I think the fero discussion has gone pretty well, but it's made me wonder about something else. Recently I've seen more and more bst talking about how they don't want to be buff bots or whatever. I've seen some want fero to stay single target, I've seen some that don't want it upgraded so they don't have to use it, some that don't like upgrades to SA, etc.
Bsts are an offensive utility class. We always have been. On a raid we have SA as our main buff, used to have fero as a secondary buff, and had filler buffs based on other classes not being present(haste, hp, sv, infusion, etc). Also we offer slow, but with recent changes to other slows, proc slows, AE slows, clicky stick slows, etc it just doesn't pan out for a lot of bst. We have perfection as well, but that's highly debated and many find it wanting these days.
With that in mind, exactly what do those of you againist buffing propose as the reason for bringing extra bst along to a raid? Obviously, we aren't ever going to be wanted by the dozen, but what exactly is the second bst supposed to bring to a raid outside of modest dps. Balanced a bst isn't going to out dps a wiz, a rog, a zerker, at the very least. Mage, necro, monk can all be debated and vary. And in many cases we are at about ranger level dps. If that held then bst would be middle of the road dps and unlike a shm that is doing champion and panther extra bst aren't actually adding any other dps to people.
I ask because I am honestly confused and unsure what some people want. People have wanted dps fixed and that I understand and want as well, but with dps fixed bst still aren't going to get raid spots over rogues or many other classes. We need something that makes a second and maybe even a third bst desireable to a raid. Fero seems like an obvious choice for that as each bst could fero 3 or 4 people so that represents a sizeable boost to the raid outside of just their personal dps.
I guess what it comes down to is if I'm a guild leader that already has 100% raid attendance for bst what is your sales pitch to get a raid spot over say a rogue, a zerker, a shaman, a bard, etc? This is mainly for those that don't seem to want more utility or atleast more buffs/buff changes.
Its a big plus for those of us that want to see group fero. Group fero would make beasts widely wanted for raids because of the fact that we not only add dps ourselves, but add dps to the raid as a whole.
The offensive utility class is the main reason that I chose a Bst to begin with. Being pure DPS as a Wizzie was fun, but it was a lot more fun to be in the action and be useful to groups. I spent 3 lonely years as a quadding Wizzie, being a Bst was fun because you could solo, duo or group. Without buffs to provide groups there wouldn't be a big use for us. Wizzies can out DPS.
I just hope that group Fero is in addition to single target, not instead of.
Not everyone raids.
I'm pretty happy with the changes we have received recently with DoD spell and disc, plus the change to SA. With that said our raid function really hasn't gone up much still. During our raids we have 1 to 3 BL's but most of the time it was just 1, myself. The other BL's were never really missed quite frankly but I guess you can say the for many of the classes. Without adding any type of buff or utility to our current line up there really isn't much use in bring more than 1 BL for those raids with strict numbers.
I was trying to come up with some type of function that didn't overlap too much with other classes:
We could have some type of mirror/reflect spell for group to use during AE encounters. There was a weapon proc (from Ldon??) of this sort but seemed hard to managed due to timing. Or make it similar to our pet rune that absorbs 3-4 number of hits or spells before it wears off. (Yes I know this is a buff and opposite of the title of this post)
If we are not getting buffs then perhaps some type of recourse effect similar to necros and SK's. Since they have mana and health covered (although that seems like our area with SA) perhaps an endurance recourse effect from a spell or proc. Useful to all? No, but would help perhaps half or 2/3 of a raid.
A short duration long recast AA or disc to share our Protective Spirit discipline, or along the same line but making it offensive is to make a mob vunerable to melee attacks for a short period of time, say 30 secs? and have 2-4 times the damage similar to the MPG weaponry trial.
These would also benefit group situations and soloing, so just not for the raiding BL.
The only thing I can think of is an endurance buff. Maybe not an endurance regen, but something that add's to another players endurance, like a hitpoint buff adds hitpoints. Not sure how feasible that would be. Not really sure how much Endurance a warrior goes through tanking a mob.
I know roges with 9.2 endurance will have troubles doing more than themselves in theives' eyes and its only 200end/shot.
Honestly, changing the buff utility would change some of the most basic facets of our class. We are high agro (only one deagro ability, barely worth the mention, except in emergency situation), medium dps (as tast said, we show about on level with rangers for dps), poor raid tanking (we got good avoidance, but just can't mitigate for spit), monks w/o FD if spells are stripped/removed from equation.
I enjoy the utility aspect of us. Being so highly concentrated in other departments can make it difficult for other classes to get groups or be able to functionally solo/duo/etc. Our raid utility is decreasing atm.
Tast's very valid point here is we need to be able to present what our problem is in getting included in a raid. What the problem is in why to add a bst vs adding another rogue/wizard/monk etc. that can dish out the big dps.
Before, we would be able to point truly to mgb paragon and SA. Now, not quite so much, esp on former. I am terrified of the prohibitive potential cost of a group ferocity. It would add the flat out most raid usage to us.. but god.. it would totally negate our ability to use the new spell toys we have been given in the last few expansions.
I can do some pulling.. that's bcs I'm patient enough and have watched some of the monks well enough to learn some of their lessons. The tricky pulls are, of course, beyond me, due to the inability to FD. This is a monk's primary add to a raid, getting lessened somewhat by fewer zones requiring good pulls (mpg trials, most of anguish, DoN raids).
I can dps fairly high in some situations... Hell, I had a shocker last week when I was top dps, on my own & a ranger's parses. It was on a mob that was highly susceptible to blunt & mitigated piercing, so my pair of blunts made me able to outdo the rogues. But rest of time, I'm less than the rogues or the wizards or other classes.
Buffs.. I get tells for SA.. guild still highly thinks of and prolly misunderstands the power of PoS still. Fero, the return is mediocre really if I were to forget/decide to omit casting. HP buffs/haste, the other buffs.. I never have a raid w/o a chanter, shammy, ranger or pally to cover the other grounds there.
Our dps has improved tremendously. I love that facet about us now. But we need to be able to present another facet. I think it should be our buffs, in an improved fashion, in both effect and mana efficiency.
I'm one of the people that do not want to be turned into a toon that spends a lot of time casting single target buffs. I think of what shammies go through trying to keep leopard up on a bunch of people, just not my playstyle. But we do need to bring something to raids.
A short or medium duration group buff would fit in with my playstyle just fine. See the buff start to blink, stop, recast and go back to what I was doing. That type of buff is very doable for me. As to what that effect should be.... I'll leave that up to more imaginative people then me.
What if our pets proc'd a short duration unique, major debuff on raid bosses? Something like "after proc, the next attack has a %chance to miss" debuff? hmmmm. Thinking. Trying to create a need for multiple beasts and justify having them use their pets at the same time.
Maybe a debuff that acts as a reverse damage shield? "after proc, the next attack has a %chance to heal 500 hp of boss mob's target"
Just brainstorming. hehe. :wink:
I know what most of you are saying and that has all been said before. Many agree we need more utility and we've offered up a lot of good ideas imo. Upgraded fero seems like something that could greatly help out as perhaps a bst gives up 20 of their own dps, but raises 3 other peoples by 30dps. That's the thing a bst can bring. Solo a bst won't take a raid spot on dps alone unless numerous other classes aren't available.
However, in recent weeks I've had an influx of people that share a sentiment like grbage that they just don't want to buff. Some vary in terms of what is an isn't exceptable as a buff(6 mins, 10 mins, 20 mins), but many of them just don't appear to want to do anything but dps and maybe SA. This means they probably aren't even doing much healing(not that healing is a major bst selling point, but it can be very useful in spots). My question to those bst in return is what do you see being the reason to take extra bst on a raid? One bst will get a spot for SA, that's almost a given. What do the other bst do in your opinion that justifies a spot over numerous other classes.
How things stand now there are lots of buff based utility solutions for bst(fero, end regen, pet debuff procs, etc), but all those fall under the heading of buffing/casting. Some people clearly seem to have issue with this buff based approach to increased bst utility, so I'm curious what their solutions would be. The answer obviously can't be "more dps" because dps alone won't put a 2nd bst on a raid over a zerker. Buffs they seem to not want, so the question then becomes what? I'm honestly hurting for ideas here as buffs seem like the obvious choice given our class, but from what I've seen some bst will be very unhappy if fero winds up being a highly desired buff and they have 4 people a cycle requesting the buff. Maybe there is some other idea that we haven't seen or heard and that's what I'm trying to get at. For those of you bst that just don't like buffing or want to buff or whatever how do you sell yourself as the 2nd or 3rd bst to a raid to get a spot over say a bard(who is raising others dps) or a zerker that is just straight out dps'n you or whatever? This isn't a flame or bash on anyone's playstyle, but rather an attempt to make as many happy as possible. Thus far almost every solution to bst utility/raid desireability issues have centered around improving our buffs or adding new ones. Some clearly do not want this, so that begs the question of how else do we go about fixing this. Hope that makes it a bit clearer. 8)
Well, beastlords always were a utility class with medium dps. We're back where we should be with our recently added spells and aas, at least in my opinion. But we still lost most of our utility and we need to get it back. Ferocity once hat a pretty big impact on the dps of very few players in a raid, so at least me selected the top dps melees to receive it, we need it to be back there, we could do with some other utility as well and there are quite a few very nice ideas flying around on this board, i kinda like the pet based stuff although ae ramp hurts even more then.
I honestly dont understand beastlords who asks for more dps and no more buffs because that would mean were basicly monks with pets and nothing else. Being a beastlord was always about being a buff/pet class and i'd like to return there.
I hear ya dumm and that's by far the overall opinion, but there's still enough people that don't care(for want of a better term) for buffing. Maybe they have some ideas of a beastlords role on a raid that we all might prefer or that could be implemented as well so more are happy. Right now as it stands many want fero upgraded and have for awhile, that alone will be a big shot in the arm to our raid utility as it's high impact(once fixed hopefully lol) and it's selective so multiple beasts are useful for it. Some won't care for that though, so what do we do to raise our utility on raids outside of buffing others?
