

Examples:

QuoteWhere the problem lies is their potent pet heals. Remember the argument for shamans: "Because Shamans have slow, they have the weakest heals. So, one would argue that slow is so powerful, less heals are needed." What we see in beastlords is the opposite effect. Beastlord pet heals rival very closely Cleric heals, and quickly exceed their parent-class Shaman, and in addition, because of their ability to slow mobs, their heals are much more potent.

You are kidding right?  You're comparing our pet only line of heals (the one with the 9 second cast time) to the priest class spam heals...  

QuoteIncluding Gates healing, Clerics finally gain their mana efficiency edge over Beastlord healing. Druids finally catch up to Beastlords in amount healed. Shaman, on the other hand, lag significantly behind. Its worth noting that Beastlords have a 65% slow at level 65. (Shaman get 75%)

The general trend is that Beastlord healing is significantly better than their parent class of Shaman. Additionally, until the high 50s, Beastlords are more potent healers than even Clerics, and throughout virtually their whole career also have more efficient heals.

It would seem the statement "Because Shamans have slow, they have the weakest heals. So, one would argue that slow is so powerful, less heals are needed" does not apply to Beastlords as well.

Clerics and druids have 10 second heals too - they'd be a better comparision really considering the cast times... don't you think?  I guess not since that wouldn't help you make up rubbish as easily would it?

QuoteAdditionally, slow gives Beastlords a permanent advantage over Magicians in that they are never fighting a mob at full capacity, in a group or while soloing. Magicians, on the other hand, must rely on other classes to accomplish this.

Hey NEWSFLASH!! We're better soloers than you.  Live with it.  If we fought the way your post full of rubbish indicates we'd be doing about half our dps while the mage would be doing 100% of their already much higher dps.  Show me why you think magicians should not only be able to outdps us by far in groups and raids but also be able to solo as well as us.  How is that balanced?

QuoteMagician Pet Midigation does NOT justify weak heals. Beastlord heals are too powerful given that they have near-magician strength pets, AND slow.

The justification for weak heals is simple.  You're a mage.  You can nuke the living bejesus out of things.  You're an INT caster.  You don't get to heal well.  You don't get to tank either.  If you get pet heals like ours, then I want DPS like yours.... I suppose you'd like to tank like a warrior too?

Quote64   Planar Renewal   2100   425   3.75   2.25   4.94

ROFLMFAO.  You want a spell that is better than the level 65 druid spam heal!??!  If mages have expectations like this no wonder they whine and complain so much.   How do you justify a 3.75 second cast time?

Your arguments are based on twisted facts, inaccurate comparisons and greed.

I sincerely hope SoE read your article.  It will completely and utterly destroy your credibility with them the same way as it's destroyed any sympathetic feelings we might have had for mages.

Outright pathetic attempt at slaughtering us for your own gain.

Khayden.

yes Jaytee but the "limitiation" is in the fact that, mage vs beastlord, without pets, mages are SOOOOOOOOOO Much better off. I cant chain off crit nukes for the 4k range, period. my biggest nuke is a 675 value nuke as a beastlord, Sun vortex is what, 1550? or even if you argue that fire nukes dont hit enough (i know of the problems with them) black steel is still 1400. I can not burn down a mob like a mage can. I can not. I can not. Mages cant tank like I can. Deal with it, mages! I play one, ive been ACTIVELY playing one for a while now. I know where the problems and shortcomings are in the mage class, pet heals arnt your biggest bug. Dont attempt to get beastlords nerfed. you need to also understand, if they gave you OUR heal, the nerfbat to your solo ability would come down HARD and FAST because of how fast your solo ability would ramp up when you take into consideration your heals work on CHARMED pets.

Go complain about 9pp to CoTH the idiot monk that cant Feign split properly, like i do on my guild board :D

Xal, I donno who you are, but you should be supposed to be an objective guy as you are one of the mage representatives (correct me if I am wrong). However, just read your article 3 times (sorry, my English sucks). I would like to let you know that your article is a bit passionate (subjective) to convince others.

I understand you want to ask for something for your class as you see the need. I understand how you feel when you don't get it too. However, I would suggest you to be a little more objective while you think up your ideas, to be cool while writing up things. I am sure it will help you get more positive feedbacks. Just a little suggestion. No hidden meaning at all.

P/S Please don't mind, my English isn't good.

Some of the keys points for the whole argument are flawed as Tastian mentionned. Three points jump out immediately at me when I browsed that post.

1. How can you even compare priest class heals and pet heals? It's like comparing apples and oranges.

2. Beastlords are pets are not as powerful as mage pets to begin with. As per parses done by MAGES (look up Tezron on your boards). You do more DPS than us, and your pet does more DPS than ours... I think it's not out of whack that we get a utility spell like slow to help us out.

3. I never never never ever play pet cleric. Mages are in a position to do so. I don't know any worthwhile BL player who does or will.

As for me I'd gladly take the mage heal and give them our 9s second POS. Let's trade! I guarantee you won't hear many complaints  :lol:

Quotewithout pets, mages are SOOOOOOOOOO Much better off

That's the true crux of the issue isn't it.  Are mages better off without a pet than a beastlord?

Like any real argument it depends on which viewpoint you want to choose.  

From a Raid boss mob yes we do have a numerical advantage in the nuke department.  But last time I was in a raid though our one beastlord had his pet out and they were both wailing away at the MOB plus whatever nukes he may have chosen to throw in.

From a group persepective there's no reason the mage or beastlord wont have a pet out so its a mute point there.

From a solo perspective its no contest the beastlord is better off than a mage when neither has a pet.  In fact that is such a lop-sided comparison it's laughable.  Even in old zones like sebilis and chardock a mage is pretty much toast if his pet dies.  You do have the upper hand in these situations.

*shrugs* Unless Xalmat is a major shareholder of Sony or plays golf with Robert Pfister regularly im not worried. The devs are not stupid. They recognize class envy when they see it and have never responded to it.
As i said before, if you can't build a case on your own class' strengths/weaknesses then you dont have a case. If you want to make a case that another class is overpowered you'll have to do so in the framework of class balance as a whole, not just compare it with your own class. Unless he can show that mages have become too weak in the healing department, e.g. because their downtime necessary to heal their pets has severely increased, he hasnt got a snowballs chance in hell. Al he's managed to do so far is devaluate his own credibility.

QuoteFrom a solo perspective its no contest the beastlord is better off than a mage when neither has a pet. In fact that is such a lop-sided comparison it's laughable. Even in old zones like sebilis and chardock a mage is pretty much toast if his pet dies. You do have the upper hand in these situations.

Right, BSTs have the upper hand in those situations because they can Gate out whereas mages have to fight/run their way out.

Waittaminit...

I certainly see a problem with:

Beastlord
1: Increase Hitpoints by 2730
2: Decrease Disease Counter by 16

Mana: 531 Skill: Alteration
Casting Time: 9 Recast Time: 2.25

vs our supposed "Lay Hands" ability caped at 2311 HP healed at level 70.  A lay hands AA should do just that...lay hands.

QuoteRight, BSTs have the upper hand in those situations because they can Gate out whereas mages have to fight/run their way out.

Yep you do because there's nice little things called gate potions and gate necklaces etc etc gate isn't restricted like it once was even if you have to quest/pay for the ability to use it as a beastlord.

The point being that if our pet dies we have a mob eating us...you have a fighting chance more often than not to finish off that mob and recover.

you mean we should compare ourself to a class that can FD / evac / snare / root and can do comparables DPS as mags in the long term

Quote

Sure, unless oyu missed the irony in this it all started because you compared yourselves to others.

Necro Snare - doesnt really get grps these days everyone wants rangers/druids so enchanter can charm
Necro Evac is longer cast than gate.. you get gate right? beastlords dont.
Root - Earth pet anyone ?
DPS - VT Boss mobs necros can hold there own against mages. Group fights dont last that long and SoE are taking boss mob fights i nthe direction of less hps (shorter fights) Even RZtw doesnt last long enough for a necro to start thining about sweating.

You also forgot to add in that int caster focus effects and AA's where also based around the Mage, so much so that a necro only item had a Mage focus effect on it.

Also you guys seemed to have left necro pet heals out of your equations why? do they make yours look to good ?

Mate everyone cheered when you Mages got upgrades cause you where the worst of class in the game, now that your in pretty good shape your coming of like druids.

It's pretty simple if you dont like the way Sony is taking your class reroll as something else... I did.

Quote from: Jaytee BushwackerFrom a solo perspective its no contest the beastlord is better off than a mage when neither has a pet.  In fact that is such a lop-sided comparison it's laughable.  Even in old zones like sebilis and chardock a mage is pretty much toast if his pet dies.  You do have the upper hand in these situations.

True but irrelevant.  If you are in a horde big enough in Sebilis/Chardok to kill either a Magician or a Beastlord pet the main is probably going to die/run anyway.  The Magician is arguably better off purely because they can gate out, where the Beastlord will have to book it to zone and pray that they don't get stunned on the way, thus guaranteeing a death.

And when it comes to kite-killing, a Magician is WAY better than a Beastlord ever hopes to be.  Just like you said, it all depends on how you look at things.

And this is exactly the problem with Xalmat's.  I could write the same treaty, using purely Nukes...and who wins that?  Why, Magicians do!  What a shock!  You mean class X might do something better than class Y when you throw out all intelligent factors and play the game as a robot would?

QuoteLet the Beastlords whine, they are 100% wrong. That is a fact, not an opinion. I hope the devs have the guts to step up and do the right thing, and give us the pet heals we need. Beastlords can go to hell for trying to hold us down.

There goes my inclination for registering at the Tower. Quite unbelievable.

So for Jaytee this has gone from "their pet heals are better!" to "they solo better than me!"

Necros solo better than all of us! Go whine about them being imbalanced. Oh wait. Everyone did. untill they realised, SoE doesnt give a flying misty thicket picknic about who solos best, so long as they are in check (ie the chanter charm nerf in hoh or tactics or wherever it was they were pulling down obscene AA's)

The cut and dry of this is, take my pet heal, please! But dont be surprised if you get it and then get a nerf to your pets later down the road, because you having my pet heal is more powerful than me having my pet heal, because of the way the classes play.

Reading all the whine threads on the mage's tower makes me glad ive never registered there the entire time ive played my mage. You guys really do take class envy to an artform.

And what Solonys just said is the funniest part of the whole thing.

95% of Beastlords wouldn't give a damn at all if Sorsha was nerfed, or even removed...other than the fact that this would show yet again that SoE listens to the idiot fringe.

It would hurt lower end bazaar gear Beastlords most of all, which would be a shame, but the class itself would survive intact and be just fine.

Why do Magicians care that Beastlords get an ability so overpowered that they don't bother to use it?

Quote from: Lorathir

QuoteLet the Beastlords whine, they are 100% wrong. That is a fact, not an opinion. I hope the devs have the guts to step up and do the right thing, and give us the pet heals we need. Beastlords can go to hell for trying to hold us down.

There goes my inclination for registering at the Tower. Quite unbelievable.

Wow.  Yes ... that is idiotic.  Who among us is trying to hold any other class down?  Geeze ... what a 'tard.  Who wrote that Lorathir?

You people really need to lay off Xalmat, he is not some whack job out to get beastlords nerfed and when he says something it should definately be looked at with more then a glance because it usually has a lot of truth to it.

Xalmat was not asking in any way for beastlords to be nerfed and if any of you read that into his post then you all are a bit paranoid really. He is trying very hard to help magicians get to a place where they should have been a long time ago. I bet most of you havent even played a mage before to high levels, let me tell you, I WISH we only had the problems beastlords had, beastlords have it really good at the moment.

Xalmats improved pet heals are a way of allowing magicians to solo again (currently at level 65 we cannnot solo anything worthwhile for xp), with the kind of healing improvements Xalmat suggested it would be possible for magicians to solo decent XP giving mobs at 65, remember unlike you guys we do NOT have slow, and unlike all the other arcane casters when we fight mobs out pet gets hit, we cant snare them and run around kiting the mob, our pet has to get hit, and imagine what that is like when you dont have SLOW.

While I agree that mage solo ability at level 65 is hurting, our grouping ability is basically just fine. As some of you have said you like having a mage in your group because of the sheer damage we can deal out, amoung other benefits like malo, rods, etc.. But the biggest problem with mages is on raids, tell me in a high end guild when was the last time you seen a mage take the #1, #2, or #3 spot for DPS on a raid? We are a DPS class just like wizards, just like rogues, thats all we do. Sure we have malo, rod, CoTh, minor utility and wizards get root, snare, evac, port, etc.. yet wizards deal nearly double the DPS of mages. This is the mages biggest area of need in my opinion, mages need a way to deal equal DPS to wizards since mages are just as much a focussed class on doing DPS. Currently we have no way to lower our agro like all other serious DPS classes do (necro FD, rogue evade, wizard concussion, etc.), we dont get ice nukes so when we fight fire resistant mobs we are hurt very badly, none of our nukes have resist adjustments and that makes us the only DPS arcane caster in that position necros get -200 on some spells and wizards get -50 and -300 on some of theirs.

No beastlord here should even try claiming that mages are pretty well off in this game, unless you group exclusively as a mage at 65 mages have a lot of problems. Solo and especially Raid wise, mages are on a sinking ship. Xalmat didnt ask for any nerfs for beastlords yet you all lash out at him, why not offer suggestions to modify his proposal if you believe its so off base (which I personally do not).

Quote from: SarrikSure we have malo, rod, CoTh, minor utility and wizards get root, snare, evac, port, etc.. yet wizards deal nearly double the DPS of mages. This is the mages biggest area of need in my opinion, mages need a way to deal equal DPS to wizards since mages are just as much a focussed class on doing DPS.  

Bwahahahaa...now Ive heard it all...

You want all the extras AND you want the same Nuke power as a Wizard?  Puhlease.

Quote from: SarrikYou people really need to lay off Xalmat, he is not some whack job out to get beastlords nerfed and when he says something it should definately be looked at with more then a glance because it usually has a lot of truth to it.

There's the crux.  Usually.  In this case, he's lying and telling half-truths in order to further his own cause.

I agree with Xalmat's general point, yet I cannot, under any circumstances, get behind their method of furthering their cause.

Most of the rest of this is a side discussion generated by the attitude of other Magicians.  You can even get the idea by Xalmat's post that he knows his methods are not right, but he doesn't care.

The only high level BLs that pet cleric are the broke ones, and even still they only do it solo.  Properly geared BLs do not cleric, they tank for their pet.

How a heal that can only hit one target, your pet, can be compared to the priest heal lines is mindboggling.  Are you going to have your pet tank in a group?  Almost never.  Are you going to have it tank in a raid?  Almost never.  In raids I only ever cast it when he gets hit by AEs or damageshields.  And yet in raids and groups, mages put out twice the dps of a BL and usually has a distinct advantage in utility because the BL utility spells are reproduceable by every other class out there.

But you want change class balance because mages can't solo as well at 60+?  Well tough, there's tons of classes that solo better than BLs too.

"beastlords have it really good at the moment. "

We got that way by NOT bitching about what other classes have and we dont, but rather rallying behind our OWN issues.

and I agree with Mneumenth, You want all the extras AND the nuking power of the wizzies.

What do the wizards get in return? They are so nuke focused, you cant give them that, because alas, then you both get the same increase, and nothing changes except the big boom numbers.

Mages are NOT a primary DPS class. they are not. Wizards, Rogues, Rangers and monks are primary DPS classes. And thats the way they should be. they are so singularly focused on that goal that they negate the extras, which is why they get FD, Jolt, Evade and concussion, because of the sheer aggro those big numbers generate.

Youll never be a primary DPS class. stop whining and "know your role" as it were. your a Utility DPS class, just like us. only differance is we are tanks and you are casters. your dps is still higher than ours.

Sorry, this game never has been and never will be balanced around your ability to solo. Oh sure you can expect a few "tweak nerfs" here and there if you solo TOO well but overall you will almost never see changes put in that are directly intended to make you solo better.

Honestly both heals suck, however i'd rather have the lower casting time and the longer re-cast to be honest as thats far more useful on raids when i want to snap off a fast heal to the pet when he is dangerously low.

Mages are in EXACTLY the same boat as Beastlords are when it comes to healing and they don't realise it. At a point a mage wishes to use a pet heal he can cast it fast but it heals a tiny and almost useless portion of the pets HP and he has to wait 10 secs to cast another, the beastlord on the other hand... by the time the Beastlord needs to use a pet heal, and casts it... and waits... and waits... and waits some more... its most likely too late, not to mention that 2100hp looks good on paper but realistically will heal around 1/3rd of my pet's HP (my pet almost always has Virtue and pet gear). So that leaves both classes stuck relying on Pet LoH AA as their primary source of pet healing.

Now if you made a case like this: Improve pet healing for *all* pet classes, lower cast times, lower re-cast times (and in the case of necros improve the healing amount) then you might get somewhere.

Imho a good start would be:
- Lower recast time on Mage pet heal to 5.0 (its currently 10.0)
- Lower cast time on Beastlord pet heal to 4.0 (its currently 9.0)
- Add 25% strength to Necromancer pet heal

That way both classes are getting a 5 second reduction in waiting time and necros get a much needed boost in this area. And btw, Beastlords get our superior healing abiilities from our Shaman parent, where do Magicians get theirs? (*grins* just messin with ya!).

QuoteSo for Jaytee this has gone from "their pet heals are better!" to "they solo better than me!"

No, I was giving examples of the different perspectives give you different outlooks on the same arguments.

QuoteImho a good start would be:
- Lower recast time on Mage pet heal to 5.0 (its currently 10.0)
- Lower cast time on Beastlord pet heal to 4.0 (its currently 9.0)
- Add 25% strength to Necromancer pet heal

That way both classes are getting a 5 second reduction in waiting time and necros get a much needed boost in this area. .

I don't see a problem with that but do necros really need a boost to defense when they are already the best defended caster out there?

Necros lub their pet also!!!! /sobs

Actually this is more from a raiding "keep my pet alive please" perspective than a solo 'defense' aspect. See? Generally when soloing a necro will pull aggro off his pet and kite the mob around or the necro will step in and take hits for the pet and lifetap the HP back.

Wierd how different classes view pet healing TOTALLY differently yet we ALL need to understand each others viewpoints before we start shouting up what is and isn't wrong.

Quote from: SarrikXalmats improved pet heals are a way of allowing magicians to solo again (currently at level 65 we cannnot solo anything worthwhile for xp), with the kind of healing improvements Xalmat suggested it would be possible for magicians to solo decent XP giving mobs at 65, remember unlike you guys we do NOT have slow, and unlike all the other arcane casters when we fight mobs out pet gets hit, we cant snare them and run around kiting the mob, our pet has to get hit, and imagine what that is like when you dont have SLOW.

1. This isn't supposed to be a solo game anymore and I for one would feel a bit miffed if SoE started giving out upgrades for soloing....

2. A 65 Mage can't solo for decent xp? I got to laugh at that one, not only do mages currently solo better then a lot of classes but I have seen how fast mages can solo xp in places like Droga and it ain't slow.

Quote from: SolonysSo for Jaytee this has gone from "their pet heals are better!" to "they solo better than me!"

Necros solo better than all of us! Go whine about them being imbalanced. Oh wait. Everyone did. untill they realised, SoE doesnt give a flying misty thicket picknic about who solos best, so long as they are in check (ie the chanter charm nerf in hoh or tactics or wherever it was they were pulling down obscene AA's)

While I normally agree with Jaytee and Xalmat, for some reason they went a bit off the deep end with this one.  Magicians should compare themselves to other int casters, namely Necros and Wizards (enchanters to a lesser extent).  Magicians do come out a bit behind when compared to other int casters.  

HOWEVER, the answer is not to give magicians a 10000 hp pet that quads for 100 and pet complete heal.  If this were the case, nobody would ever want a plate class tank for an xp group.  A realistic approach would be to :
1.  Increase the number of summoned mobs in the game (magician crowd control and charm).
2.  Give mages summoned-only slow (like necros get undead-only slow and there are lots of undead mobs, at least through tier 2 pop/LDON/LoY).
3.  Give mages a nuke that has a resist check other than magic/fire, or a nuke with a modifier to the resist check (again like wizards/necros).

I personally think that this would fix 99% of all PERCEIVED magician  issues, without nerfing anybody, or creating further imbalances.  Some of the most fun groups I've been in were magician charm groups in Tak LDoN or BoT.  This would only increase the number of places where that is possible.  

As an aside, I hope they make OoW completely impossible to solo in.  Every mob should hit for 600+, mitigate slow, summon, and have a lure-based DoT proc.  That way nobody can solo and everyone can STFU about classes that can solo.  Everquest is a grouping game and asking for class improvements based on soloing ability is counterproductive.

Quote from: Solonys
The cut and dry of this is, take my pet heal, please!

I couldn't agree more.  Take  my pet heals.  I never use them anyway.  In exchange I'd like something useful, like a poison based nuke.

QuoteThe point being that if our pet dies we have a mob eating us...you have a fighting chance more often than not to finish off that mob and recover.

I think you're overestimating BL melee prowess a bit there, defensively it's pretty ok, offensively not so much.


Buy the time you get enough AA to up the offense you're fighting things where it doesn't matter so much anyway.

Hell pure melee's don't last so long solo at that level, nevermind a petless BL.

Quote from: SarrikYou people really need to lay off Xalmat, he is not some whack job out to get beastlords nerfed and when he says something it should definately be looked at with more then a glance because it usually has a lot of truth to it.

Xalmat was not asking in any way for beastlords to be nerfed and if any of you read that into his post then you all are a bit paranoid really.

Xalmat wrote, in bold 24+ point lettering:

QuoteThe Bottom Line
Magician Pet Midigation [sic] does NOT justify weak heals. Beastlord heals are too powerful given that they have near-magician strength pets, AND slow.

Saying that another class has an ability that is "too powerful" is really just another way of saying that it should be nerfed.  If Xalmat didn't mean that, (and I'm willing to go with that thought) then he should focus on why mage heals aren't powerful enough for them to accomplish what they need them to do, and to explain why it is they need to do that, etc.

That was Tastian's point, really, and why the whole post from Xalmat was just sad.   If mages need better heals, they need them because their current heals aren't up to snuff.  It really makes no difference what beastlord heals are, particularly since beastlord heals aren't up to snuff either, although the reasons are very different.

Sometimes, making class comparisons is appropriate to explain why your class needs something.   This is particularly true when we're talking about a "role" that one class has, so it's fair for the priests to look at one another with respect to healing because they are competing for that role from time to time.

But mages and beastlords aren't competing for the role of "pet healer," so it's pretty lame to have treatises dedicated to inaccurately depicting beastlords to build a case for something mages want.   All you need to do is ask questions:

Can mages keep pets alive in a particular situation?  If yes, then there's no problem.

If no, then you ask if mages should be able to keep their pets alive in that situation.  If the answer is no, again there's no problem.

If yes, then you ask what changes can be made so that mages can keep their pets alive in that situation.  You brainstorm your ideas; you come up with your proposals.  Period.   You don't have to use chicanery and drag other classes through the mud to do it.

Wow talk about a misaligned post from the mages! /sigh

I dont' think I've ever seen such a class envy post like that before.  It's so skewed that its' not taking in the entire picture of what a beastlord is.

And like other posters have said, I find it incredibly difficult to heal my pet during a raid with a long cast time and maintain my own dps.  I've found myself going to the lower cast lower yield heals just to give my pet a foot up during some AE fights.   I've even found chloroblast to be a far much better heal in some aspects until I'm able to get calliav to land on the pet.  Calliav, short duration heals, regen, and lay hands are honestly my only combatative measure to heal a pet on most raids and I think my fellow guildmates handle their pets similarly.

Quote from: InciteWho wrote that Lorathir?

http://forum.magecompendium.com/viewtopic.php?t=15714

Scroll down towards the bottom of the page.
Look for the guy who's avatar is that of The (ex) Iraqi Minister of Information.

I swear, I wish I made it up.  :shock:

This whole episode has got to be a joke, right? Are there hidden camera's here or what?

QuoteLet the BSTs keep healing and slowing the mob, we'll burn it down mage style. The bst heal is just fine as it is, its slow casting, but with slow its less critical, not to mention bsts can step in and tank if necessary

This right here sums up why Mages totally don't get it.  A beastlord isn't stepping in and tanking when neccessary, because it's neccessary from the start.  The only time I ever use my pet heal is when myself or my group gets adds, and if I am offtanking, I hardly get it off because it takes so long to cast.  

I am meleeing the mob from start to finish, with perhaps a second stepped out to chloro myself.  If they nerfed Beastlord pet heals, it would change very little about my ability to solo, group, or otherwise.

In order for us to use our pet heals we have to
a) not be dealing ANY melee dps so that our pet is taking the damage.
b) not be dealing ANY melee dps while we are casting the heal.

How about this, mages can get our pet heals, under the condition that thier spell bar is greyed out for 30 seconds after each heal.  That might gimp them the way pet clericing gimps us.

The whole article is based on the premise that "Soloing" is the normal way a mage gets experience in the game which is "bullshit".  Unfortunately Sony wants this to be a grouping game and their magician heals suffice in healing their pets far better than our pets during raids and in group situations.  I sure would take that 3-4 second cast heal over my 9 second cast heal any day.

I've been able to get some sleep now (yay 3 hours most I've gotten all week), and I went back and re-read the entire thing.  Sadly, I still stand behind what I said.  8(  Xal has done a lot of great work, and is a good guy, but his frustrations or something simply got the better of his.  The writing is wrong, it ignores basic facts and even if the conclussion were to be right the means in which he tries to reach it is so flawed and wrong that it does more harm than good.

-  You cannot compare class skills from one class directly to another without any frame of referance.  Let me give two little examples...

A)  Beastlords get a 10 second casting time 500 damage nuke that takes 50 mana.  Would this be useful to some other classes?  Sure the mana efficency on it is amazing, but a beastlord would almost never use this.  The casting time stops the beastlords damage, it stops the beastlord from healing, debuffing, etc.  However, another class that is sitting on a horse could easily open a fight with this or even use a few times depending on the situation.  This is a clear example of something that is balanced around one class (beastlords) and is all but useless for them (like our current pet heals), but would be too good on another class.

B)  Healing.  Right now beastlords direct player healing is lower than most feel it should be.  (Bare with me on this and please don't misquote me people)  Imagine if beastlords made a post asking for sweeping changes to our healing because of shaman heals at the high end?  Clearly shaman heals would be great for beastlords, they'd be a huge upgrade and they'd even be over powered.  However, shaman are already having issues with their healing at high end.  We'd simply be using an example of something that may look good on paper, that does help our class, but for the class it's designed it already has flaws.  This is no different than what xal's post attempted to do.  The fact that most beastlords wouldn't even notice their pet heal gone is a pretty clear indiction how flawed the arguement is.

-  Xal's written has things in it that make no sense to me.  Even he states that he wants mages back to the power they used to have.  At 50th level they were great imo, the 51 earth pet rocked seafuries, I think most would say mages were doing alright then.  Yet his "mages need more healing" calls for across the board mage healing changes.  Even at the lower end, even at levels there weren't previously issues.  

-  Mage dps...

Firebolt of tallon is (base) - ~216 dps when chain cast
Strike of Solusek is (base) - ~267 dps when chain cast

Mages also have a pet throwing out upwards of 100dps in various situations.  And the pet dps is completely sustainable in a very low mana maintance.

Mages are a dps class and they do it extremely well.  They can burst to levels most classes can't even dream of and they can sustain at levels other classes have no shot of attaining.  I'm not going to make up a bunch of fake situations and run a bunch of numbers, it's simple fact that mages do a LOT of dps and that alone has them highly disired in several spots.  

-  Mage utility...

Mages have malo and they have mod rods and they have damage shields and CotH.  Everyone one of these has situations that make it great.  Sure in some spots they loss something.  I would like to see CotH used in more zones, especially in places like air where summon corpse is allowed but Coth isn't /boggle.  However, you can't just ignore how powerful those abilities are.  Malo alone get's people groups believe it or not.  I don't know how many times there haven't been any shm/enc on and I'm main slowing in a spot like earth and running up 5+ resists on slow at times.  I guarantee you malo alone will get the mage a group over a wizard or rogue or some other dps class.

-  I am NOT calling mages overpowered, and I don't want to see them nerfed or anything of the sort.  However, mages are simply asking for far too much atm.  They do VERY nice dps and do out dps others in various spots/situations.  They CAN solo.  How many monks that solo'd 1-60 do you know solo now?  How many SKs went from fear kitting to now aggro kiting and taking 10+ minutes to kill a single mob?  Seriously, mages don't solo as well as they did, almost no one does!!  If mages seriously want substantial dps boosts, want their pets to be even further ahead of beastlord pets than they are already, and want even further increased soloability then I've just got nothing for ya.

-  Slow isn't always on!!  I just have to mention this one more time.  Shaman will know this, beastlords know this, and so do most others that pay attention.  A beastlord doesn't pull a mob with a nuke and the mob goes "woah that was a beastlord nuke I gotta swing slower now".  They bounce, they get resisted, they cost mana!!  Slow is very powerful, especially solo I absolutely won't deny that.  However, I'm sick and tired of people talking about shaman and beastlords like just having the class in the group means mobs are slowed 100% of the time at no mana cost or time cost.  

-  You can make points without involving another class.  If mages need more healing then explain it.  Pet mend is definitely the best pet heal any class gets.  Beastlords don't use our heals and we were trying to get them looked at, not just our heals but ALL pet heals.  All the comparisons and then the huge call for sweeping changes such as AAs, focus, etc are just crazy though.  The devs have said several times recently they want to try to shift peoples focus from class "balance" to class "definition".  Lot of different ways to bring up the issue of pet heals and AA for pet heals and the like, but this just wasn't it.  I want the post over and gone.  I honestly don't think anyone will ever understand just how much that post got to me.  8(

Speaking for myself, as a beastlord that rarely heals his pet (outside of pet mend), I could really care less if mages want/need a better heal.  If I was given a bigger heal, even near Complete Heal for the pet, but still had that ri-cock-ulous 9 or 10 sec cast time, I still wouldnt cast it outside the rare emergency.

Between Calliv, mend, and a back up pet in suspension, if you cant keep a pet up on a mob, I dont think a bigger, slow as a snared orc pawn, pet heal is really going to further your cause.

Mages already get a 10 sec, 400 mana pet CH.  It's called chain casting.

I'm of the same opinion...  take our damned heal if it'll get the vocal minority over there to stop the hissy fit.    I think I've actually used Sorsa two times in the last few months.  

I tell you, the monks finialy stop crawling up our backsides  (They are too busy screaming in terror at bards Fading Memories AA) and the Shamen get off our back (They are just too busy hoping the nerf bat doesnt come down on them right now)  and the radical mage front erupts.

BC

Does anyone pet heal at 65? What once in a super great while. Or maybe you just feel like using that play style at the moment? 9 second heal times suck just no real situation to use it once you get your pet aug.

A well AAd mage has better pet healing than a well AAd beastlord.

Consider both a mage and a beastlord have Pet Mend and Max Hastened Mending...

Mages have two viable choices for healing, the beastlord has one.

I do not know a beastlord that keeps Healing of Sorsha up near the high end. Not since Calliav was introduced...and even before it was barely worth it.

Quote from: mrowrrI sure would take that 3-4 second cast heal over my 9 second cast heal any day.

Amen.  Between Calliav, Mend companion and Renewal of Jerikor I could keep my pet alive on nearly any raid.

Quote from: KromjrDoes anyone pet heal at 65? What once in a super great while. Or maybe you just feel like using that play style at the moment? 9 second heal times suck just no real situation to use it once you get your pet aug.

I must be the only 65 BST with my pet Healing up! I am almost always soloing. :lol:  I don't use it so much due to the long cast time, but there are situations where I will use it. Since I generally solo in the same places I have gotten to know my quarry well enough to cast the Heal just-in-time to save my Warder. Most days I will never have to heal the Warder... I just keep the spell up "just in case"... never know when that Wandering Grimling will come along and think my Warder is a tasty treat while we are fighting something else!

My neighbor across the street got a new pick up. Do you think the goverment should buy me one. So we would have a balance street. In my opinion I don't think its fair, that he has a new one and I don't.
 And by the way thanks for letting me come here and complaint about this. Because it wouldn't do any good to talk to my neighbor.

You would think someone like Xalmat would at least have SOME idea of what was going on outside his own class.  A quick look at our boards would show that our heals are currently one of the things we need looking into, for the reason that everyone has already stated - THEY SUCK for our style of fighting.  

Earlier in our career they are ok, but by the time you are 65 fighting at least dark blues, almost no one uses them.  SOE could go ahead and give us a pet heal that healed 50,000 hps, cost 10 mana and takes 60 seconds to cast.  This would be the best ratio heal ever, but would be completely useless.  Then Xalmat could use his fuzzy logic to show how overpowered we are - "look, they can heal their pet's for 50k hps!  OMG".  Knock yourself out.