The pet proc based utility has some merit, but they seem pretty happy with debuffs overall atm, so that doesn't seem too likely, although maybe we could push for a variation such as a mana drain or maybe group tap type of things. That'd just require buffing the pet with a hobble type thing every so often.
I could see pets gaining some use via AE ramp adjustment. In my mind AE ramp is one of those fights pets(esp beast) should thrive on because we should be able to have the pet there, heal it some, and do dps when lots are having to stay away or change tactics. Having pets take less damage when not at the top of the hate list seems like an easy way to implement this in my mind. If pet isn't tops on the hate list or ramp list(to prevent exploiting) then pet takes say 10% damage, or maybe the DI is adjusted to 1 automatically. This allows the pet to still take damage, we still have to heal over a fight, but the pet is up and running and doing far more. *shrugs*
The pet shield ability could also be expanded imo. That's a fun little concept that just never came close to its potential. Being able to issue a /pet shield command for a certain player on a raid would be kinda nice. Our pet would basically be a % rune for a cleric or maybe even an MT early in a fight where they could help jump start aggro generation or something. It'd help us on some fights where we take damage, but at the sametime we again have to watch the pet and possibly heal more. This give smore use to growl line and again makes the pet more useful and less of a burdon for no gain.
LIttle things like AE ramp damage change and pet shielding though imo aren't nearly enough for a bst to get a spot over many other classes. A total bst toolkit of blast heals, perfection, ability to slow, higher AE ramp fight damage, bit of protection via shielding, fero for a few casters, and modest dps seems like something that would make a guild looking to add another person or two atleast consider extra bst, but still not make bst the clear choice over a lot of other classes. What other ideas do people have though? What haven't we thought of or haven't we considered?
I think some attention on expanding the variety of pet procs... including debuff procs as was discussed in the thread:
http://www.beastlords.org/forums/index.php/topic,5380.0.html
Would be the most benefitial... assuming they do something about ae rampage eatting pets so that it even works.
It'd be nice if they fixed up /pet shield... been monthes since I'd seen it go off on my pet. Increasing the range on it would probably be the biggest help... I'm usually on the opposite side of a mob as my pet to balance push. Possibly allowing it to /shield other players would make it more interesting also.
What makes a bst unique is we do have various tools to keep outselves alive during a raid better than other mellee classes through buffs that effect us more than others.
Self heals, pet heals, the best resist buff and panther.
At Time and leading up to it BST's had awesome DPS compared to other classes, after that our DPS dropped off the curve. That is what I want to recapture, a position much higher than we are now. Also in those days our buffs were actually a valid backup, all but the "ubah" could use IoS.
The buffs we have in no way currently add signifcantly to others DPS apart from haste, and they never have. Our buffs are long duration stuff done before a fight not during. Our buffs except SA are group back up buffs not raid ones.
So the question should be why do people want to change us to a mid fight buffer instead of a pre fight buffer?
"At Time and leading up to it BST's had awesome DPS compared to other classes, after that our DPS dropped off the curve. That is what I want to recapture, a position much higher than we are now."
The problem with this is you are looking at a bad point in beastlord progression. It's good in that we really piled on the dps relative to other people, but it's bad in that we were in a situation where our dps was often higher than it should have been because of our dps curve. This would be like bazaar rangers talking about the hey day of BoT with ele bows and EQ/AM3. As I've said there were times in progression where I beat rogues, but that's just not how it should be. Right now with depths new, AAs, and spell bst dps is relatively higher than it'll be at the end of progression because of our division of power. Hopefully progression isn't horrid to where we are really gimped by it, but it is a leveling off factor that plays into our overall power curve. Also zerkers have been added to the game since time and they are definitely above us in dps. That means we have in no particular order:
Definitely above us:
- Wiz
- Rog
- Zerker
Argueably and usually above us:
- mage
- necro
About the same:
- Rng
- Mnk
These of course very, but the classes a bst really out dps(again talking in general) is:
- Warrior
- Bard
- Clr
- Enc
- Shm(depends and they add lots of dps to others)
- Dru(curious once stances happen, but haven't seen lots from them so not certain)
Bst isn't a top tier dps class. It's tier 2 at best and in most cases tier 3 where we are an offensive class above warriors, but not such that we are top 5 every mob. Some fights yes because of our abilities and how they effect a script and sometimes at other points in progression, but overall a beastlord just isn't a top tier dps class.
"So the question should be why do people want to change us to a mid fight buffer instead of a pre fight buffer?"
I don't think people want to change us to a "mid-fight" buffer as much as content and other changes make this possible in some cases. I don't see anyone that wants an 18 second duration buff or even a 1 minute duration buff for others, but fero is balanced around a 6.5 base casting time. On longer scripts you do have to recast this, or in a fight you might hit someone with it when it finally refreshes. That doesn't mean the bst is supposed to be doing laps around the raid just dropping buffs all day, but it does mean that the bst is trying to impact the raid dps in more ways than just doing dps themselves.
This brings us back to the issue of if not buffs then what? Upgrade to SA is good, but still one bst covers it. Upgrade SV and that's great, but seriously one bst can still cover this. Upgrade infusion or focus or some other buff, ok but one bst still covers it and it's still a buff which some don't like. Fero is an option that has merit for various reasons and seems to fit in well, but again it's a buff and it's a more time/attention intensive buff than just dropping SA every hour or so.
It just keeps coming back to the if not buffs, then what? Even if someone wants to argue that bst should be solid tier 2 dps and above mag/nec and right behind wiz/rog(don't flame I am talking hypothetical lol) that still doesn't mean a 2nd or 3rd bst should get a raid spot over the rog or wiz. Whether we are 4th best dps in the game or 7th best dps in the game it's still not enough to get a bst a raid spot over another class if you already have one bst. That's the issue and that's what I'm trying to get ideas on here. There are tons of ideas centering around utility and buffs, changes to fero, etc, but many object to those and will complain when some of them happen. My question to those that are againist buffing and increased buffing to secure our usefulness on raids is what else? More healing? That's just like buffing really and even more attention intensive and mana intensive at times and really wouldn't fly anyway unless rangers got it. More dps isn't the only answer, there needs to be something else and outside of buffs I've yet to see any suggestions as to what that could be. If you're a beastlord that doesn't want to do more buffing than please tell me what it is you think you bring to a raid over a better dps class like a rogue or over a shaman or a bard that are helping others more than the gain of just the bst makes? Again this isn't a bash to play style, but rather an attempt to gather more information. Some don't want buffing, all facts seem to make it clear that dps(no matter how reasonably high) aren't enough to secure spots unless a guild simply couldn't get a rog/etc past the first bst, so it falls back to then what? What do you bring, what do you offer, what role do you see a bst servering on a raid past the first? Maybe there are some ideas others haven't thought of that would give a bst a more defined role, but so far the only reasonable ideas I've seen thrown around center on buffing.
In order for a group fero to be really 'worth it', its going to have to be much more than a boost to atk and some resists on raids. Raid buffed, I'm over 2K ATK as it is, and know most of our rogues and rangers are going to be, too. Fero'ing clerics is pretty pointless, so what we are talking about here is the desire to create melee dps groups in raids that possible comprise of rogues and rangers, and beastlords and perhaps shaman so that they could benefit from group fero or we could mgb it 'on occasion' for a particulaly nasty boss that might need the extra resists for the whole raid. We know any ATK increases over 2K-2100 is pretty pointless, so its going to have to be something else like cleave or double attack rate or strikethrough or all of the above.
Personally, I don't care. Personally, I dont want to be a utility class. I want to be a moderately-high dps class, and its perfectly OK with me if I only parse 80% of what the top melee dps'ers parse, I dont have to match rogues and rangers and berzerkers to be happy. But what WOULD make me happy is having the ability to off tank and split tank raid trash with my pet again like we used to be able to do back in older content.
"Personally, I don't care. Personally, I dont want to be a utility class. I want to be a moderately-high dps class, and its perfectly OK with me if I only parse 80% of what the top melee dps'ers parse, I dont have to match rogues and rangers and berzerkers to be happy. But what WOULD make me happy is having the ability to off tank and split tank raid trash with my pet again like we used to be able to do back in older content."
The question to you then is still why take another bst? You say you don't want to be a utility class, you understand your dps will be moderate, but not top of the line, so what is it to bring a bst along? Even back in the day when bst did OT some we still weren't even close to the best at it. We had slow which helped, nice aggro gen from some spells, but we still soaked damage worse than almost every other class. Pals finally got some upgraded aggro gen, SKs had dread gaze and other tools for awhile now, extra warriors are always on raids, etc. OT'n is almost in the same boat as healing in that we will just never be good enough at it to actually have it make a noteable difference.
I guess part of this issue assumes that bst that don't want utility/buffing actually want other bst on the raid. Do some of you just want to be the only bst around and have it so bst aren't desired past the 1st? If not then we fall back to the question of what makes a raid take a bst over another class. Think about it like a guild that is recruiting a few open slots. They already have 100% bst RA. What is it a bst can say or bring to the table that will make the guild give them the raid slot over just a pure dps like a rogue, or perhaps a major utility like a shm that adds dps to others and adds more options to the raid? Again this isn't about raids taking 12 bst, but rather trying to justify even the second bst on a raid?
To make it desirable to have more then one bst in a raid how about a buff that is group but last the same base as fero of 6.5 minutes with 6 minute refresh and can not be used with MGB. Mana cost would have to be determined by %gain from the buff
For melee: AE ramp avoidance %, Damage taken modifier, Dodge Modifier, Spell shield, End regen, etc.
For casters: Mana regen(make it better then SA but not stackable), spell shield %, DoT shield %, etc.
This would make it desirable to have a bst in a melee, tank or caster group depending on the buff and is stackable as you add more bst to the raid.
I've thougth about exactly that gr, and so have others, but again you run into some that don't want to buff or spend the mana. For the spell you describe to be useful overall it would likely cost somewhere between 1.5k and 2.5k mana. Lots of bst don't want to give up that many nukes or fizzle a spell like that. 8P
This thread is about trying to find things other than buffs that would warrant an extra bst or two on the raid. There are already tons of suggestions for buffs/utility based upgrades, but some argue againist those or don't want them. I'm not even sure there is something other than buff changes that would really fit for bst to add the needed utility to warrant extra group spots, but since some bst are very much againist the buffing I was hoping they might also have some ideas for what to change instead.
If you discount DPS (which isn't a guaranteed "gotta have that class" ability) the main thing left is spells... buffs, heals, cures, and debuffs. There's two ways we can go about having any of them: either we cast them, or the warder procs them.
Being a pet class, and a BEASTlord no less, I personally like the idea of our warder having such utility... a series of utility abilities that allow the warder to proc a single or group recourse for heals, regen or cures, or to proc various debuffs and detrimental effects, such as Hobble/Fetter.
I also the idea of making them AA abilities, just like Hobble, since there's no need to worry about an already-full spellbar or mana... as AA abilities, they wouldn't change your target when cast either, and now that we have two hotkey banks there should be ample room for their buttons. They could be made to overwrite each other, allowing us to buff and rebuff our warder with effects appropriate to the situation at hand... we could even swap out effects mid fight -- say you have an effect on the warder that lifetaps the mob and does a group heal recourse -- but mana is running low and Perf is down, so you swap mid-fight to a mana sieve ability that recourses a mana regen on your group.
There's a lot of possibilities for a series of abilities like that, and a great deal of flexibility with them (after tonight, I'd sell my first born AND his brother if Blinky could proc a group disease cure! :-D ) -- I can easily see the same flexibility in a system like this that Bards enjoy with their songs. The effects wouldn't need to be large either, considering the frequency with which our warders attack and proc even a small boost would have a noticeable cumulative effect. What started as a couple of snare effects could easily become something much much greater!
And pet /shield.... omg, Blinky did it a third time just a week or so ago! Three times in just as many years! I wish I coulda caught the moment on video... it's like a Bigfoot sighting :lol: I would so love for him to be able to do that on a regular basis... those sun-crazed cats in Scarlet Desert do it all the time, those underfed pumas in Ascent do it too, but my little blinking tiger can't! :x (OK, maybe he's not so little...) The warder is a warrior by class, as I recall, so I don't see why it can't do a basic warrior-ly thing like /shield... I can name quite a few Chanters who would love to have a dedicated bodyguard on a raid hehe!
Disciplines are also something that could be better utilized. Zerkers, as a class, are built on Disciplines of one sort or another, including some very effective DPS-boosting ones. Something similar (though much less extensive I would imagine) could be adapted for us. Discs to increase various combat abilities would be the easiest implementation... maybe then we could get some endurance put on our class armors, since we'd actually be needing it :-D
If enough of these sort of changes are added, I could easily see my guild picking up a couple more Beastlords. It adds group utility, which can easily translate to raid utility (or solo utility for that matter), and it does so without requiring more spells or spellslots or mana. Plop a Beastlord in a caster group, have the warder /shield the Chanter, and clicky the mana regen recourse proc on him.... or swap him to the DPS group, have the warder /shield the healer, and clicky a heal or attack-boosting recourse proc on the warder while the Beastlord discs their group DPS ability.
First off, i dont raid at all, and i understand basic idea was how to get nother BST wanted on raid. It has been mentioned it should be something that helps the nonraiding beast as well. But if youre looking for something to make u wanted on raids, it could be done as either an AA (costs much, wont be worth spending points on as a nonraider), or a spell/disc/ability that u gain by completing raid/quest/progression. Then it could be a raidtool u get, as beasts like me that dont have use for it, will never get it.
I play much 2boxing with druid, bring a few friends along, or do pickup groups, and the upgrade to Fero would be much welcome. Only time i really use it now is either in the group where i stay FM all the time anyway, or when im tanking and fighting castres the extra resist can help.
I dont mind the casting/buffing tough, so for me it might as well be a spell as something else. But bottom line id say is that if it is something that helps your whole group raise DPS, u can use it for groups, and making it recast time as long as durration it would require a beastlord in every group of melee in raid.
Nor as ubergeared as many raiders, keeping Fero on 2-4 melees in group, and being slower/haster kiled my mana back at PoP, and changing it into a group buff that i would guess takes 1k or more mana every 6-8 minutes would make it useless in small groups, so id like to keep the single, and get a groupversion added.
Keep up the good work Tast, i understand u must put lots of time into making us all better in game.
The amazing thing about beastlords is that every once in a while we can do ass-saving things that affect the outcome of the raid. The ability for us to do that comes from our tanking ability, our pet's tanking ability, and our heals - but our ability to do those things is getting harder and harder to do, and thats mostly blamed on raid content (even so called 'trash mobs') that can rip us to shreds in a couple of seconds not even mentioning our pets. The ability to 'step up' and provide some sort of emergency off-tanking / crowd-control / fast-healing someone who's about to die is what makes the class FUN to play. Has nothing to do with our buffs. I think any beastlord here who is experienced in his class and has a good feel for it and good reactions knows what I mean, and thats all I really want is for that to scale up better past the PoTime level than it has, because thats the way I like to play. It is a trait that is most commonly reserved for the hybrid classes, bezerkers and rogues can't do this sort of thing although rogues bring additional value to a raid aside from DPS
Ok Tastian seeing your DPS order Tier 3 would be acceptable to me, however currently I find it extremely difficult to attain that, without constantly casting DoD pet its impossible. I have to work my arse off to maintain DPS and it burns my mana out fast. So whatever else the "it" is I dont want to see it affecting DPS, so nothing mana intensive.
Some possible "its"
However the endurance bar is fair game, so what about, as I have touched on before, give us some more surviveability thing, e.g. absorb portions of AE and drain end because of it, or endurance transfer to make us desireable to a dead war. Immortal pet be too much, easy to abuse on raids and would make soloing pretty trivial
One of my guildy wars says they have s WAR end regen AA already, so could add that to perfection or SA. Paragon used to be raid saving and now it isnt, so maybe revisit that old argument yet again and concentrate on upping our out of date buffs rather than creating something new.
QuotePersonally, I don't care. Personally, I dont want to be a utility class. I want to be a moderately-high dps class, and its perfectly OK with me if I only parse 80% of what the top melee dps'ers parse, I dont have to match rogues and rangers and berzerkers to be happy. But what WOULD make me happy is having the ability to off tank and split tank raid trash with my pet again like we used to be able to do back in older content.
Well, sorry to break it to you, beastlords were always designed as a utility class and the case you describe above fits one existing class very well. Welcome to the world of rangers, they can tank better than us (every melee class can, we have the druid softcap), they even can offtank nameds if the need be for a few seconds and do moderate dps, not to mention very handy snap aggro abilities.
QuoteThe amazing thing about beastlords is that every once in a while we can do ass-saving things that affect the outcome of the raid. The ability for us to do that comes from our tanking ability, our pet's tanking ability, and our heals
I seriously dont know in which world you live, but our tanking ability was always the worst of every melee class, our pet was never a viable offtank in any raid situation (if you dont include Crushbone). Yes, we could offtank in Time phase 1 and 2 and splat after 12 seconds from phase 3 on, but so could everyone else who could keep enough aggro, we sometimes assigned shamans to offtank in phase 1, they never had a problem and that was back before LDoN was live, no augs, no other boosts.
Back on topic i think the only way to make beastlords more desired on any raids is via more utility, dps is something we will never be as good as melee classes so that will not be a reason to bring us along. To put some more utility on our pets is not a bad idea but it has to be carefully balanced because pets have theyre own problems like aeramp for example. It would be nice however if our old buffs could be adapted to the game as it is now and not like it was 2 years ago. Especially SA, Paragon/Perfection and Fero need a few buffs. SA and Perfection receiving endurance regen in the same rate as they have manaregen would help us a lot, fero, well, theres another thread dealing with that.
I can only think of 6 categories for desirability on raids:
1: Tanking - end game we cant do it, trash that hits for 1800+ and rather fast eats through us.
2: Buffs - on a raid we have SA, fero, and paragon.
3: Debuffs - the only debuff I can think of that's exclusive to us is Roar of Thunder.
4: DPS - we never will be highest on this list, and we shouldnt be.
5: Healing - again, one of those never be the highest things.
6: Misc - this is where rezzing, CoH, corpse summoning, FD/fade pulls, SoS, riposte type abilities come in.
We could ask for end regen, but I remember EQlive posts stating end regen wasnt very likely, but it'd be most useful as a 1 or 2/tick addition to SA, which still doesnt require more than 1 bst.
Fero requires 1 bst per 4 fero-ees, 8 if you use both, but I'd hate to have continuous buffing of a short duration buff be my admission price. It's also very mana intensive, and if we're expected to rebuff SA on those that die, it becomes less feasable to do.
Roar of Thunder could be a reason to have 2 or 3 bsts on a raid, if the debuff lasted longer. A duration of 2.5 mins would make it possible for 3 bsts to keep a mob continuously debuffed. The debuff is less than synapsis spasm, but since they stack it'd be a good way to weaken the harder hitting boss mobs.
Perfection is one of our harder hitting reasons, even if it fails to scale to end game mana pools. MGB perfection can help a raid recover from a would-be wipe, but in it's current state only adds about 2 CH's per cleric. Upping the mana/tick would increase a raid's desire to have more than 1 bst on the raid.
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That's all I can think of for improvements of what we currently have. Obviously we cant be the best at healing, or dps, or tanking, as other classes are specifically for those roles. We really dont have any misc roles that I can think of, which leaves us with buffs and debuffs.
New ideas:
Pet procs:
Over-slow - slows a mob an extra few %. To keep balance among the other slowing classes, could make it not stack with our own slow, and therefore only beneficial when we arent the primary slower (wouldnt be fair in xp groups if we could slow just as well as enchanters). Not sure if that's actually possible with spell coding.
Mini-HP/mana tap - a small tap, in the region of 10 or less/proc that hits the entire group. Only benefits 1group/bst, and ups our desirability. However it takes us close to what necromancers do, and its the exact same ability of SKs, except its a proc instead of a spell.