The worst part is that he pretty much admits he knows what he has done is wrong, and continues to stand by it.  Completely dispicable in my opinion.

I'm embarrassed to play on Brell with this idiot. He's made similar posts on the Brell boards as well.

*sigh*

I think everyone has made some valid points.  But lets not group all mages as being idiots.  Just because a few share a differnt view then yourself.  No reason to bash all mages.   :oops:   I have a 65 mage as my main.  Im just starting to level up my bst.  Each class has its plusses and its minuses.  I personally enjoy both.  I have heard the mage vs bst discussions for a long time.  Never cared for it.  Just remember if one person views something one way, doesnt mean everyone does.

Quote from: Hrann
Earlier in our career they are ok, but by the time you are 65 fighting at least dark blues, almost no one uses them.  SOE could go ahead and give us a pet heal that healed 50,000 hps, cost 10 mana and takes 60 seconds to cast.  This would be the best ratio heal ever, but would be completely useless.  Then Xalmat could use his fuzzy logic to show how overpowered we are - "look, they can heal their pet's for 50k hps!  OMG".  Knock yourself out.

Heh.  Actually it's even worse.   It would be like if we had a 60k heal that took 57.75 secs to cast, with a 2.25 recast, so including recast it would heal 1000 hp/sec.

Then Xal proposes a mage heal that is 6000 hp in 3.75 secs, with a 2.25 recast.   That's also 1000 hp/sec so the two are equal!  Fair is fair!

Quote from: GizmomoI think everyone has made some valid points.  But lets not group all mages as being idiots.  Just because a few share a differnt view then yourself.  No reason to bash all mages.   .

We realize that, I think everyone here realizes that its a vocal minority *over on the mage board.
Every class has their Tard Squad™, even us.

BC

*edit to clarify

Quote from: Mneumenth

Quote from: SarrikSure we have malo, rod, CoTh, minor utility and wizards get root, snare, evac, port, etc.. yet wizards deal nearly double the DPS of mages. This is the mages biggest area of need in my opinion, mages need a way to deal equal DPS to wizards since mages are just as much a focussed class on doing DPS.  

Bwahahahaa...now Ive heard it all...

You want all the extras AND you want the same Nuke power as a Wizard?  Puhlease.

You are either truely stupid or you misunderstood what I was saying, I will assume the latter for now.

I was not suggesting mages get the same nukes as wizards, im not really sure how you even arrived at the ludicris conclusion. No I was saying that magicians nukes + pet should equal a wizards nukes. basically the total damage output of a mage should equal the total damage output of a wizard. Both classes have the exact same role in groups and raids, and thats to damage things alot. Both have minor amounts of utility, the wizard being superior at crowd control with a 3 minute root spell and snare kiting adds and evac to save some ass, the mage offering malo for when shamans arent around and mod rods and CoTH. Only the truely foolish would not understand that the primary role of a mage and of a wizard is suppose to be one in the same, unfortunately due to not being able to lower his agro, not having innate resist mods on nukes, the mage falls behind the wizard in raid situations greatly. In groups both classes are just fine.

QuoteYou are either truely stupid or you misunderstood what I was saying, I will assume the latter for now.

Hey now! It's one thing to come to our board to debate mages pet heal but the minute you start calling our members "stupid" you are out of line.

His post and some others here were just as disrespectful, I wouldent dwell on it.

Thx God, the mages in my guild are great guys with very good skills, i love to group with them :D

Quote from: Lorathir

Quote from: InciteWho wrote that Lorathir?

http://forum.magecompendium.com/viewtopic.php?t=15714

Scroll down towards the bottom of the page.
Look for the guy who's avatar is that of The (ex) Iraqi Minister of Information.

I swear, I wish I made it up.  :shock:

This whole episode has got to be a joke, right? Are there hidden camera's here or what?

Oh god, this mage is in my guild.   :oops:

Let the wet noodle spanking begin.

To quote "The Next Movie"

Holee sheep shit.

Quick, someone call Thott and tell him to make a graph!

QuoteWow. Yes ... that is idiotic. Who among us is trying to hold any other class down? Geeze ... what a 'tard. Who wrote that Lorathir?

I did. If you have ever been to the magetower, you would know why I said it. Especially if you read the post history of Churizo and Eightyinches.

What Xalmat wrote was entirely the truth, but I guess the truth is to much for some beastlords to handle. Why are you so afraid of us getting equal heals? It would hardly break the game, and would make a lot of mages happy.

I in no way want beastlords nerfed, if you knew me, you would know I hate ALL nerfs.

QuoteBwahahahaa...now Ive heard it all...

You want all the extras AND you want the same Nuke power as a Wizard? Puhlease.

Most sane mages do not want the nuking power of a Wizard. What we want is a pet that woiuld raise our DPS to about that of a Wizard, which we think could be achieved by making all pets scale better with focus items.

Quote from: Sarrik

Quote from: Mneumenth

Quote from: SarrikSure we have malo, rod, CoTh, minor utility and wizards get root, snare, evac, port, etc.. yet wizards deal nearly double the DPS of mages. This is the mages biggest area of need in my opinion, mages need a way to deal equal DPS to wizards since mages are just as much a focussed class on doing DPS.  

Bwahahahaa...now Ive heard it all...

You want all the extras AND you want the same Nuke power as a Wizard?  Puhlease.

You are either truely stupid or you misunderstood what I was saying, I will assume the latter for now.

I was not suggesting mages get the same nukes as wizards, im not really sure how you even arrived at the ludicris conclusion. No I was saying that magicians nukes + pet should equal a wizards nukes. basically the total damage output of a mage should equal the total damage output of a wizard. Both classes have the exact same role in groups and raids, and thats to damage things alot. Both have minor amounts of utility, the wizard being superior at crowd control with a 3 minute root spell and snare kiting adds and evac to save some ass, the mage offering malo for when shamans arent around and mod rods and CoTH. Only the truely foolish would not understand that the primary role of a mage and of a wizard is suppose to be one in the same, unfortunately due to not being able to lower his agro, not having innate resist mods on nukes, the mage falls behind the wizard in raid situations greatly. In groups both classes are just fine.

Hmmm...I will not even address your pathetic attempt to slam...now onto the "important" stuff:

If you meant "magicians nukes + pet should equal a wizards nukes" then why did you not just plainly say so?  Or was it that you were simply afraid to be comepletely be laughed off this and your own board?

Magi generate tons of DPS, both sustained and burst, as it is.  The fact you are, apparently sincerely, arguing for an across the board increase in your DPS is laughable.  With the inherent advantages Magi bring to any group/raid and your present ability to solo I would say you will have a very hard time reaching any further improvements at this time...especially with this line of reasoning.

Good day to you...

QuoteMost sane mages do not want the nuking power of a Wizard. What we want is a pet that woiuld raise our DPS to about that of a Wizard, which we think could be achieved by making all pets scale better with focus items.

Now that makes more sense, though I think striving for that much will be very hard to achieve.  Just my opinion.

QuoteI think everyone has made some valid points. But lets not group all mages as being idiots. Just because a few share a differnt view then yourself. No reason to bash all mages.

That's what makes this whole thing so sad. Xalmat is a very influential person on the mage board and, according to the people who know him, usually very reasonable. Chances are more then a few mages are just going to take his word it and jump onto the same wagon. We've already seen the posts here of newly registered mages saying what a good write-up it was without having given it a second thought. I don't think Xalmat realizes how much damage he's done to the reputation of his own community. While the majority of the people here will understand that its only the views of a subgroup of mages, generalisations will happen, consciously or subconsciously, as human nature always does. Quite frankly, Xalmat is the only one to blame for it.
If you're concerned for the reputation of mages in general, then i urge you to voice your concerns on the mage board.

/hugs

Dalren,

I think the reason most beastlords have a problem with Xal's post is he implies that beastlord's heal are over powered.  The fact is beastlords, have really been pushing for a heal that is more usable.  The 61 is heal is kinda pointless to a 65 beast and his playstyle.  We tank much better than our pet, and generally never use him for tanking unless we have to.  

Beastlords are disappointed that OOW still has our heals at an unusable casting time.  The mage community coming out with that statement, is potentially pushing our requests for a faster casting heal back to the stoneage.

I don't play a mage, and don't even pretend to know their problems with the heal, but their request is potentially hurting us because they are comparing ours as much superior and the one to get.  I truly believe, that mages would have simliar problems with a more powerful, but still a 9 sec heal.

I do however, play a bl, and I haven't memmed or even used the 61 heal in 3 months.  Not for soloing, grouping, or raiding.  The recast time is too long too be considered effective, and if I have to start spamming a heal on my pet, it usually means I'm looking for escape option.  In a raid situation, if my pet takes damage, he's usually dead before I can get a heal off anyway.  I suspect the same is true for a mage.  

Dalren, I do know you, but reread Xal's post, especially where he says beast heals are "over powered."  If that doesn't imply nerf, I don't know what does.  It also puts every one in the beast community on the defensive.

Quote from: Dalren FierybladeWhat Xalmat wrote was entirely the truth, but I guess the truth is to much for some beastlords to handle. Why are you so afraid of us getting equal heals? It would hardly break the game, and would make a lot of mages happy.

That's not what the issue is.  Several people posted that they would happy to just swap heals with you and get fast casting ones for lower damage.  That would give you the "better" heal on paper so it isn't an ego thing about having the best pet heals. Right now I have the "best" pet heals and I can't use nary a one, so I'd rather have the second best pet heals and have a freaking reason to mem them.

Besides there are several things that beastlords could ask for (and some have asked for, rightly or wrongly) that "hardly break the game," that would make a lot of beastlords happy and yet *stilll* mages flip out over the thought of beastlords getting them.   Don't be pots to our kettles.

The issue is this:

Quote from: TastianIt is using artifically inflated beastlord data as means of justifying those mage bonuses. That completely changes the tone of the post to "see mages should have this because of mage issues and mage definition" to "hey beastlords can already do it, so should we". The problem is it ignores too many facts and is using beastlords to try to get mages boosts. It strikes a cord and becomes completely unbareable when you realize that the beastlord data he is using is something beastlords can't even use.

That is the issue.

The issue is that it is super annoying for beastlords to be the poster child for "how to try to convince SOE to give us what we want." A bunch of classes come in here with *inaccurate* info about beastlords to justify whatever claims they are making, valid or not.   Monks come here and say beastlords tank better than they do so they can argue for more mitigation.  Shamans say that our slows land more often and that we can buff as well as they do to argue that they "need some love".  Mages come in here and say that warders do the same dps as mage pets, so theirs needs to be doubled so that they keep up with wizards (I still don't get why beastlords are relevant to mages v. wizards but whatever).

The list goes on and on.  We want the misinformation to stop, because when we actually try to discuss what few issues we do have, then everything gets clouded by the crap people make up.

Quote from: XalmatBeastlord heals are too powerful given that they have near-magician strength pets, AND slow.

Quote from: Dalren FierybladeGreat read, I agree 100%.

Quote from: Dalren FierybladeWhat Xalmat wrote was entirely the truth,

Quote from: Dalren FierybladeI in no way want beastlords nerfed, if you knew me, you would know I hate ALL nerfs.

It's not the discussion of pet heals that irks me so - hell, Mages can get 1000hp insta cast heals for all I care - it's the deliberate ignorance of what Xalmat's post intends. Correction - SAYS. To support such a post, then turn around and flap your hands in the air saying "Oh but we don't want a NERF!!!" is beyond reprehensible. Whatever way you colour it, I'm hearing "my toy is broken so I'm going to break yours." FIX your toy, don't screw with mine.

Really, Xalmat your post is doing a massive amount of damage. While I think half of it is supportable by us, you **** yourself over towards the end.

Sony just recently gave you guys a leg up. THEY ARE LISTENING. They've introduced the Class Rep system, proving they are listening even more. The channels are open now for sensible debate, granting us all an ear. Things are looking better than they have done in years. So why this post now? Tinged with class envy, it's purpose is spiteful.

Seriously disappointed, and I'm no longer going to visit The Tower. I doubt my lurking presence would be missed of course, but I'd rather just distance myself from such tosh.

QuoteWhat Xalmat wrote was entirely the truth, but I guess the truth is to much for some beastlords to handle. Why are you so afraid of us getting equal heals? It would hardly break the game, and would make a lot of mages happy.

It would also make beastlords happy if we got 3k nukes and were able to summon pet toys and armor.  But we dont' live in a happy get everything world, we play the game under the constraints that are placed on us.  When we want something changed we don't go bashing another class in the process. we have people on the board who make well educated posts backed up with fact that takes in the entire picture not just a snapshot.  

Now I'm sure mages need better heals but I think it's in your best interest to prove it rather than make a blanket statement that mages need beastlord like heals because it's only fair.  Surely you'd be better off proving it via parses and other data like we do here on the beastlord forums.  

I'm all up for you getting a heal improvement, hell you can have our 9 second cast heal because in the end i know you won't use it like we don't use it. But you shouldnt get a better heal so you can Solo better! that's ludicrous and everything put forth in that article is about soloing, period.

QuoteWhat Xalmat wrote was entirely the truth, but I guess the truth is to much for some beastlords to handle. Why are you so afraid of us getting equal heals? It would hardly break the game, and would make a lot of mages happy.

What Xalmat wrote was so far removed from reality that the Galileo probe made pictures of it today. He might as well have written 2+2=4. That's absolutely true as well, and just as relevant as his arguments. Throughout his write-up he's treating beastlords like mages, standing far behind their pet instead of melees fighting alongside the pet, and if you had stopped to think about what that means for one minute, or had bothered to read the first page of this thread you wouldn't have come here droning up his views like a good little sheep.

In case you hadn't noticed, most people here couldn't care less if mages did get better heals, if they got them for the right reasons, and in fact virtually every beastlord would gladly trade our upcoming OoW pet heal for the magician OoW pet heal and throw in a set of stainless steel kitchen knives absolutely free.

But apparantly magicians aren't able to make a case for better heals on the basis of their own strengths and weaknesses and must resort to deliberately telling falsehoods about beastlords using data that has no bearing on reality whatsoever. Xalmat knows what the real deal is with beastlords and their pet heals, and consciously choose to ignore it just to further his cause.

You claim you do not want to see beastlords nerfed yet you fully support the biggest load of class-envy ever written, and to top it off you insult us with the denigratory question "Why are you so afraid of us getting equal heals?". The anti-beastlord sentiment is just dripping off that question.

Quote from: CoprolithWhat Xalmat wrote was so far removed from reality that the Galileo probe made pictures of it today.

ROFLMAO

:twisted:

QuoteEven our Pet "Lay Hands" AA does less than 25% of a heal on a 65 earth pet because the dam thing is capped at (Level x 33 + 1) HP of direct healing to your pet. At level 65, it does 2146 HP instantly. At level 70 it will heal 2311 HP.

OMG take my pet heal and give my pet the same number of hitpoints.
Your pet has has over 8000hp? while ours has under 5000,  damn. :(

Ok, I hate class balance fights. Everquest is well known to favor PvE, not PvP... this isn't DAoC, PvP is a much smaller matter, and from the stand point of his argument, it seems he doesn't have PvP as his main issue... (Or he does, but he likes throwing in other classes just as side data)...


Beastlords are part shaman -- shaman heal... beastlords heal players poorly, but make up for it with strong pet heals...
Magicians are part (insult omitted, just like many of the facts)....


Back on subject...

Clerics heal players, players migitate better then pets yet he compares cleric's heals to beastlord's heals
Beastlords heal like clerics to their pets, but this does not make a beastlord + pet equal to a cleric + warrior like said data wants people to believe -- everyone knows such a statement is bogus, why compare clerics healing to beastlords healing ability of pets?



Oh joy, more comparisons... Yes, let's compare Class A's Ability B to Class X's Ability Y...!
A != X,
B != Y
but A+B=X+Y  ?
Sure, it's possible, but is that what the developers want ? Why are we fighting over X and Y when the developers don't want the equation to be true?



Anyway... Using said data... Magicians CAN in fact keep up with damage taken to their pets (contrary to what is said in the document)

Ward of Xegony Defensive (With Stun)
Avg 'Hit' DPS: 128.41
Magician - 64 - Planar Renewar+Transon's Renewal - 113.5hp/sec - 37.84Mana/sec

Neglect that magicians never seem to mention if they gave their pets armor when they 'show off' how bad they got it... lets also Neglect that these 'tests' as were taken from the beastlord boards, used as the second parties testimonial to how bad magicians got it also carried the warning

QuoteTHE ONLY STAT WORTH COMPARING FOR THESE PARSES WOULD THEREFORE BE THE AVERAGE HIT. THE REST OF THE NUMBERS WILL BE SOMEWHAT MISLEADING.

The average hit (from the mob) for Sorsha was 420, compared to 255 for earth pet and 277 for air pet. Mage pets mitigate A LOT better than beastlord pets now it seems.

And thanks to the neglect of that warning on the healing balance plea, it simply makes beastlords look all that more powerful... Yes, lets try to cover up that there's a 170 point difference on the max hits (PER HIT) between magician and beastlord pets... I mean, it's not like up to 680 points of extra damage does anything to justify the need for beastlords to heal more, right? even if the mob is slowed(if it can be slowed... fully)?



Magician pets take ~40% less damage (just basing off the same data), and beastlords slow their mobs ~65% -- Keep in mind these percentages do NOT show the total damage difference between the mob... the 25 point difference between those percentages does not necessarily mean magician pets are taking 25% more damage then beastlord pets...


Hell, I should have erased everything I wrote, just noticed what he WANTS as a 'proposed change'....

His change requests healing spells equal to beastlords in efficenty, but only 1/3rd the cast time... I guess this is to make up for the '65% slow' by making magicians '66% faster' -- neglecting magician's pet advantages that make this a very bad idea....

If Magicians healed equal to beastlords (terms of efficency), and FAR FASTER (cast time/recast time) as proposed on paper (with healing times/damage/efficency) they will Heal more efficently (specilization/skills effect on spells) and EVEN FASTER then 'FAR FASTER' has already taken them over beastlords -- (and they still have items and damage shields)
-What is the justification for making magicians healing gods of their pets?
-What justification do they have for even being 'better at healing' then a part-priest hybrid?


So the beastlords 'combination' of abilities, thanks to being a hybrid with more rounded abilities than a pure-caster.. big deal?


Quick review:
How the #$!@ does beastlords 65% slow, on top of beastlord pet's taking 60% more damage, justify magicians healing Three times faster, just as efficently?

Somebody's shooting for the moon, making enemies on the way instead of asking for assistance

Quote from: The Great CoprolithBut apparantly magicians aren't able to make a case for better heals on the basis of their own strengths and weaknesses and must resort to deliberately telling falsehoods about beastlords using data that has no bearing on reality whatsoever. Xalmat knows what the real deal is with beastlords and their pet heals, and consciously choose to ignore it just to further his cause.

I'd still take a mage partner over soloing... -- well at least, any mage that isn't hybrid with the 'alcoholic' class (the ability to sit and wine(whine) while meditating)

Bengali, thank god you're voice of reason is still with us!

QuoteThe issue is that it is super annoying for beastlords to be the poster child for "how to try to convince SOE to give us what we want." A bunch of classes come in here with *inaccurate* info about beastlords to justify whatever claims they are making, valid or not. Monks come here and say beastlords tank better than they do so they can argue for more mitigation. Shamans say that our slows land more often and that we can buff as well as they do to argue that they "need some love". Mages come in here and say that warders do the same dps as mage pets, so theirs needs to be doubled so that they keep up with wizards (I still don't get why beastlords are relevant to mages v. wizards but whatever).

The list goes on and on. We want the misinformation to stop, because when we actually try to discuss what few issues we do have, then everything gets clouded by the crap people make up.

"I got 5 words for you.. Damn glad to see you boy!"

[quote="Coprolith]

QuoteFrom a solo perspective its no contest the beastlord is better off than a mage when neither has a pet. In fact that is such a lop-sided comparison it's laughable. Even in old zones like sebilis and chardock a mage is pretty much toast if his pet dies. You do have the upper hand in these situations.

Right, BSTs have the upper hand in those situations because they can Gate out whereas mages have to fight/run their way out.

Waittaminit...[/quote]

You ever tried to channel a 4.3 second gate through being hit for 600+ Coprolith?  Probably not, or you'd know better.

OTOH - I've never had protective spirit interrupted, or had my 2:1 ac advantage and vastly better avoidance interrupted.  For that matter my 2:1 HP advantage doesn't go away when I'm being hit either.

Hmmmmm - sounds to me like you like to bend the facts to fit just as much as you say Xalmat does.

Quick question for you - if BL heals aren't good enough at the high end, as some say, then why would you object to mage heals, which are less than half as good in HP/Sec and are being used against mobs doing up to 2.8 times the DPS, being boosted?

Instead of starting a bitch-fest about it, why not join forces and  work to get pet heals for all the major pet classes up to snuff for high end content?

1.  Mend companinon should do 7500HP (like CH)
2.  Healing of Sorsha should have about a 5 second cast time - same mana/hp
3.  Planar Renewal should go to 575 mana/2400 hp, 5 sec cast/2.25 sec recast - keep all mage heals conjuration based.  A lower base mana to hp ratio is ok since mages have SCM and spec and a slightly higher self buffed mana regen (*).  The higher HP/sec is to make up for lack of slow and lack of healing aa's (including suggestion 5)
4.  Top necro heal should also go to about 500 mana/2000 hp, 5sec cast/2.25 sec recast  (their massive mana regen  offsetting the slightly lower efficiency)  Maybe better - dunno really, they have other skills that I can't evaluate since I don't play one.
5.  Get rid of the useless turn summoned as a class aa and give mages HA 1 - 3 instead.

This is only for the top level, some heals may need balancing lower down.

3,4,5 aren't directed at BL's - but the entire list would be directed at helping pet classes as a whole at the higher levels.

So, in a keep that add off the cleric sort of situation my mage with 15% spell haste would get:
2400/(4.3+2.25) = 366 hp/sec at  5.21 hp/mana (spec conj, scm3)
Add in 12 more aa for HA3 and it's
2640/(4.3+2.25) = 403 hp/sec at 5.73 hp/mana

My BL with 20% spell haste, HA3 (w/o his IHIV item for the moment)
2310/(4+2.25) = 369 hp/sec at 5.4 hp/mana
add AHA and it becomes
2499/(4.3+2.25) = 399 hp/sec at 5.89 hp/mana

That sounds like a good place to start (to me) and seems more in line with the way mobs hit these days than what we have.  (We being pet classes as a whole).

* oh - almost forgot - my mage's self mana regen is 8 (xpg) + 3 (elemental draw) + 5 (self rods) = 16.  My BL's is 9 (SD + 3 (paragon) = 12.  Plus FT is easier for him  (he can trade away ac/hp more readily for it).

Edit: I can make mistakes too :-P

Didn't catch sarcasm in quote, appologies :-)

QuoteQuick question for you - if BL heals aren't good enough at the high end, as some say, then why would you object to mage heals, which are less than half as good in HP/Sec and are being used against mobs doing up to 2.8 times the DPS, being boosted?

Most people have no problem with magicians getting better heals..

What we hate is:
1- Use of beastlords as the 'pissing contest' partner
2- Attacks on beastlord as a means of personal/class gain
3- how do you get 180% more damage from 65% slow? Oh, I see! 100%/35% = 2.8, but this is assuming the % of slow is linear.. I'm sure coprolith has some math figures that show the slow isn't so linear, but i'll just say 'you expect sony to be so simple?' and leave slows at that... BUT, you forgot to add in 40% less damage taken to magician pets (AC Migitation)!!!!

magi pets only take .7 times more damage compared to a beastlord pet...

OR, if you want to completely neglect a major factor!

Magician pets take 40% less damage then beastlord pets!

Lets forget about beastlord slows if we're going to forget about magician migitation --- All in the sake of good backstabing of fellow EQ players... of course



/sigh

Real quick Dios, you might want to reread the same passage you told Bosra to reread, Cop was being sarcastic...

QuoteYou ever tried to channel a 4.3 second gate through being hit for 600+ Coprolith?  Probably not, or you'd know better.

Yet we are supposed to channel a NINE second heal through being beat on?  Besides which, this is ludicrous, in Sebilis/Chardok you aren't being hit for 600, and you have plenty of time to know the situation has gone south to start the cast early.  And yes, I have channeled Gate through some amazing beatdowns before (Like ~11 Fear mobs just inside the portal, back pre-Kunark) so don't give me the crap that you cannot.

QuoteOTOH - I've never had protective spirit interrupted, or had my 2:1 ac advantage and vastly better avoidance interrupted.  For that matter my 2:1 HP advantage doesn't go away when I'm being hit either.

Non-Sequitor

QuoteHmmmmm - sounds to me like you like to bend the facts to fit just as much as you say Xalmat does.

No sir, you are the one bending the facts just like Xalmat.

QuoteQuick question for you - if BL heals aren't good enough at the high end, as some say, then why would you object to mage heals, which are less than half as good in HP/Sec and are being used against mobs doing up to 2.8 times the DPS, being boosted?

Do you read?  Honestly...pretty much every single beastlord has said take our damn heals, WITH the 9 second cast time, and you'll realize how useless they are.  What Xalmat wants is to trim the cast down to 3 and keep the efficiency.  That's crap.  We know it, Xalmat knows it, *YOU* know it if you aren't an idiot.

QuoteInstead of starting a bitch-fest about it, why not join forces and  work to get pet heals for all the major pet classes up to snuff for high end content?

Beastlords have been doing this for months!  It's Xalmat and company who apparently don't want everybody looked at, just their own little corner of the world.

*snip heal ideas*

Quote* oh - almost forgot - my mage's self mana regen is 8 (xpg) + 3 (elemental draw) + 5 (self rods) = 16.  My BL's is 9 (SD + 3 (paragon) = 12.  Plus FT is easier for him  (he can trade away ac/hp more readily for it).

WHAT?  Your Beastlord can trade away AC/HP more readily than your mage?  Do you even play the same game the rest of us do(or did as the case may be :))?

Quote from: Solonys
Mages are NOT a primary DPS class. they are not. Wizards, Rogues, Rangers and monks are primary DPS classes. And thats the way they should be. they are so singularly focused on that goal that they negate the extras, which is why they get FD, Jolt, Evade and concussion, because of the sheer aggro those big numbers generate.

Youll never be a primary DPS class. stop whining and "know your role" as it were. your a Utility DPS class, just like us. only differance is we are tanks and you are casters. your dps is still higher than ours.

:lol:  :lol:  :lol:  :roll:
If you were able to type that with a straight face you just might be a politician.

That is so very flawed that it hurts me to see it. Bow damage is hitting a level plane pretty much for Rangers, and melee wise Warriors are outdamaging them. The fact is that we ARE a primary DPS class, so sorry, play again. Monks and Rangers on your list would be more of Utility DPS really. So Singularly focused? Why the bloody hell do you think that Mages have no defense? Because we are all offense baby. So "know your role" a bit better and get a clue before you start up with "Mages are not a DPS class"

I'm laughing, really.

Quote from: CoprolithNo kidding. I think its safe to say that just about every beastlord would rather have the 3s pet heal then their own 9s heal. I'd gladly pay twice the mana for it as well.

Sorry for being a jerk and not reading all the posts after this (third one in the thread), but I'm a little strapped for time lately.  

Anyway, if BST's are "overpowered", then why not just nerf the heck out of us and swap the Mages' pet heals with ours?  That'd fix our uuber butts good!

[I'm not sure I'd be exactly "happy" about tripling the mana cost in exchange for a fast cast, but I would still prefer it to the 9-second cast version.]

EDIT:  If this Xal character is so darned smart how come he misspelled "mitigation" about 50 times?

Quote from: SkogSo "know your role" a bit better and get a clue before you start up with "Mages are not a DPS class"

I'm laughing, really.

Perhaps you should actually read what he wrote without the red haze of Magician-ness that prevails today and realize that he didn't say you aren't a DPS class.

My appologies, Terjyn, No I didn't read cop's full quote, just the sarcasm that was quoted :-/

You guys might want to actually check out the thread at the Mage's Compendium on this if you haven't.

I'm actually heartened by the fact that even a bunch of Mages realize what Xalmat wrote was underhanded at best, and are commenting on it.  Only the real lunatic fringe seems to believe what Xalmat wrote.

And, I'd personally like to thank DiosT, Murkk, and Bengali for their crusade against ignorance that they are running on that board. :)  (Sorry if I missed anyone from here, it wasn't intentional).

Quote from: TerjynPovar
Perhaps you should actually read what he wrote without the red haze of Magician-ness that prevails today and realize that he didn't say you aren't a DPS class.

He said Mages are not a primary DPS class, which is 100% completely false!

it's funny how 100% of beastlords, and 25-50% (conservative to more what i think estimate), or magicians are against what he said...


If he re-wrote it with less comments.....

Quoteit should be noted that phrases such as
"Clerics finally gain their mana efficiency edge over Beastlord "
"Beastlord healing is significantly better than their parent class of Shaman"
"slow gives Beastlords a permanent advantage "
"Beastlord heals are too powerful "
"they have more potent heals than Clerics for most of their career"

are unnessasarily inflamatory.

I'd say he would have more like 75-99% magician backing, and closer to 50% of beastlord backing (opposed to the 1% of beastlord backing he has now)...



You don't get many changes in this 'game' by pissing on your enemies and hoping the parents support it...

I swear, every time a mage posts on thier veiw of "class balance" it makes me want to kill mages.  I dont think mages will be happy till their pets tank like a warrior, nuke like a wizard, heal the pets like a cleric with the HoT and direct heals,  and lets not forget to  make the pets have dps to that  of a monk.  Mages just make me sick anymore.  They are a collective bunch of whiners that they cant do everything better than others.  

And for basra, what  casting and channeling GATE has to do with class balance is beyond stupid.   And hp and ac comparisions between a leather MELEE class and a  cloth CASTER serves absolutly no perpose what so ever, just further shows the limited "me first and only" veiw point mages seem to be coming from anymore.    People on that tread talking about our ability to take more damage and acting like that in someway justifies more pet healing. /boggle.


THIS IS NOT A SOLO GAME ! THIS IS A GAME BASED ON GROUPS AND RAIDS

If you want a game where you can solo all the content go play CoH, I'm sorry, PoP and beyond was NOT set up for soloing by the vast majority of the classes, kiters and root rotting are(untill you are greatly more powerfull than that tier) the only real options.   For gripes about bst vs mage soloing comes froma profound non-understanding of how beastlords function in a solo setting.  You would almost never see a beast pet tanking a mob, and this is at the heart of the whole issue.   Hell I dont even remember the last time I used a heal other than mend companion at all, raid group or otherwise.  ( sec of taking any damage on anyhting othert than green/light blue farming, and you have a dead pet LONG before the spelll goes off.  

Attacking another class and seeking  to nerf, and intrude upon its abilites will only further to weaken your possition in ANY discussion.  After reading through that thread I have lost all respect for the players of the class.  They get a boost to the pets damage mitagation and such and its not enough, thye want bigger nukes than druids, best pet EVERYTHING, its getting old.  Give a mouse a cookie...
 
I swear, I honestly dont think mages will be happy till they can solo all the way to quarm.

Quote from: Skog

Quote from: TerjynPovar
Perhaps you should actually read what he wrote without the red haze of Magician-ness that prevails today and realize that he didn't say you aren't a DPS class.

He said Mages are not a primary DPS class, which is 100% completely false!

He explained what he meant by a "primary DPS class", and his definition makes complete sense.  That being that a primary DPS class is so focused on DPS that they sacrifice all other utility.  While I don't necessarily agree with his decision of which classes these are, if you look at it like he did Magician's do not qualify.  But you don't want to see what he meant, you want to take offense, so you did.

Moving this to The Sewers as it has degenerated. You may continue your battles there :)

I was thinking it was more class balance, but yeah, i agree kash :-P

Quote from: TerjynPovar
He explained what he meant by a "primary DPS class", and his definition makes complete sense.  That being that a primary DPS class is so focused on DPS that they sacrifice all other utility.  While I don't necessarily agree with his decision of which classes these are, if you look at it like he did Magician's do not qualify.  But you don't want to see what he meant, you want to take offense, so you did.

What Mage utility is there? Where do you NOT get the idea that Mages sacrifice everything to be a DPS class. ALL DPS classes have some "extras" but we have in no way enough "utility" to fit his description. You guys get all pissy when a Mage says something with "misinformation" (even though I overall agree with Xalmat, Mages need better heals) but this Beastlord posts some bullshit about Mages not being a DPS class and it is ok.  :roll:

Heh, I almost want to write their proposal to get things fixed for them, but if they're happy with xalmat's attempts and alienation, i gues sthey wouldn't want help from the 'uber class' :-P

Are you serious Skog?