The other ideas for pet procs would be something like -accuracy, or -CE for mobs that have single target procs. Of course, debuff procs will only require 1 bst, as long as that bst keeps his/her warder alive and buffed.
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My last idea doesnt really seem to fit under desirability, but I've come to think of it as such. Pet survivability. We lose desirability if we cant keep a pet up, due to it being 100+ DPS, and would be moreso if some new pet proc was added.
The pet rune is supposed to help my pet survive rough situations, yet it rarely works well enough to help my pet survive a situation I can laugh at. IMO pets should be immune to damage shields, or at least have the pet rune make them immune. I'm sure I wasnt the only bst that was severely disappointed when a freshly casted pet rune wore off when my pet did a single quad. Pets hit too often with the side effect of low dmg/hit for DS effects, the same mob I can melee endlessly without seeing my HPs drop my pet will lose 30%+ of its health on.
Pets dont get benefits from each focii outside of dmg, hps, and possibly accuracy (that I'm aware of). Players get gear and AAs that gives shielding, avoidance, SS, DoTS. Pets rely on:
Pet rune - which can only take 4 hits (can get removed before recast timer is up), has a fairly long cast time (takes away from our dps), and a longer recast (pet could easily get hit with an AE before we can recast it). Pet runes are like if a ranger had to cast a rune spell on themself every 4 AEs or else risk losing the use of their left arm. (Ok, so maybe not that bad, but it still eats away at possible dps.) Many highend expansion boss mobs have more than 1 AE. Quarm has 8. Mobs like that make it a requirement to recast rune every 30 seconds, and quite often my pet gets suspended before boss mobs because I feel it'd lower my dps to keep it up. On AE ramp trash mobs I cant call my pet off fast enough (or I do call him off in time, but by the time he stops attacking, turns, and starts running, he's a pancake). With player to server latency, a pet LoH often finds no pet to be healed.
Pet heals - Cast time isnt bad, but it still takes away from our dps, and usually when a pet needs a heal, it also needs a pet rune. There really isnt a way to make heals work well in raid situations. (I would like to thank sony for lowering cast times, and putting in cures on pet heals, classes that get RGC rarely are willing to cast it on a pet mid-battle)
Solutions - Make pets not hurt by DSs, along side of ramp. Lower the cast time on pet runes, and consider increasing the # of blocks by 1 or 2.
I would also like to see a faster cast time on the DoN spells (growl of panther). The spell only raises our hp cap by 1.5k and gives us the hps though a HoT, so those hps don't really exist on us unless we keep the spell up. This isn't hard on raid targets but i do feel i'm just sitting there a few seconds that I could be swinging. Also, I don' t like how it chews up 650 mana ever 1 min for me or 1.5 or so for pet. I would like to see the spell last just as long on pet as myself with AA ext buffs.
Beastial Blight AA - Costs 9 AA
Effect: Reduce targets offense and defense skills and all saves by 15
Duration: 1 min (extendable by detrimental extension focus)
Re-use: 2.5min
Range: 200
Cast time: 1.5 sec
Resist: -500 MR
We increase the DPS of everybody, and decrease the DPS of the mob. You need 2 or 3 beastlords to keep it up full time on one mob, more if the event has multiple mobs.
Our problems solved. Might break content. Discuss
Wild Servants Call
Mana Cost: 1000
Level: 70
Casting time: 10 seconds
Duration: 18 seconds
Type: Group
MGB: Yes
Distance: 100
Reuse: 15 minutes
Cast on you: You call forth a wild servant to aid you in battle.
Cast on others: ____ calls forth a wild servant to aid them in battle.
Effect: SumWildServ60
Uses short duration buff box
SumWildServ60
Summons a pet on the next successful melee attack which targets their current opponent. Level 60 pet with roughly 2500 HP, low resists, relatively low melee (aim for 1000-2000 damage total), and a small old world model so they don't create unnecessary inconvenience due to the increase in lag that's possible, nor physically block other player characters. When the pet poofs (not through death), give the remaining pet HP to the individual melee.
Two questions answered at one time: Utility (heal) and DPS. Beastlord utility through utility for all of the melee.
I don't know about anyone else, but I find my DPS to be at a relatively good spot right now, relative to other classes, the one place where I often lack is through utility at raids. With the increased duration on SA, it tends to last through ``farm nights,'' and only becomes troublesome when new content is explored, but that's just something you have to deal with if you are going to engage new content.
Utility, however, is at an all-time low. As mentioned with the Ferocity thread, we could use something breathtaking, so don't discount the idea so readily. :)
So yea... group Fero? no thanks, its already a mana intensive spell as is for little gain, a group version would be horrid. But if im the minority here i have this idea; Bards though not so much are grouped with dps to crank the dps a bit, why not give us a self target only version of fero that hits only our group(non mgb of course), along tweaking fero up to something like +acc +ce +endurance or whatever. so then we have a use of having more than just one around in raids. Its restrictive enough to not be that over powering and then grouping us with nukers and healers is good with para/perf or group us with melee for the dps is an option as well.
Stigian
Machin Shin of Xegony
Quote from: Iskandar on October 19, 2005, 05:39:11 AM
Being a pet class, and a BEASTlord no less, I personally like the idea of our warder having such utility... a series of utility abilities that allow the warder to proc a single or group recourse for heals, regen or cures, or to proc various debuffs and detrimental effects, such as Hobble/Fetter.
Let me disclaim everything by saying that I don't raid. I'm also only level 60.
I also like the idea of pet based utility via Hobble-type debuff procs. Make an assortment of three or four of them, and every raid will have a use for that many different beastlords. Make the debuffs stackable with standard debuffs, of course (e.g. make a resist debuff stackable with Tash/Malo). This can also address the "I hate buffing" crowd by making the warder buff have a reasonably long duration (so it only has to be refreshed every 15 minutes, or longer). And, it makes Fluffy/Fido/Binky worth keeping around. :)
Perhaps pet DPS could be given some advantage. It is now impossible for a pet to steal aggro from a player. What if we take advantage of that and give the pet some obscene aggro generation buff? The pet then zooms up in hate, the tank taunts to hit (ObsceneHate+1), and the clerics and chanters breathe a little easier.
Pet off-tanking is great utility. Perhaps introduce a line of very expensive but fast, big pet heals, or perhaps expensive pet buffs that push mitigation through the roof - either way, have minimal recast delays and do what it takes to make "pet cleric" a viable but expensive strategy. This way, a beastlord could burn tons of mana propping up the pet for a minute or so, until the other players finish dropping another mob, although perhaps we couldn't afford to do this every time while chain-pulling.
Personally, I enjoy being a buffer. I don't have IOS yet, so I load myself down with nearly a dozen self-buffs when I solo. I'm amazed when I talk to beastlords who cast nothing but beastcrack. When I hit 65, I will enjoy having Fero to spread around, when appropriate. I would like to suggest that the Fero line also be kept up-to-date. I think of our latest pet buff as essentially pet Fero. Buff other players, the pet, it's all good, and perhaps some players like buffing themselves more than buffing others.
This can be another point of diversity. One beastlord, who likes buffing, keeps up the latest Fero on a few key people, but doesn't have mana for much else. Another beastlord burns mana on DPS or debuffs, but can't afford much else. Another beastlord keeps up the UberHate buff on his warder (for example), but can't afford much else. Another beastlord stands ready to prop up a pet-offtank as necessary. And so on. This would allow beastlords with different tastes to gravitate towards (and perhaps take gear/AA to specialize in) different roles.
Well to expand on the AA concept (to save mana) maybe a self-group-only super PoS. This way we will have one beast in groups with tanks for hp regen or casters for mana regen. To make the spell non-MGB could also be debated.
On a side note, I am a AFEQ(since June) level 65 beastie. How are you "ubba" guys with stamina on raids?!? If you have plenty, maybe a "lich" spell that will give your endurance to another. The necros have the Dot/heal spell, maybe we can do endurance if we have some.
frankly, an end feed might be sorta nice, esp since if I pop old offensive disc (I'm lazy on the 69 disc atm) and protection really close together, I end up at like over half endurance.
I make the same disclaimer of being a non-raider.
That being said I like the idea of utility through pets. We are Beastlords... master of beasts. I never understood why Mages, and shammies got swarm pets, and we didn't, but thats another story. I also thought that we should have gotten charm animal as well as druids... but see swarm pets. I liked the idea of pet procs of group hp, mana recourses, debuffs, and why not proc a group melee proc (short duration, would need to rebuff pet after say 3 procs). This suggestion may come from end game ignorance, but have /pet shield go off more often, and maybe switch it to MT. Do our Warders use End? Can cast a warder to target end transfer. Why shouldn't we be able to be the lords of two warders? Prolly not great suggetsions... but just wanted to get them out there.
I'd take almost anything but please not group fero. Its already useless. Making it group would make it useless and 5 times more expensive.
While were throwing ideas out, how about a single target version of paragon. Make it a seperate ability (not on the same timer) but with a similar recast time. I'd say it would have to have at least 10 times the hp and mana gain over say...twice the duration. This could potentially make a huge difference in an emergency situation and be a good reason to have multiple beastlords on a raid.
I still like the idea I threw out a while ago.....
http://www.beastlords.org/forums/index.php/topic,5553.0.html (http://www.beastlords.org/forums/index.php/topic,5553.0.html)
QuoteJillie, if you feel its in the wrong area feel free to move.
Alright, so.........here I am not really bored but kinda having my brain buzzing reading all these posts on DPS, AA's, pets, foci, etc.... you get the picture
Anyways, when EQ came out with a RPG ( I am a big D&D nut ) I went out of my way and got all the books. Well, here I am with the same books sitting on my shelf (cant convince the wife to play pen and paper ) I started looking at my books again and picked up the players handbook.
Now I start reading it and get to the beastlord section ( on purpose ) and start reading it over a few times. Now, I know this applies to D&D ruleset but I started looking at a few interesting abilities that the RPG has that the MMORG does not. I'll throw in a few excerpts to let ya all look over. Please no flaming or anything, I just want to share whats in the book for those that dont have it.
Animal skills : the skills animal empathy, handle animal and ride come easily to the beastlord due to there affinity for animals.........
Animal Aura : .....the beastlord is able to call upon animal spirits to imbue themselves (when I set up and play I change this to imbueing the group ) with the aura of an animal. ..............................only one aura can be active at any time........ (list of the auras)..
alligator : the beastlord gains a +2 bonus on swimming and +1 natural bonus to ac.
bear : gains a +2 buff bonus to str and +% to lvl on hitpoints.
eagle (yeah, I know, no birds but still......) : ........increase safe fall skill even if he is untrained
frog : .gains a + bonus on jump checks
monkey : bonus to tumble and climb skill (shrug, its in the book )
rhinoceros : +% bonus to atk and damage ( I dont use the charge attack on this when I play though)
Scaled wolf : gains a bite attack in melee. (if you want more info I'll supply to much to type ).
snake : gains a +% bonus on bluff and escape checks
tiger : gains a +% bonus on hide and jump attacks
wolf : gains +% in run speed per level.
Improved H2H : gains a bonus feat to H2H
Now, like I said this is in a RPG book but since I've seen alot of ppl getting down in the dumps on what is our purpose. I figured I throw this out there and let those with good imaginations maybe come up with something to use that would once again make it the "hey, get that beastlord over there LFG, they got some terrific group aura's that might help "
enjoy
While having 2 warders or charming and animal skills arent necessarily bad ideas, they dont fit into the topic. We want raids to want more than 1 of us. Some beastlord only skill or spell or something that benefits a raid more when there's more than 1 of us, not a wishlist of skills.
And 2 warders...sounds like a good idea, would help out our dps, but would never happen. The coding doesnt exist for a person to have 2 controlled pets. You'd need 2 pet windows, 2 pet health bars, and how would you buff them? Ask sony to take off autotargetting so you can choose which pet gets healed? There'd also be no way to control them, unless you just want them to attack the same target, or just have one be like our temp pet, no pet hold or back off, and have to be hit for it to attack. In reality, all it'd end up being is your warder's dps being fractured and put into some extra pet. I'd rather just have 1 pet that can survive AEs and hits even half as good as I can, and has some better dps than what it currently has.
HI
What gets me is we are BEAST LORDS the lord of beasts but we don't have any kind of control over beasts? why don't we have some kind of animal mezz/charm? Why don't we have any kind of shapechanging ability (apart from that crappy AA) that could turn us into different kinds of animals to gain different bonuses for each type of form? say form of the bear could also grant people in the grp with extra endurance regen or form of the wolf could give the grp extra attk or accuracy.
I think the name of our class leaves alot of possibilities and Iam surprised nothing has ever been done about it. Mage's have elemental controll,nukes, summoned gear and a pet, necros can do tons of undead stuff , slow, mez, fd u name it and have a pet, we have crappy low end buffs low dps and a pet so where is our class defining abilities? I don't have class envy I also play a cleric, necro and a mage but I can see the gap that there is between the things all these classes can do. Has Iam writing this I keep thinking how cool it would be to be able to shapechange maybe the whole grp hehe Iam a sucker for illusions, but seriously it wouldn't be over powering but it would define our class for what I think it should be and what the name suggests.
You also have to remember, not all beastlords raid. We have to please both aspects of it. But that is also saying a player that doesnt raid might not change there mind and raid later.
It was an idea I read that could be used for both, not just the one type.
I know that the two warders, adn charm don't address the topic of the page, but just some things that I always thought about personally.
Why couldn't we get a set of AAs (on same timer so multiple Beasts could get multiple imbues going, must be able to stack, and go to short buff box... maybe 1 minute), revolving around the different class warders. Imbue Group wolf... adds for short (burst duration) cleave effect, inc attack, and maybe small chance for quads. Imbue Group (don't know what its called) Gator... adds for short time increased AC, mitigation, %shielding. Imbue group Bear... adds End regen, mana regen, health regen. Imbue group Tiger.... ads Fero effect, inc melee damage mod, maybe a small strikethrough. Imbue group Scaled Wolf... adds Inc flurry for those that can, gives those who can't the base chance, Over str (say by 40 or so), and weapon skill mod (increases weapon skill by whatever could be reasonable over the cap). Eventually can add AAs to advance the abilty and adding other effects like resists, spell damage mods... whatever.
These are just off the top of my head (Hope I didn't miss any Race warders). Seems like some just feel more tlike offensive, defensive, regen... to me anyway. Just examples of a different way to go... maybe you could only get the one of the warder you get. Could be incentive to even diversify the races of multiple Bsts. Either way... this would be an abilty a raider or non-raider would use. Any exp group would love any of these every once in a while, and solo its no mana drain because of AA.
Quote from: Tastian on October 18, 2005, 05:07:09 PM
*snip*
Bsts are an offensive utility class. We always have been. On a raid we have SA as our main buff, used to have fero as a secondary buff, and had filler buffs based on other classes not being present(haste, hp, sv, infusion, etc). Also we offer slow, but with recent changes to other slows, proc slows, AE slows, clicky stick slows, etc it just doesn't pan out for a lot of bst. We have perfection as well, but that's highly debated and many find it wanting these days.
With that in mind, exactly what do those of you against buffing propose as the reason for bringing extra bst along to a raid?
*snip*
I love playing utility classes. I do enjoy the ability to cast buffs but I am more and more in a situation where my spellbook is clogged with short duration spells and long recast mana hogs that make me feel more like I play the spell bar than the game. This more than anything else is where my recently acquired aversion against buffing comes from and I do not want to see the day where we start to ask for a /melody command to manage our single available spell gem.
For 62 levels I played a utility class that buffed mostly outside of combat and de-buffed during combat and I would dearly like to continue playing this role.
I would like to continue casting high aggro debuffing/slowing spells on a mob and be able to live with the consequences for a short while until the tank regains aggro. I see some desirability coming from casting weaker versions of spells earlier. This would be good enough for group who can chose between weak version early from a beastie/strong version late from a more squishy class. On raids an early weaker version would be replaced later by stronger stuff a bit later requiring both casting types to be present.
What about a stacking pet proc that when it goes off adds a DoN like effect to the entier group for a few sec. Make the buff cost a bit, or be a 10ish min recast AA and only last for 4min or so, and stack with anything but the shammy DoN buffs. Good for raids, named group kills, or any normal group pull that you happen to be FM/have the AA up. Not over powering, but if it adds 10% to your groups DPS on a raid thats a significant boost to make you more usfull than a 11th Wizard/rog.
If beasts are not improved via buffs whats left?
Make us better tanks? Heck I would love it....but no way are they going to make us a chain class or equal to one.
Increase DPS? No way to do it without half the classes starting to cry because most people in the game still think Beast are a DPS class.....shhhh don't tell.
As far as DPS goes I think the uber raiders are way off of reality for most Beastlords. Elemental/oow/DoN geared lvl 70's that dont have the 1.5....a Beast is out DPSed by a Ranger,Monk,Rog,Wiz,Mage,Necro 2/3 + of the time. War,Sk,non healing druid are about even. Time+ gear starts to even Beast out alot more.
no comment on the single target paragon? lol
precedent for similar buff has been established, ala the druid AA in DoD much like a high powered SotW on a single targ.
How about making the warders stronger? For I have heard that after 65, the warders are no longer stronger as they once where (Ward-a-what in the Campfire Section). For I tend to solo alot and since we beastlords don't have pacify or anything like that, often Trouble has to off tank one. I haven't tried it in any of the DoN/or OoW zones per se save for Dranik's Scar, but I'm wondering if I"m not the only beastie to thinks that would be a boon. After all, we're a pet class - and for me Trouble is a necessity, for he's saved my butt and also gave me grief when I first started out, hence his name.( Level 9 and he brings back red cons to play - this was when Luclin just came out. Owie!) But I do have to admit it's kinda funny seeing a beastlord kite - I usually do it when I'm panic striken for I got 3 mobs and I'm low on health.....so I run around in circles waiting for the xp messages as Trouble chases them around and beats them down.
at level 70 ele geared w/ the 68 pet, i was able to easily solo 3 mobs in NC. Two on me, one on pet, I do have the 70 pet now but havne't soloed with him yet.
I do see a noticable difference with the 70 pet then the 68 one, but it isn't really damage difference. It is 3 points a swing with the RSS focus when cast to make an even 100 max hit. the 68 pet hit for 97 or something....this with the 1.5 clicky and basic beastlord buffs of course. Surviability though does seem to increase from the 2 pets, so I am happy about that.
I am only Timed flag so I am not really running to those horrible AoE rampages mobs that often, so I can't speak much about pet surviabiltiy at high end quite yet.
To me we are starting ot run into an actual mana crunch in some ways. With the swarm pet and DoN spell, I can run OOM every fight...and with SA new mana cost revival of the dead afterwards and then leading to another fight a minute or 2 down the linet runs into some issues of me maintaining that same pace. Grant it I know we are a burst DPS class, but I always seen the DoN spell and the swarm pet as substained DPS tool in a raid environment.
Well hello again all
I am in a end guild raiding guild and i find that not only is it hard to on my mana pool on raids to keep up with Sa slows mob position and trying to keep up with 4 feros is a nightmare.
What i think that would work is if we had a single group fero target pet and recast off pet like growl.
1) this would make it so i had to only fero onces every 6 Min's
2) would make it so more raids would want more then one bst at raid.
Now i don't think the fero we have is what this spell should be its should be something specail something a raid would want like 250-300atk 100to all resist combat effects
"To me we are starting ot run into an actual mana crunch in some ways. With the swarm pet and DoN spell, I can run OOM every fight...and with SA new mana cost revival of the dead afterwards and then leading to another fight a minute or 2 down the linet runs into some issues of me maintaining that same pace. Grant it I know we are a burst DPS class, but I always seen the DoN spell and the swarm pet as substained DPS tool in a raid environment."