Call of the Hero, Pet toys, Mod rods, the various summons, pets which actually vary based on what you want to do, and Damage shields?

Compare this to Clerics, Warriors, Wizards, Rogues, Monks, Rangers, Berserkers.

Hell, the first three of those are more utility than any of these classes have.

Again, he never said you aren't a DPS class.  You keep repeating that and he didn't say it.

But whatever, I'm done even acknowledging your existence Skog.  Far be it from me to tell you what you can do.  If you are too dumb to figure it out on your own that's not my problem.

Baah, why can't you have Edit turned on in Rants Kash?  Especially if you are going to move threads to Rants from other sections where Edit was enabled.

edits are off here? hmm.. I'll check/fix that...

Any other forum problems? we admins don't see that edit problem :-P

Think edit was left off so people couldnt' go change their msg after on purpose.

Well, as long as this has been moved into the sewers...

Let me share with you, my brothers and sisters, my night of hardship as a member of the most over powered class in the game.

It started out after I summoned my warder, soon as I shrunk him down enough not to block out the sun, I started buffing him....  nothing major, he only had 50k hitpoints.  

I set Brutus on Rallos Zek, and sat back while he tanked RZ and shot lightening bolts out his wolfish ass, smiting all the adds.  
Being lazy, I forgot to slow till my warder had almost gotten RZ down to 40%.    Luckily I had my ultra uber pet heal memmed, and it put Brutus back into god mode.
Then I slowed RZ, which of course brought him to a complete standstill, seeing as how beastlord slows always stick on the first cast, and my warder was still at 98% health.

However, just then, Vallon Zek got into the action, and luckily, I was a beastlord, which means I can tank better then a monk, and I have my uber slow.

It was looking pretty grim when RZ enraged, Brutus dropped almost to 45% health, I was damn lucky I have that uber pet heal memmed, cause it went off and once again, my warder was at it, lightening bolts, ass, the whole thing,  but I on the other hand was taking a beating.. so I unloaded one of our terribly overpowered DD cold based spells, and then our massive DOT.  to no avail,  even after my pet had taken down RZ, he couldnt get back to me before VZ took me down.  

But, its a good thing I am a beastlord, cause my warder rezzed me.

BC

yeah jarean, I thought that too, but really, I don't want to limit people's chances to edit their post 'rightly' -- such as to fix phrases that would otherwise be taken worse then was intented, retract their comment before it could be flamed on, or simply just to fix typo's :-P

typically things get quoted anyway :-P so can always read their comments through that

Just take our useless pet heal please. The majority of beasts are not objecting to the fact that you want better pet heals (some people just don't know how to read however) I don't like being pissed on however to make your class stronger. As has been stated time and time again our pet heal is pretty much usless to the majority of us and we would much rather have faster casting smaller heals. The way that a beast plays does not lend itself well to using the pet heal the way the game is designed atm. I guess the morons will keep on multiplying though untill no one sane is left.

I am rather amused by mages saying they deserve the same DPS levels of wizards since they are such a focused class as well.  Let us take a little look at how much each of them can really do.

Take at look at all the spells wizards get.  Every single spell I see falls into one of four categories.  Going boom (nukes), letting them make more of said boom (familiar, mana regen), surviving said boom (snare, root, hp buffs, concussion), or porting (groups, tls etc).  This seems like a pretty tightly focused class to me.

Let us take a look at mages.  Mages have spells that go boom too (second best around), a host of pet related spells (pets, pet buffs, pet gear, etc), a host of focus item spells (includes every kind of focus I can think of) and other.  Other includes utility likes CotH, malos, rods and so on.  This class is focused to but not to the same extent

Mages flat out seem to have more utility than a wizard.  A wizard goes boom or he ports.  A mage can not only go boom but also do dps with his pet (which can do damage after mana has run out).  If that were it I might agree that mages need the same DPS as wizards but here is the other side of the coin.  Mages can increase the offensive and defensive capabilities of pets and players.  Multiple this by each pet and person and see how it adds up.

Mage pet gear on every pet can have a good increase in how much damage a pet can do and how much damage it can take (weapons and mask, hp belt and armor and resist items).  Mage focus items can allow players without a focus item to hit for more with a nuke, lets his dots burn harder and longer, and I believe even save mana for a player(?).  These focus items can also raise a players resists so he can last longer in a fight.

A mage using malos can also let nukers or dotters do more damage by lowering resists.  Coth is invaluable for its sheer ability to speed up time in a raid where it is allowed to be used.  Rods are a universal mana ability that can give that added bit where needed or flat speed up the mana rate.

Can you honestly tell me mages are as focused as a wizard?  That they give up as much as a wizard?

I see a mages utility as somewhat like a beastlords but to a lesser degree.  I dont think many could disagree that a beastlord gives up sheer DPS for utility and to be more defensive in nature than a mage is.  A mage gives up some DPS for the ability to increase the abilities of others.

A beastlord can AE paragon to regen hit points and mana for group.  This can save healer mana and increase the overall mana for more heals and more damage.  Beastlords have hp and stats buffs that also let them increase how much a player can take and in some ways how much they can deal in damage.  Slow and leather class mitigation gives us some tanking ability that makes us more defensive in nature.

Just off the top of my head from reading here are some average DPS levels.  Using his boom spells a wizzie can put say 400ish DPS.  A mage at the same level could put out 250ish in nukes plus he has a pet putting out 70 to 110ish for a total of 325 to 350ish.  A beastlord would put out in the 250 to 275ish area from combined melee, pet and spells.  To me this makes sense.  Each class either is giving up either DPS or utility for the other.

To sum up I am not saying mages do not still need more work.  Druids have gotten very close to the nuke capability of mages and their utility plus heals indicates to me mages could probably use another sort of boost.  If this is in nukes or pet DPS, or a little more utility to make up for it is not something I am sure of.

I will also say that I have lost a lot of the respect I have had for Xalmat over the years.  I have also lost a good deal of respect for the mage community in general since we have become a tool for many of them to say they need more or we need to be nerfed in some way.  I hope the mage community realizes before it is to late they are alienating once of the classes that has given them the most support

Kat

Quote from: BloodCelt

But, its a good thing I am a beastlord, cause my warder rezzed me.

BC

I know this post was suppose to be dripping with sarcasm, but I couldn't help myself, I got a great big belly laugh out of it!  :lol:

Quote from: BloodCelt

But, its a good thing I am a beastlord, cause my warder rezzed me.

BC

Bwahahahahahahahahaha

Also, dont forget in Mage utility their ability to charm...this boosts their DPS to rediculous levels.

I got a huge laugh when I read BloodCelts post last night.  My roommate popped his head from accross the house to see why I was laughing so much. =)

I wrote that post about 1:30 am so I know I missed some smaller points.  I do think my general idea got accross though which is kind of amazing. lol  Im not the greatest number cruncher around but there is more than one way to compare things. =)

As far as mages go, they are finally getting listened to.  I wonder how they would feel again if everyone took Xalmat's "let them whine" advice and told mages the exact same thing.

Kat

Quote from: TerjynPovarReal quick Dios, you might want to reread the same passage you told Bosra to reread, Cop was being sarcastic...

QuoteYou ever tried to channel a 4.3 second gate through being hit for 600+ Coprolith?  Probably not, or you'd know better.

Yet we are supposed to channel a NINE second heal through being beat on?  Besides which, this is ludicrous, in Sebilis/Chardok you aren't being hit for 600, and you have plenty of time to know the situation has gone south to start the cast early.  And yes, I have channeled Gate through some amazing beatdowns before (Like ~11 Fear mobs just inside the portal, back pre-Kunark) so don't give me the crap that you cannot.

Go back and read again - I duo my mage and BL in tier 2-3 PoP, not Seb.  They not only hit for ~600, they hit for near max on my mage almost every time.  Cop was talking about survivability WHEN THE PET DIES[/i] so why the hell would you be trying to cast a 7.2 second heal (I notice you leave out an easy to get spell haste item for BL's) heal on your pet?

Quote

QuoteOTOH - I've never had protective spirit interrupted, or had my 2:1 ac advantage and vastly better avoidance interrupted.  For that matter my 2:1 HP advantage doesn't go away when I'm being hit either.

Non-Sequitor

Not it's not - when we talk about surviving SANS PET[/i] it's all VERY relevant.

Quote

QuoteHmmmmm - sounds to me like you like to bend the facts to fit just as much as you say Xalmat does.

No sir, you are the one bending the facts just like Xalmat.

Which facts?  Name one that's not correct.

Quote

QuoteQuick question for you - if BL heals aren't good enough at the high end, as some say, then why would you object to mage heals, which are less than half as good in HP/Sec and are being used against mobs doing up to 2.8 times the DPS, being boosted?

Do you read?  Honestly...pretty much every single beastlord has said take our damn heals, WITH the 9 second cast time, and you'll realize how useless they are.  What Xalmat wants is to trim the cast down to 3 and keep the efficiency.  That's crap.  We know it, Xalmat knows it, *YOU* know it if you aren't an idiot.

Did you even read the rest of my post?  Actually I didn't finish Xal's manifesto - I didn't like the methodology.  I just find it ironic that several people here spout about misrepresentation, then turn around and do the same thing.  You hold up gate like it's some magic totem against dieing - I only ever mem it when it's time to head back to PoK/LDoN camps.

Quote

QuoteInstead of starting a bitch-fest about it, why not join forces and  work to get pet heals for all the major pet classes up to snuff for high end content?

Beastlords have been doing this for months!  It's Xalmat and company who apparently don't want everybody looked at, just their own little corner of the world.

Show me the posts where BL's have tried to get upgrades for all pet classes - what I see most often is bitching about RS being a better tank (forgetting it's a solo pet - and therefore used in the very situation where slow gives BL's a huge advantage over mages) and calls to not include other classes in the zoning pet change.

*snip heal ideas*

Quote

Quote* oh - almost forgot - my mage's self mana regen is 8 (xpg) + 3 (elemental draw) + 5 (self rods) = 16.  My BL's is 9 (SD + 3 (paragon) = 12.  Plus FT is easier for him  (he can trade away ac/hp more readily for it).

WHAT?  Your Beastlord can trade away AC/HP more readily than your mage?  Do you even play the same game the rest of us do(or did as the case may be :))?

Hmmm - it's not real clear who the pronoun refers to in that sentence, but then you read what you want to read.  If you had actually read the entire thing you'd know that I was saying mage heals don't have to be as efficient as BL heals (base) because of Spec, SCM, better self mana regen and easier access to FT - because a mage can more readily trade away HP/AC for FT.

I play 2 pet classes - I want nothing more than for ALL[/i] pet classes to get upgrades in pet survivability and pet scaling.  What I see instead is some of the most incredibly stupid whining on both sides.  Facts misrepresented by both sides (and now that I went back and finished Xal's little blurb) totally unrealistic demands for pet healing on his part.

Quote from: TerjynPovar

Quote from: SkogSo "know your role" a bit better and get a clue before you start up with "Mages are not a DPS class"

I'm laughing, really.

Perhaps you should actually read what he wrote without the red haze of Magician-ness that prevails today and realize that he didn't say you aren't a DPS class.

Quote from: Solonys
Mages are NOT a primary DPS class. they are not. Wizards, Rogues, Rangers and monks are primary DPS classes. And thats the way they should be. they are so singularly focused on that goal that they negate the extras, which is why they get FD, Jolt, Evade and concussion, because of the sheer aggro those big numbers generate.

Youll never be a primary DPS class. stop whining and "know your role" as it were. your a Utility DPS class, just like us. only differance is we are tanks and you are casters. your dps is still higher than ours.

Are you sure he didn't say mage's aren't a DPS class?  Utitlity DPS?  I laughed so hard it hurt

*sigh* Mage here...

I will quote my post from thee Tower below, but add some points :)

A) Mages do NOT get any healing AAs. Shouldn't anyway, we are NOT a healing class. Necros ARE a healing class.

B) Mages do NOT get "Quick Damage" AA so our nukes are slower than wizard and druid nukes, AND they are slow ANYWAY (with 3 exceptions).
And who ever thinks mages are NOT a DPs class is woefully misinformed, the ORGINAL design for mages was for them to be THE best damage dealers in game (in an xp situation), and WERE up till start of Velious. Rangers, rogues and warriros though were horribly under powered then.
The game was designed on the premise that wizards would provide best burst dmaage, mages best mid-term damage, and necros best long term.
--If mages were meant to be a support class not primary damage dealers, then WTF don't mages have more buffs, heals and item summons that would boost players?..They don't...Wizards, enchanters, necros and mages get Levitate, Infra and Ultravision, Enduring Breath..this has no relevance to their DPs ;)


C) "Wizards give up their utility so mages shouldn't be as good"...CRAPPOLA. Old memory of mine, crossing Dreadlands with wiz pal, we get jumped by two see invis mobs, he roots one snares, other, I can do NEITHER. Do YOU ask a mage for many of our summons? Let me guess..pet weapons...? You do realize pet weapon procs are SQUAT ALL good for DPs, it's their +hp that helps the pets! Mages get no +dex buff so consider this also in proc ratios. Mages are sad our utility summons aren't really needed any more :/ I would like to summon things *players* would want again.
--Wizards get Evac, root, Snare, runes, Stun, Fire COld and Magic spells with resis tmodifiers..oh and I agree wizards "Big new nukes" need major improvements to their resist modifiers, which are pathetic. Go play each of the int caster classes. Until zoning pets, mages were seriously FUXXORED for any means of safety/CC.
--I don't want to play a wiz, alas, the game has went so towards making mages far more abot nuking, than pets, which is a big beef with some of us. We have no aggro control, we LOVE Our pets.
--Chain Casitng pets is only in extremis or solo, and it blows. With pet zoning fully buffed...it blows. It is an *extremely* efficent way to kill something but slow > chain casitng, usually, and chain casting is hell of a dangerous.

D) Due to pet zoning, I spent several hours with fully buffed pet with slow proc weapon...the difference is *huge*. I do not want to be able to cast slow, snare, FD as my mage, it's totally out of class. I WOULD like to be able so summon slow, stun, lure DD, rune weapons FOR my pet. These would be procs, not reliable but useful, I can BUY them so why the hell can't I SUMMON them? Aggro is also  factor here, usually on a raid, if the MT dies, the mages are next...no de-aggro system. However, this is a fault of game and pet design, previosuly pets generated sufficent aggro for mages to survive and our nukes DPs to pet DPs was lower (pro-pet). We NEED the PET's DPs and aggr upped, and perhaps the resists on our nukes tweaked. (I'd like summoend nukes that resist versus DOdge, Armour class or fire, because if you are "struck by a great obsidian blade", why is Magic used as a resist check? Should be some attack check? You would DODGE bolts.)
--back to aggro, the epic pet, still our most damaging pet on mobs <lvl 61, is also our best aggro pet. To test aggro, I used an epic pet on raid armed with gnoll hide lariats..the PET got summoned, not ME. That's what SHOULD happen. And note the *fact* the epic out damages all others bar the TOP focused water pets from rear. It is ridiculous our best damage dealer pet is *three years old*! :(
--Pet focuses are STUPIDLY rare for ALL pet classes, grrr!! But all other forms of focus are common (excpet perhsps DoTs): MASSIVELY imbalanced agaisnt pet classes!

E) ALL pet classes are in trouble, due to survivability of pets versus the crazy DPs of mobs now. ALL pet heals need to be fast, for mages BST and Necros.

F) The only class with a legit gripe versus beastlords currently is shamans, sorry but they do have reason to be hurt, but again, not a fault of beastlords, but of game design and player attitudes. Many pick up groups WILL pick a BST over a shaman, because they view it as "same buffs , basically same slow AND DPs"...that's a problem.

Hope you have fun in EQ :) There's enough stress as is.

Quote1) Mages are *NOT* a healer class. Our pet heals do need improved particularly in the speed/recast, but again, we are *NOT* a healer class. The need for better pet heals is primarily because of the ridiculous way mobs have been inflated to crazy levels.

2) Mages are *SUMMONERS*. We can assume our "heals" actually summon more elemental material to refresh our companions, indeeed some of the heals are specifically named as such "Elemental Renewal".

3) As summoners we shoud look for OTHER ways to deal with keeping our pets alive, beyond just heals (although they do need tweaked). Look at the Monster Summoning IV pet, with it's Prism Skin, a Calliav blocking any 1 hit. Blocking that hit is *WAY* better than a heal because it is IRRELEVANT How hard that hit would have been, 5 hp or 5k...it is stopped.

4) I suggest a summoned weapon that procs a Calliav, or Guard III or similar. Some said that a weapon proccing Calliav would be over powered...nope, I disagree, if it procced a single-use Calliav at normal proc levels this would NOT render the pet invulnerable at *ALL*. Standard proc rate would see 2 or 3 procs per fight. Thus blocking perhaps, 2 to 3 hits per fight. Consider this in relation to mobs hitting between 500 and 2k. This is the equivalent of you healing the pet for that damage. Is this not more logical and in class? This helps soloing, grouping and raiding. After the initial summons the mage need do nothing else, except perhaps cast the higher calliavs if he is going to raid a major AoE mob. Make the Calliav effect stack with normal Calliavs. Mages shouldn't be constantly having to Calliav mid fight, this iwll reduce the overhead, to an extent, not remove it.
--I also suggested pet weapons proccing stun, snare, slow and Lure DD. Remember you can BUY all o these so there is NO reaosn mage shouldn't be able to *summon* them...but make them mage pet only, for balance.


5) Make such a summoned weapon *MAGE PET ONLY*, let the beastlords heal their pets so they can use them in this era of crazy damage from mobs.
Think outside the box. Heals are one way of dealing with "uber inflated mobs"...a Rune/Calliav/GuardIII effect is another.

6) Xalmat is correct in that our pet heals must be *conjurations* but so should ALL of our nukes, bolts, damage shields and rains. Mages are *NOT WIZARDS*. Wizards are evokers of energy, mages are summoners of material. Spreading our class's spell line up is NOT sensible. "Choice" doesn't come into this. You want to play an evoker, play a WIZARD! Mages are *summoners*. Blurring of this line has helped cripple mages as the distinction isn't clear.

7) An additonal mage pet heal between level 20 and 44 is probably needed.

8) I was running around for hours last night with a 61 air pet, Virtued, Focused with a slow proc staff..when slow lands the difference is *ENORMOUS*. The pet requires drastically less healing, aggros like a son fo a b*tch. procs are unreliable but it went off frequently. This lets you see what the difference slow does, it is massive...but..beastlord DPs sucks compared to ours.

9) There is a lot of "nerfage" in the air regarding this. Has anyone *ASKED* a beastlord if these heals are NECESSARY for their type of fighitng, hm? Maybe it is REQUIRED? Note they *cannot* burn a mob down*.

10) Even if we got slow or rune proccing weapons, this still doesn't help the LOWER level mages. Slow is a superb form of Crowd Control really, mobs damage output is such you can continue ot heal nuke with less worries. It's long since time mages had root, end of story. We do not need snare, we should not have snare, it is not in class. But EVERY int caster bar us has root...from Kunark on, there was no reason for us NOT to have root. necros have pets and a crap load of sweet survival tools. Wizards have snare root evacs rune. Enchnaters have root mezz slow rune, weak pet. Mages ONLY have the pet.

Quote from: TerjynPovarAre you serious Skog?

Call of the Hero, Pet toys, Mod rods, the various summons, pets which actually vary based on what you want to do, and Damage shields?

Compare this to Clerics, Warriors, Wizards, Rogues, Monks, Rangers, Berserkers.

Hell, the first three of those are more utility than any of these classes have.

Again, he never said you aren't a DPS class.  You keep repeating that and he didn't say it.

But whatever, I'm done even acknowledging your existence Skog.  Far be it from me to tell you what you can do.  If you are too dumb to figure it out on your own that's not my problem.

More and more misinformation on both sides I see

Wizards and rangers easily have as much utility as mages.

Not even going further - obvious you're clueless about it.

Quote from: Mneumenth

Quote from: BloodCelt

But, its a good thing I am a beastlord, cause my warder rezzed me.

BC

Bwahahahahahahahahaha

Also, dont forget in Mage utility their ability to charm...this boosts their DPS to rediculous levels.

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH

<choke>

1 zone
1

In that same zone, and just about any other PoP zone an enchanter and more easily do the same thing.

Mages can charm a pet, in TWO xp zones: bastion of Thunder, and Takish-Hiz Easy adventures.

Most mages would toss mezz and charm for upgraded pets/summons or whatever in a blink. CHarm and Mezz are fun, for a change, but mages are 1st and foremost *summoners*.

Ever seen an enchanter charmed, mage-pet toy-armed lizard in GoD trials? Mobs die in 15 seconds max. This is a fault of game design, tha tmobs >>>>> players DPs.

QuoteAggro is also factor here, usually on a raid, if the MT dies, the mages are next...no de-aggro system.

Hehe, i've NEVER seen a mage be the next person after MT dies.
But maybe they are the second person after MT dies, i wouldnt know considering im always the first one.  :lol:

Why beastlords should get better weapons.
A treaty on the current imbalance in beastlord weapon itemization by:
Elder Coprolith III & Snapjaw O'Neil

We all know that beastlord dps has been sadly neglected. Consider for instance this 2-year old mage 1HB that drops in PoWater:

Kelp Hilted Mace    
LORE ITEM MAGIC ITEM NO DROP  
Weight: 1.0 Size: MEDIUM
Slot: PRIMARY  
Damage: 60 Delay: 40
Sta: +12 Cha: +20 Int: +16 Fire Resist: +8 Cold Resist: +8 Magic Resist: +8 HP: +100 Mana: +100  
Weapon Skill: One Hand Blunt
Classes: Necromancer Enchanter Magician Wizard
Effect: Lotus Spines: Decrease Hitpoints by 450

This weapon has a damage delay ratio of no less then 1.5:1, with a 450 DD proc. Compare this to the best damage/delay 1HB available to beastlords from the GoD expansion:

Demerix the Painsipper
LORE ITEM MAGIC ITEM NO DROP  
Weight: 4.0 Size: MEDIUM
Slot: PRIMARY SECONDARY  
Damage: 32 Delay: 26
AC: +33 Str: +20 Dex: +15 Sta: +15 Cha: +20 Wis: +10 Int: +10 Agi: +15 Fire Resist: +15 Disease Resist: +25 Magic Resist: +20 Poison Resist: +25 HP: +250 Mana: +230 End: +230  
Weapon Skill: One Hand Blunt
Classes: Beastlord Ranger Bard Monk Rogue Warrior  
Effect: Serpent's Bite: Decrease Hitpoints by 100

which has a damage/delay of only 1.23:1.

As you can see, mages today have a weapon with a 22% better ratio and a superior proc then we do, and nothing has been done in the past two years to rectify this grave imbalance.
Consider also that Mage nukes have a 4:1 damage to mana ratio whereas ours only have a 3:1 ratio. Mage nukes are 33% more efficient then ours, not counting specialisation.

Since we are supposed to be melees and mages casters, I think its not unreasonable that our weapons should have a 33% better ratio then those of mages, to balance out their more efficient nukes. Our best weapons should have at least a 2:1 damage/delay ratio

------------------

Everything I've said in this post is absolutely true. I urge everyone here to register at the Mage board and remind them of that.

/hugs

Quote from: Bosra

Quote from: Mneumenth

Quote from: BloodCelt

But, its a good thing I am a beastlord, cause my warder rezzed me.

BC

Bwahahahahahahahahaha

Also, dont forget in Mage utility their ability to charm...this boosts their DPS to rediculous levels.

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH

<choke>

1 zone
1

In that same zone, and just about any other PoP zone an enchanter and more easily do the same thing.

While your /choking on that crow...keep in mind we're not talking about Chanters.  We're talkling about Magi/BL issues.

Charmed Pets put you very high on the old DPS scale and add to your "utility".  

Your rude reply and attitude are noted...Thank you for your time.

:roll:

J/K of course (about registering at the mage board that is)

Quote from: CoprolithJ/K of course (about registering at the mage board that is)

/chuckle

:lol:

We should all take Cop's weapon comparison and email it to Sony.

Coprolith could even post it on the Sony boards. :lol:

/waits to see Cop's weapon comparison show up on the mage boards lol

What kills me most are how mages are jumping all over the place on these comparisions.  In the last week alone I've now seen...

-  Mages should heal pets as well as besatlords (or better)

-  Mages have no CC (should CC like other casters0

-  Mages need to do more dps

-  Mages need to solo better


Could someone please explain to me how a class that "needs" to solo better, needs to be more group/raid friendly, needs more CC, needs more healing, etc still exists?  This is just insane.  Mages have mentioned...

-  The heals of beastlords
-  The ac/hp of beastlords
-  The charming of enc
-  The CC of other casters
-  The damage of wizards

Exactly what else do you want??  This is insane and overboard and you are just making people sick with it.  The class isn't that bad off!!  You can't compare to beastlord heals, then compare to wizard damage, then compare to enchanter charm, etc, etc, etc.  Compare to MAGES.  That's what you are.  I love how a "dps class" complains they can't do CC, but ignores rogues and monks.  How long do you think a rogue lasts in front of an unslowed add in lots of spots once nimble fades.  How well do they hold aggro even if they stand there?  Even the rogues/bst/etc that can tank these things have TONS of gear upgrades from MANY raids, not one spell and maybe 1 focus effect.  This is just too much and went way too far.

Oh btw, just for S&Gs, could someone please point to me where mage spec is factored into all those number comparisions?  I missed the ~21% flat rate mana savings from spec conj + SCM3.  

I was happy with and would have stood behind changes that granted mages...

-  Crit heal AA
-  Summon item with healing focus
-  Items added to game specifically for pet heals for mag/bst/nec that even had increased heal% because they are so limited.

I will absolutely not tolerate an intelligent person deliberately misleading a horde of battered wife syndrome having sheep down a path with mis-information, complete neglect of facts and no regard for others.  PET HEALS still need attention, but it's not just a mage issue and it's not because beastlord heals are overpowered.  The best thing they have going for them is a mana efficency that never gets used /boggle.

No, Bosra, you really really *REALLY* need to learn to read and understand someone's point.  Everything I said is true and valid.

But you aren't responding to what I said, you are responding to a twisted version of what I say.

And Wizards have as much utility as a Magician?  You have completely, utterly, lost any semblence of reality.  Go back to the Mage's Compendium, you are truly too stupid to be here.  Heck, get ONE other person to agree with your statement.  Find one.  Should be an easy task right?  Hell, there's already a post in this very thread which agrees with me...so I don't even have to do the same.

You are even worse than Xalmat is.  He has a history of accuracy and rationality to back up his BS.  You don't have any of it.

I'm filing you right next to Skog.  You guys come here so mad at the world that you see what you want to see...rather than even bothering to understand what you REALLY see.

Quite obviously because you play a Magician/Beastlord combo, you cannot fathom how to play a BST or MAG alone, and you think you are the expert on all things both.

Quote from: DiosTyeah jarean, I thought that too, but really, I don't want to limit people's chances to edit their post 'rightly' -- such as to fix phrases that would otherwise be taken worse then was intented, retract their comment before it could be flamed on, or simply just to fix typo's :-P

typically things get quoted anyway :-P so can always read their comments through that

I kept Edit off in this forum for that very purpose. If people want to post stupid stuff and then they realize there stupidness later I didnt want them to be able to recant it :)

BUA HA HA!

damned no-editing.   I forgot to mention in my post that Beastlord Warders are full of Candy! =)

BC

Actually mages and wizards prolly have about the same level of utility, not more, not less. Just different. Wizards are pretty handy to have around if you don't just view them as walking boom sticks.

Wizards:
Translocate, Evac, Port, Snare (granted its an AE), Root, Disintegrate (highly useful for Agnarr), Spellshields (my guild uses these a lot, a wizard chaining both major spellshields on MT helps a lot), Damage Shield (granted Feedback sucks /grins).

Mages:
CoTH, Mod Rods, Malo, Damage Shields (good ones), Pet Gear (equiv to buffs for pets), Other summoned gear (most useful being: arrows, focus items, amulet of return, levitate ring, stacks of food/drink), Pet Stuns (not capped by level so useful even on raid mobs)

I have seen raids cancelled due to a lack of CoTH mage and I have seen raids cancelled due to no wizard to disintegrate (Agnarr), port to destination (PoSky) or MGB evac (various).

In the general picture of things Mages are not hurting too badly. A smart mage who uses his pet effectively has the potential to approach/equal/beat most similiarly equipped wizards total damage on the majority of raid mobs, they are able to solo very effectively if they choose their locations/targets well and smart groups who realise what a mage can do will snap them up pretty fast (too be honest in an LDoN i'd rather have a mage than a wizard because the mage adds an extra offtank/stunner and almost equiv realistic damage potential). I parse every single fight I am ever involved in so I am well aware what a mage's true damage potential is.

So, on raids they are very desired (and in some cases essential), solo they can hold their own and earn decent xp (especially in BoT with charmed pet), so its really only on the standard group side that they suffer (they are an optional class to be picked up once all essential roles are filled).

In the high end they suffer from the same issues we do with the major one being that pets are not sufficiently scalable so pet classes eventually get left behind.

The problem with the vocal minority of mages is they will not be content until they feel there is at least one area of the game in which they reign undisputedly supreme, you'll see this type of behaviour coming from members of all of the older classes that have supposedly "lost" something as they have evolved from the original game to the point they are now. Seemingly they have chosen "Pet Supremacy" as this area and have failed to realise that they have already totally won this battle (mage pets are undoubtedly the strongest pets in the game in their various areas of speciality by a very large margin and mages overall have the best pet AA's and pet "buffs" in the entire game -- yes pet gear is buffing).

Unfortunetly for the class they appear to have a large portion of the greedy people who will simply never be happy and will always look around and see that patches of grass appear greener across various fences and will want some of that for themselves.

Attacking another class in an attempt to grab power (or as they call it "fix the class" -- how can one fix that which is not truly broken?) is truly an immoral and despicable act that smacks of greedy desperation.

Basra makes a very pointed example of the average mage attitude.  They see something another class can do, then  they think they need it to be "balanced".  The continuing mention of how bst have more hp/ac and mitagate better than a mage is sheer stupidity.  Beasts are a MELEE mages are a CASTER, so by the mage plan, either bst need to have our hp nerfed down to cloth wearing classes, or mages, and mages alone, no mention of chanters(who get hit one hell of a lot more than any mage with a clue) wizards(who draw more agro  than a mage from my experiance), or necros(who if they dont FD regular will certainly die from dot agro)

And mages wonder why thier gripes tend to fall on deaf ears.

Tastian

Wizard, necromancers, enchnaters and druids can all solo like crazy up to the elemental planes. There is *NO* doubt on this, it's fact. Until mages just RECENTLY got pets improved, it was extremely bloody difficult to solo in PoP, but before that mages were a very good solo class (sans CC and all that meant). Mages *are* a solo class it's in the class *description*.

Mages should *not* get nukes rivalling wizzies, bar one odd area around lvl 34 that is never really an issue. Indeed some wizzy high level nukes need improved because their resists *suck*, comparatively. Mages though *need* a low resist nuke or DoT because it's a freakin' PIA dealing with mobs with high resists, I'm sure BST know how that feels too, Plane of Water IIRC sucks for you? Enchanters and mages are the only damage casters with no low resist nukes or DoTs..oh, our anti-summoend DDs are semi-lures...but there sure is a lack of targets to use them on!
--Yes mages get debuffs, but thats mana/time loss and it benefits the WHOLE group. Malosinia *sucks* by the way, Mala and Malosini are still way better, bar boss mobs, and those are KUNARK spells. (Malosinia has no resist mod, resistable, only -10 to resists for 100 more mana versus Malosini).

Mage nukes have been boosted by all the cool focus items etc, but again, pets HAVEN'T. You see many pet focuses in game, hm? Least higher end GOD seems to have a a decent sprinkling, but like BST mages are stuffed by lack of pet focii.

Mages should get root, enough is neough, in original EQ, the pet WAS more than sufficient defence to lack root, but no longer. Mages should not get castable snare, slow or mezz charm, it's just silly. Play the int classes and compare them, and don't EVER say root/stun/mezz/charm/FD/concussion aren't that good  if you haven't been drinking ;)

Curent mage nukes are fine, though I'd trade a little less damage for a small resist modifier (though I have Roleplay and balance reasons for wishing mage nukes to use Dodge, Armour class for soem resists). I'd much rather see pet's DPs/aggro raised. I'm not looking forward to the OOW nukes because I will get splattered, PDQ. Yes we DO generally die right after the MT. Slow is huge aggro, so is Firebolt of Talon, try it ;) You cast 10 FBoT into a mob you better believe it's going to want to eat you, lol. If your MT doesn't have a blade of war anger 3 augments etc, your *DEAD* unelss your very careful and do less nuking, less DPs and thus...why have a mage when a wizzy/rogue is better?..one of the memories associated with FBoT is after dying repeatedly using it, so I waited to a new mob was at 60%, cast FBoT and..dead again, hehe. This was way back at start of PoP, no VT/Emperor weapons. Spell Casting Subtlety is a *must*!!