Part of this issue is that beastlords finally have options and uses for their mana. Almost every other mana based class could put themselves OOM if they just chain use various spells. Before DoN my bst could sustain fero on 4 people and I'd drop two nukes almost everytime they popped. Growl gave us another option and the depths pet another one. The depths pet isn't something to sustain all fight every fight though. It's a dot in many ways and as such is just another dps option we have available.
I do know some bst have felt a bit of a mana crunch latly, but that really is just what almost all other mana based classes deal with. Sks that are bite'n, spearing, snaring, terror'n for aggro, etc can have issues. A pally that is dropping stuns and healing a lot. Especially caster classes like a druid or a cleric as I think we've all been in a group at one time or another where a cleric or enc put themselves out of mana or too low on mana from nuking or something else and then couldn't handle things when they got rough.
One of the big issues with fero that I think this kind of gets at and some others have touched on is exactly how often do people want fero to be used? There were some bst in the past that just sustained it on 4 people. Some that use it for just big boss fights, some that use for resists etc. Do people want fero balanced so it's a sustained short duration buff like avatar where you really do add a lot to the group, you put in some work, but the overall groups damage is much higher than if you simply nuked/dot'd with that mana instead of buffing? Or would people rather it be situationally useful where maybe you buff it before a big boss fight, or maybe solo players just use before they pull a named or breaking a camp or whatever?
It seems like some people see fero as an always on buff, and others see it more as a potent, but infrequent buff to help kick things up that extra notch.
Fero always up :)
(I haven't read all the posts yet, so incase this was already suggested, just ignore me)
One ability that might be inplementable which would raise the interest for beastlords on raid:
The ability would desummon your pet and it would then put a protective/offensive buff onto all people within a certain radius of your pet(or you). (% based buff would be prefered so that it can progress with content, could also be a 25%hp/15%mana area heal (instant), or a magic (both dot/dd) absorbing shield, or such)
This ability after being used would prohibit you to use a pet for a certain time (30mins no pet and slow our cast times and melee etc etc (whatever seems appropriate relative to the gain)) and it would drain a very large %-age of your mana (say 80% of your mana pool). (Or an alternative it could put us into a temporary stasis)
Why make us sacrifice the pet? Well I think this kind of ability should be powerful, but obviously have some large drawbacks for us.
This would definitely make 2 or 3 beastlords a viable option, but not too many more because if they use that ability they'll be rendered close to useless for a bit..
While yes, those that want to see high dps numbers, they'll definitely not like this ability, but I think this ability would only be useful in large number raids (which is the main discussion point)
Btw the numbers are just suggestions/examples... the end product would most likely look quite a bit different..
Cheers,
As far as fero specifically, I usually try to keep it up on myself at all times, and will try and rememeber to keep it on tank, and sometimes another melee dps if I'm not slowing (other wise I just dont have the mana regen after factoring in growl and nukes).
Since this seems to have degenerated into another fero talk thread :p
Keep it single target please. If anyone wants it to be a group spell think about this: a 2k mana spell that you can no longer specify exactly who you hit (if theres 2 rogues in a group with a mage druid and cleric or something) and prolly wont be greatly improved would just suck.
Much better to keep it how it is as a powerful single target spell -- made even more powerful because of its limitations
reason why I suggested the area effect thingy is because some don't enjoy buffing fero at all, the spell/ability I suggested will bring raidutility while at the same time keeping those that hate casting fero all the time somewhat happy.
Also: if you'd make it a %hp/%mana/%endurance heal or dot/dd spell shield, then it would affect everyone (and everyone would benifit).
DoT and dd spell shield obviously would mainly be useful against AEs and there usually (barring some exceptions) everyone is hit so it doesn't matter if a dps, pure caster or tank is hit by it. %hp/%mana/%endurance would also be beneficial for everyone. (I'm sure melees would love us for that and casters certainly won't mind etiher...).
Or alternatively, you could change it so that there's a recourse when you desummon your pet which hits whoever you have targetted (one target only, so you could make it more powerful, be it +accuracy/shielding/spell shield/dot shield or hp/mana replenishment or whatever you want...). But even if you change it to a single target spell I'd stil like it to bring a heavy penalty to us, but have a large impact on whoever gets it. So I'd still say pet desummoned, and it's gone for 30+mins and it drains a large part of your mana, BUT make it last longer than fero.. say 10-15mins base, so you won't even be able to keep it up on one single person, but 10-15mins base should be enough for a single encounter.
Don't think we'll get around the buff idea really, but at the same time it has to have a noticable impact while at the same time keeping most people happy... dunno, was just a suggestion :)
Cheers,
I think the point that Tastian was trying to make when he started this thread has been made.
We don't really have any idea what else besides buffs of some sort we can bring to a raid that would make them want us over a rogue or wizard or other higher dps class.
IE, our buffs need increasing in effectiveness to make our company upon a raid worth the loss of dps of making the rogue sit out.
is it me, or are we kinda, well, "overbalanced"? i mean, if we make fero like an avatar, we're stepping on shammy toes, we get more melee dps, aside from the aggro issues, and divison of power (warder), we're stepping on monk/zerker toes-but still nowhere close to rogues i think. our nukes, dots, and heals aren't close to their resepctive classes--and not meant to be.
pretty sure it's been suggested, but what about Perfection upgraded? i say that b/c as i read through older posts, it seems our Paragon was highly desirable, but Perfection didn't keep up with the hp/mana PCs sport--and lose due to tougher mobs.
that, or something terribly monk related--as has been discussed, we share little in common despite being a parent class; more like a uncle or aunt really.
when you talk about hybrids, we are the most hybridized class of them all: zerkers are a mix of warr & rogue, ranger dru/warr, sk necro/warr, pally clr/warr. us: monk/shammy/magi.
So you increase us and you have 3 other groups that we are derived from that get complainy.
Quote from: Nekokirei on October 25, 2005, 08:52:09 PM
pretty sure it's been suggested, but what about Perfection upgraded? i say that b/c as i read through older posts, it seems our Paragon was highly desirable, but Perfection didn't keep up with the hp/mana PCs sport--and lose due to tougher mobs.
In another thread, I suggested making Paragon and similar regen AA's from other classes (ie, Druid's Wood, etc) a percent-based effect instead of a flat number. This would allow it to scale up with players as they increase their mana/hp through itemization without making it overpowering on players with lower gear -- ie, for hp, if it regens 20% instead of 200/tick, a player with 5,000 hp and a player with 15,000 hp would both see a different amount of regen -- 1,000 hp for the 5k player and 3,000 for the 15k player. Perfection would then be upgrades to the percentages for hp/mana regen instead of to the flat numbers (or perhaps even adding increasing percentages of endurance regen to Perfection, making it a much more potent upgrade to Paragon).
But, to be honest, I really don't see this idea having a snowball's chance of ever being seriously considered by Sony anytime soon :-(
do they have something to where they could do this?
ie, the effect looks at total hps/mana & does that much?
Only prob I could see would be complication of it doing the differing amounts of hp vs mana
Quote from: Iskandar on October 25, 2005, 10:51:28 PM
In another thread, I suggested making Paragon and similar regen AA's from other classes (ie, Druid's Wood, etc) a percent-based effect instead of a flat number. This would allow it to scale up with players as they increase their mana/hp through itemization without making it overpowering on players with lower gear -- ie, for hp, if it regens 20% instead of 200/tick, a player with 5,000 hp and a player with 15,000 hp would both see a different amount of regen -- 1,000 hp for the 5k player and 3,000 for the 15k player. Perfection would then be upgrades to the percentages for hp/mana regen instead of to the flat numbers (or perhaps even adding increasing percentages of endurance regen to Perfection, making it a much more potent upgrade to Paragon).
oh! i like that idea. it'd bring a lot raid utility especially what with the END regen! hrm, what about also making our defunct Invigor regen END as well?
Quote from: IskandarBut, to be honest, I really don't see this idea having a snowball's chance of ever being seriously considered by Sony anytime soon :-(
oh...poopie. =(
While it may not be even close to an answer to the question... every class has their "niche". Why not make ours End regen? Slap it on Paragon, and SA. End gamers have virtually no need for a huge part of our buffs, the lower parts of the game wouldn't be taxed anymore by this addition (except for the added mana cost I'm sure), and it would be useful in EVERY aspect of the game.
SA wont be improved, PoS won't be improved, so I had 2 ideas that would make us a little more wanted on raids, that doesn't
seem like it would be very difficult for them to do. They both involve changing feros, leave them as single target buffs, as to not
blow the mana cost out of proportion. One the things I noticed is that casters never get any kind of benefit from fero (with exception
to resists of course), but they never ask for it, warrs never want it. so make it benefit more than jsut melees, or change one of them,
to be caster benefit. one of then, say Fero (melee fero, if you wanna call it that) could could raise atk and resists like it does, but
also possibly small +ce and a small endurance boost (this would make it useful for everyone, including warriors) Make the other
one, currently FoI (this just a thought, no flaming pls), make the other one caster beneficial, like bonus to nuke damage, dot damage,
healing, etc... also, make them stack! (this just me wanting bonuses to both since itemization is lacking)
I think this could possibly make us a little more wanted on raids, and since these would still be the same short duration thing,
you would need more bsts on raids than 1! This would also benefit non-raiders jsut as well!
Didymusx Astelonius - 70 Sentinel - Drinal
http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=757368 (http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=757368)
Hehe,
You say tanks never want fero, but there was a time when my raiding group depended on fero for tanks as a resist buff for some encounters. One that I remember specifically is Rydda'Dar. Because of her fear spell, we would fero tanks. There's several other fights we used it for but....yeah anyways.
I like to buff so I don't have a huge contribution to the origonal topic. Just wanted to mention that.
Yeah the fero changes are actually the exact opposite of this topic since this was for those that are againist buffs/fero changes/etc. hehe 8P
The resists are useful at times and I've fero'd my share of clerics over the years and originally used savagery on MT for various mobs back in luclin.