Why would a mage want hp/tanking ability of a beastlord? *scratches head* Doesn't compute--robe wearer--punch bags R US! :)
A sore point I see though is AOE damage, mages can't rune or lifetap.

Using a pet and all it's problems, can also be said to be a balance versus the *clean simplicity* of a rogue or wizard. In a BSt case, compare a monk, to what YOU have to do. As a hybrid it's a LOT more work.

Rogues need...well, EQ sucks for true roguish ability etc :( Glorified corpse draggers and uber DPs is just silly as heck.
EQ2 looks much better in this regard :)

You DO realize the DPs of necros now, hm? Who can lifetap, CC etc etc. necros, IMHO are a well balanced class, though I'm not sure if their DoT stacking/resist-type issues have been fixed with the 50 debuff slot change?

Coprolith,
I have been after that damned mace since it was discovered. No one wants to do PoW! Gah! :(
Staff of the Silent Star still is a sweet item though, it's just so fuuuuun to bonk things for a change :)

Hmm...I guess I can sorta see that a_moss_snake, however I disagree.

Translocate, Evac, and Port are all the same thing.  Snare/Root I also clump into the same category (Crowd Control).  Spellshields, granted.  Damage shield?  No way can I give you this one.

And, to me, Disintigrate doesn't qualify for Utility, but I guess that's opinion, I will grant you the opinion.  Even if it is utility, I'd clump it into the Crowd Control aspect above.

To me, I see Wizard Utility as minor Crowd Control, ports, and Spellshield.  That's completely dwarfed by Magi utility.  However, I can respect the fact that you at least attempted to talk about it rather than just arrogantly blow it off.

See, I'm not unreasonable, but people like Bosra just tick me off.

For example, the original talk was about the fact that Magi/BST *both* die really fast to reds/yellows/whites/high blues at the high end, and the entire conversation was about what they do against hordes of low blues.  Then he comes out of left field with a comment about getting hit for 600.  WTF does this have to do with anything?

Then he goes on to say that I'm somehow thinking Gate's the greatest spell ever, when all I said is it isn't 100% worthless like he claims.  Shades of grey anyone?  Then he continues to say that it's the BSTs who are twisting facts, and not Xalmat.

Another example, when you two box you cannot play a Beastlord like a Beastlord, which is why he always pet tanks.  He has the advantage of a better pet heal (from his BST) *AND* faster burn down at range (from his Magi) so he cannot even comprehend how either play alone...and he doesn't even try.

And hell, given that that's how he always plays, I can see why he'd think Healing of Sorsha is the best thing since sliced bread.  But like has been said the whole time.  Give them the damn spell Healing of Sorsha.  I do not care, never have.

I am going to add one more thing, since I'm sure it'll inevitably get dragged out.  I've argued against Magician upgrades in the past...I admit this.  I've changed my mind, I was wrong, I admit that too.  But it doesn't take very long at all to find a lot of posts with Beastlords talking about how Magicians need an upgrade...without really specifying what.

a_moss_snake_001,

*Can agree with a lot of that* :)
Though..
XP situations mage usually rock, and have done for years.
--Liek all pet casters, pets and raids have been an issue. This is much much less of a hassle now htough it's sitlla problem at times/sepcific raids.
--Pets are best on LONG fights, short ones where the "boss mob" dies in a couple of minutes, wizard damage is far more efficient.
--lack of a low resist or cold nuke is a PIA. BSt pals say Plane of Water sucks for you, true? K, Plane of Fire and Earth sucks too, Fire is the worst by far though. Aso LDOn raids (a rare issue true, but mages can largely forget nuking on a couple of them)
--CoTh is disabled in way to many zones now...*grinds teeth and mutters bitterly about that*. Used to be great fun being COTH mage in old VP , hehe! Well unless your wiz pal Evaced you to the zone instead of himself.....*snicker*
--Currently I don't think regular mage pets toys ARE much use for DPs, they go off 2 or 3 times per fight (xp) so say 300hp. The hit points they add is WAY more important I think. But that's an issue with nearly ALL proc weapons now. Back in the day, a 150hp proc was uber, now on the mobs we fight it's just tiny.

A lot of extreme opinions in this thread for sure.

You are not wrong about Gate. It *is* a useful spell that is able to get you out of most sticky situations providing you are smart and you don't get too unlucky. However we all know it is not the be-all-and-end-all and imho should not really even be considered in class balance. And I agree, you did not state that it was the "greatest spell ever", he obviously misunderstood and chose to overreact in his response.

I view Gate not as a "defense" and more as a "break glass in case of emergency" measure.

"Wizard, necromancers, enchnaters and druids can all solo like crazy up to the elemental planes. There is *NO* doubt on this, it's fact. Until mages just RECENTLY got pets improved, it was extremely bloody difficult to solo in PoP, but before that mages were a very good solo class (sans CC and all that meant). Mages *are* a solo class it's in the class *description*. "

Yes you CAN solo.  Even before the changes you COULD solo.  The problem with mages is WHERE and WHAT and HOW they want to solo.  Do you realize how most beastlords solo high end content?  We piss off the mob and run around well our pet bites it in the rump.  Guess what?  Mages can do this too and could forever.  I remember solo'n the langsax quest 4 years ago with my mage using this.  Heck mages were even given pet only movement rate increasers.  

"--Yes mages get debuffs, but thats mana/time loss and it benefits the WHOLE group. "

Exactly.  If you do something that benefits the group you give up some personal gain.  You do realize that by casting fero on a rogue the beastlord loses personal damage, but the group/raid gains right?  These are the tradeoffs we make.  It amazes that mages can constantly quote solo situations where a beastlord mob is ALWAYS slowed, but somehow the mage mob isn't always missing 70 off their saves.  

"Mage nukes have been boosted by all the cool focus items etc, but again, pets HAVEN'T. You see many pet focuses in game, hm? Least higher end GOD seems to have a a decent sprinkling, but like BST mages are stuffed by lack of pet focii. "

This is an overall pet issue that has been covered.  No one denies this and many want it fixed.  Atleast currently mages have focuses that are doing something for the pet where as higher end bst focus is doing almost nothing.  Mages also have the luxury of GoDS, a focus item from VT briding the LDoN ~> Time gap, that for some reason is a leather graphic pair of gloves for nec/mag with a decent focus effect, but no bst on it.  /boggle

"Mages should get root, enough is neough, in original EQ, the pet WAS more than sufficient defence to lack root, but no longer. Mages should not get castable snare, slow or mezz charm, it's just silly. Play the int classes and compare them, and don't EVER say root/stun/mezz/charm/FD/concussion aren't that good if you haven't been drinking"

No they shouldn't.  I've played the int classes and I understand how each of them functions in and of their own class and in the world of norrath as a whole.  This seems to be something that mages are losing sight of as they continue to snipe various things from various classes to focus on, but never factor in how they weigh in the grandscheme of things.

"Yes we DO generally die right after the MT. Slow is huge aggro, so is Firebolt of Talon, try it You cast 10 FBoT into a mob you better believe it's going to want to eat you, lol. If your MT doesn't have a blade of war anger 3 augments etc, your *DEAD* unelss your very careful and do less nuking, less DPs and thus...why have a mage when a wizzy/rogue is better?..one of the memories associated with FBoT is after dying repeatedly using it, so I waited to a new mob was at 60%, cast FBoT and..dead again, hehe. This was way back at start of PoP, no VT/Emperor weapons. Spell Casting Subtlety is a *must*!!"

This is simply false on a few levels.  One if you got aggro from a single flame bolt it's just crap luck or lame or whatever.  2 in terms of damage per aggro magicians are ahead of MOST classes.  Let me explain something to you real quick.  If a wizard does 1k damage then they have 1k in damage worth of aggro.  If a mage does 800 damage in nukes and pet does 200 damage then the mage has 800 damage worth of aggro.  If a mage get's aggro they are doing more damage than others.  You take 10 flamebolts and pull aggro and you've done 20k damage had your pet whaling on the mob the entire time.  A beastlord stacks 2 dots, gets a weapon proc and get smeared after they + pet have done under 4k.  Magicians don't get jolt and aggro adjusting abilities because a lot of their damage is tied into the pet.  

This would even make sense for beastlords if it weren't for how aggro is calculated and different spells doing more aggro.  If a beastlord just melee and pet'd their aggro would work, if they just nuked and pet'd their aggro would work.  However, having dots that generate too much aggro and are bugged in terms of focus/AA damage to aggro ratios well relying on procs and nukes in close range (we melee) makes beastlords have aggro issues when doing 50% less damage than many other classes.  I've can't name a time I've seen a mage summoned from the main tank.  Not once, not ever, I've raided forever, I'm talking old FG raids up through GoD.  I've played 2 mages and it just doesn't happen.  I'm sure I could pull aggro, but in normal play its very unlikely.  Also please explain to me how a mage doing less nuke dps than a wizard pulls aggro if the wizard is chain nuking from 96% and not even bothering to click jolt pants (this happens in cases now).  I'm sorry, but you are simply missing facts.  Beastlords generate far more aggro than mages well doing less damage.  Mages do more damage for less aggro because of pets/DS, those are just facts.

"You DO realize the DPs of necros now, hm? Who can lifetap, CC etc etc. necros, IMHO are a well balanced class, though I'm not sure if their DoT stacking/resist-type issues have been fixed with the 50 debuff slot change? "

Here we go again mentioning other classes.  Isn't it funny how in a thread that started because of mage wanting more heals based upon beastlord heals we now see more mention of necros, we see mention of wizards, we see mention of other classes over and over again.  Can you atleast see how this seems so overboard?  

Mages currently...

- Out damage the majority of classes in both burst and sustained
- Have utility on a personal, group, raid level
- Can SOLO

There are a LOT of classes in EQ that simply can't claim that currently.  Please show a warrior what utility he brings and how well he can solo.  Please explain to the rogue that is a dps class as well that he has uhhhhhh SoS for scouting.  I mean seriously this is what is so insane about it.  I've been for mage fixes since before pet cani even got nerfed.  I enjoy the class, but it's just gone way too far.  You guys have battered wife syndrome to a level that I can't even fathom.  Mages do amazing dps, you fill specific roles in groups and raids well, and you can solo.  Yet you see talk of better CC, root (CC and spliting and solo'n uses), talk of better dps (you already out dps a majority of the game in a majority of the situations).  Seriously where will it end?  Can you honestly tell that where mages currently are getting pet heals boosted beyond what beastlords currently have, getting more dps beyond what you already have, further pet enchancements, the ability to OT, improvements to solo coming from several of these things, etc?  Is all that just a bit too much???

And back to the topic of the original post.  Even if half of this were warranted couldn't you show it in terms of mages?  Why is it you need to bring unused beastlord heals into it, why do you need to ignore some shaman heals and ignore CHs?  Why do you need to ignore spec checks and SCM?  Why is it that beastlords always have slow on a mob, but a mage doesnt' somehow always have malx on the mob?  This is just the start of the list.  I've seen a lot of things in my time in EQ, but I never would have believed this would come from xal and I wouldn't have believed as many mages would have sheepish went along with as have.  Some see that it's out there and that's good.  Everyone wants there class to be better, but most understand their class and how it related to the game.  Picking and choosing things like pet heals from beastlords, roots from other classses, better pets already above and beyond what's in game, etc is just way way way way way too much.

"--Liek all pet casters, pets and raids have been an issue. This is much much less of a hassle now htough it's sitlla problem at times/sepcific raids. "

All classes have this in one form or another.  How much dps do rogues do on FR?  How well do monks fair on xegony?  One of the other big things mages seem to be doing lately is pointing out general EQ facts and acting like they are a basis for powering up.  On some fights, some encounters you do less damage, some fights you bag pets, some fights 1hb does crap damage, some zones fire doesn't land, etc.  That's just how it goes, but it effects all classes in one way or another at one time or another.  This isn't anti-mage and it's not disproportionate enough atm imo to warrant any types of changes.

"--Pets are best on LONG fights, short ones where the "boss mob" dies in a couple of minutes, wizard damage is far more efficient. "

Wizard damage is never more efficent.  A pet is by far one of the most efficent forms of damage in the game.  The pet still continues to do damage on short fights, it's just that burst damage becomes more important.  However, in that situation you have options such as Frenzied burnout, HoE, chain nuking, etc.  Mages can "burst" quite high and even just their sustained dps is quite respectable.  Again though this is a fact of EQ some fights favor other classes better.  The wizard does less damage clearing to the boss mob, they don't have a pet helping them all the way through contribute damage and they do more in a burn down type of fight.  That is as close to balanced as you can get really.  I mean should mages easily out sustain dps a wizard and still do worse on boss mob fights?  Or even close?  The fact that mages can put out as much burst dps and show as well as they do on boss mobs is a testiment to how powerful the class truely is.  There are plenty of classes that have no chance of achieving the total raid damage a mage does.  This includes cleraing, and boss mob fights.

"--lack of a low resist or cold nuke is a PIA. BSt pals say Plane of Water sucks for you, true? K, Plane of Fire and Earth sucks too, Fire is the worst by far though. Aso LDOn raids (a rare issue true, but mages can largely forget nuking on a couple of them) "

Yup in PoW our cold nukes drag their teeth.  Guess what...It's PoW, we know this.  If dots weren't crazy on the aggro it'd be even less of an issue.  However, even if PoW was completely poison/disease/cold immune beastlords would still understand.  It's one zone, and it's not where we thrieve.  How many beastlords do you see cursing and whining for changes because in BoT east we can't land a god dang thing except plague and malaria? lol  How much dps can a cleric or enchanter do on emp?   Again this is a general fact of EQ.  Mages are NOT being picked on here.  Some places you are 100% efficent and everything works, some places less.  Thankfully between a pet, a fire nuke AND a magic based nuke mages are very seldom useless.  

"--CoTh is disabled in way to many zones now...*grinds teeth and mutters bitterly about that*. Used to be great fun being COTH mage in old VP , hehe! Well unless your wiz pal Evaced you to the zone instead of himself.....*snicker* "

ABSOLUTELY!!  DING DING DING!! This works for me, this makes sense this is a mage type issue.  Coth is very powerful and it's a magician staple from old chardok times to now.  The spell is disabled in spots that it simply shouldn't be.  Any zone that allows summoning corpses to the caster should allow CoH imo.  I think a lot of people would agree with this.  

"--Currently I don't think regular mage pets toys ARE much use for DPs, they go off 2 or 3 times per fight (xp) so say 300hp. The hit points they add is WAY more important I think. But that's an issue with nearly ALL proc weapons now. Back in the day, a 150hp proc was uber, now on the mobs we fight it's just tiny."

You are ignoring the haste mask, and you are ignoring that you can give this to other pets.  Now let's do a little math real quick as I'm having withdrawls.  If each weapon proc'd once per minute that'd be 300 damage per minute or 5dps.  Say 1 mage, 1 bst, 1 necro or 15 dps right there.  That ignores haste masks, is actually a lower proc rate than what happens from my testing, but I'll have more tests soon.  Also realize how mana efficent that damage is.  For a couple hundred mana each pet is gaining that dps.  Especially with the recent changes that's huge.  

Seriously the more and more mages the talk the more and more people are realizing they aren't all that bad off atm.  Get behind things like CotH, pet heal changes overall, honest dps issues and you'll have the support and respect of many others.  However, using false claims, wrong data, misinformation and going totally overboard to try and convince people you need more is just going to cause problems.

Tastian,
By way I disagree with Xalmat, to an extent. I think ALL pet classes' pet heals need to be 3 seconds or so. Did you read my quoted post?

Anyway...

Yes I am aware that pet damage doesn't contribute to aggro, though setting a pet on a mob is TINY aggro. Also mages have A LOWER aggro factor than wizards (yes classes do have varied aggro, and there is some belief mages have less aggro modifier than wizards). But the PoP nukes have huge aggro, and I'm sorry but YOU are wrong, I KNOW PoP nukes are huge aggro, and most raid mages KNOW they die rather bloody frequently if the MT/RT goes down, cause we sure do on raids I'm at ;) Spells have individual aggro modifiers and screw ups (slow, tash, DoTs), with Spell Casting Subtlety, Firebolt of Talon is *stupid* aggro, hence I call it the "Suicide Torpedo", hehe. Beastlords shouldn't be doing high enough DPs unless they are unlucky (??) but slowing, DoTs are cuckoo aggro (and that I agree is damned silly about DoTs). High lvl SLows are more aggro than FBOT I beleive, but what would happen to a BST who chains SLOWS on a mob, hm?
--Aggro *now* is less worriesome , as I said due to ANger3 and blades of war, you STILL ride way up the aggro ladder though and you *cannot cool it off at all* as a mage. PoP "frontloaded" mages with aggro, as it were, but it takes melee a lot longer to get the weapons that will over come the potential hate. That make sense?

Yup pets are uber efficent :) For, as I said LONG TERM, nukes are most efficent SHORT term, no if ands or butts about it. Wizzards have best nukes ergo on short fights wizards own all. Which is how it should be, but melee weapon ratios, mana pools and regen are throwing the time/damage balances all around.
--Trash mobs (outside VT) again wizards and (mass) melee are best here, they simply die too fast. Pets do have an advantage in swiftly GETTING TO the mob though.

Pet toys. So mages can boost warders damage but what do BSTs do for mage pets in return? *poke poke* ;) Haste mask si only 11% haste, not huge, it is ncie htough, and I perosnally like it for dispelling mobs as ti will still be in effect. You sound like you played a mage from way back? I was one of hm 4--6?? mages on server who had that damn Muzzle spell back in Kunark for a long time, blerg (remember the rarity of it? OMG)
Pet toy efficiency is fine xping, NOT raiding except in Luclin, mobs die to fast, on raids pets need something, buffs or whtever to boost them, ie Pet Affinity should be FREE or cost 1 AA.

Solo, reducing a mobs resists by 60 or 35 (Only those with Malosinia Time mask would or should use that spell) is NOT as effective as Slow, be honest! ;) It *is* good though. Beastlords notice the difference groupng with a mage where mobs resists are tough, I Mala everything in elementals or Hard adventures.
--Pet aggro kitng as a mage post PoP is a bt weird...if you have FBoT you can rmap up aggro which is great , but if you don't have a pet opfcus, when mob eventually turns on ept, pet is FUBARed...and if oyu have SPel Casting Subtelty, you generate less aggro...
Woot least we aggre on COTH :) drives me crackers, that does "THis spell does not work in this zone"..."There are no heroes here"...BAH!
/rude SOE!


ALL classes should be able to solo when they want to...alas the major screw up in EQ is mob versus player DPs, if oyu cannot slow it or aovid it, you are FUBARed because mobs so out weigh players. EQ2 looks nice :)

It's not too often discussions in the rants forum get somewhere, but I honestly do feel like I understand you better and that you are atleast listening which is a nice change of pace from some.  8)  I did read your post and I read every word of every thread before I reply, but I have done so much thread reading and quoting and stuff sometimes I simply make copy/paste mistakes or I bunch a lot of stuff together into a reply and the spaces messes up what was intended for who hehe.  

Beastlords don't even have to chain slow for aggro (although boy that'd do the trick lol).  Basically the problem comes in like you mention on the burn down type of fights where we use the 1-3 nukes that are more dps than our melee produces, but with a 30 second recast time we simply don't have another option.  Poison dots just get you wrecked in a lot of cases.  Also having procs cover a lot of our damage on weapons like ED really raise beastlord aggro as well.  I've said it before, although not in this thread, that if beastlords are slowing and debuffing and pull aggro or if they were out damaging others I wouldn't say anything.  The true problems are when a beastlord is in a total dps role and doing 200-250 dps and pulling aggro off the MT that is holding aggro off the 300+ dps mag/rog/wiz.

The thing about pets though, just like the pet toys that you miss is that these things all add up.  You might not do as much on one particlar fight or for one particual 10 minute period, but things like pet toys and haste mask to all pets on a VT raid is a LOT of damage and very efficent.  It helps some on the boss mob fight, but it's not a huge burst at once like a nuke is.  Again though this is just a case of how EQ is.  Wizards do great in that role and lag a bit in other spots.  Thankfully mages do have options to help in situations like that with a few AAs and the ability to adjust their nuke rate.  

Yeah I remember how rare those spells were.  I don't know how much time I spent kiling juggs over the years.  Muzzle was amazing, but my best deal was getting forlorn deeds in exchange for emmisary of thule.  hehe

Oh and no way I'd use malosinia solo, mala or pendant clicky.  My point was just that almost every single beastlord comparision assumes that the mob is slowed, there is no mention of resists, no mention of mana used to land the spell or time spent landing it.  If you can assume that sha's revenge is on every mob then you might as well assume that malosinaiappi is on every mob too.

CotH is very annoying, but the best is still old acryila lol.  "There are no heros here!!" hack, hack, kick lol.

I think you make some good points and I do hope you understand that I'm not even close to anti mage like some seem to think hehe.  You just have to try to imagine how much misinformation I now see in a days time.  I have people ignoring spells, ignoring casting time, ignoring just plain facts well trying to explain how they need boosts or bst are over powered or whatever and it just puts things off on the wrong foot.  Has a bad tone to it and is just completely uneccessary.  You'd think that with beastlords and mages both being big pet classes that they'd want to work together to get overall pet fixes done like...

- Shorter casting time on heals
- Pet buffs showing duration and being able to be clicked off like player ones

and other things.  Instead to see a very respected and intelligent mage open up about how uber beastlord heals are that we don't even use and ignoring facts left right and center just broke me.  8(  I still feel bad hehe.  Anyway, thanks for being civil and expressing your points clearly.  Feel free to PM me or e-mail like everyone else if you ever wanna talk or discuss more.  8P

As far as utility, I do think that Mage/Wizards are roughly equal.

Wizard- Enhancers to primary attribute- Fammiliar, Harvest, Concussion.
Movement- Ports, Gates, TLs
Crowd controll/defense- Root, snare (there are single target snares), runes, Spell Shields (set number and % reduction)

Mages- Enhancers to primary attribute- Pet toys, Pet haste, DS, Mod rods (mana regen for the Mage)
Movement- CoH
Crowd controll/defense-
Summons- (non basic caster abilities) Focus items, Mod rods (for others) Mod rods are 360 mana/300 seconds (5 minute recast). Ignoring the mana cost (400 base) because this is talking about others that ammounts to 1.2 mana a second assuming that it is clicked at exactly the moment that the recast becomes available.
Focus items were introduced to test them on a wider basis, and were usefull before they became readily avaiable. Now they are barely of any use- kinda like a Wizard's DS. I never get asked for them anymore, especially because the stats are so very low that most seem to prefer better stats to the summoned items. Focus items are becomming a dime a dozen these days.

Charm is available in BoT and easy Takish adventures, and is signifigantly level capped. So there are 2 zones where Mage charm is useable. Unless you really want to charm in Najena.  :lol:

I am glad that some on this board will listen, but as many, if not more, refuse to even think of the other's view points. I know some Mages are just as guilty (perhaps I myself at times) but isn't that what the thread is about?

I just want to say a bit on the whole "mages need better pet heals to be able to solo again" bit of nonsense.  Different classes are better at different things.  Wow, what a shocker.

What is the BEST class to solo from 1-30? Prolly a monk.  From 20-39 prolly a beastlord.  From 39-49, prolly a necro.  From 50-55, prolly a bard.  From 56-59, prolly a druid.  From 60-65, pretty tied between necro, druid, beast, and bard.

Now... Why are monks so godly at low levels?  High sustained dps, high hp/ac and high HP regen compared to damage taken.  My iksar monk could kill decent exp mobs non-stop till about 30 or so, w/o any regen items or good gear, or downtime.  Can a level 65 monk solo ANYWHERE for decent exp? Nope, no sir, not in a million years.

Can a 65 bard? Yea.  What about a 65 druid? Yep again.

Now take a bard or druid at levels 1-20...they are both a bitch to level.

Mages are strong soloers for most of the lower-end game, but post 55 it slows a bit...wow, same for many classes, get over it.

I mean, do monks say "We are the best at soloing from 1-30" and we need more mitigation and hp regen so we can continue to solo forever?  No, thats absurd, monks will never get 500hp/tick regen so they can solo in BoT.

QuoteWhat Xalmat wrote was entirely the truth, but I guess the truth is to much for some beastlords to handle. Why are you so afraid of us getting equal heals? It would hardly break the game, and would make a lot of mages happy.

I'm curious.  In which universe does "blatantly biased load of horseshit, leaving out all information relevant to the topic which can't further my cause" mean "truth?"

"Afraid?" For the record, the Beastlord community doesn't give a shit what heals you do or don't get. We rarely use ours. We're too busy enjoying playing the game, rather than writing essays on why we feel every other class is better than us.

QuoteTHIS IS NOT A SOLO GAME ! THIS IS A GAME BASED ON GROUPS AND RAIDS

Please don't start with this shit again. This game is whatever you want to make of it.

Neight

Just for the record I'd take a bard solo'n 27+ without hesitating.  Last time I got bored and started up a bard I think the longest a level took me from 27 to 51 was an hour and a half.  8P

People do need to listen more,  but that's part of the problem with what xal did.  He set the bar, he set the tone of everything.  The direct beastlord comparisions, the leaving out of key facts, etc.  It put many beastlords on the defensive and simply boggled others.  Like I said there are a lot of things (especially pet related) that beastlords would have gotten behind and agreed with and tried to help on.  Just imagine though if instead of talking about issues with beastlord nukes I wrote up a several page long thread explaining how "overpowered" mage nukes are to others and that clearly beastlords now need an even better nuke than mages currently get.  

Despite all the time I've put into this game and how jaded I am I still honestly believe that most people will atleast listen if you come to them in a good tone and use solid facts to explain your case.  That doesn't mean they'll always agree, but there's a good chance if nothing else they would offer some friendly feedback on your data and your cause.  *shrugs*  I guess maybe the game has just changed too much and I'm getting too old for this schit...

Quote from: Urim

QuoteAggro is also factor here, usually on a raid, if the MT dies, the mages are next...no de-aggro system.

Hehe, i've NEVER seen a mage be the next person after MT dies.
But maybe they are the second person after MT dies, i wouldnt know considering im always the first one.  :lol:

My mage is always next to die - I ride the line very close.

Quote from: Mneumenth

Quote from: Bosra

Quote from: Mneumenth

Quote from: BloodCelt

But, its a good thing I am a beastlord, cause my warder rezzed me.

BC

Bwahahahahahahahahaha

Also, dont forget in Mage utility their ability to charm...this boosts their DPS to rediculous levels.

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH

<choke>

1 zone
1

In that same zone, and just about any other PoP zone an enchanter and more easily do the same thing.

While your /choking on that crow...keep in mind we're not talking about Chanters.  We're talkling about Magi/BL issues.

Charmed Pets put you very high on the old DPS scale and add to your "utility".  

Your rude reply and attitude are noted...Thank you for your time.

:roll:

I choked on the complete and utter inanity of such a statement.  Toss mezz and charm out (well, hell, they keep takiing the summoned tag off of mobs, so toss the anti-summoned nuke line while you're at it).

You bitch about mages saying "oh, you have slow and heals and this that and the other thing." and say they don't understand because they aren't BL's.  Well - I'm both.  You don't have a clue.  I love my BL - he is my main now.  Even with the boosts to mages, I'm not going back.  They still aren't up to snuff in my opinion.  My mage exists as a DPS producer for the BL and a summoner of pet toys for his tiger.

Play both to 65, 100+ aa - then come back and tell me mages don't need work.

Quote from: TerjynPovarNo, Bosra, you really really *REALLY* need to learn to read and understand someone's point.  Everything I said is true and valid.

But you aren't responding to what I said, you are responding to a twisted version of what I say.

And Wizards have as much utility as a Magician?  You have completely, utterly, lost any semblence of reality.  Go back to the Mage's Compendium, you are truly too stupid to be here.  Heck, get ONE other person to agree with your statement.  Find one.  Should be an easy task right?  Hell, there's already a post in this very thread which agrees with me...so I don't even have to do the same.

You are even worse than Xalmat is.  He has a history of accuracy and rationality to back up his BS.  You don't have any of it.

I'm filing you right next to Skog.  You guys come here so mad at the world that you see what you want to see...rather than even bothering to understand what you REALLY see.

Quite obviously because you play a Magician/Beastlord combo, you cannot fathom how to play a BST or MAG alone, and you think you are the expert on all things both.

Hmmm - I guess 130 or 140 days played on my mage on a single account and 70 or so on my BL on that account before I transferred him over to a 2nd account to 2 box means I have no clue.  

Oh - and since you'll misread that - that was BEFORE I TRANSFERRED HIM, SO HE WAS PLAYED WITHOUT THE HELP OF THE MAGE.  I'm sorry I can't break down the 2 syllable words to one syllable for you - you'll just have to sound them out.

No, I don't know everything - but I know enough to see the stupidity in what people on both sides are saying.

I really don't care if anyone on this board who doesn't play a wizard thinks they have less utility than a mage - my buddy who plays a 65, 200 aa wizard laughs his fool head off at the notion.

One thing this thread really shows is that even people I thought had a grain of sense aren't worth the bandwidth they consume.  I now really worry about the future of my 2 classes given that Xalmat, Danille and Tastian have shown a complete lack of ability to step back and see a larger picture.

<shrug>

Quote from: StrigoriBasra makes a very pointed example of the average mage attitude.  They see something another class can do, then  they think they need it to be "balanced".  The continuing mention of how bst have more hp/ac and mitagate better than a mage is sheer stupidity.  Beasts are a MELEE mages are a CASTER, so by the mage plan, either bst need to have our hp nerfed down to cloth wearing classes, or mages, and mages alone, no mention of chanters(who get hit one hell of a lot more than any mage with a clue) wizards(who draw more agro  than a mage from my experiance), or necros(who if they dont FD regular will certainly die from dot agro)

And mages wonder why thier gripes tend to fall on deaf ears.

Read the thread again - someone said that BL's are more helpless without their pet than mages.  Cop said it was because of gate.  I simply pointed out the many ways a BL can survive in that situation.  

When things go bad, it's usually my BL that survives - not Maire.

Bosra, when you're 'playing it close to the ball' you only have yourself to blame for dying more then others, regardless of what class you or the others play.

Also you are forgetting about the game's mechanics on agro and hate.

In a group with multiple pets on the mob, its almost always the pets that have the highest amount of hate. But the mob will always turn on a melee while pets are highest on his hate-list. As long as a single pet is still alive, the casters are relatively safe. When you're soloing that advantage is gone.

The simple fact is that Beastlords have no means of escape at all except to run for it, whereas mages at least have a chance to channel Gate. Mobs that can kill a mage before Gate even finishes casting, can kill a beastlord just as easily. In zones like Seb, which is what the original poster referred to when he said beastlords have a better chance of survival, mages have plenty of time to channel a gate, whereas a beastlord would have to consciously train half the zone (something I never do, i just suck up the death), and still wouldnt make it if he got stunned even once because by that time he'd have a dozen or more mobs on him.

I 3box a beastlord, a mage and druid myself, and when things go south, its usually my beastlord who bites it first because he's the only who has solid agro on every mob due to slowing them. Sometimes my druid bites its first because of heal agro on a multiple mob pull but my mage gets killed only seldomly.

" I now really worry about the future of my 2 classes given that Xalmat, Danille and Tastian have shown a complete lack of ability to step back and see a larger picture. "

Could you please do me a favor and explain to me exactly what part of the larger picture I am missing?  This has been one of my biggest problem with the heal proposal and xal's post because it ignored far too many factors.  He claimed beastlord heals were overpowered, yet they are never used.  I want to look at the main situations in EQ, but first I feel a need to address this surviability issue.

First and foremost is the issue that the mage is always behind their pet.  Is there any mage in the game that is actually tanking along side their pet?  Do you just instantly see your pet die and it's a total shock to you?  I can't tell you how many times I've gated with my pet still alive because I already knew I was going to die.  By this same token I don't know how many times I've been summoning my next pet before the first one dies.  Chain petting has been around since level 4, it's just not that new.  For mages to claim that they have to channel for the entire casting time of the spell is simply silly.  Also understand that if you channel gate (barring a collapse) you will live(unless you bound in a really bad spot lol).

Now contrast that with a beastlord.  A beastlord can throw their pet in front of the mob and start running, but what if the mob summons?  If you are down in seb like one of the examples was how exactly do you train out?  There are lots of situations where running simply isn't an option.  Also understand that unlike gate nothing a beastlord does guarantees their survivial.  People keep quoting AC/hp/slow/disc/etc, however, not a single one of those gets the beastlord out of the situation they are in.  They make the situation better (temporarily) and perhaps are enough to turn the tide and let the beastlord win and survive.  However, it's quite likely that whatever ate the beastlord pet or has them reeling in this situation to begin with where running is considered will likely just finish them off.  

Nothing is absolute and there are a ton of situations.  Heck I mean gate isn't going to save a mage when they get aggro in a gorup.  Although it would be rather funny to watch a mage gate out a few times and then just come running back in with pet lol.  

Now let's look at some of the various EQ situations...

Solo-  

Mage:

This is obviously the big one for mages as they want to be even better at solo'n tier3 and the like.  The pet heals would greatly improve soloability.  The boost in efficency and change in cast times only further help as the mage has an even bigger window to sustain their healing on pet well also sustaining their dps.

Beastlord:  In a solo situation a beastlord pet seldom tanks and if he does he doesn't get healed.  This comes about because of several factors, not the least of which is the 9 second casting on sorsha.  To break this down even further if you have 1 mob in camp the beastlord is tanking.  If you have 2 mobs in camp the beastlord is tanking both, OR the pet is tanking.  if the pet is tanking the beastlord first has to get slow onto the second mob, then has to channel a 9 second heal if he is to use it.  Well he is doing this 9 second heal his dps from melee/procs don't exist.  If his pet is so low that he needs to be using this heal it's likely the mob he's fighting is doing enough damage that he needs to heal himself as well.  Once you hit this break point in combat you lose as you are simply slowing the beating.  On most two pulls though a beastlord will tank both because that allows him to focus his dps + the pets dps on one mob and get it down fast.  In most cases if you get 2 mobs you are trying to split a spawn and by focusing your dps you create a window of time that allows you next cycle to pull the single cleanly.

Grouping -

Mage:
Another big claim is that mages need better heals to sustain their pets when the pets act as CC.  This is semi-viable depending on the content, but the very content is the issue.  At what point do you just say enough is enough?  Mage pets already mitigate far better than beastlord pets and if you have an add coming in it's not slowed.  If the new heals are good enough to keep the pet alive then then mage could in theory solo the mob that a group is after and was previously too strong for the mage to keep the pet alive againist.  

Beastlord:  If you have an add come into the group like above it's unslowed.  This leads to one of the big issues in the bst/mag debate and that is that slow is ALWAYS on, that it never takes any time or mana consideration and that's simply false.  If I'm in a group performing a dps role at that time (meaning even if I was slower the current mob is slowed) I would jump on the mob, not my pet.  Understand that the beastlord is going to tank better than their pet.  This means the beastlord would jump on the mob before they'd send their pet.  At most the beastlord will use their pet as a speed bump well they attempt to slow, or in the hopes of a bash as the mob is incoming.  If a beastlord is already tanking they may choose to try to send the pet over having 2 mobs on themselves.  However, in that situation you fall back on now having to channel a 9 second heal.

Raiding -

Both:  Pet heals are too slow.  In any situation where your pet would need a heal on a raid the pet is dead most likely before the heal will land.  When you factor in all the other things that assist in pet survivabillity (such as PoC/Pet affinity/Pet mend/Regen) you see that if you are actually going "oh crap" and trying to heal pet the cast time is simply too much.  However, in the case of "oh crap" and attempting to use the pet heal a beastlord loses all their melee/proc dps for that time.  However, it's very possible for a mage to still do the same damage they would have previously done (less the mana issue, just like the beastlord) because they simply have to fire off their nuke to get the damage.  With possible pauses for aggro reasons this more than allows the mage a window to land their heal and their nuke and not have a drop in damage other than the mana cost.  Where as the time for casting directly takes away from the beastlords damage.

Now looking at the last issue of "raiding" you see what is one of the main points with this whole issue.  The main tools a beastlord uses to keep their pet alive on various raids are...
- Pet mend
- Pet regen
- PoC
- Pet affinity

Every single one of these is currently available to mages.  There aren't any beastlords I know currently using sorsha on raids.  In fact there are actually some cases where you are better off to let your pet die than chain sorsha trying to keep it alive as the damage the pet does for the time you can sustain it is actually less than the damage you could have done if you just continued to melee/proc and used that mana for damage instead.

The fact that xal completely ignored how beastlords perform and only choose to look at the numbers and pay no regard for the class that uses or the way in which they are used is a big problem.  There is no context there is no frame of referance.  Xal is using these supposed "overpowered" beastlord heals to justify mages getting even better ones.  If these things are so "overpowered" why exactly do less than 1% of the beastlords that have commented on these boards and that I've met in all my time playing this game use them in either the solo, group or raiding enviroments?  The answer is quite simply that they are not overpowered for beastlords because the beastlord style of play and the tradeoffs a beastlord much make to use them offsets most of the efficency and power they have on paper.  They become "overpowered" in the hands of a mage.

The reasons I claim them being overpowered for a mage and feel this is wrong is simply looking at what the changes would do.  The changes would obviously help pet survivability on raids which is a good thing and an issue all pet classes need addressed imo.  However, some of the biggest changes occur in the grouping and solo game.  If a mage can now sustain their pet as an add tank in spots that means that most likely the mage can now solo the mob.  That means the mage gained considerably in the solo department AND has gained the ability to semi-effectively CC in these spots.  That is an amount of boosting that is simply unwarranted at this time from all evidance I've been given and found.  Mages still currently have the ability to solo, they can solo a number of places and even tier 3 planes.  The majority of issues that mages have expressed are changes that effect the entire game and are simply how the game is now.  These same changes that "nerfed" mages have all but completely removed monk and rogue solo'n from the game.  They've considerably lowered paladin soloability in numerous places.  They've relagated SKs to 10 minute blue kills via aggro kiting.  

These are the changes that have happened.  This is not mages getting picked on.  Although mages are now weaker in areas or cannot perform abilities in certain areas that is simply how the game goes.  Most beastlords are not OT'n in these places either, a beastlord pet isn't going to be for sure and even rogues are going to be looking at you funny if you tell them to jump out in front of the mob.  Despite these changes mages continue to do very nice dps in many forms across almost every concieveable type of fight situation.  Ranging from solo to group to raid enviroments.  They have utility that still exists and is in demand, although some parts of that could use tweaking imo (such as CotH).

Here are a few things I would have absolutely supported and I'm sure most other beastlords, necros and other EQ classes would have as well.

-  Add an AA that grants mages crit heals.  This is something even necros and SKs get through ToL.  Give mages a 1/2/3 cost AA or even a 1/1/2 type of AA that grants 3/6/10% crit chance.  

-  Add summoned focus items to mages that have improved healing.  If it is felt that summoned improved healing items would be too good then restrict these to pet heals only and raise the healing % on the focus to compensate for their far more narrowed focus.  Mages are already the master of pet toys and items for pets it only seems rasonable that a mage would be able to boost this area as well.

-  All pet heals need to have their casting time lowered.  This is just a fact of game play.  In many situations where you would actually need to use your pet heal it's just too slow.  If a mob got through PoC, pet mend, etc then 7 or 9 seconds or whatever is just too much.  
*T's note* I totally support a recast being added to beastlord pet heals if the actual casting time were lowered.

-  Look into call of the hero.  This is a very powerful mage only ability that seriously needs some attention atm.  Some of the most obvious issues with this spell are in places like Plane of air where you can use summon corpse to get to xeg isle, but cannot simply CotH.  If the issue is a money sink issue of perals verse coffins let us know.  Atleast explain to us why a necro (or necro + cleric hehe) can perform the role the spell was intended for, but a mage who actually get's the skill and spell cannot.

Those are 4 improvements to mages.  1 helps utility and 3 deal with healing.  I have made no mention of overpowered other classes or whining about something one class get that others don't.  The closest things to class envy would be mentioning everyone else gets crit heals and mentioning that necros can simulate the fuction of a spell that is disable.  There's no want to get anyone nerfed.  The first change gives a 10% boost to pet healing.  The second gives even more depending on the % added to the focus *AND* increases mage utility and the hounding they will get from pet classes.  8P  The third is an issue that all pet classes know needs addressing and would have garnered much support from beastlords and likely necros as well.  

Can you see how the tone is totally different?  Can you see that there are explainations that stay mainly within the class and changes that also remain within the class via summons and focus items.   Doesn't that seem much better than misrepresenting beastlords, calling their almost never used heals overpowered and causing all this bad blood and all of these 5 and 7 page rant threads?

These are not the only changes I would make or agree with for mages by the way.  However, I will not go along with the overboard upgrade suggestions I've seen that simply ask for too much.  One of the things beastlords were built upon was pet heals and it's truely sad to me atleast that that entire aspect of our class is all but gone now.  For some mages to now come out and say they should even heal pets better than beastlords do is again just overboard.  

From all the data I've seen and collected changes of the magnitude suggested are simply unwarranted.  If you truely believe that mages need heals boosted beyond beastlord levels, need the improvements to solo and grouping that come with them.  Need the beefed up dps and everything else then I'm just not buying that right now.  

I am still extremely open minded and will listen and read any other parses or data you may have.  You'd do best to present these issues in a mage context, but some can consider the entire game.  What you cannot do though is just pick and choose and focus on various things out of context.  "Oh well mages need better heals than beastlords" "Oh mages need more dps and to be closer to wizards" "Oh wizards have more utility" etc.  You either look at the class overall or you don't look at it at all.  Notice how not once was it ever pointed out how large the dps differance in various situations is between beastlords and mages.  The only focus was on beastlord heals.  Even then it wasn't a comparision of beastlord heals used by beastlords, but rather beastlord heals on paper that don't get mem'd.  I'll say it one more time; you cannot simply look at one aspect of one class outside of that classes context or in terms of another class and hope to have it mean anything.

Again though please explain to me how I'm being short sighted?  What is it that I'm missing?  I honestly want to know and I have absolutely no problem with being wrong.  I enjoy learning new things, but I refuse to simply be wrong because someone thinks things should be different and can't even show it.

I'm even more disappointed in Xalmat now...in the thread on the Mage's compendium he wrote a round two.

Using all the same half-truths and misleading data that he put up the first time.

It's on page 7 of the thread if anyone cares.

Sorry for edit, had page number wrong.

Tastian,

*bows* :)
THough I still say mages shouldnt get any "heal" AAs because..well, we don't actually HEAL. Necros are the only INT caster hwo actually heals.
Much rather summon an item for the pet, which helps the pet survive, hence idea of rune, stun, slow, lure DD proc weapons.

Think everyone agrees pet heals need dramatically shorter cast times now ;)

Well something like that silver.  My point was that there plenty of options completely within the mage class that would yield possibly needed and warranted increasees.  They can be completely "mage" oriented and balanced in that respsect.  There is no need to drag another class into the discussion and certainly no need to falsely represent that class and how it's abilities function.  

I think more summoned gear or something to that effect is definitely one way to go with this.  Unfortunatly, that isn't what has been presented.  8(

Only if they can code the summoned gear to only be useable by the summoner's pet, otherwise it's purpose would be defeated.

I wonder if it is even worth it to continue, but...Terjyn, first off stop with the insults. Second of all you start talking about being so jaded that my view is distorted, but you seem to have an Anti-Mage tint to your glasses. Mod rods and such are in no way all they are cracked up to be, as I posted in my last thread. However, judging from your signature and Magelo when you retired you were still in the "casual" spectrum when mana regen and available pool benefits alot more from mod rods, so maybe that is why you seem to think Mages have amazing utility, I am unsure.

However none of this matters as you have played the "I'm not listening, lalalala" card, and good luck with it, whatever floats your boat buddy.

(Oh, and board rules still apply here, yes? Like the no personal attacks and such? However I must say that I am amazed to find an edit feature in Rants)

Quote from: SkogOnly if they can code the summoned gear to only be useable by the summoner's pet, otherwise it's purpose would be defeated.

/sigh.

The point is only defeated if you accept the premise that Mages, and ONLY Mages, should be the ones who get a bonus out of all of this.  It wasn't true with Xalmat's original premise, and it wouldn't be true if they added new, better, pet toys.

Quote from: TerjynPovar
/sigh.

The point is only defeated if you accept the premise that Mages, and ONLY Mages, should be the ones who get a bonus out of all of this.  It wasn't true with Xalmat's original premise, and it wouldn't be true if they added new, better, pet toys.

Mages, and ONLY Mages should benefit from changed made to their class in regards to pets. I'm fine with you guys getting what you need to help (faster heals, whatever) but it's not coming through a Mage- we have had enough of that crap.

Where was my new insult?  Point it out please, I don't see it.

By the way, the reason I got so frustrated is because I don't even believe what that guy said, however if you view it from his perspective what he said was internally consistent.  You and Bosra both backed me into a corner where you are attacking me because I'm defending someone else's perspective.  And I'm still in awe that people seriously think that Wizards have as much utility as a Mage.

Mod Rods aren't a big deal to you because you have access to them at all times.  Same thing with Pet Toys, Call of the Hero, etc.  So you downplay them.  It's a common thing.  Beastlords do it too.  A lot of Beastlords have a horrible tendency to downplay Slow, Paragon, etc.  This doesn't make it right for the Beastlord anymore than it does for someone as a Mage.

I don't hate Mages.  Since I'm retired why would I?  My two best friends all time when I did play were both Mages.

I was a hardcore raider up through late Luclin, and got burned out by Luclin, same as a load of other people did.  I still have lots of friends in Uber guilds, and in fact have participated in nearly every raid in PoP(though sadly, not GoD, so I cannot comment on those.)  Mod Rods are not as big of deal as they used to be for the highest end raider.  But then, Pet heals are completely worthless to the highest end raid, and I doubt you'd disagree with me.

Compare that to a Wizard in a high end raid though.  Spellshield and rarely Disintigrate are it, while Mages still have Call of the Hero (and I agree with Tastian that this needs to be fixed to be usable in more places) and Pet toys.  Focus summons fall into the same category as Mod Rods, but honestly Wizards do not have anything other than Ports and Snare/Root which is a general use thing.

So now you end up by doing something similar to what Xalmat is doing, claiming that only Mage pets need an improvement.  Mage pets already mitigate ~50% better than Beastlord pets, do a lot more damage, and have more hit points.  Mage pets are one area where there really is no need of an improvement when compared to Beastlords, but you seem to think that if anybody gets a pet bonus it should only be Mages.  Now explain WHY.

You are tired of Mages improving Beastlord pets doesn't cut it, and is frankly as silly as what I said in the earlier conversation. :)

*EDIT* One last thing, ask the people who've been around for a long time (Tastian for example), and they will tell you that I'm harsh on *everyone* who I believe is showing willful ignorance to improve their position in an argument.  I've berated Beastlords more often than anyone else, primarily cause that's who is usually here.  And this is exactly what I feel Xalmat did to start this whole thing, and what a whole lot of Magicians have been doing since.

Don't fall into the same trap as they do Terjyn, its just not worth it.
What i see is mages trying to defend Xalmat's views by making yet more comparisons between themselves and beastlords and dragging other classes into it. They cannot make a case for themselves without telling blatant lies about a particular class, and they cannot refute our counterargument that reality is quite different from Xalmat's paper comparison because there is no refute, so they are trying to distract from the real issue by bringing up more unrelated class comparisons. Don't go there. We don't need to. The faults in Xalmat's writeup are so obvious no one but a class-envied mage will fall for it. All the additional Class X vs Class Y BS thrown our way is irrelevant. Just remind them of that and then ignore it. Otherwise this will just turn into a courtroom drama. With mages trying to defend someone who's been caught redhanded stealing by arguing that the victim of the theft once had his hand in the cookiejar when he was 6 years old.

Right now we can build a perfectly good case for getting faster heals for ourselves without having to refer, let alone lie, about any other class, while mages have yet to produce a single argument that's not based on class envy. That alone makes us the moral winners.

/hugs

You are right of course Coprolith, but I'm one of those people who *loves* a good argument, so I have a hard time passing it up.

This is exactly why I would defend a viewpoint I don't really agree with purely because it's internally consistent within his own apparent viewpoint.  :twisted:

Well as you know i love a good paper brawl as much as the next person but in this case i think its important that the focus remains on the main issue so that it doesn't get sidetracked by a 101 irrelevant class bashes. I say this because of the severity of the main issue, Xalmat's write-up is borderline fraud as far as im concerned.

/hugs

I think Skog needs to be thrown to a completly new "deserted island" server, where every thing he does can benefit him alone.

Seriously, doesn't he understand the game?  This game is only half about putting out extreme dps, but the other half is making others better through heals, kei, haste, coth, ports.  If he can't really see that, he has no place with the other mages.  I can't think of a single character that's only purpose is dps (rogues included).

I think it would be best if we just put him ignore him.

Quote from: KanneI think Skog needs to be thrown to a completly new "deserted island" server, where every thing he does can benefit him alone.

Seriously, doesn't he understand the game?  This game is only half about putting out extreme dps, but the other half is making others better through heals, kei, haste, coth, ports.  If he can't really see that, he has no place with the other mages.  I can't think of a single character that's only purpose is dps (rogues included).

I think it would be best if we just put him ignore him.

Screw you too buddy.
Or maybe should I say "Screw Kanne" :? Talking about someone in the third person is way off the mark, welcome to basic conversation 101.

Ok, let me break this down a bit, perhaps you guys that are having trouble can then comprehend it.

The idea was thrown out to give Beastlords the fast heals you guys want to avoid lowering DPS by as much as now, and give Mages other ways of healing the pet/avoiding damage, such as rune/guard pet weapons.

Now let's assume that both changes go in and the Mage Hammer of Ouch Reducing is the same as the current pet toys- sellable and useable by any pet. Now a Beastlord then buys the Hammer and somehow teaches a cat how to swing a hammer and sets out to solo.  He then gains the benefit of the Mage's change (that was meant to allow his pet to deal with damage better) as well as also reaping the benefits of the new, fast heal.

The Beastlord gets the lion's share ( no pun intended) while the Mage is left  with only the pet weapons. He would be unable to also benefit from the Beastlord's heals. See what I mean?

Mages make me giggle.

Beastlords make me sad.  :(
Thanks for contributing to the thread that pearl of wisdom. QUICK, someone preserve it forever in yadda yada...

While 99% of you disagree with me and at least a few hate me, at least I am attempting to further the discussion and get my point across.

Once you come up with a real point besides "give me a better pet, heal, DPS and HP/AC then everyother non-plate wearing class in the game" I may actually start to pay attention to you.

Nevermind, I'm gonna stick by what I told Coprolith and not post.  Wish I could delete this post altogether.

QuoteWhile 99% of you disagree with me and at least a few hate me, at least I am attempting to further the discussion and get my point across.

That's a really weird definition of trolling the boards.

Did it ever occur to you that the reason 99% of the people disagree with you is because you're wrong? You are just trying to drive your point across regardless. There's only one word for that: trolling.

99% of the people disagree with me because they want to continue where they are, I want to change my main class to where it should be. Of course those that like using pet toys disagree with me wanting them Mage self pet only- no one want's thier candy taken away. Of course those that can not see the Mage class fully and have thier own (primarily) Beastlord tinted view will disagree with my balancing ideas, and you better believe that there are people that disagree with the concept that Mages should have the best pet, no questions hands down.

There is not a question of right and wrong in the way that you mean it- I am not saying that the sky is ornage and people can breathe water. It would be more akin to posting liberal counterpoints on a conservative board. Where you stand I may seem "wrong" but from my vantage point the 99% (just a number pulled off the top of my head) are "wrong" and are out for self preservation because they feel Mage changes may threaten their ideas of balance or preferred mode of play. (Pet toys for example)

Quote from: SkandaOnce you come up with a real point besides "give me a better pet, heal, DPS and HP/AC then everyother non-plate wearing class in the game" I may actually start to pay attention to you.

More veiled personal attacks and attempts at degredation because I hold an opposing view point. Cute.

However you make the gross error of oversimplifying my stance and grouping all Mages  and balance ideas into one giant hodge podge of ideas. To briefly reply to your "list" as to my personal ideas (in order of appearance)
yes, Equal to/slightly under/whatever is appropriate to keep my pet alive*, Yes (Not sure exacly what you mean, but pets do not scale well enough overall)*, and Kinda (if we must lose the ability to solo in comprable areas I would like a Developer to state so, state why, and state what compensation we may recieve, if any. At least put a warning lable on the class  :D )

*- issues that effect all pet classes and should be evaluated. Of course I do think that the Mage pet should stay ahead of the others by a signifigant margin, and I am sure somewhere that makes me "wrong." Oh well.

Explain why you think you deserve all this.

Why do you think you should get the best pet? Because you are the "master summoner"? Necromancers are masters of death, why shouldn't they have the best pet? Beastlords are typically behind both classes as far as DPS goes, why don't we deserve the best pets?

Sure you could use an upgrade to your heal, but you don't automatically deserve the best or even close to ours. If you accept the beastlords = hybrids thing then we are based off of a healer class so it's natural that we sould heal a lot better then mages should.

Why do you think you should be close to a wizards DPS? Wizards are the casting equilivent of a rogue. King of DPS, what about mages qualifies them to be equal to wizards in this area? Don't go pulling up crap about how you were king of nukes pre-kunark because things change and that's old news. You're not king of the DPS block anymore and I don't see and reason you sould be bumped up to become king of the block again. You already out DPS the vast majority of classes, seems to me that the other classes should get a boost to their DPS to bring them more in-line with you... after all you want to be equal to a wizard so why shouldn't every other class be equal to you?

and as far as AC/HP goes... keep dreaming dress boy. There isn't a single thing you could say that would convince me (or likely the majority of players out there) that you should take damage as well as a melee class. There's nothing out there that says you should have as many HP as a melee class. You are just crossing the boundry of ludicrous with this "request". Why not just let wizards take it as well as tanks. After all they get beat down just as fast as mages "without your pet". Who needs tanks. Lets give mages rezzes and and cleric buffs while we're at it. Get over yourself, please. You are making a laughing stock of yourself here.

Beastlords could make more of a case about why we should get FD (after all we are "half monk") then you could about why you should get the same AC and HP as a chain class. Everything else you say is overshadowed by this overboard demand.

QuoteMore veiled personal attacks and attempts at degredation because I hold an opposing view point. Cute.

You don't hold an opposing viewpoint so much as you are demanding that mages get the best of everything in the game. After all you are the "master summoners" so you should be the King class.

Skanda

Quoteand as far as AC/HP goes... keep dreaming dress boy. There isn't a single thing you could say that would convince me (or likely the majority of players out there) that you should take damage as well as a melee class. There's nothing out there that says you should have as many HP as a melee class.

*confused* What mage ever said they wanted or deserved melee class hps AC??? *boggles at anyone who'd even ask for that*

As for DPs, you DO know what the DPs of wizards, mages, necros and enhcnaters is like and how it was designed?
Wizard = fast
mage = medium
Necro = long.
Mages shouldnt  do wizard damage short term say 1 to 2 minutes, nor necro damage 5+ minutes.

And enchnaters can out DPs *ANYONE* :>

Silver nailed it pretty much. The HP/AC I thought referred to the Earth pet tankablity, and as I said I just want what would allow me to regain a bit of my solo power as well as my historic side role of offtanking adds for a bit while the group kills the main mob. Pet heals/alternate guard/rune pet procs factor into this.

However in response to your questions the reason that I think that Mages need the best pet/DPS as Silverblade exlained and pet support. I am not saying that we "deserve" the best heal. While it would be nice (and seeing as we do not "heal" in the conventional sense, we just summon more mud to slap onto that walking dirt wall) I just want what will allow me good pet survivability, as both of our classes want. However, the ultimate reason for all of this is what our class actually is. We have always had the "best pet" as we have always been balanced around the "All offense, no defense*" stategy. *- meaning that our only line of defense is our pet. As you know with current content it is not the case.

Overall if we are destined to lose our offtank ability (and therefore most of our soloing seeing as they are very closely tied) then I would simply like a dev to say something, so that we can move onto other balancing aspects of the class.

My problem with this entire thread is all the Mages that bring up soloing.  Yes, this game can be played however you see fit.  However, this game is balanced around grouping/raiding.  Bring us your complaints on that front.  Mages are a Mac Truck of Boom in groups.  And they sure as hell provide better (defined as: more frequently used) utility on raids.

I'm sure most melees are irritated that they can't solo worth squat past level 50, but I don't see them contribting to this thread.

There are a lot of mages in the few threads that are going on that keep randomly picking other aspects of the beastlord class (and other classes).  I've seen several comment how "once the pet dies the beastlord is better off because they have more ac/hps".  Yet another true statement about EQ that many of us still fail to see any meaning in or understand what the statement is trying to prove hehe.  Of course a melee has more hp/ac, that's like a beastlord saying "well ya know once the SKs pet dies the SK has more ac/hps".  It's a true statement, but still doesn't really explain anything.  In the last 24 hours alone well on the topic of beastlord heals being "overpowered" I've been told...

Beastlords have more AC/hp
Beastlords gain more from gear upgrades
Charm is a lot of aggro for the mage when it breaks
Enchanters have rune
Wizards do more burst dps

All of these things just get randomly thrown in and most of us have no clue why.  Ok some of us know why, but from a pure discussion point of view it just doesn't make much sense.  The real issues wasn't even xal wanting mages to heal better as many have said, it was the completely false claims that beastlord heals are "overpowered" followed by wanting even better heals than the "overpowered" ones beastlords currently get, mixed in with the false information.  Like I've said a few times there are a LOT of things beastlords and everyone else would have went along with, plenty of data that could have been gathered and use to show something, but instead we get faulty anaysis of flawed data and mage requests going completely overboard.  That's what has put most people off to begin with.  Unfortunatly things went even more downhill as certain mages resorted to even more faulty statements and wrong claims or other true but irrelevant facts about EQ to try and "prove" their points.  

"Overall if we are destined to lose our offtank ability (and therefore most of our soloing seeing as they are very closely tied) then I would simply like a dev to say something, so that we can move onto other balancing aspects of the class."

This just isn't true though.  One this direct comparision between OT'n and Solo'n.  They are close, but I've had mages quote me how they can't "OT" a mob in spots, but the mage pet had no outside buffs, the mob wasn't debuffed by anyone else and the pet recieved no healing other than from the mage.  That's not OT'n that's solo'n.  How long would a selfbuff'd only sk or warrior stand infront of a non-debuffed mob well recieving now heals lol.  

Mages can still solo, that's more than can be said for many classes.  The problem with mages is they just continue to want the line moved out further and further.  Oh well we should be able to solo in tier 3...without charm....and GoD....etc.  There has to be a break point and not one mage has explained to me why being able to rip aparat droga and tier 1/2 planes isn't sufficent.  There are a lot of classes that used to be able to solo that can't even reasonably do that anymore.  It's just a fact of EQ that as content changes other things happen.  Most beastlords are solo'n in places like nurga and GE.  

My necro/sk can't fear kite anymore.  Certain things just happen.  Mages still have  high dps (both sustained and burst) with utility (coth, mod rod, malx, summons) but are hurting if they get a mob on them.  None of that has changed.  Most of what has changed like CotH not being useable in more zones many would support being looked into.  Belief that mages need to heal a bit better would be looked at and possibly understood if it were done properly.  You'll notice I listed several different options that each individually represented a 10%+ boost to mage healing that didn't step on anyones toes and no one said would be out of line.  The problem is most mages don't even want the line moved a little bit anymore it's over the stop stuff.  To suddenly say that mages should outheal beastlords now and have the best pet heals + best pets.  To say that a mage on their own with pet + heals should be able to OT mobs in v/t well even a plate tank needs a healer is crazy.  These aren't "fixes" they represent massive improvements to the solo/group side of the game for mages and no one has yet to show or prove that such changes are even warranted.  The fact xal's data and writing were severeally flawed was only half the issue the other problem was even if all of his data was right he still doesn't explain why this should even happen.  A very common issue brought up several times has been that totally solo a beastlord with slow is in a better position than a mage.  Whether true or not this still has no baring.  If I were argueing for beastlords getting FD should I mention that necros solo better than we do?  Again it has no baring, people continue to pick and choose various pieces from random classes and focus on those, but fail to look at the classes as a whole.  Everyone looks at beastlord heals on paper and beastlords having slow or ac/hps, but no one mentioned malx, no one mentions the pet toys or the higher dps, no one mentions signifigantly less dps a mage pet takes verse a beastlord pet if both mobs are slowed equally.  There are so many things that are completely left out because they don't show or prove what some want to believe it's simply out of hand.  The discussion has all but ended at this point unfortunatly and now you just see people saying all sorts of stuff that doesn't even address the intital issue.

Our role as offtanks is a part of grouping/raiding, and would benefit from increased heals/pet survival, seeing as now it is almost next to none.

"Our role as offtanks is a part of grouping/raiding, and would benefit from increased heals/pet survival, seeing as now it is almost next to none."

This again is a question of the line.  A pet isn't OT'n in V/T all that well, but you can OT in BoT with a pet currently.  You can't claim it's almost next to none just because your pet doesn't do it everywhere you want.  In a normal LDoN the pet OTs quite well.  In a hard not so well.  This is true of many classes.  How many rangers do you see OT'n in normals and asking for rez's on hards?  Even a beastlord that doesn't have a healer/very good gear/aas isn't going to be OT'n that well in many of these places.  

I've had atleast one mage tell me that they want their pet (+them) to be able to OT in v/t and that is simply overboard.  A plate tank still needs a healer why should a mage be able to do it without help?  You can't honestly tell me a mage is more of an offtank than an SK (god please don't try to tell me that lol).  There is still no justfication for why a mage should be able to OT in these spots, but not others.  Why do you put the line where you do?  You must be able to see that there has to be a line, so why do you want the line to be so much further out than it is for so many other classes?

Quote from: CoprolithBosra, when you're 'playing it close to the ball' you only have yourself to blame for dying more then others, regardless of what class you or the others play.

Also you are forgetting about the game's mechanics on agro and hate.

In a group with multiple pets on the mob, its almost always the pets that have the highest amount of hate. But the mob will always turn on a melee while pets are highest on his hate-list. As long as a single pet is still alive, the casters are relatively safe. When you're soloing that advantage is gone.

The simple fact is that Beastlords have no means of escape at all except to run for it, whereas mages at least have a chance to channel Gate. Mobs that can kill a mage before Gate even finishes casting, can kill a beastlord just as easily. In zones like Seb, which is what the original poster referred to when he said beastlords have a better chance of survival, mages have plenty of time to channel a gate, whereas a beastlord would have to consciously train half the zone (something I never do, i just suck up the death), and still wouldnt make it if he got stunned even once because by that time he'd have a dozen or more mobs on him.

I 3box a beastlord, a mage and druid myself, and when things go south, its usually my beastlord who bites it first because he's the only who has solid agro on every mob due to slowing them. Sometimes my druid bites its first because of heal agro on a multiple mob pull but my mage gets killed only seldomly.

<shrug> say gate is a good escape mechanism all you like - a couple hundred days played on my mage says it's not even worth loading for me.  OTOH my BL can survive aggro from a resisted slow in the sewers long enough to recast it while my mage dies before the healers can get off a fast heal..

The whole bashing back and forth is some of the dumbest shit I've seen on these boards yet.  

Time to just walk away me thinks -

Take it as conceding - you're all right :)

Slow is overpowering
Slow isn't near as good as mages think
BL pet heals are overpowered
BL pet heals are worthless
BL pet heals > Mage pet heals
Mage pet heals > BL pet heals
Mages are a utility class with DPS
Mages are a pure DPS class with marginal utility
Gate is a surefire get out of jail free card
Mage's should have the best pets
BL's should have the best pets
(HEY< what about necros?)
Mage summoned toys should be mage pet only

That about cover it?

Have fun debating the complexities of pixels on the screen - I'm going on a boat trip up the Columbia to Astoria - and getting paid for the entire day tomorrow :)

Quote from: Bosra

Quote from: Mneumenth

Quote from: Bosra

Quote from: Mneumenth

Quote from: BloodCelt

But, its a good thing I am a beastlord, cause my warder rezzed me.

BC

Bwahahahahahahahahaha

Also, dont forget in Mage utility their ability to charm...this boosts their DPS to rediculous levels.

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH

<choke>

1 zone
1

In that same zone, and just about any other PoP zone an enchanter and more easily do the same thing.

While your /choking on that crow...keep in mind we're not talking about Chanters.  We're talkling about Magi/BL issues.

Charmed Pets put you very high on the old DPS scale and add to your "utility".  

Your rude reply and attitude are noted...Thank you for your time.

:roll:

I choked on the complete and utter inanity of such a statement.  Toss mezz and charm out (well, hell, they keep takiing the summoned tag off of mobs, so toss the anti-summoned nuke line while you're at it).