Definitely would like to see some changes to fero, but at the sametime there are some bst that don't like more options. Some would be upset over fero being more useful/desired by casters because they'd get more requests or have more people they couldn't keep the buffs up on.
The end regen is very much a balance point though. Devs have said they didn't want end regen, then kinda unsure, etc. First they have to decide how much end regen they want, and then how to put it into the game. It's possible some buffs will see it, other buffs might be added, it could be only an item thing, etc. I do think it'd be a nice thing for bst to get and with SA/fero there are a couple ways it could be added that cover a broad spectrum in terms of balance.
Aye, SOE is a bit afraid of adding endurance regen because of the possiblities of overpowering a couple of classes. But, they need to do something as disc are using more and more endurance with no way of refreshing it other then 33ish/tick with aa. It really becomes a problem after rezzing. Nothing like waiting on the MT to regain enough endurance to continue after dying.
Hmm, give us a spell that lets us twitch melee with our endurance? Kind of like necros do with mana. Make it useable between fights but not during to help keep it from overpowering a class but has the effect of speeding up the downtime.
They also said that SA was 10 and not higher because they had the same concerns over mana regen... now we have vendor bought potions. Not sure of the name... but there is one that stacks with KEI, so I assume stacks with everything.
Interesting.. the only vendor sold in mass quantities that i know about for mana regen is the clair X potion, and that = kei's mana regen, but is overwritten by kei+.
Greater concentration is pretty easy to make, at I think 96pp/dose (think that's what I got charged for cost by guild shammy), incr ft by approx 3 or 6/tick (don't recall exactly, and don't feel like looking up atm, but it's overwritten by Mind Wrack.
If the clair pots are stacking, that needs to be /bugged, bcs that's definally not the point of em.. Point of em is to allow someone to not have to run back to PoK bcs their KEI wore off or have to be held up for a half hr while they /ooc for crack in pok.
If you know of one that really does stack & is intended to do so, pls lemme know. I'd love to get my paws on that one.
I may have gotten the vendor, and shammy versions confused (been a dog day at work today). It is true that the one I used that stacks with KEI... I was not grouped with a necro, so my staement may have been off. But the point remains that in any given situation you can add mana regen via potion, except when you have all the different mana regens available at once.
kk.. sorta where I was thinking.. and I do resent that they've made haste in a bottle better than our clicky/cast haste (i type clicky, cuz I've not memm'd that spell in almost 2 yrs now I'm happy to say /hugs ornate tunic that's never leaving me ;p).
In general, many would prefer KEI etc over potions, if only bcs of duration. If I have the opportunity to get it, I vastly prefer clairvoyance over kei, cuz the mana regen is sufficiently different that i can get into a better rhythm with is then with kei, running too lom too early with kei/bottled crack.
I'm one that doesn't mind buffing and frankly am at a loss for what else we could do to replace the buffing ability we have. I would prefer an increase in the effectiveness of said buffing. If naught else, that would permit those of us who enjoy buffing to do that function better. I knew a shammy who hated buffing.. biggest complainer I ever met in regards to that. There are bsts who feel the same way about any buffing that we may be required to do. I don't think that fits the vast majority of us, else I think we woulda chosen a class that better fit our preferred playstyle, and the class would have evolved in a different manner than it has over the years of its life.
So to sum up, bump up our buffing ability. People will be unhappy either way, but the majority will be content with some increase in effectiveness as our add'l added utility to a raid to compensate for our dps loss over a pure dps, one trick pony class.
Not sure if this has been mentioned, but here's an idea that would add to our utility and totally fit our lore. Pet Guard ability. This would allow you to assign your warder to guard someone (chanter/cleric, etc). All of that that person's aggro is continuously transfered to warder as long as warder is alive, so if they pull heal or mezz aggro, the mob(s) will attack warder instead. The chanter/cleric will always be at 0 aggro, so when warder gets 1-rounded (which he will), the mob will move on to the next on its aggro list, sparing the chanter/cleric. BL pops out another warder and assigns it to guard chanter/cleric again, etc. Warder would physically follow the chanter/cleric thus taking out his dps, but that would be the tradeoff. This would be very useful on some events (worthless on others) and would make it very desirable to have multiple BL on certain events. Note that chanter/cleric can still be hit by AEs.
In group situation this could be used to quick save your cleric who's drawn aggro. /pet guard xxx then /pet attack would be an instant offtank. A quick thinking BL would be welcome addition to groups then.
That's actually similiar to an idea I brought up when discussing how pet utility had fallen off. Expansion of the pet shielding ability and allowing them a target to shield if they are nearby and split damage with them is a nice idea imo. Lots of different possible tweaks, but yeah more utility through the warder is a nice idea.
Utility through our warder is something I believe in... check some other thread in here. For the sake of this thread anything added would have to be either an AA, or an innate command. I personally like my idea of multiple Familiar'esce Warders that give benifits to self and group... but I am a biased opinion.
I like the "familiaresqe" or even "wardesqe" ideas too. However, one of the biggest issues we've had as beastlords over the years isn't ideas, but rather having them believe we should get the gain they would give. Much like how some want triple attack or innate double attack or more pet dps, it all leads to more damage and if the devs don't want that then any idea leading to that end will be shot down. Although I like the ideas of buffs via warder or whatever, if the devs don't see we need more utility then it simply won't happen.
Also we have to keep in mind drawbacks to "style". I think our warders currently are a great example of that as their are a lot of situations where the warder is less than optimal and very few where they are a bonus. Even though the familiaresqe idea sounds nice, if it has some major drawbacks that we might not forsee then most would probably rather just have a new group buff or something along those lines.
What i dont see is how they can be saying we dont need utility. Compare us to say a mage. Beastlord melee/spells dps is less dps than the mage. Bst pet has always been inferior to mage pet. And you could even make the argument that mages have more utility than us. (mod rods and CoTH compared to what we offer, especially beyond the first sa bot (err i mean beastlord))
I'm mainly talking raid utility here so slow is not a factor, nor are all of our buffs except SA. But it has been increasingly applying to group utility as well for a long time.
How can they sincerely say we're in the correct role when we're in no role at all?
We used to have things that actually noticably contributed to a raid. Paragon was 20% of a pure caster's mana pool for the entire raid not to mention a massive HoT for the time. Ferocity actually noticably impacted someones dps to the point where it was even feasable to cast it on ourselves. We need a new something. It has been suggested to upgrade perfection (that was declined) or ferocity (theres a 10 page thread). But whether they do that or something else new, we sure as heck need something.
Ive been the only active beastlord in my whole guild for years and while beastlords actually made the list of recruitable classes, a second one was a whopping medium priority. And thats just sad as an indicator for the state of our class.
Random utility thought.....I want to be able to strip a mob's DS.
Very tired so going to bed.
Clerics can strip a DS, or at least negate it with Mark of Karn (?). The function of the Warder familiars would be similar to the servants... just with different abilities, and at an AA cost. They already gave everybody these things, and they are blind (or choosing to be) if they don't see we need something new. We don't stand out in any particular way with abilities or dps. Aside from SA, and paragon/perfection (not what it used to be)... what is our role? Back up slower, offtank (as long as defensive lasts), 10 mana/hp a tick, low on the dps chain. We rock at mid pop, anything beyond that the "true classes" for a particular ability are required, or at least biasly preferred. Bards, who are very similar to us get group and AE damage mod songs, debuffs, etc (much more powerful than anything we get)... if we are going to function like a bard then give us those abilities. We got a big dps upgrade with the past expansion... but still lack because of the 3 way division of power that even the devs don't understand as well as Tast. I just think that one of four things is going to/ needs to happen. 1: we get some new ability, and are made group/raid wanted again. B) They decide whether we are going to be more like one of our "parent classes" and either dps more like a monk, or cast more like a shammy. iii- we get treated like a bard jack-of-all trades (which is more or less where we are now), and get more abilities similar to a bard that can mod our groups more than we do... see 1. Four... nothing changes and we continue on these threads to no avail.
WARNING: No coffee at work atm... little synicle, take with a grain of salt.
Quote from: Taiglin on December 30, 2005, 06:26:45 AM
Random utility thought.....I want to be able to strip a mob's DS.
Very tired so going to bed.
Hello!!! It's called DISPELL!!
Just throwing this out here... maybe make some form of the DoN buff type spell target the whole group? The 1500 HP/ 15% DPS boost/ 1500hp HoT would make BSTs much much more useful... that might be a bit too unbalancing though. :/
A single target version of it would be very interesting. We'd be indispensable then for casting it on the tanks (at least 2 of us heh)
I understand dispell can stip a DS but unless it has changed isn't it a random buff slot each cast? Am looking for something targeted ala the cleric line. Maybe add it as another level of RoT if it doesn't already do that (I bought lvl 1 but is rare that I use it).
Growl of the Panther is 1500hps, 20% boost, 150/tick. But seeing as how warrior 2.0 only gives 800hps, and has a recast time, the chances of a targettable version are slim to nil, even if warrior epic hits the entire group. Shamans would go berserk if we got a group version (would be better than Champ), and single target you'd never stop casting it on tanks, monks, rogues, and zerker. With a recast time it'd just be a replacement for fero, but you'd still need to cast it every time it popped, because monk/rogue dps x .20 is more than you could get from the mana using it on nukes or BE.
As for the dispell, I think what you're looking for is something the rangers just got. Nature's Balance, from what I understand, is a dispell that only takes off beneficial (to the mob) buffs. So haste, dispell, hp buffs would be dispelled, leaving slow, cripple, snare alone. Also, there are some buffs that arent dispellable, and need to be specifically overwritten by certain debuffs, such as the cleric reverse DS.
The pet shield idea looks very interesting and would definitely give us an edge on desirability. It would probably reduce our DPS though, since the warder will be protecting and sit there idle until it has to do something. This basically since it would have to be close to the PC the pet is proctecting, leaving it out of the range of the main target.
Quote from: Yamori on December 31, 2005, 01:52:19 AM
Just throwing this out here... maybe make some form of the DoN buff type spell target the whole group? The 1500 HP/ 15% DPS boost/ 1500hp HoT would make BSTs much much more useful... that might be a bit too unbalancing though. :/
This is a great idea... but the name of the thread...