You bitch about mages saying "oh, you have slow and heals and this that and the other thing." and say they don't understand because they aren't BL's.  Well - I'm both.  You don't have a clue.  I love my BL - he is my main now.  Even with the boosts to mages, I'm not going back.  They still aren't up to snuff in my opinion.  My mage exists as a DPS producer for the BL and a summoner of pet toys for his tiger.

Play both to 65, 100+ aa - then come back and tell me mages don't need work.

First of all, I never, ever " bitch about mages saying "oh, you have slow and heals and this that and the other thing."  I simply was refuting your statements, concerning the lack of Magi utility.  Read again, Brother.  

Magi have much utility and are a very nice class...but...you want it all.  I just think that is laughable.  Between your Mage and your BL, I doubt there is much in this game you cannot do.  If you're not happy with that you never will be.

Quote from: SkogOur role as offtanks is a part of grouping/raiding, and would benefit from increased heals/pet survival, seeing as now it is almost next to none.

If a Mage is offtanking with a pet in a raid, the raid is in deep trouble.

I think Skogg keeps bringing up Soloing as a key point because of how many groups his charming personality and rational discussion must win for him

Nerf clerics! Complete heal is too good!

Quote from: The KittenpeelerI think Skogg keeps bringing up Soloing as a key point because of how many groups his charming personality and rational discussion must win for him

Very funny. I'm laughing, seriously. Oh my god, the wit! The humor!  :roll:
The horrible cliche of labelling anyone that wants to solo as anti-social and anyone who disagrees with you as a troll/dumb person arise again. If I gave a shit about what you thought, I might be offended. Wait I might, hold for it...hold...

The truth of the matter is I dislike soloing (I am a group/raider, thanks very much for the personal attack. I'll keep it here on the mantle and treasure it forever and ever), I simply want what was lost back for those that do solo. However the issues of soloing/offtanking as well as Mage's only defense are all bundled together in one giant CF, and you all know just how well pets survive one on one in higher end content.

This entire thread a) showed little to no promise from the beginning and b) is a great example of why I am leery of the Beastlord Community. You guys simply want to keep your toys, screw the other classes. If someone disagrees with our world view, OMG He must be wrong and a bad person! It makes me sick.

Quote from: SkogYou guys simply want to keep your toys, screw the other classes.

How many people in this thread alone have said that mages should get an upgrade to your heal? Even I did. Mages should get an upgrade. The problem is the upgrade that was "suggested" is better then everyone elses and no reason was given as to why you should get that much of an upgrade.

Quote*confused* What mage ever said they wanted or deserved melee class hps AC??? *boggles at anyone who'd even ask for that*

Back on pg 2 through about pg 4 you guys were bringing up HP/AC quite a bit saying that we have better survivability then you do without pets. That, to me, seems like a thinly veiled request for more HP/AC (or at the least more survivability. You also try to make gate sound useless for getting away. I play a cleric in addition to a bst and I can't count the number of times gate has saved my ass, I've even channeled it though 3+ mobs beating on me plenty of times. My cleric survives a lot more then my beastlord because it only takes a few seconds and a bit of luke to get out with the cleric. The bst has to run with 3+ mobs on my ass all hitting me.

QuoteAs for DPs, you DO know what the DPs of wizards, mages, necros and enhcnaters is like and how it was designed?
Wizard = fast
mage = medium
Necro = long.
Mages shouldnt do wizard damage short term say 1 to 2 minutes, nor necro damage 5+ minutes.

And enchnaters can out DPs *ANYONE* :>

Now we're dragging chanters into this? What does short term vs long term have to do with anything? DPS is Damage PER SECOND. There is no short or long term about that. The total amount of damage you put out is meaningless. Your class is already doing more DPS then every melee class (except maybe rogues, not clear on their average DPS). So it seems to me that you are in no position to be asking for more DPS. Seems to me that the melee classes should be upgraded to bring them all in line with the casters.

It's amazing how little some people can read and understand.

QuoteThis entire thread a) showed little to no promise from the beginning and b) is a great example of why I am leery of the Beastlord Community. You guys simply want to keep your toys, screw the other classes. If someone disagrees with our world view, OMG He must be wrong and a bad person! It makes me sick

This is just so wrong on so many levels. This community is backing things up with facts and not skewing things like a certain mage. Alas I guess because most of us don't care about our pet heal because it's useless for most beasts with the style we fight just goes over a lot of peoples heads which is an important part of this whole damn discussion. I don't think someone is a bad person just because I disagree with their opinion. I do however feel they are bad when they don't listen to the facts. I'm not knocking on you bro but seriously we don't mind mages getting better heals but not due to a skewed write up on pet heals. Xal could have done the write up in a different manner and it would have been all good. However he didn't stick to the facts and I think let too much emotion come              
into it which skewed it. That's the whole problem we have here and not omg beasts don't ever want mages being better because we have to be the king of everything and we have to keep the mages down. Mages and beastlords are very different classes and therefore balance with one is not going to equal balance for the other. People need to realise this or they will always seem ignorant.

The sad thing is people keep repeating the same mantra about being overpowered and yet can't really come up with any examples of where this power is abused.  When people were talking about nerfing charm they at least could point to chanters soloing dragons or to charmed pets being used as tanks on raids.

But with beastlord heals it's "they are more efficient than cleric heals, so they are too powerful."  Doesn't matter if they are pet only.  Doesn't matter if they are slow as molasses.   Doesn't matter if they are rarely used.   Doesn't even matter when *mage* heals are more efficient than cleric heals.

And there's no explanation of what the problem is.  It's no surprise in EQ that spells that are more limited in function can be more efficient.  Summoned-only nukes are more effiicent than many all-purpose nukes.  Undead-only nukes are more efficient than all-purpose nukes.  Beneficial spell haste is higher than all-purpose spell haste.   You can't ignore the limitations of spells and items and only focus on the benefits.

Skanda,

DPs is not a static, flat output, k? :) It varies based on several factors.
Wizards and mages run out of mana, but the mage still has a pet and perhaps a damage shield, Thus MID TERM mages are good damage dealers. Wizard powerful nukes etc mean SHORT term they have the highest DPs.
The efficiency of necro DoTs and necro survivability means long term they have higher sustained DPs than mage or wizard. Rogues then monks and rangers also have extremely high long term DPs.
--This is basic game balance 101.
--Rogues are seriously gimped IMHO in Everquest, because "roguing" that is stealth, con games, lock picking etc cannot be done, which is why they were given uber DPs to compensate....which to me as a player is incredibly boring and sad, but required for game balance :(

And why the hostlity? Do I have to slap you with a summoned kipper to show that *I dont' care if BST have better pet heals than mages, 'cause you are a hybrid of a HEALER class*, hm? :)

Mage pets should either innately or by summoned item be tougher (more survivable) than BST warders, because mages are a *pure caster class and hybrids NEVER EVER exceeed the power of a pure caster in their bailiwick*. And please don't bring up the hit points of the 65 earth pet, cause it don't matter a diddly damn in groups or raids, cause that pet cannot be used 'cause it has STUPID GAWD DAMNED ROOT, gah! *he steams begging the devs yet again to set it to cast a 3 tick snare, not a freaking root* :(

BST do your  thing your way, mages do our thing our way :) I'm sad this whole thing blew up, and I wish Xal had been more diplomatic about it, and some mages not so extreme or down right nasty. I also wish some BST would remove their heads from their posteriors and realize they have nincompoops too, and are a hybrid class, not pure caster or not pure melee and thus not entitled to melee damage = to monks, or spells = shaman, or pets = to mages. The combination of a good pet + spells + melee = BSTs are a damned good class, but with some problems like everyone.

*waves hi to Bengali, buys him a beer and wishes this hadn't blown up*

QuoteI also wish some BST would remove their heads from their posteriors and realize they have nincompoops too, and are a hybrid class, not pure caster or not pure melee and thus not entitled to melee damage = to monks, or spells = shaman, or pets = to mages. The combination of a good pet + spells + melee = BSTs are a damned good class, but with some problems like everyone.

I'm sorry, did anyone here claim that BSTs are entitled to all that? I don't think so. Our melee damage < monk, our spells < shaman, our pet < mages, we're well aware of that that is the way it should be. All around, we are a pretty content class. Which is why you won't see us making cases for upgrades in areas where we feel we're still missing something by pissing on other classes.

You may be more enlightened then the other mages that have been visiting here, but not nearly enlightened enough. We are not the ones with our heads in our posterior, you are, for coining that phrase in the first place. Do not claim to disagree with Xalmat and then post BS like that, it will not go down well here atm.

QuoteAnd why the hostlity?

Its a human reaction. Violence begets violence, hostility induces hostility. The real violence was done by Xalmat and his followers. Can't blame people for getting worked up over such a scandalous piece. Do you stay calm if someone tries to embezzle money from you?

I'm sorry, but I do not want to hear of beastlord hostility from a mage, even one who disagrees with Xalmat. Its righteous anger, even if does get out of hand sometimes.

Quote from: Silverblade-T-E
Wizards and mages run out of mana, but the mage still has a pet and perhaps a damage shield, Thus MID TERM mages are good damage dealers. Wizard powerful nukes etc mean SHORT term they have the highest DPs.
The efficiency of necro DoTs and necro survivability means long term they have higher sustained DPs than mage or wizard. Rogues then monks and rangers also have extremely high long term DPs.

I disagree with your definition of DPS but I'm not going to drag this squabble into a DPS area other then to say I don't see why you mages are complaining about a DPS upgrade. You said it yourself, your pet will continue your DPS after the wizard has run out of mana... so eventually your DPS will equal out. So why exactly do mages think they need to be able to do the same amount of DPS as a wizard up front? I read that thread on the mage board and a lot of them were whining about DPS upgrades (and other more silly things) but they never stopped to try and explain why they thought they should get it in the first place.

Wasn't finished.

Quote from: Silverblade-T-E
And why the hostlity? Do I have to slap you with a summoned kipper to show that *I dont' care if BST have better pet heals than mages, 'cause you are a hybrid of a HEALER class*, hm? :)

You may not but the heal that Xal suggested would completely blow ours out of the water. In fact he is asking for our exact heal but just reduce the casting time to 3.75 seconds. Some of the other "suggestions" in that thread have been just as far out there.

QuoteMage pets should either innately or by summoned item be tougher (more survivable) than BST warders, because mages are a *pure caster class and hybrids NEVER EVER exceeed the power of a pure caster in their bailiwick*.

I personally don't really care that you have a stronger pet then we do (as long as it don't get massively far ahead of ours) . But where do necromancers fit in there? They are pure casters too and rely on their pets soloing as much as mages do. The problem I have with mages in this area is they demand the best pets without trying to justify why except to fall back on the tried and true "we are the master summoners".

QuoteI also wish some BST would remove their heads from their posteriors and realize they have nincompoops too,

Yes we do, but after reading that thread on the mage boards I firmly beleive we don't have half as many as that board does. Some of the people there scare me.

Quoteand are a hybrid class, not pure caster or not pure melee and thus not entitled to melee damage = to monks, or spells = shaman, or pets = to mages.

No one here is asking for DPS or spells that would be equal to our parent classes. When I mentioned melee DPS it was to point out that they are much farther behind mages then mages are behind wizards and so if anyone deserved a DPS boost it should be the melee classes and not you.

QuoteThe combination of a good pet + spells + melee = BSTs are a damned good class, but with some problems like everyone.

Finally something we agree on.

Quote from: Silverblade-T-EMage pets should either innately or by summoned item be tougher (more survivable) than BST warders,

They are.  If you think differently, you are deluding yourself.

Quotebecause mages are a *pure caster class and hybrids NEVER EVER exceeed the power of a pure caster in their bailiwick*.

So what IS a Mage's bailiwick?  Summoning items?  Noone even competes with you there.  Pets?  Hrm, check, you have the most powerful pets in the game, in dps, hp and mitigation.  Nukes?  Well, Wizards are better than you and Druids are similar.

QuoteAnd please don't bring up the hit points of the 65 earth pet, cause it don't matter a diddly damn in groups or raids, cause that pet cannot be used 'cause it has STUPID GAWD DAMNED ROOT, gah!

Here is the problem: we keep bringing up the earth pet, because Mages keep bringing up the earth pet.  This entire debate was useless from the get-go since this was a whine directed (more than anything) at soloing, which the dev's could give two shakes of a dead gnoll about.  And why would you want to use earth pet in groups or raids anyways?  You have other pets that do more dps.  See, thats the neat thing about you guys.  You have different pets for different situations, while we have only one.  But alot of the time, it sounds like Mages want all their pet abilities stacked onto one uber-pet.

Reading through the last 6 pages of this has been very stressful to say the least.

So with that Said...

/Roleplay & Sarcasm On

I can't believe the gall of so many Mages to be complaining that we can heal out "Pet" better than they can theirs.  First off, we have Warders. Wolves, Tigers etc whom we have lovingly raised from puppyhood and kittenhood. Why their members of our FAMILY. Not some bit of elemental ether that we've snapped our fingers and summoned up!!!  

The Primary reason we can heal our warders better that you can heal your 'PET' is all a question of Mage attitude. We heal our pets with LOVE :!:   Our pets mean more to us (As I Said...they're family) than the elemental you plucked from his dinner table means to you.  We worked HARD to develop means to keep our warders alive.  If you cared as much about your elementals, you could lean to develop this skill too.  

Mage pet dies :?:   Piffle....

Taken from the pages of "How to be a Mage, 101"

    ".....Elemental have a very high rate of procreation. So summon all you want, They'll make more."

And I have to say, up until recently, mages are some of the most sadistic people i know.  Just for a little more power, they'd chain summon and banish their pets.  Why,  there's little Jobber reading a bedtime story to little Neknab.  When suddenly he's WRENCHED out of his home to Norrath and immediatly banished.  And they wouldn't even summon the SAME one each time.  Just Summon, Banish, Summon, Banish, etc, etc...

If mages want better heals, they should do some serious soul reflection and think about the way they treat their pets.  Only with better treatment of their elemental companions will they achieve better heals.

/Roleplay & Sarcasm Off

-Loramil

Quote from: LoramilThe Primary reason we can heal our warders better that you can heal your 'PET' is all a question of Mage attitude. We heal our pets LOVE :!:   Our pets mean more to us (As I Said...they're family) than the elemental you plucked from his dinner table means to you.  We worked HARD to develop means to keep our warders alive.  If you cared as much about your elementals, you could lean to develop this skill too.

You are my idol for the moment Loramil!  :)

I'm going to post a response that I was going to put on the mage boards but Xalmat locked the thread as I was composing it.  They are more proactive about lockdowns over there.

It's going to seem a little out of context since the people there didn't post here, but I spent so much time on it that I didn't want to lose it. :)

Quote from: Eriol
I agree with you that soloing with pure pet tanking is not a viable method for beastlords.  But you also demonstrated that beastlords CAN keep up with pet DPS purely by healing.  Magicians can NOT do that.  Our healing per second, even with two heals can't keep up with a Beastlord's pet healing.  Your pet's DPS being in the tank compared to a PC melee (you) is the reason you lost (ran out of mana), not the DPS of the monster.

Magician healing per second doesn't match beastlord healing per second.  I understand that along with everyone else.  Saying that you are behind beastlords, however, does not automatically mean that you are behind mob dps.  The corollary is that beastlords being ahead of mages does not mean that they necessarily can keep up with the dps on bigger mobs.   Once you get to the bigger mobs, the healing per second advantage that you see on paper is eclipsed by the slowness of the heal.

Quote from: EriolChloroblast IS the winner, except if you do it in a hybrid fashion.  If you were to jump in and out of battle, healing yourself, and healing the pet enough so that it wouldn't die, and jumping back in when you were full, could you survive a much bigger mob than what you fought?

In a word, probably not.   That's what the beastlords are trying to tell you.  When you get to the much bigger mobs where you would have to use this technique, if you step out of combat and let your pet tank for a bit, you are doing so because you need to heal yourself.  If you step out of combat and don't heal yourself, the mob is going to kill you when you step back in, and there's pretty much no way for you to kill the mob without going back in and punching it some more.   This is the part that I think mages forget about because they don't generally take any damage personally when soloing if they are doing things right.

The problem is that you don't have time to actually heal yourself, because on tough mobs, you step out of combat and the mob starts thrashing your warder because it mitigates so poorly compared to you (the beastlord).  So let's say you start chaining Sorsha to keep the pet up, but you're screwed because now you don't have time to heal yourself.  But you need to heal yourself because you need to step back in and do damage.  The 9 seconds spent casting Sorsha isn't just lost melee damage, but it's time that could be spent healing the beastlord instead.

That all assumes that Sorsha can actually keep the pet up when you're not there, which isn't necessarily true either.  Our experience has been that when we try to do this on mobs that are actually tough, the mob will kill the pet before Sorsha even lands.   As we've pointed out several times, Xalmat's analysis doesn't account for that at all, really.

So the bottom line is that stepping out and letting the warder tank can work at high levels *only* if you don't have to heal the warder while you've stepped out.  You step out, blast yourself with Chloroblast a couple of times, then get back in there before the mob kills your warder.  You don't generally heal the warder at all when using this technique -- instead you call it off for a bit and let it regen if you need to, or you drop a mend companion if things get really hairy.  Alternatively sometimes you can get away with using the level 49 heal (910 hps, 4.5 seconds).   If it crits and you have healing tribute running it can actually help quite a bit, but you have to be pretty lucky.   That's another problem:  beastlords don't use this technique very often and even when we do, we aren't using the heal that Xalmat says we're using.   I've tried using it with Sorsha, and it isn't nearly consistent enough.  I can't tell you how many times I've tried to use this and ended up with a dead warder while Sorsha was still casting.

It's weird -- I understand a lot of the mages here mean well but you guys keep suggesting ways that we can use our pet heals as though none of these ideas occured to us before.

Quote from: EriolPersonally, for an initial comparison, I think you picked a great mob.  But I would also like to see what is survivable when you CAN'T tank full-time.  Beastlords can (and do) use this method.  An equivalent soloing method is not available to magicians.

I agree that it's a great mob, because sometimes it's like you guys don't read your own forum.  There's a thread here, started by XALMAT of all people and entitled, "Soloing Valor Pet Tank Style,", telling mages how to solo mobs in the plane of valor.  Most of the people are talking about golems and spiders and the cave guys, but the very last poster says that he pet clericed a planarian larvae which is the same mob that tez used in his test.   Saying that mage heals can't keep up against that mob is just plain wrong.  You guys have done it.  See the tesimonals here. (http://forum.magecompendium.com/viewtopic.php?t=13045&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=planarian&start=0)

Quote from: EriolThe problem with the pure-cleric method is that your DPS goes in the tank.  I agree with that.  And it is demonstrated perfectly here.  But we both know that beastlord warders, and magician elementals (and necro skels) can't stand up to mobs very long at all without healing.  We can't keep up to the DPS of the monsters when healing.  You CAN.  You were limited by MANA, not by mob DPS.  You COULD keep up with that.

Mages are limited by mana against those mobs too, not by mob dps.  I don't want to spoil the surprise for people who are going to actually follow the link I posted above, but here's a tidbit from a mage:

Quote from: SillaenI tried it with a DPoC focused air, on a planarian larvae at the ZI. It took 70% of my mana chaining 60 & 64 heals plus a couple of timed nukes to kill it. Sitting on horse the entire time. I don't have any healing focuses though.

Hey, what's that?  A mage was able to use his heals to keep his pet alive against this mob.  Wasn't even using his tanking pet.

QuoteBut Xalmat's point is still valid: Magicians cannot keep their pet alive long enough through ANY combination of healing and nuking to kill a mob that most would consider as a fair solo target, while another "pet class" CAN, without resorting to kiting.

I assume that the the mob that "most would consider as a fair solo target" is the same planarian larvae that Tez used, because I don't see any other mobs mentioned.   The fact that you believe that magician heals can't keep up on those types of mobs is some of the clearest evidence of the audacity of Xalmat's post.   He's actually managed to convince you that you guys can't do something that he himself TOLD you how to do:

Quote from: XalmatHere's what I recommend first, as a bare minimum:

Rathe's Son
DPoC or better focus
Ceramic Totem of the Rathe (for Improved Healing IV)
As much Spell Haste as possible. I use Haste of Mithaniel (20% to heals) and Speed of Solusek (18% to nukes)
Both pet heals (Planar Renewal AND Transon's Elemental Renewal)
Defensive pet AAs help a lot, but not totally necessary.
Lots of MR (mobs have a mean MR spell that rips pets up).

Summon (focused) Rathe's Son, give it weapons, girdle, muzzle, phantom plate. If you want, donate for a Virtue from a cleric, but its not totally necessary.

With the upgrades to pet defense (March 25, 2004) Rathe's Son has enough AC to tank Valor mobs. You're gonna need it!

Heres what you do. Pull with Malosinia, send pet to tank, open up with a nuke, then switch to a defensive pet cleric method of soloing: Chaining Planar Renewal and Transon's Renewal as needed. Toss in nukes as you feel appropriate.

If you think your pet is about to bite the dust, call your pet off the mob; if root sticks, you can get a couple free "heals" off on your pet before root breaks. Then proceed to continue fighting. Alternatively you can also use this to do some quick yo-yo kiting if needed.

When the mob gets low on health and begins to flee, you can either keep your pet on it, or do a reverse yo-yo kite (use your pet's Root to keep it from running).

Its very mana intense, but if you play your cards right, its definitely doable.

That was a strat for use against the PoV golems, which are harder than the larvae in my opinion.   That's from the thread I linked a few paragraphs ago.   And even putting aside what Xalmat said about the golems (if you are of the differing opinion that the larvae are harder than the golems), the rest of the posts show pretty clearly that mages can solo a variety of PoV mobs.  Larvae, razorfiends, and golems are all mentioned as being mage soloable, and not one mage said they had to kite them.  Not one.

Oh, and by the way, those PoV golems that Xalmat told everyone how to kill by chaining two heals are the same mobs that were used in the parses in his infamous manifesto.  Yet after showing the parse numbers against golems, he says the following:

Quote from: XalmatIn the above situations, the pure priest classes will have no problem chaining their quick heals to keep pets alive. Even the Beastlord is able to chain heal and keep his pet alive. The Magician, on the other hand, cannot heal anything unless the mob is first pre-slowed.

The use of "above situations" seems to refer to the same data from the parses, because those are the only "situations" that immediately precede this statement, and in fact are the only actual "situations" mentioned anywhere in Xal's analysis.   This statement is misleading to put it mildly, since Xal knows perfectly well that mages can heal their pets in those ""situations" if the mob isn't pre-slowed, since he wrote a how-to guide for mages on it.   If you're not inclined to put it mildly then you'd say he's flat out lying. :P

EDIT:  I bet some mages wish that I didn't figure out how to use the "Search" function on their website. ;)

Quote from: Xalmat...

No one is calling for beastlord nerfs (at least I'm not); however in my opinion they are overpowered in certain aspects when compared to other classes. In the context of powerful pet heals and slow theres an issue.

...

At lower levels, beastlord pet heals are more mana efficient than equivalent priest heals.

...

He locked the thread down and closes it with THAT?  Cheap shot.  That's not even really his opinion, that's just the crap he keeps saying to save face, given that he quite obviously knows he's completely full of BS.

He locks it down with a closing comment that oozes more bs.

DOES NO ONE OVER THERE UNDERSTAND THAT BEASTS DON'T REALLY GIVE A BUNNY ABOUT THEIR PET HEAL VERY OFTEN BECAUSE IT DOES NOT GO WELL WITH OUR PLAY STYLE.

Ok that's off my chest.

Xalmat and the rest of the whinny mages made me so unhappy with EQ that I changed to a BST in lue of quiting all together. I still seem to get unhappy whenever one of them posts here. Im not sure why anyone respects him( or the other whiney ones) they always just made me angry - even when I was a mage. The way he locked the thread so he could get the last word confirms why I have NO respect for him or his followers.

I have always been concerned that some of the other classes would get us nerfed while we remain civil. Prime example of why I like it here better is this was moved to rants while the mage thread was in the library over there was it not? I'm sure it wasnt in a rants type section.

I am still concerned that the thread of dribble, over there, will be more likely seen by Sony since its not in rants where this one will most likely never be seen here in rants. Taking the high road sure is hard sometimes.

My request as always - Whiney Mages go back to your board of discontent. Civil ones - welcome.

You weren't civil, cougar.  I remember you well.

Xalmat's analysis is flawed, and we all know that.  Xalmat used to have some good analyses, but his work lately has been more oriented around muckraking than accuracy.

I wouldn't worry about his whining much.

Quote from: Zashir SwiftpawXalmat's analysis is flawed, and we all know that.  Xalmat used to have some good analyses, but his work lately has been more oriented around muckraking than accuracy.

I wouldn't worry about his whining much.

Most of us don't.  And most of us know that the true mages, the ones that we are guilded with are miles away in class and skill from the rather sad examples that have festered on attempts at inter-class envy.

In all seriousness..  the Mage/Beastlord community is pretty close among the upper and mid level guilds on the Rathe.  The few dedicated mages that have played their toons through all the changes over the years are some of the best players I know in the game. ( /wave Donde and SS.)

There will always be those who stand outside the community and scream indignation that someone has a bigger cookie, and use all kinds of imaginative physics to prove it.  But when it all boils down, its the people who play together, compare their notes and SUPPORT EACH OTHER WITHOUT TRYING TO DRIVE A WEDGE IN that win the day for ALL.

It'll be those people who get the improvements that mages (or insert specific class here) need, not the winkie wavers.

The less Kinder, Gentler BC

I got very un-civil when I was a mage and even more so when I had my BST alt - as I noted, I was so very unhappy there. The constant gloom and doom is contagious.

I got smart and I dont even go there for old time sakes. I think I'm pretty civil here though - I know I am alot happier here. If im not civil dont hessitate to let me know, its not on purpose.

Also I agree, on an individual basis there are a ton of nice people who play mages. Its just the feel of the board over there that causes frustation to me. Again, its why I dont go there.

I still post regularly over on magetower... been doing it for near to 5 years, so it's hard to stop.  But yes, I'm sick of the direction that SOE has taken the mage class over the years.  I'm much happier with my BL since I have no preconceived notions as to what it's purpose is.

Xal is fairly bitter lately because he didn't get to be class rep ... he made a vitriolic post on eqlive over the choice that was made, and I think that the disappointment has tainted his posting lately.

And cougar, that was rude of me above... I'm sorry.

I didn't care for your posts on magetower, but that's ancient history.  Let bygones be bygones.

I pretty much stopped reading what Xal wrote when he compared cleric/druid/shaman heals to beastlord *pet* heals.

Hey, at least on the bright side we probably won't be seeing Xal post anything more on these boards cuz he will be laughed all the way back to mage compendium.

I would just like to point out that Bengali thoroughly owned Xalmat.  Good job.  Nothing like using his own words against him to make him look the fool.

Give the mages our heal.  Hell give them everything they want, make them the most powerful class in the game bar none.  Half the lot still won't be happy.

QuoteXal is fairly bitter lately because he didn't get to be class rep ... he made a vitriolic post on eqlive over the choice that was made, and I think that the disappointment has tainted his posting lately.  

I would say that his recent posting validated SOE's decision not to chose him.

Quote from: Hrann

QuoteXal is fairly bitter lately because he didn't get to be class rep ... he made a vitriolic post on eqlive over the choice that was made, and I think that the disappointment has tainted his posting lately.  

I would say that his recent posting validated SOE's decision not to chose him.

So I went looking up this post......damn, just damn. Mages are a bunch of backstabbing, brown-nosing bastards.

Well, that certainly explains a lot.  And I agree with Hrann 100%.  I mean can you see Tastian reacting this way if someone else had been selected instead?  The very concept is so far out there that I cannot even imagine it.  Maybe Xalmat really wasn't better than this.

Quote from: HrannI would say that his recent posting validated SOE's decision not to chose him.

I agree completely.

Quote from: Hrann
I would say that his recent posting validated SOE's decision not to chose him.

Bingo.

on a side note, who IS the mage rep to SOE?

To add further fuel to discrediting the event that fueled this rift, we could brainstorm WITH Mages, Necros specificly to look for ways to improve the pet classes that have weakness' that should be addressed.

We could also do much the same with Monks and other melee dps classes on our melee skills.

Perhaps a "Common Ground" forum for interclass brain storming.

That's a noble sentiment Bloodcelt, but establishing a meaningful dialogue isnt going to be easy. Its the very fact that our abilities and competences overlap with certain classes that spurs the class envy. Its not a coincidence that the 3 classes with the biggest anti-beastlord sentiment are the monks, the mages and the shamen, i.e. our 2 parent classes and the 'master' pet class. The sad reality is that quite a lot of people want their class to be better then the others rather then find common grounds.

I'm not saying we shouldn't try, just to be prepared for a lot of disappointment.

/hugs

Quote from: Zashir Swiftpaw

And cougar, that was rude of me above... I'm sorry.

I didn't care for your posts on magetower, but that's ancient history.  Let bygones be bygones.

Dont worry about it Zashir - I am a different player over here - I dont always agree, but I never get mad like I did there. Changing classes and communities was the best decision made by me in a long time. Every once in awhile I get one right. :)

As my father once told me - even a broken clock is right twice a day. Im pretty sure that wasnt a compliment he was giving me. :)

The Magician representative is Danille.  And I'm not sure that working with her would be any easier than Xalmat, she showed a remarkable lack of understand regarding BST/MAG comparison during the equivalent thread to this on the Mage's Compendium...to whit:

Quote from: danillequite a nice little thread we have going here and I'd like to add some thoughts specifically to the beastlords that have posted here:

Ok I read your reaction to Xalmat's post and have a few things to say. First of all Xalmat is not saying anywhere that beastlords should be nerfed. Xalmat suggested clearly in his solutions at the bottom of his post that the only changes he suggests are with regards to Magicians. NO BEAST NERFS EVER SUGGESTED.

With regards to your points:


Beastlords say they should get better heals and that mages should not get better heals AT ALL....


1) This makes no sense- The only time a beast pet is getting SLOWED MOB damage is when the beastlord is NOT meleeing and is either healing his pet or himself. In fact due to player/pet aggro issues there is no way that if a beast is meleeing the mob that the pet can take aggro away from the beast.

2) Our pet heal Planar Renewal is 7 sec cast, 1200 heal, now this mage pet heal is used against an UNSLOWED mob and also in a case where the pet is getting 100% of the damage all of the time.

3) Beast pet heal is a 9 sec heal for 2100 and used on a SLOWED mob. In addition to that, the only time the pet will get damage is if the beastlord backs off from the mob to heal himself or to heal the pet. Again I repeat that that is when the pet will get SLOWED damage from the mob, even a mob that 50% midigates their 65% slow still does only 67% dps compared to the mage pet which gets 100% DPS damage.

4) When a mage casts their Lay of Hands Pet heal AA it heals for the exact same amount as yours with one exception because you get a Healing AA which we do not, the beastlord has an advantage of getting up to an additional 19% more HP out of it, plus the potential to get a crit heal this BTW is in addition to the fact that the mob doing the damage is SLOWED and hitting with at least 67% less DPS.


Beastlords complain that they need quicker cast times, I have no problem with that at all. I am only saying that mages need quicker cast times too.


1) In HoH you can solo because you can melee the mobs at at least a 67% SLOWED DPS rate. Using this example and add to the the fact that Mages cant take aggro (they will die) and do melee damage to the mobs thur protecting the pet from damage. (your melee aggro takes the mobs attention away form the pet and it focuses on you including your personal mitigation). Mage pets in HoH can't tank the mobs there for the same reason yours can't PLUS the mobs are hitting our pets UNSLOWED at 100% DPS. Again take your exact situation and add at least 33% more mob DPS damage .

2) If you want to use the fact that mage pets mitigate 30% less DPS damage than beastlord pets do then I'll agrue that: Beast pets mitigate 100% DPS when the beast is engaged with the mob, If they do get damage it is only when the beast is backed off from the mob and healing the pet... even then it is only a max of 67% DSP damage as well.

3) I agree with you on the wanting of faster casting times. Consider this... If you had to deal with mobs that were UNSLOWED and your best heal was for 1200, with only 2 sec shorter casting time, then I'm sure you would want better heals too not just faster ones.

4) Beastlords have four forms of defense (Pet melee, general heals, pet heals and SLOW) Mages have two form of defense (Pet/pet heals)

5) Because pets/pet heals are our ONLY form of defense, our emphasis should be on the pet and pet heals. The pet itself needs some tweaking for sure and we are working with the developers on this issue, but our pet heals are seriously underpowered. Therefore, Mages need the better pet heals and shorter casting times that Xalmat proposes.


Again Xalmat, the mage community and I are not saying that Beastlords should be nerfed. We are only saying that mages need better heals and faster heal cast times.

Quote from: danilleThere are 3 reasons why the mage heals need to be better:

1) Beast pet damage only occurs if the beastlord dis-engages from fighting the mob. EVERYONE STOP AND READ THAT AGAIN PLEASE!!!!

.....compared to mage pet damage that occurs 100% of the time.

In the situation that the beastlord dis-engages from the mob and the mob turns to attack the beastlord's pet, (needs to heal himself) the beastlord does this when the mob is already SLOWED.

2) The mob actually has to burn thru the beastlord pets HP and kill it PLUS the beastlords HP too. Now the beastlord has the advantage of having armor that protects it from damage vs. cloth armor and very little defensive abilitys and skills. That is why the beastlord takes a while longer to kill mobs where the mage has no choice. Once the mage pet is dead, the mage is dead. Game over.

3) Slow. Mobs will damage the beast and the beast's pet and the beast at a much slower rate. This allows the beast pet and the beast himself more time to kill the mob.

Here is why mage pet heals have to be faster:


1) Mage has to end the fight faster or die. The mage needs quicker heals because everything in the mage fight happens faster. Full speed UNSLOWED fights. Only one thing (pet) the focus of the mobs UNSLOWED damage and attention. Only the pets HP stands in the way of the mobs victory. Once the pet is dead and the mob is hitting the mage its all over.

2)Beast can have the fight last longer because the damage is occuring under SLOWED circumstances. ALSO.... The fight damage is divided between two objects (the PC's total HP and the pet's total HP) they can take more damage as they share the damage and help each other. The pet chips away at the mob when the beast is meleeing and the beast heals the pet when the pet is meleeing.

I totally agree with Xalmat.

I still support beastlords getting faster heals, they need them.

By comparing the Magician situation to the Beastlord situation, Xalmat has proven why Magician need faster and better heals than the Beastlord class.

Sure it may not be popular but I'm very happy he did it so that the developers can see what the true issues are.

Bengali(and others) pretty much tore these apart when they were first posted, but still...

QuoteComplied by -Sage Xalmat Lunaire
Arch Convoker of Brell Serilis
Lead Librarian/Forum Moderator
The Mage Compendium
http://www.magecompendium.com

Edited by Danille Impholder
SoE Class Correspondent
Magician/Ayonae Ro
Lost Fires~Death Before Dishonor

Their Class Rep is Danille.

:wink:

Quote from: Thoar NametakerI would just like to point out that Bengali thoroughly owned Xalmat.

Man, that was so ovbious I didn't think it needed pointing out.

Sounds almost as bad as xalmat. The reps they choose need to have a better overall understanding of the game as a whole. The game does not revolve around mages but they sure seem to think it does or want it too(no I don't mean all mages just the very vocal ones that lack serious understanding of the game as a whole).

I have a few mage friends and they acknowledge that their solo ability has become a more difficult task with each new expansion due to the nature of difficulty of the later generations of mobs.  After talking with a few mage friends, I thought of an idea that could make sense for mages regarding a solution to helping them solo and still stay within the realm of "mage" abilities and over all balance.  

Since mages do not get any form of snare, kiting isn't as good of an option for mages as it is for beastlords.  That means that generally they need their pets to tank mobs while they nuke the mobs down.  I was thinking that SOE developers could make a new mage spell that summons a pet only weapon that procs a 40 or 45% slow.  The weapon spell proc could be called something like "grip of the elements" or something like that.  

It wouldn't be better than the beastlord level 60 slow (50%) nor would it be better than the ranger epic main hand (50% slow proc), let alone shamen or enchanter slows.   The weapon proc would never replace the need for slowers in a group setting, it would just help mages' pets live a little longer while soloing and help out their mana efficiency.  That wouldn't be too overpowering I wouldn't think....  It would certainly help them solo more.

Skratchen
That's what I proposed :)

Mage summoned weapons for pets:
1--Slow proc 35 to 50%
2--Stun level capped for appropriate xp mobs
3--Snare, for utility mostly
4--Lure DD for damage (Flames of Ro)
5--Rune proc of some type (1 shot calliav, rune 4, GuardIII)

This avoids making pets "uber tanks" as they wont need drastically increased hit points; you can BUY weapons with such abilities so why can't you summon them for pets only; pet weapon procs don't add much to most fights; aggro is a SOB problem for mages as current mage pets don't aggro worth a hoot (non-epic pet or without aggro proc weapons); though these add utility they don't replace classes with those abilities; avoids having to mess around with pet heals etc; is in class because mages SUMMON things; though these should be mage pet only I think.
--BST pets have great aggro abilities from proc-spells so that's not an issue for BSTs, is it? I do understand Slow aggro sucks.
--Damage problem comes from melee weapons >>>>damage casters upgrades, so BST gain more form the melee upgrades at the top, though I'd think like most casters, their spell damage is way weak compared to the melee upgrades?
--BST don't need slow proc weapons as they can cast slow.
--BST snare/pet proc AA ability i hear is kind of poor, resists too much??
--Necros damage dealing abilities is phenomenal, I don't think they should get a lure proc pet weapon or slow proc one, as their other advantages means they do not require such. *Definately* not needing such items IMHO.
--Rune proc weapon maybe nice for all pet casters, for several reasons, so honeslty not sure if that should be mage-pet only. I can see pros and cons.

I can just see the Mage's Compendium whining now.

"Our slow is a pet proc and thus unreliable while Beastlords can cast it at will.  Thus to compensate this slow needs to be at *least* 85% and proc 6 times a second.  I'm sure that SoE will see our position due to this well drawn out table I've created."

/snicker.

You forget Ter, once they get the 6 procs a second 85% slow, then it will be..."My pet keeps getting too much aggro, our slow must be a non-aggro producing proc.  In fact, since beastlords pet proc reduces aggro, we need our to do the same, but reduce so much aggro that mob starts to walk away as if memblurred, thus allowing our pet to beat on a retreating mob.  Oh and since mob will be retreating from our 6 proc per second, 85% slow aggro reducing memblur pet proc, we will be backstab on all or pets equal to rogue assasinate."

Quote from: Cyphen WilderOh and since mob will be retreating from our 6 proc per second, 85% slow aggro reducing memblur pet proc, we will be backstab on all or pets equal to rogue assasinate."

you missed out Snare... hehe

Yeah, they need it to be a  snare AND slow proc. but don't forget that the proper mage pet will also be able to cast a 1500hps rune (because chanters get it and mage's don't) on thier mage that doubles as a heal if the rune is already present on the mage. (because that's how the druid's skin line functions)

QuoteMage summoned weapons for pets:
1--Slow proc 35 to 50%
2--Stun level capped for appropriate xp mobs
3--Snare, for utility mostly
4--Lure DD for damage (Flames of Ro)
5--Rune proc of some type (1 shot calliav, rune 4, GuardIII)

This avoids making pets "uber tanks"

Ah yes, how stupid of us not to realize. Mages don't need better pet heals, they need Slow so they never ever have to heal their pets ever again. What was SOE thinking! Mages that cannot outperform a 4-man group single handledly? Outrageous!


Hellooo? Earth to Silverblade. Sanity check please.

Silverblade, you didn't seem too far out of whack until that last one.  You want snare, stun, lure spells, slow, and runes.  Is that all?  You sure you don't want to be able to backstab, TL, and complete heal while you're at it?

I'm sure monks want all those things too - why is it again mages should be able to do all this stuff but not them?

/boggle

Wake UP, yes Xalmat probably went overboard, but some of you have cotton wool in your ears it seems as well ;)

I can *BUY* in the bazaar 3 slow proc weapons; 4 snare procs; 2 runes (think theres more); two 600hp DD proc weapons; a slew of stun proc weapons; a PB AOE stun wand...and give them to my pet...

I did not ask for mages to be able to *cast* these effects, I asked that they be put on summoned pet weapons as *procs*, it is NOT unbalanced because I can go *BUY THEM* and give them to my pet.

Procs = unreliable, but useful. Mages currently sumon jack s**t that players want, EXCEPT pet toys and mod rods.

Mages are the masters of *summoning*; not nukes, not debuffs, not heals....Nobody should be able to summon an item better than a mage can, k? Same as no one should outnuke a wizard, out heal a cleric and so on. As the game has progressed, item summons got left in the dirt until PoP, but mobs' power also took a huge lurch upwards then.

I don't care if BST can CH thier pets, cool, good for you all! :) You do things your way, we do them ours. Ours should be by summoning things.Changes in game meant mage damage mostly comes now from nukes and that's at the heart of a hell of a lot of problems.
Pet DPs needs scale dup, item focuses need vaslty increased in availability, and mages need to be able to summon more useful things.

Sorry, but 100hp procs 3 or 4 times a fight ain't worth jack, remember we can't buff pets dex = less procs than warders. Long term efficiency doesn't cut it, because weapon procs havent changed much since Luclin, when a 150hp proc was sueful, nowadays it's not worth a hoot.
Go look at the stats on mage summoned weapons, they have +elemental damage, pets cannot use this, it has NO effect...For 3k plat or an hour or two's farming I can give my pet a Steel Hilted Flint Dagger...do you begin to see a problem here?

If you want to spend 3K for a 600 point damage proc, go ahead.  If you want to acquire a spell that gives you a 600 point damage proc from here to eternity, effectively for free, yes I have a problem with that!

Do you understand the difference between a one time cost and a repeat cost?

And this one's even worse than that difference because those daggers are limited at the rate which they can come into the game.  They have an extra cost in time.  Time is far more valuable than money.

And lots of people also want Focus Effect summons.  For High End Raiders they aren't so great, but for non-raiders they are a godsend.

I wouldn't necessarily be offended by all of your suggestions, but stuff like Lure procs is going overboard, the same type of thing that Xalmat did.

TerjynPovar

The reason I say a lure-DD proc, note *DD* proc not the other effects (which only need normal resist types), is because you'd want to use the DD proc on bosses, k?
What's problem with pets on bosses? Pet level versus boss mob level = pets can't land much/effectively, typical lvl 61 DPOC focused pet versus lvl 70+ boss = few hits will land for full if at all.
--The damage from the DD proc also needs to be consistant, so it can be caluclated into DPs parsing and balancing. Which is normally hard/guess work with regular procs. You can balance the DPs of the pet using it, by adjusting the proc rate modifier of the weapon, or size of the DD effect. Additonally it must generate aggro (for mages, since we don't have any de-aggro method pet must generate enough hate that it will usually out aggro us)
--Another flaw in your anti-lure position is: *points to necromancer and wizard DoTs and DDs resist check modifiers, notes Malo is a utility and isn't as good as spells with innate -50 to -300 resist checks when dealing with the annoying resists of LDON adv/raid, Elemental and other mobs* And yes I know BST would kill for Malo ;) But to cast on EVERY mob is a fair mana chunk lost from DPs, and Mala (mage version) is -35, not -45 (Malo) and Malos is -55. Wizards currently have a problem in that their big nukes do NOT have the -50 resist check of their draughts, which is plain stupid. Mages and shaman would kill for a PB AOE Malo/malosini, by the way. Hm, pet weapon proccing something like Malaisment (-40), now there's an idea?
--The Lure-DD proc I suggested, Flames of Ro, is 400hp, an already in-game effect on a weapon my mage character *MELEES* with.
--That make sense? :)

Your comparison on cost etc is also flawed, because a Blade of the Kedge mage summoned weapon is:
1hs, +50 hp, 170 hp cold dd proc (at lvl 70), 10/20, +10 damage bonus, +3 elemental cold damage.
Now, how much would such an item sell for in the bazaar? Or the Fist of Ixiblat with similar stats but H2H?

Lately I have been getting asked for Arrows and shurikens by lower level folk once every day or two, not sure why this is now, but for years, bar some astute folk, no one ever asked...Guess maybe fact we CAN do this has sunk in, eh? ;)
Anyway they are the SAME summoned shurikens, arrows, daggers I had in Kunark, 4 years ago...FOUR years...and I still can't summon bows, *grumbles about that missing slot in the summoned arsenal*, hehe.

I think a big problem is the fact that there are more classes than things to "Be the Best at."

That leaves a lot of classes who are a good at multiple things upset because they are not the best at anything.  Then they ignore the things they have.

The whole "We are the master summoners" and "We have the best pets" thing really rubs mages raw, especially when they sense a percieved danger in losing thier title.  So thier answer is either nerf the other class, or give them so many upgrades there is no longer any dispute over who has the best whatever.  Well, they already got that with the pets....

Reminds me of Shamans and thier slow.  

Everytime someone tries to argue thier case they will say:
"Besides (enter "we are the best at this ability here"), our class has NOTHING. "

And it's all a crock of earth elemental.

Quote from: Silverblade-T-E

I can *BUY* in the bazaar 3 slow proc weapons; 4 snare procs; 2 runes (think theres more); two 600hp DD proc weapons; a slew of stun proc weapons; a PB AOE stun wand...and give them to my pet...

I can buy them all too, guess that means that Beastlords should get all that stuff too and Necro's while you're at it. In fact, I can buy Mage gear in the Baz usually, Beastlords should be able to summon mage gear for themselves.

Quote from: Silverblade-T-E
Hm, pet weapon proccing something like Malaisment (-40), now there's an idea?

Now that IS an idea! That would be a good OOW spell I would think. Balanced to the extent you can't rely on procs. Not many people rely on rangers (beastlords) slowing with their epic but they can. A debuff like this on a proc would be quite well balanced for the potential applications.

Shere Khaan

Silverblade, you're making the same mistake as Xalmat. You're making paper comparisons without making any reference to reality whatsoever. The only reason you're not as bad as Xalmat is that Xalmat did it deliberately, while you are just too stupid to realize it.

QuoteMage summoned weapons for pets:
1--Slow proc 35 to 50%
...

This avoids making pets "uber tanks"

Clearly you don't understand the power of Slow, or the price beastlords have to pay for having that ability. Our entire soloing ability is build on our ability to slow. Without it, we are nothing, we'd barely be able to kill even the gimpiest blue con mob, because neither we nor our warders possess the defensive capabilities to stand up against unslowed mobs long enough to kill them. But mage pets already have the ability to stand up against unslowed mobs for quite a while thanks to their incredible levels of mitigation; per hit a mage pet takes no less then 60%(!) less damage on average then our warders. That is the price we pay for having the ability to slow mobs and which we must accept.
Mage pet mitigation, coupled with the mage own incredible damage output, means you can already solo these mobs with ease. Giving mages the ability to slow, in whatever form, does make their pets "uber tanks". Once the slow proc goes off and lands, even a 35% slow will reduce the dps taken by 54% from that moment on. A 50% slow will reduce the dps by a factor 2. Weapons procs are not so unreliable; they will go off 2x per minute on average. On top of that, the agro generation from continuous re-slowing means the mage, who's sitting behind his pet, can go full burn on his own damage output without ever having to worry about getting agro himself. Mage pets just recently received a major upgrade to their defense in order to better withstand the damage output of some present day mobs. Mages have AA's to improve their pets defense even further. And now you are asking for another upgrade that will, in practice, effectively add another ~25-50% to their defensive capabilities. Not too greedy are we?
If you want slow, group with a slower. If you want better heals, group with a healer. What you want is to be able to solo the newest content that was designed for groups. Tough noogies, you're not going to get it, nor will any other class. If you want to solo, there's plenty of old content which has become solo'able because of mudflation. What isn't solo'able now, will become solo'able in the future, and you're just going to have to wait for that future just like the rest of us.

Watch the personal attacks.

Quote from: Silverblade-T-EThe reason I say a lure-DD proc, note *DD* proc not the other effects (which only need normal resist types), is because you'd want to use the DD proc on bosses, k?

Well, all I can say is Duh.  The real question is, why should it work on bosses?  Mages already outdamage Beastlords on bosses except those with insane resists to fire and magic.  Now you want to do more?  To compensate for...what exactly?

Quote--Another flaw in your anti-lure position is: *points to necromancer and wizard DoTs and DDs resist check modifiers

You are making the same mistake Xalmat made.  This is about Magicians.  Pulling in more and more classes just demonstrates a weak position.  This is how things are designed, and just because it isn't designed that Mages are the best at everything is not, and never will be, a flaw.

Quote--The Lure-DD proc I suggested, Flames of Ro, is 400hp, an already in-game effect on a weapon my mage character *MELEES* with.

:roll:  Now you are making exactly 100% the mistake Xalmat made.  This weapon is not unbalanced on you, it would be on your pet.  Beastlord heals are not unbalanced for a Beastlord, they would be for a Magician.  Think about it.

QuoteYour comparison on cost etc is also flawed, because a Blade of the Kedge mage summoned weapon is:
1hs, +50 hp, 170 hp cold dd proc (at lvl 70), 10/20, +10 damage bonus, +3 elemental cold damage.
Now, how much would such an item sell for in the bazaar? Or the Fist of Ixiblat with similar stats but H2H?

What?  You cannot say If A then B, therefore if B then A.  That's never been logically acceptable.

Mage pets "superb" mitigation is based off pet focus items, correct? :)

I'm a Time flagged mage, on our 4th Time raid, we reached Phase4 killed Saryrn and Terrirs Thule. So, as a long time, pretty well geared (not top end) mage I should have a good pet focus, shouldn't I? I have many other focus effects...

But as I'm sure you can guess, I do not have a pet focus beyond the DPOC, so when dealing with "balance", please consider the fact of pet focus item's STUPID rarity, k? It's silly to say "but mage pets get massively better mitigation!", when that true statement relies on very rare items, thus your arguement is flawed.

The summoned weapon effects I described, or similar, *BETTER* be on the mage OOW summoned weapons or there will be hell to pay, if things aren't balanced in some other way perhaps. I say this based on what we have seen in GoD and spell line ups for OOW. The gap between mage and wizard nukes in OOW instead of progressing parallel, widens dramatically, now personally I'm not that bothered PROVIDED the pets or other abilities make up for the differences (damage from pets should be the major damage from mages, not nukes, PoP made major mistake there). Maintening the same rough balance of damage dealing and utility between mages, wizards and necros is important, this I think is basic logic and to argue against it = foolish, hm? What's reasonable to debate is to figure out HOW this is achieved, yes?

Coprolith,

QuoteClearly you don't understand the power of Slow, or the price beastlords have to pay for having that ability.

*drums fingers in table* I do play the same game you know, and I do, once in a while, play my enchanter, so I do know how good slow is :)
I also know procs are *unreliable* , while they may go off on average 3 or 4 times per minute, the problem is they may go off when the mob is already nearly dead...You CANNOT rely on procs like you can on spells.
mages are pure casters, dudes in robes with no defence abilities bar Gate.
So mages to balance this are *designed* to be king kong damage dealers...or were...which got screwed up totally between Velious and Luclin, and now mobs eat pets like apple pips, unless you have a pet focus from the high end which are....*bling!* RARE as heck.
--Lots of us have been trying to get pet focus items made more common, not only does it help mages, helps necros and BST too, but they aren't common so mages are left out on a limb. So please stop touting mage pets mitigation unless you are honest enough to see that these pet focuses that your mitgation point relies on, are almost non-existant amidst the mage community? :) Until you either farm Time for many months or do Ikkinz and up mages just will NOT HAVE pet focuses above the DPOC. Would you balance the BST class just based on the Symbol of Ancient Summoning owned by 0.01% of the player base?

--You are also wrong in other areas. Mage pet defencive AA, maxed, adds 3% to avoidance THREE PERCENT! This has been parsed.
Xalmat over played pet healing, as I said, BST are a healer hybrid so should have better pet heals, pet heals need for all classes to be faster cast around 3--4 seconds due to sheer practicality, mage shouldn't have to be acting as "pet cleric"...not a healer class...not our forte'.
--Ever worked around a mage with the epic pet? Epic pet, on mobs lvl 61 and under, is sitll the highest damage dealer (with possible exception of pets focused with Minion of Discord). Epic pet aggros like a tank driving a pneumatic drill up mobs' backsides  :lol: If you use that pet, you can light most mobs up like the Manhattan Project. Alternatively you can give an air pet gnoll hide lariats, not quite so good but still a nice "aggro magnet". Beastlords also get + and - pet aggro procs, so don't go throwing stones in glass houses, hm? :)
--Oh and warders and other pets generally get hit before mage pets because mage pets, even if they do generate huge aggro, have a far too large a melee hit box, thus they almost never get proper proximity aggro. The mage pet effectively hits from too far away. Which is damned silly as mage pets are the ones that should be tanking *sighs*.

Shere Khaan
Yah that would be nice one :) Question is whether it wil be good for OOW? (Assuming these pet wepaons could be brought out for that). From experiences in LDON and onwards, resists have become a major factor, so I generally just casta Mala when mobs need debuffed, because they resist the normal Malo-line (resistable) like heck :/ As a TRADEABLE pet weapon, for OOW or maybe PoP pets this maybe nice, ie set proc level to 60+ *scratches head*?

You play the same game but you aren't viewing it objectively.

Even a DPoC Magician pet parses at 40-50% better mitigation than a DPoC Beastlord pet.  Throw in a 35% slow and you now have a pet that takes less damage than the Beastlord pet does with our full slow...against mobs which mitigate slow you are way ahead.

Your argument is Magicians better be damn good in OoW or else?  :roll:

The Mage pet avoidance is 3% more that Beastlords do not get.

Quote--Ever worked around a mage with the epic pet? Epic pet, on mobs lvl 61 and under, is sitll the highest damage dealer (with possible exception of pets focused with Minion of Discord). Epic pet aggros like a tank driving a pneumatic drill up mobs' backsides  If you use that pet, you can light most mobs up like the Manhattan Project. Alternatively you can give an air pet gnoll hide lariats, not quite so good but still a nice "aggro magnet". Beastlords also get + and - pet aggro procs, so don't go throwing stones in glass houses, hm?

Yet another example of if A then B, therefore if B then A.  It still doesn't work that way.

Quote--Oh and warders and other pets generally get hit before mage pets because mage pets, even if they do generate huge aggro, have a far too large a melee hit box, thus they almost never get proper proximity aggro. The mage pet effectively hits from too far away. Which is damned silly as mage pets are the ones that should be tanking *sighs*.

This is a non-Sequitor.  This whole thing is how to help Mages *SOLO*.  If there is another pet taking the beating then you are hardly soloing are you?

Mages are the best summoners in the game.
Mages have the best pets(even though necros originally had the best)

What do BST do the best?

Quote from: cougerofeq

What do BST do the best?

Get whined at by other classes.

QuoteGet whined at by other classes.

I think the Druids appreciate us having taken their place as the class to bash.

Quote from: cougerofeqMages are the best summoners in the game.
Mages have the best pets(even though necros originally had the best)

What do BST do the best?

BST are (as I see them) not a "Best" anything, but a well rounded class.

Also, Necro pets were dual weilding, Mage pets were not. We proved it to them and they changed it. Necro pets being "better" was a bug, so you can shut up about it and stop bringing it up in every bloody thread that contains the word Mage. We know you hate your previous class and have an axe to grind with them but you can be quiet about it now, ok?

QuoteUntil you either farm Time for many months or do Ikkinz and up mages just will NOT HAVE pet focuses above the DPOC

Actually, this is not quite true. Minion of eternity drops in 3 places, one of them time where it is kinda rare, but not as rare as class specific items like shinai or mage mask, another one is ikkinz where it seems to be rare and the last one is primals in yxtta where it is common as muck and rots after about 2-3 weeks farming. At your stage of the game you can farm all 3 drop spots easily and i dont see why you complain about not getting it.

Besides that, there is already a pretty good pet weapon out there with a 225 dd and 100 hp on it, i consider that as nearly overpowering especially now that all pets zone (and zoning pets was a beastlord advantage originally).

Quote from: Silverblade-T-EBut as I'm sure you can guess, I do not have a pet focus beyond the DPOC, so when dealing with "balance", please consider the fact of pet focus item's STUPID rarity, k? It's silly to say "but mage pets get massively better mitigation!", when that true statement relies on very rare items, thus your arguement is flawed.

I don't see what this has to do with anything.  Focus effects above the DPoC are just as rare for other classes as they are for mages.    When people say mage pets mitigate better, they mean that with any given focus (including DPoC, which is super easy to get) a mage pet will mitigate substantially better than another pet with that same focus.

In fact, most mitigation tests and comparisons are done with the DPoC because that's what most pet users have.   The statement doesn't rely on rare items at all.

Mages are the best at pets.  
Mages are the best at Damage shields.
Mages are the best at Summoning items.

Beasts are the best at pet healing.

By this comparison, Mages need no improvement, in fact, they are vastly over powered.  SoE needs to either raise the power of the beastlord to be in line with Mage power, or nerf the Mages.

They can rectify the situation by implementing the following changes:

1)  Bring the beastlord pet in line with mage pet in terms of dps, mitigation and hp.   Small allowances in power differential will be allowed to compensate for the awesomeness of the beastlord pet's graphics.

2)  Introduce a nonresistable, non-avoidable source of continuous damage source of damage damaging to the beastlord's damage portfolio.  I would suggest leeches.  Impossible to get off, really.

3)  Introduce a new beastlord "Archaeology" abillity where we dig up ancient powerful relics that will dissolve into nothingness when a player sets up camp (no rent tag.)  This skill will work much like the forage skill, except we get to pick what we get and it never fails.

4)  Implement the long awaited Ass-Lightening AA warder augmentation.  


I know that my community will rally behind these scientific findings, as I am a well respected member of the retired-barbarian-beastlords-of-the-7th-hammer community.

LOL! Thoar

Quote from: Skog
Also, Necro pets were dual weilding, Mage pets were not. We proved it to them and they changed it.

Telling me how mages got necros nerfed with thier "proof" doesnt make me like the mage community more, if that was your hope. It just confirms my opinions and why we have to respond to the "Proof" you currently are providing.

Quote from: Skog
We know you hate your previous class and have an axe to grind with them but you can be quiet about it now, ok?

I love pet classes - I just hate the attitude many mages have of everyone else owing them something. Its like they think they are a minority or something. They have to be the best at .... was my point.

Lastly, dont want to hear my opinion on mages?  Dont bring it up on the BST board or read threads about mages on the BST board. I dont post on the mage boards at all. It gives me high blood pressure. You can commiserate over there all you want and never read a word from me ever again.

I'm not going to get all upset regardless of what you say - I'm not a mage anymore, I gave up trying to make a difference over there.  Here I like the community as it is.

Quote from: Thoar Nametaker4)  Implement the long awaited Ass-Lightening AA warder augmentation.  

OMG. That is the best idea I have ever heard. I would pay 30 aa for a skill like that!  :lol:   :lol:

Shere Khaan

Quote from: cougerofeq
Telling me how mages got necros nerfed with thier "proof" doesnt make me like the mage community more, if that was your hope. It just confirms my opinions and why we have to respond to the "Proof" you currently are providing.

So putting Mage pets where they were supposed to be was a nerf to Necromancers? If you are referring to the infamous Fine Steef Dagger fiasco I believe it was the melee (primarily some Warriors) that got it nerfed because the pets were able to kill them without breaking a sweat and it effected Mages as well. All it does is disprove your statement about Mages not having the best pets. It was a bug.

My main gripe with you is the fact that you continue to have a grudge against the Mage community and in any thread where a Mage tried toi defend themselves you pipe in with "Mages don't need anything, go away. I don't like discussion" instead of tackling the problem. The same can be said of you- if you get worked up about Mage's then don't read the threads about them.

Quote from: Skogyou pipe in with "Mages don't need anything, go away. I don't like discussion" instead of tackling the problem.

So for Mage's haven't even defined any problems (except for the healing issue). All we see now is complaining about how other classes have more DPS or can solo better or can take a beating better or any number of other things. These arn't problems, they are called weakness inherent in playing a Mage. Everything you have been saying so far in this thread has pretty much been in a thinly veiled attempt to convince us that Mages should be the best at everything in the game.

It's becomming somewhat clear that the beastlords understand your pets better then you do after watching Silverblade try to argue about Mage's pet mitigation. Try going out there and acutally LEARNING the class you play before you start asking blindly for upgrades you don't need or deserve.

Skanda,

BST solo --Mage solo.
--BST will slow mob, yes? He will tank a lot, pull back to heal self as need , share damage with self and pet. Correct? So the beastlord divides damage between himself and pet.
--Mage will either pull with pet or debuff. Pet absorbs all the damage bar at very low levels, mages do not tank for their pets bar in extremis.
--So, effectively, BST pets, generally, do not HAVE to solo tank mobs, yes? Warder's primary purpose is NOT to tank, it is to do damage and absorb damage *as need be*. Would that be a fair assessment of it?

Bengali,
I haven't actually seen many *defencive comparison* parses of mage pets and warders post 2nd round mitigation changes, would appreciate a link to such, if you'd be so kind? :)

Dummkopf,
We just reached Phase5 Time on our 6th day of Time raiding and our first phase5  god was Bertox..we got him to 30% (fun though), good percentage of our Alliance isn't in KodTaz yet because of the hassles of TIpt/Vxed for so many folk, rather **** PO'd about Tipt personally, hate that trial with a passion, had no luck with it. So no we are not seeing any pet focuses, and none exist within our Allaince.
--Summoned Burning Shank is *lore*, no rent, from an item in higher GOD, so no, it is not common *cough*.

Terjn,
Aggro issues had been brought into this thread, hence why I mentioned such. It is rather crucial to mage gameplay.
--Elemental Alacrity seems to only give 3% pet avoidance at max for a heavy AA cost, which is pretty crap.

and so what's the reason you think you should be able to solo as well as a beastlord can? I think there's a few other classes around that solo worse then you do.

Quote from: Silverblade-T-E
I haven't actually seen many *defencive comparison* parses of mage pets and warders post 2nd round mitigation changes, would appreciate a link to such, if you'd be so kind? :)

http://www.beastlords.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2585

QuoteOK so I want the earring out of Barindu. I head over there and there is a mage there soloing these 600-hitters with his Minion of Eternity Earth pet. Since he wants the ring and I want the earring we team up and start fighting.

My little warder keeps getting agro from the earth pet and getting stomped hard. I turned off taunt. Guess what. He still gets stomped no matter what. He even had mage weapons so Rellic was not proccing as much. Is the agro from Rellic so insane that his Eternity pet taunting, and prolly hitting for 92, can't out agro my Warder?

It was a little annoying. (Of course not so annoying that I dispelled his buffs and tried spirit of snow) You thinkt hat would work?


On a side note. These are HARD for me to kill solo. Takes a trtuckload of mana to keep myself and the pet alive. The Earring will ahve to wait for a few more AA I think.

Sounds like that poor Mage was having a hell of a time soloing. I feel so sorry for you guys.

http://www.beastlords.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1720

QuoteThe average hit (A Crystalline Golem in the Plane of Valor) for Sorsha was 420, compared to 255 for earth pet and 277 for air pet. Mage pets mitigate A LOT better than beastlord pets now it seems.

That thread comes complete with Xal bragging about the "upgrades up the wazzoo" that you just got and wanting to know how much our pet got upgraded.

QuoteBST solo --Mage solo.
--BST will slow mob, yes? He will tank a lot, pull back to heal self as need , share damage with self and pet. Correct? So the beastlord divides damage between himself and pet.
--Mage will either pull with pet or debuff. Pet absorbs all the damage bar at very low levels, mages do not tank for their pets bar in extremis.
--So, effectively, BST pets, generally, do not HAVE to solo tank mobs, yes? Warder's primary purpose is NOT to tank, it is to do damage and absorb damage *as need be*. Would that be a fair assessment of it?

That would be a nice point for giving our pets a large dps boost, since pets have to trade off tankability against dps or the other way round. Since our pet isnt supposed to tank (after silverblades argumentation) it should do more dps but it is at the moment the least dps out of mage/necro/beastlord pets.

This is not my opinion, just how i interprete Silverblades assessment.

Skanda,

I'm not being a nasty jack ass to you or BSTs, so why the hostlity, hm? :)

QuoteSounds like that poor Mage was having a hell of a time soloing. I feel so sorry for you guys.

Debate please, no need for such acidiity, is there?
Again, 99.99% of mages do NOT have anything better than the DPOC, neither to BST or necros, as said, the availablity of pet focuses for EVERYONE is stupidly rare, they are as important to pet classes as nuke, DoT and buff focuses.

Hm, odd, mage pets DID need a big mitigation increase but I thought warders would have got something too with the higher focuses, either Avoidance or proc rate (as that seems most likely with warders?).

Quoteand so what's the reason you think you should be able to solo as well as a beastlord can? I think there's a few other classes around that solo worse then you do.

Are you just being obtuse or trying to provoke hostility? :/
Mages are one of the primary solo classes, if you can't take that or have a problem with the mage class, to bad: what is your problem?. I've heard some BS from BST who haven't played EQ long saying mages shouldn't be good soloers...yeeesh.
--Mages have always excelled at killing low blues in number, necros with higher cons but fewer, and wizards/druids midway between (fair number of blues). PoP skewed that due to mobs DPs which, being a hybrid melee class I'm sure all BSTs are all to aware of.

Quote from: Silverblade-T-E
Mages are one of the primary solo classes, if you can't take that or have a problem with the mage class, to bad: what is your problem?. I've heard some BS from BST who haven't played EQ long saying mages shouldn't be good soloers...yeeesh.
.

Well then grats! Looks like that mage above was having no real problems soloing blues in GoD. So why is it you need an upgrade again? Really, you haven't given one real reason during this entire thread other then "just because".

I'm hostle because I'm not seeing you trying to support your point at all. Everything you say is promptly taken apart by everyone here and yet you come back asking for different crap. First it was heals (I don't mind this too much), then moved to something about how we take punishment better them mages and how you should get some sort of defensive upgrade, then we slipped into Wizard territory when you started complaining about how your DPS should equal theirs....and now you want to be able to summon gear that is in the Baz that even remotly resembles pet gear.

Really.....when do you plan to ask for Necro rezzes and FD? No one here is debating anymore. Take a look, you may notice how every post lately has been against you (Except for the Mage Skog). You guys got your pet upgraded after asking for it for a long time and now suddonly you're asking for the Moon on a platter also. Get real.

QuoteMages are one of the primary solo classes

Mages haven't been one of the primary solo classes since, um - ever.  It's always been possible to solo as a Mage, (at a reduced rate of experience from grouping) but even before Beastlords Mages took second (or third) place solo to Druids, Necromancers, Shaman and Wizards.

If you started a Mage thinking you were going to be soloing a lot, apparently the rude shock hasn't hit yet.

QuoteMages are one of the primary solo classes

Umm, where did you get that from?  My chanter  can charm solo from hell and back but does that make chanters a prime solo class?

Necro's are THE prime solo class, rez, fd, summon corpse, dots, pets, heals, undead mezz, undead slow, snare.

Just about every class can solo but it takes a little more then someone simply proclaiming that they are something before SOE is gonna make mages even more powerful then they already are.  

Why am I ever bothering to reply, go head and give mages everything, then we all will just roll up mages.  No need for any other class in the game if mages get everything they ask for, lets all just play our SUPERMAGE toon and solo everything.

Trying to say that wizard utility is up to par with mage utility is a joke.

I mean for a minute there I thought you were being serious when you claim that average crowd-control, outdated ports (with the advent of PoK) and a bunch of self-buffs which help no-one but the wizard were equal to all that a mage can do.

EDIT: Oh wait, we have Evac   :?

I agree with you on one point - BST tank and their pets DPS. I also agree that it makes no since for the warders to be lowest in mitigation and DPS.

Since we tank for them they should have the higest DPS and Mage pets the highest mitigation since you add alot of DPS for them, but need them to tank for you. What gets on my nerves is that Mages then say, "NO, you can't have the best DPS pets because our pets are supposed to be the best in the game". So we have fallen behind the DPS curve and currently you have the best DPS and mitigation for your pets. On top of that it seems more is needed for mages to boot. Thats why I dissmiss mages so quickly.

We got almost nothing from the patch that upgraded Mages - the patch even stated we got less. ( though not how much less and it was alot)

The advantage Mage pets have is based in utility and situational dps.

We have one warder that does the same thing everytime.

We have a warder that is a true hybrid pet:

Jack of all trades and master of none.

Mages have pets that are designed to be used in different scenario's and for that I am envious.

Would I trade my Beast for a Mage instead?

Nope.

Nox

Quote from: Silverblade-T-E
Bengali,
I haven't actually seen many *defencive comparison* parses of mage pets and warders post 2nd round mitigation changes, would appreciate a link to such, if you'd be so kind? :)

The funniest thing about this is that it was Xalmat's post that started this whole thread, and Xalmat not only linked to the parses (but conveniently ignored some things about them to conclude the opposite of what happened) but he had a whole section in his manifesto about them.

Bengali,
Have any *beastlords here on these forums* done any comparative parses? :) Why just rely on Xalamat's analysis, which however good it maybe, could still be wrong?
i.e. you always need plenty of samples before reaching conclusions on statistical analysis.

QuoteCombination of Slowed and Unslowed Beastlord Parse Average 'hit' Damage: 329
Average 'hit' Accuracy: 63.9%
Average 'hit' DPS: 137.98
Overall Average Damage: 302
Overall Average Accuracy: 64%
Overall Average DPS: 144.47

Completely Slowed Beastlord Parse
Avg 'Hit' Damage: 420
Avg 'Hit' Accuracy: 59.4%
Avg 'Hit' DPS: 76.5%
Overall Average Damage: 386
Overall Average Accuracy: 58.2%
Overall Average DPS: 78.8

Now take this parse for Magicians.

Rathe's Son Defensive
Avg 'Hit' Damage: 255
Avg 'Hit' Accuracy: 65.6%
Avg 'Hit' DPS: 140.46
Overall Average Damage: 235
Overall Average Accuracy: 65.7%
Overall Average DPS: 149.28

Ward of Xegony Defensive
Avg 'Hit' Damage: 277
Avg 'Hit' Accuracy: 62.6%
Avg 'Hit' DPS: 146.80
Overall Average Damage: 255
Overall Average Accuracy: 62.8%
Overall Average DPS: 155.29

Ward of Xegony Defensive (With Stun)
Avg 'Hit' Damage: 256
Avg 'Hit' Accuracy: 63.3%
Avg 'Hit' DPS: 128.41
Overall Average Damage: 239
Overall Average Accuracy: 63.3%
Overall Average DPS: 135.57

I'm curious because the average hit damage is lower on the mage pets, but the overall average DPs isn't that much lower than versus warders??

"Combination of Slowed and Unslowed Beastlord Parse Average 'hit' Damage: 329 "

The first one is a combination of SLOWED and UNslowed beastlord parse.  Also you'll notice the average hit in that data set is 329 for some reason, but the average hit in the other beastlord data set is 420.  8P

Quote from: Silverblade-T-EHave any *beastlords here on these forums* done any comparative parses?

Oh, you mean these guys ?

Quote from: Silverblade-T-EI've had it with some of the dweebs on Beatlord.orgs rants, tubes.

http://forum.magecompendium.com/viewtopic.php?t=16085&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=25

I'm taking bets on the next insult to be used when Silverblade loses this latest segment of discussion.

"nerds" is odds on favorite
"fanny batters" at 65/3
"jiggle tits" at 40/1
"fat arsed mole-nuts" 50/7
"chunky sweatered poop guzzlers" at 100-1
"beatlords (yes, no "s") have upside down noses so when it rains they drown" 250-1

Tastian,
Hm need to get Xal to post just the slowed and unslowed for clarity? Yah another indepedeant set of parses would help :)


Lorathir,

I know BSTs read the magetower so I was just wondering when someone would get round to throwing that in.
Be honest and post the whole quote ;)

QuoteOn another point, while most BSTs players are cool, I've had it with some of the dweebs on Beatlord.orgs rants, tubes

Reffering to folk who seem to think that I was asking for mages to be able to *cast* slow lure snare when I repeatedly said this was not the case, my suggestions are for OOW and perhaps PoP pet weapon procs, does this have to be carved in stone? Also pet focuses are *rare* so someone moaning about how a mage with Minion of Eternity focus can solo is pretty damned silly.
--Post good reasons WHY individuals object, not "Waah waah he wants to cast lures and slows and all mages have super duper pets with uber focuses!"....yes, folk who act like that are tubes, same as mages who want to cast snare and slow etc, k ;)
Pet proc weapons != player cast

Valid points:
--mage pets have mitgation > than warders.
--Beastlords AND their pets tank and share damage in solo/group. Similar to using Divine Arbitration or other methods of spreading damage out that's pretty effective (I used to tank for pet at times so KNOW it's useful)
--Warders proc  > than mage elementals.
--Warders have + and - aggro procs
--Mage pets have 4 different type so have situational advantages over warders (though fire pet is totally crap at high lvl except in some PVP)
--Beastlords can get proximity, slow and DoT aggro as well as a rampage, plus poison spells are more aggro than others.
--Mages dont' have any aggro reduction methods.
--Slow is WAY to desired as a component when looking for a person for your group (basic fact of EQ post-PoP)
--Beastlords have both melee and caster buffs, plus slow and DPs, thus making them very desired in groups, but they are at their best in "easier" settings because they do not have the true healing, debuff (resist) and root abilities of a shaman, or FD/high DPs of a monk.
--Mages can have sustained high DPs in group settings, but this is often overlooked.
--Mages can debuff resists and cast damage shields.
--Mage summoned items are varied in desirability and use (pet toys are currnelty the most wanted items I get asked for, not mod rods)
--Neither class has lures or real low resist DoTs (for BSTs)
--Mages can kill mobs faster than beastlords.
--Mages have gate, beastlords have SOW as their defences, sans pet.

Reasonable summary of major points?

You asked...

"I'm curious because the average hit damage is lower on the mage pets, but the overall average DPs isn't that much lower than versus warders??"

The reason for this is because even the "good" beastlord parse that has the pet only taking an average hit of 329 (instead of 420) still includes slowed data.  That is why the dps is still so close despite the huge differance in mitigation.

Quote--Warders have + and - aggro procs

As far as im concerned we have no - agro procs for our pets, it might say reduce agro but it really doesnt. Spirit of Snow is a 132DD coupled with trying to land a 2 sec stun, this is a HELL of a lot more agro then the 50 agro the spell reduces. Example being ...

I was duoing with a wizzy friend in PoFire at tables and starting out by putting Rellic on my pet and telling pet not to taunt. I'd send pet on mob and cast nukes/dots while wizzy snared and ran around nuking to keep agro. Pet was getting toasted by getting too much agro so i changed to spirit of snow (one of the supposed -agro procs). Same thing kept happening, pet kept getting toasted by the mobs by stealing agro. It wasn't until i left pet without a proc at all did he actually survive mobs, so in order for pet to not get agro we have to give up some pet dps in form of procs.

In my opinion, if mages want slow for their pets then they can get that added utility the same way we got snare which they love to bring up. Through the use of AAs. Give mages an AA that imbues their pet with a slow proc but made it so that the pet wouldnt have its original proc. Of course the slow would have to be fairly small, i would say 25% at best.

Lets not forget on our so nice -aggro spells two things.

One-Even after they increased the drop rate for snow/fire the spells are still very rare and does not drop from level appropiate mobs. Couldnt even get a copy of snow until I was 60 and only bought it then because it was cheap and I wanted a full spell book. Heck, I just saw my first copy of Snow drop, came off of HP in SSRA.

Two-Most of us use our highest level proc we have. IE 65 bst is going to be using Rellic. Snow is 54 and Fire 56 if I remember right. Been forever ago so I might have the levels wrong.

Would like to point out one more thing concerning getting away after the pet dies. Mages get gate and we get SOW. SOW potions are much cheaper and easier to keep up then trying to slug down a gate potion when in trouble.

Or trying to proc yer OT gate hammer when a goblin in Droga gates and comes back with 6 friends, eh Grbage?  :P

Quote from: Silverblade-T-EBengali,
Have any *beastlords here on these forums* done any comparative parses? :) Why just rely on Xalamat's analysis, which however good it maybe, could still be wrong?
i.e. you always need plenty of samples before reaching conclusions on statistical analysis.

I agree, and that's one of the many complaints about Xalmat relying on a couple parses.  One of those parses wasn't really supposed to be conclusive, just a quick parse to see if there might be any immediately noticeable effect after the patch.  I know this because I was the one who did it.

Which brings me to point number 2, it's not just Xalmat's data that's being used.

Another point was that Xalmat's parse that showed average hits of 329 was done using a warder that had a full set of summoned plate and a bag of jewelry, which is a whole bunch of AC that most beastlord pets aren't going to have.   That explains some of the difference, the increased statistical value of the parses (he did them for much longer) probably accounts for the rest.

The most important thing to note, however, is that Xalmat did his parse using a cleric to heal the pet, and I did my parse *using my own heals*.  I ended the fight at 10% mana and nearly lost a warder to enrage (enrage also skewed the mob's dps numbers becuase it wasn't hitting,  and that was with the mob slowed for almost the entire fight.   That's what actually happened.

Xalmat then took that data, and extrapolated that it would be easy for beastlords to keep their pets up against that mob using their own heals, despite the fact that isn't what happened when I did the test.   He even went so far as to suggest that beastlord heals would be sufficient against unslowed mobs.

Again, this is because people have a tendency to look at healing per second and efficiency, which is a fine starting point but it doesn't translate into real world effectiveness per se.  Why is that?

The answer is pretty simple.  Healing per second is static (not assuming crits/focus effects).   DPS is an average, which means it can fluctuate substantially.   In other words, a mob can have a dps of 200 over time, but it could be 100 dps at one point or 300 dps at another.  Mob damage can be streaky.

But a heal that does 200 hps in one second and another that does 2000 hps in 10 seconds and another that does 1000 hps in 5 seconds all have 200 healing per second (not counting recast for ease of math).   Those heals all have vastly differing effectiveness versus mobs.

Quote from: Silverblade-T-EValid points:
...
--Beastlords AND their pets tank and share damage in solo/group. Similar to using Divine Arbitration or other methods of spreading damage out that's pretty effective (I used to tank for pet at times so KNOW it's useful)

This is true for solo but not true for group if there are any melee in the group besides the beastlord (99% of the groups I am in). I have not used this ability ina  group for a very, very long time.

Quote--Beastlords can get proximity, slow and DoT aggro as well as a rampage, plus poison spells are more aggro than others.

Last I checked neither Beastlords nor their pets got a rampage ability. Not sure why you are making a point of a hybrid being able to get more agro than mages.

Quote--Mages dont' have any aggro reduction methods.--Mages have gate, beastlords have SOW as their defences, sans pet.

Should read, "Mages and Beastlords don't have any aggro reduction methods". I have not used sow on myself since GoD came in, Run5 is only 5% less run speed than sow so it is simply a matter of different levels for the same ability.

Shere Khaan

Quote from: Silverblade-T-E
Reffering to folk who seem to think that I was asking for mages to be able to *cast* slow lure snare when I repeatedly said this was not the case, my suggestions are for OOW and perhaps PoP pet weapon procs, does this have to be carved in stone?

Not ONE SINGLE PERSON believed you were asking to cast these.  Everyone understood that you were only asking for pet procs.

When it was pointed out to you that even as a proc these are overpowered suggestions, you just flailed about, ignored the point, and now you think that the only reason people didn't think this was a good idea is because they were too stupid to read your post?

Sheesh.  Delusional, thy name is Magician (at least lately).

Urim,
Actually that *is* a good idea, hm change pet's innate casts (they cast not proc) to something else, cool! :) IIRC that's sort of what was sugegsted before WAY back but can't recall any details.
Since each pet has specific cast (bar crazy fire pet) either one AA skill changes each to a specific effect, or an AA for each?
--So pet aggro procs are really of no use to beastlords? Has this not been dealt with, debated etc? (genuinely curious)


Bengali,
*nod* I didn't expect BSTs to be sitting there healing pet ad naseum, and with different gear/abilities etc to a cleric, didnt think merely healing pet would be that great a strategy at all ;) Reason I also said pets heals need 3 second cast time across the board was simple fact BST are in melee with enemy, so dont' have much time to piddle around healing pet. Mages because if pet dies they are fubared and have slow casting nukes etc ("Hey Red, need a rod!"..."Sure"..oops dead pet)...and necro pets go down against mobs like well...a certain Miss Hilton? :>
--So yah, be nice to see parses of a mage and BST, doing same mob, both playing pet healer, with jsut their own buffs/items on pets. So while Xalmat had interesting points, as you and others note, his conclusions are I think wrong. Also mage shouldn't end up being pet healers *shakes head*, not a healer class.


Shere Khaan,
By rampage I meant beastlords, as melee class, can get rampaged ON by mobs :) Also some mobs have weird rampage which hits the pet caster, nocs in GoD in particular. Ergo that's a potential hassle for BSTs?
--I should have said "aggro reduction or shedding", in that making pet generate more hate than you can be beneficial, though to a beastlord, you get less use of that because you're in melee range.

Grbage,
Well up till, hm, getting Run Speed3, and even after then at times, SOW potions used to be a heavy drain on my mage's finances ;) Never, ever went anywhere outdoors without SOW, reckon I spent 50,000+pp or so on the damn potions. Current pet zoning changes made a big difference for all pet classes *happy sigh*

Kitvear,
Mages have been one of the *primary solo classes* since Day 1 of EQ, it's like, written in the class description you know :) The fact the class got less able to solo was due to dev's screwups and over sights :/
I don't actualy solo much, it mostly bores me, but I like doing it for a challenge once in a while, or when I haven't got time etc; plenty of other mages players really like soloing, so why shouldn't they? Compare mage soloing in Kunark, which was pretty balanced (bar for rangers or rogues early on) to later.
-My favourite kind of group is often a LDON with no CC/lull pulling melee/pet class heavy, just blasting through mobs, it's much more fun!

feralize

QuoteTrying to say that wizard utility is up to par with mage utility is a joke.

And that's noit exactly accurate is it? :)
Snare, stun (non-damage), root, evac, lev, EB, Spell shield, vision spells and ports are utilities.
CoTH, mod rods, pet toys, EB and lev items, summoned arrows daggers and shurikens, debuffs, are mage utilities.
--Wizards are in need of a lot more ports and getting rid of the TL fragments, debates on utility for wizards are big on Graffe's ;)
--Mage utility currently is mostly pet toys and debuffs (on hards/elementals), I'm probably asked for summoned shurikens/knives less than a wizard is asked for a port to Sky Fire, a lot less actually, hehe.
Soon as I zone into POK I get tells for pet toys *sigh*, had to go /roleplay for 1st time in ages...be so nice when they are made targetted summons, and I hope the cast/recat delay is reduced. And Evac/Ports aren't nerfed in most recent zones *cough coth nerfs SUCKS!*
--Wizard utility is good but it needs improved/fixed, so do mages, both are largely relying on utilities 3 expansions old.

Skanda,
So, you personally saw a mage solo a blue in barindu? I've heard of a mage with the Minion of Discord focus soloing Plane of Earth, like one mob and it was incredibly hard to do. I can show you necros, shamans, wizards and druids happily soloing the crap out of PoP, but magesHAVE to have an uber rare focus to do this...balanced this is not, said Yoda ;)
if your magelo is correct (BST one), you are not at higher levels/planes etc? Up to lvl 50, mages rock against old world mobs, very good DPs class, but like all casters, mages cannot be twinked/upgraded anything like as well as melee. 50--60 things go in a U-shape curve for mages. And then somewhat static 61+, 61 being great.
--Simple thing for you to consider and check..see how many mages vs BST there are LFG...check how long it takes a BST to get a group...
DPs classes are not really "desired" by typical groups, they are seen as "filler".

Quote from: Silverblade-T-E
Skanda,
So, you personally saw a mage solo a blue in barindu?

Did you even read that link I provided that YOU asked for?

Quote
if your magelo is correct (BST one), you are not at higher levels/planes etc? Up to lvl 50, mages rock against old world mobs, very good DPs class, but like all casters, mages cannot be twinked/upgraded anything like as well as melee. 50--60 things go in a U-shape curve for mages. And then somewhat static 61+, 61 being great.

You make no sense whatsoever anymore. I am watching the mages in my guild build quite a bit in power from VT/Sol Ro gear. None of them seem to have a problem soloing, none of them are screaming and crying on our guild boards about how life is so unfair.

QuoteKitvear,
Mages have been one of the *primary solo classes* since Day 1 of EQ, it's like, written in the class description you know Smile

Actually, I don't know, can you provide me a link to where you got that info from?

One thing I have noticed while soloing with my druid lately though is kinda interesting.  I have this one spawnpoint I clear and unless I run the druid over to harmony them it's a double pull.  Since these 2 mobs are in the 51-55 range I don't really mind getting both on a pull.  I have taken to sending my pet at one of them then switching targets to the other and using slow on it to pull it over to me while my pet is tanking the other.  After the mob I have is one me, I assist my pet and slow his mob.  With the mob slowed my pet requires about 2K in heals while I fight.  That isn't a problem, because like most  other beastlords I don't mess with the long casting 2K heal, it's way to easy to get interrupted and then you have no heal hitting the pet which is pretty useless. So I use my faster casting 910hps heal.  Anyways I digress.  It suddenly dawned on me that I was using my druid to put his shield of thorns (24pt ds) on me but here I was intentionallly sending my pet to tank a mob without a ds.  So the very next fight I put thorns on my pet,  He killed the mob faster and didn't even need a heal, actually he got down to 40.  I did my fights that way for a few spawns then I got to thinking, if the mob died that much faster with a 24pt ds while the mob was slowed how would it work if I didn't slow the mob, he would be hitting that Damage Shield a lot more often.  I decided to give that a little test and sent my pet up against a unslowed willsapper and watched to see how well he would fare.

Now I know that everyone likes to toss up numbers and say it proves something but seriously, I can make a pet and not buff it at all and then point at it and say see our pet bites!  I like seeing people put hard numbers up but they don't prove anything because we all  know that mage gear, buffs, haste, damage shields make a huge difference in how our pets peform.

My pet buffed with the following:
Infusion of Spirit
Arag's Celerity
Talisman of Krag
Spirit of Wolf
Spiritual Strength
Shifting Shield
Spirit of Rellic
Skin like Nature

versus a slowed wilsapper requires on average 2K worth of healing

My pet buffed as before:
Plus Shield of Thorns

versus a slowed willsapper doesn't require healing and ends fight at 40% health

My pet buffed as before including the thorns:

versus a UNslowed willsapper doesn't requre healing and ends fight at 20%

I found that to be pretty interesting.  Now while I'm running around with my lil druid pet on autofollow I make sure that I always keep thorns up on my pet as well.  

So please everyone before you start tossing up your magical parses that you claim means something, try and give us a little info.  Seriously for all I know your making a pet not giving it pet gear nor a ds (and yes I know your fire pet has a innate ds)  then taking a parse and saying it means something, but it actually means nothing because nobody is bothering to specify under what conditions that the parse was taken under.

The main thing is you are only talking one fight and anything can happen in that one fight.  I was recently re-testing BF on test and over the course of a 2.5 minute fight I had a whopping 4% off hand double attack rate.  The RNG is fuzzy and if you talk about a fight overall you just add more variables.  In the case of your pet fighting and the other mobs you have...

-  Mob damage

-  Pet mitigation

-  Pet damage

-  Pet avoidance

All of these have huge swings in them on their own.  I don't doubt what you say, and I think your conclussions are close to what would be expected, but such a small sample size is just as misleading (if not more so imo) than a large samplesize that leaves out certain classifications.  

Btw, just as a note of something I found funny...

I was starting to test pet mitigation.  I threw my beastlord pet in front of a mob unslowed that I used to fight with my magician and my pet died lol.  The spike damage + casting time + bigger heal so have to land later on for max effectiveness and it got eaten.  Now that was just a mistake on my part and not casting sooner, but I had to laugh at that.  I am doing more tests as I find time, but I just thought that was too funny.  Everyone talks about our bigger heals and all these perfect world situations, but half the time I don't even heal my pet for the full amount of the spell especially if it crits.

Kitvear,
True you really have to be specific when doing comaprison parses :)

On Pre-PoP mobs, a damage shield is very mean, because they don't have thehuge DPs of PoP+ mobs, thus they will literlaly burn themselves down on a damage shield ;) That's one reason why I said mages up to lvl 50 rock. The old fire pets versu sold content mobs = totally evil, hehe.

There was also IIRC a parse on an Avatar of War fight years aog, showing a fully stacked damage shield, about 120 points back then, did around 120+k damage, out damaging everyone on the raid.

Damage shields though became of negligible worth in PoP+, so after complaining about this, they got slightly upped in power, but importantly, the duration went up. Since mobs HAD to be slowed even in normal xp situations, a DS becme very poor return and lack of buff slots was a concern. When fighting 20k+hp mobs who hit for 500+, a 45hp DS wans't worth much versus a 1.5khp 90hp hitter and a 20 hp DS (comparison of old world versus PoP)
Maelstrom of Ro, group DS, was changed from 45hp 7.5 minute to 48hp 15 minute (450 mana), so that's actually worth using now.

DSes are superb when fighting lots of mobs quickly, not so great on slowed singles (which is PoP basically). On an Easy LDON a great strategy is NOT to slow, have a melee/pet heavy group, group damage shield, and let the mobs fry ;) Was nice hearing a shaman say "Stuff slow, I'll just heal and AOE, let the damage shield do the work!" hehe.

There is a potential in OOW for mage balancing without screwing around too much outside class.
http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=5492&source=Test
There's been debates on this on the Magetower, could be a winner if tweaked!

Also on lucy we can see proposed OOW mage pet weapon summons, though not details of the items:
Summon Spear of the Deep (probably cold proc)
Summon Staff of the North Wind (probable magic proc?)
Summon Fireblade (probable fire proc)
The names do suggest other effects possible, Staff of the North Wind sure sounds like it may have a stun proc, ala air pet? Now these are level 66+ spells, so they SHOULD be a lot more powerful than previous ones, yes?
Question also is: how to limit them to pets of appropriate level. Folk "twink" low lvl pets iwth mage summoned gear but it is a tad ridiculous adding 600hp to a lvl 4 pet ;)
So, what would the BST community think is good for these items? Now remember these are for lvl 70 folk and content (eventually). So please do NOT say a 150hp proc is appropriate, cause it ain't ;)

I only see 1 BST pet proc for OOW and that seems just a copy of odler one, a place holder as it were until updated so nothing to really go on :/

Okies threw my pet at some larvae in PoV.  Not a good parse in a lot of ways, but it's some numbers againist easy mobs that anyone can get to.  Best part was I could keep my pet healed againist them unslowed (sorta).

For these tests I had VoQ, Bot9, FT15, Spell haste IV, PoX, Maxed healing gift, rank 4 healing adept, pet mend, paragon.  

Pet had DPoC focus, Pet affinity (means vigor over single target spiritual), had Maxed pet fury, had maxed pet flurry.  Buffed with Vigor (see above), arag's, infusion, kragg, shifting shield, and rellic (note mobs were low enough for rellic to actually land where as in many spots usually discussed such as HoH, BoT, etc it simply won't).

Combined fight duration was 18 mins 32 secs

Average hit againist pet was 272
Average dps againist pet was 120.05
Hit % againist pet was 66%
Total hits againist pet was 490
Total damage againist pet was ~133,000

Pet melee dps was ~67


"When fighting 20k+hp mobs who hit for 500+, a 45hp DS wans't worth much versus a 1.5khp 90hp hitter and a 20 hp DS (comparison of old world versus PoP) "

DS might not be what it was, but looking over the fights the pet ate 490 "hits" * 45 = 22,050  Now just to give that value a bit of meaning the larvaes have almost exactly 20k hps lol.  Basically just having a mage drop a dmg shield on my pet would have done enough damage to have killed another larvae lol.

Also I want to note a couple other things that get lost when looking at numbers just on paper.  

-  I had to save my pet 3 different times when it would have died out from under a heal casting.  I pet mend'd once and stepped in twice as I simply didn't have a choice.

-  All heals started at ~50% of my pets life.  Yet without the spell haste putting my heal to 7.7 instead of 9 my pet would have died atleast once.  

-  There were several times where I basically had to keep chain casting my heal as by the time the heal landed and refreshed my pet was back down in the yellow again (UI mod).  Like was said dps is an average, but over fights it's just not that smooth.

-  There were several heals that simply didn't do as much as they could or should because of what my pets hps are.  It's great to look at a maxed out pet mend clearing 5k hps on paper, but I just can't land heals for that.  The "worst" heal was a crit for over 4600 that only healed ~2700.  

-  Larger heals require waiting longer to get the full effect, but that makes pet dieing to a streak more possible.  It's very hard to balance starting the big heal too early and not getting near max out of it verse starting too late and having a good chance of the pet buying it.

Only thing you can see out of the parse is that bst pet mitigate for schit lol.  Also that heals you see on paper just don't translate well into real world applications.  Oh and that dmg shields especially after tweaks are quite powerful and a very mana efficent form of damage.  8P  I'd have done the tests on crystalline golems or HoH guards, but I didn't have time to get out my cleric and there's just no way I could cover the healing as a solo beastlord.  I really shouldn't bother putting up more data as it will either be a) misinterpreted or b) accurately quoted and then used as the basis for something it doesn't relate to.  12 pages now and we still don't have a single person giving a solid valid reason why mages should out solo beastlords, or out pet heal them, but that's what most of the rants are about lol.

Thanks for replying,  yes, I'm talking pre-pop.

I can't solo in pop, my mitigation and avoidence on me or my pet just doesn't cut it.  Not your fault of course and you at least are reading our boards and trying to be objective.  My point is your soloing mob POP+ and me, not time geared of course nor elemental, but fairly twinked for non raiding beastie with a few aa's can't even dream of heading into pop.

My heals are based on alteration, in which I can't specialize, and SCM isn't available. More to the point since i'm forced to tank for my pet mostly then most of my gear can't be very castor oriented and thus I'm sacrificing potential healing mana for hps and ac.  I'm not trying to say pity me, I have worn FT9, tribute FT5, improved healing 4 plus some aa's and I know my place in Grieg's End where with the help of my now lvl 51 druid pet I can more or less solo very well again pre-pop mobs.  So maybe you can see how it eats at my craw to hear people who can solo things I can't even dream of are saying that i'm overpowerd.

I have no problem whatsoever with mages and/or necro's getting better heals, more aa and better pets.  Rock on, I'm just saying that we have a 2K heal that is useless for our class, and since i'm not in pop my 910 hps heal is more then fine.  There is a lot of AA available to me that I haven't gotten yet for my pet, I"m at pet flurry 1 and pet crit 1, I have pet hold and suspended minion2. My pet flurries and has his little crits, I have my dpoc and life is pretty good, as long as I don't even think about trying to do what a mage can do.   But I do want more.

DS is one of the best dps you can get in this game, sure, you need several stacking DSs and a bard who can enhance them plus as many +ds items as you can get. The best dps ive ever parsed a warrior was 420 against the first original ikkinz1 (one group) named. About 120-150 was weapon dps, the rest was pure damageshield. Now, this mob was unslowable and very fast hitting so a ds would do more damage but i was extremely impressed by that parse.

OT and just for info.

Btw, just as another small frame of referance I went and solo'd those same mobs in PoV tanking this time instead of letting pet.

Combined fight duration was 18 mins 32 secs (for me 8mins 12 secs)


Average hit againist pet was 272 (for me 225)
Average dps againist pet was 120.05  (for me 76)
Hit % againist pet was 66% (didn't remember to toggle hits missing me back on)
Total hits againist pet was 490 (for me 156)
Total damage againist pet was ~133,000 (for me ~35,000)

Now different beastlords will have different ranks of AA, different gear, different weapons, etc.  However, this isn't even close...

Me tanking:
I cast 38 heals * 175 mana base for 6,650 mana spent (base not counting PoX).  

Pet tanking:
I cast 50 heals * 425 mana base for 21,250 mana spent.  (again base not talking PoX).

Fights were so much faster, and the downtime was even signifigantly less.  Even with letting my DPoC pet get beat down crazy low and then regen'n back where as I had to heal myself back up after fights the downtime for regen'n mana wasn't even close.  After a fight with pet I'd end up down ~50% mana.  After a fight with me tanking I'd be down less than 20% mana.  Also I didn't have Bot9 for the fights with me tanking, but did for the pet tanking fights.

Like I've said before my pet just doesn't tank and certain doesn't tank solo.  I could maybe see backing out at the end of the fight to let pet finish mob well you med a bit and then pet regens back up.  I could maybe see backing out, medding a sec, using pet mend since it was up and then going back in.  However, in a lot of spots I solo I simply have 100% uptime and don't back out, so those options go right out the window.  Even in those situations though I can't find a time I'd back out, let pet tank, then blast them with healing of sorsha.  The pet takes so much more damage than me that the efficency of sorsha verse chloroblast is lost and the long casting time coupled with pet mitigation means I run a high risk of losing my pet or landing a heal for less than max efficency.

Yup dumm DS's can be insane.  I used to play a bard back during early vindi raids with him being unslowable + rampage and the stacking that could be had back then it was just insane.  What's funny though is too many people look at all the things that lower a damage shields value and miss how good they still are.  For insance a log I parsed of a 3 hour session in HoH the other day had me taking on average ~15 hits per minute.  At 45 dmg per hit and 15 minutes duration that means the cast of DS would have done ~10k damage or ~22 dmg per mana spent.  That's pretty impressive imo considering the mobs were 65% slowed and didn't mitigate at all.  In a situation where mobs mitigate slow, you have multiple mobs like pulls in LDoNs, you have rampage, etc dmg shields just get crazy good.  The problem is too many dismiss how good they are in situations that don't even favor them.  I.E.  a block class tanking againist fully slowable 65% slowed mobs that are always fought single.  Also don't forget all that damage is completely aggro free.  Nother really nice bonus hehe.