Hopefully I didn't miss a previous respose and duplicate, as this is an ongoign post it seems. I too read all the time but was in a posting mood. My two cents on some of the common themes would be to have paragon/perfection include edurance regen. This i believe would benefit not only raids, but also when grouping and soloing. And for fercocity, I would just like to see the reuse timer and mana cost go down.
Kordana
70 Beastie on Povar
I hope i dont come off sounding mean :-D
Perfection increases and endurance have both gotten a specific no from the devs
And making a useless spell easier to use doesnt make it any more useless. Fero needs upgrades to its effects because honestly they will never ever make it as usable as it would need to be to be useful in its current form.
I wonder about the statement of us being about equal to mnk and ranger. We parse everything we do and on a blackwing mission i run real low on mana the entire time, while a monk and ranger seem to effortlessly out dps me. I have pretty good gear and they have about equal gear as well. When it comes to a raid encounter. Our top dpsers are Rog Wiz Mnk/Druid normally and a bst is no where to be found and often they joke about the cleric out dpsing us. Its cool thoug, adds humor to /gu.
As far as the fero debate goes. I hate the idea of making it a group spell. I have a raid buffed mana pool of around 10.8k and we normally have 2 full time beasts on a raid. With making Fero a group buff they will certainly up the mana cost. Now with that being said. Unless your raid leader sets groups up with rogs monks and rangers all in thier own groups with a healer bard, you will essentially be wasting mana on casters that will receive the buff.
I, personally would like to see a 2 hander aa come out some day. I use Vish's 2 hander mainly for playing around since we lack that aa. But even when i use it, I am putting out nice damage. The lack of this aa has left 2 handers to be a joke for bsts, unless you just like to mess around with them like I do. If you think the 2 hander aa is a bad one, what about us getting an innate see invis aa..now that is a waste. That should have been a fixed invis or something.
I am probably going to get some heat about this but that is cool. I have played my bst since day one of the class and have just sat back and let other determine the direction of the class. I thought i would voice my opinion. **edit** disregard this until I have fully read the couple pages that i missed. things might be covered in there. I was posting this while in a raid.
70 bst Chis Bertox
http://www/magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=738286
I just want more dps, at the end of the day I have my utility, I can slow, buff mana/hp regen and paragon, that's all the utility I want and that my mana will support. Bump up our dps, bring us in line with a ranger and give my pet better resists for those damn ae's.
Jack of all trades is fine, but lets lean towards the dps as let's face it, only healing and dps are brought in large quantities on raids.
I honestly dont think we need to waste a good AA on 2h weapons. Unless, of course, it is so exceptionally good of an aa so it puts it above where we are on 1h weapons by a reasonable amount. But i honestly dont see that happening. 2h is fine for a toy but id honestly rather not make that one more thing they have to say we can do already and therefore we dont need upgrades, when we really badly do.
I have to agree with hak here, 2hb is a joke at the moment which is indeed sad, however we are way too far down that way to change it back in a rush. Yes, we could use a bit more dps but honestly we are not that far behind rogues and we still have that wretched slow argument (which doesnt count in a raid of course). Our two beastlords on a normal raid do around 1k dps on KtH (my normal parsing mob) while rogues far out dps us around 1900 to 2k and zerkers are at around 1700 to 1800. I have to try and come up with a new parse mob, MM might be pretty good.
well, i was trying to go with the 2hander comment as something they can toss in as a class specific filler. Every pack there is some aa that you question why it is there, but I personally really like the Vish 2hander and would use it more than i already do if I had the aa. I put it in the dps calculator and its not far behind my 1 hand combo. I just hate having a set path that says yeah a beast can use a 2 hander but we will steer you away from it. Any way you look at it. I think the next offense boost should be to the beastlord ourselves. there are times, though i hate it, that raid leader says no pets. Our burst dps is linked to that pet. Look at a way to make it non pet dependant maybe? I would really like to see unlinked offense discs but now i am asking alot :)
Well I'm gonna put my 2cp in here after reading about two pages of these and saw alot of god ideas so far so most of mine will just be ideas to further reinforce those already stated. I havent made it to the top end raiding stuff yet but I can already see that ole pet will get eatin badly so AE ramp mitigation is a must imo, and just AE ramp cause I am sure SOE can code that in to make it just so they mitigate AE ramps or ramps in general better.
Now I have been a casual bst and a raiding bst and me personally I think we are starting to lack in the spell lines. Now I can get why most people dont want to buff alot cause I dont like buffin alot on raids either if I wanted to do that I woulda picked a shaman or another buff class but come on boost somthin like HASTE at least and maybe a better melee debuff than incapacitate that would help out casual bst more so than raiding, as far as healing goes I think its fine where it is atm, we were never supposed to be a healing class but on certain situations I keep people up who catch a little aggro or a ramp or somthin just fine, not as good a a clerci or healer class mind you but it works for those rare occasions.
I havent gotten all my off AAs yet but with DoD and after talkin to other higher end bst I am guessin that our dps has gone up a pretty good bit, once again we arent supposed to be the top end but oh well some people want their cake and eat it too.
As far as the raiding goes and that is what this post seems to be more geared towards cause its easier to please casual peeps just give em more dps :roll:. The whole aspect of pet stuff is a great idea imo and could add alot to us and I gonna try to break it down so here goes.
Pet Shielding: Yeh I would like to see my pet do it more think its happened once and I didnt even see it lol (someone else did and thought it was the coolest thing since sliced bread). It isnt unfeasible for us to be able to make a pet a personal bodyguard of a chanter or a cleric in our GROUPS and groups only, but SOE needs to make it to where the pet actually shields with some frequency.
Pet Procs: Another great idea wether it be spells or AAs (AAs being the better choice imo) would be great for different fights, just like our procs way back when we had fire, cold, magic, etc etc for those diff mobs with diff resistances, diff debuff procs like hobble would be nice as well as the lifetap procs for the group or the mana sap would add desirability I think.
I think with this exp we should focus on our pets imo, people are gettin wrapped around this whole melee thing but they are forgetting that we are a pet class and they add to our DPS too if they could live through a fight with AE ramp then as a whole the bst would bring more dps to a fight cause those parses dont usually add the pet into the equation (either the pet isnt there or it just doesnt get parsed. I'm not rantin and saying all you guys who dont wanna cast and want more dps are wrong so dont flame jsut yet I'm just sayin think of the class as a whole and imo our pets suck now unless we are soloin and that just sucks.
What I would like to see for Bst that would make us more usefull on raids is maybe a group cure for Poison / disease quick cast like 2 seconds. I find that more and more I have been put in groups in Anguish and stuff to cure dots due to only 1 or 2 shammys being on raids and cleric/ druids healing and not curing as much. Pallys got RGC bst seemed to get semi descent poison and disease cures why not get us a cure that would make us usefull on high end raids
I always felt like it would be interesting if we could command our pets to /shield us on command. Of course it would have to be balanced with some sort of reuse timer, as well as be somewhat restrictive on range, but I can think of times when having my pet take some of the damage I was getting would have made a huge difference for me. Like when I tanked one of Xegony's guards that decided to come to us with her.
(ouch, ouch, not the tail, ouch...not there either!)
I've taken a lot of very useful info from this site over the past year or two, and would like to contribute something in return.
Looking at Tast's original post on this subject, this line is what I believe to be the crux of the matter ..
We need something that makes a second and maybe even a third bst desireable to a raid
Having recently joined a full time raiding guild, I feel I've identified what I consider to be the main weakness in our class. It's what the beastlord is all about - warders. Picture the scene - the raid has spent 5 mins or so buffing everyone to raid level, including our pride and joy. The fight starts and the target being raided casts their first AE - next thing you know our warder is gone!
I'm not professing to have the solution, but certainly our warder needs some form of AE mitigation (confirmed by other replies in this thread). But what about increasing our warders survivability overall? How about a warders defensive disc, purchased through an AA? Combined with an improvement in AC/HP (and AE mitigation), it might give the warder a temporary "off-tanking" ability. Combine this with the advanced pet discipline (possibly revised), and we may have the option to have our beefed up warder guard that essential cleric, or chanter in the raid.
Oh yes, and please can we have the option to click off pet buffs..... :wink:
Actually with Demi-plane pet foci your pet is quite tough and has little problems staying alive except from some AE ramp bosses. But having a pet by your side does not help Bst desirability on raids, me and our other Bst is still just there to SA the raid. Everything we can do on a raid someone else can do better. Oh except from SA... yay?
Why recruit another Bst discing 1k dps on Harrier when you can get a rouge discing 1800. DPS is our only other raid utility apart from SA atm, to bad we kinda sux at it =/
Saying that a Demiplane drop is the solution to our warder problem definately isn't correct. There are lots of beastlords that still suffer with AEs that have yet to even begin progressing towards this zone. Odds are that the problem will become worse in the next expansion.
Of course it isnt a solution for all but it is a first step in the right direction as the demiplane focused pet is able to survive pretty much all encounters except with heavy ae ramp. After all it more than doubles the hp compared to the next lower focus. As we all know that is only a part solution since pets still mitigate like we do, not at all...
Whereas I am pleased that about 5-10 bsts a server may have got warders than can resist AE's, it really doesnt help anyone else.
It also shows the underlying trend to "fix" things by making you buy a new expansion.
I can understand people's feeling sin now wanting to be spending all their time buffing, or even a significant amount of time doing that. I play a BL because it's good, constant damage.
I would like to see 2 things of BLs:
First I would like to see them able to handle adds for a short time, long enough to get an off tank onto it, then allow them to get agro and keep it off me.
Second I would like to see the BLs become the kings at debuffing. I have long wanted an effective Debuff other than slow in the game. Slow is an inherently limited way to decrease mob's damage. You can only slow so much, and SoE appears to agree as they seem to have a cap on the amount of slow that can be applied. (isn't the highest slow 80%Ish?) But what about something like an overpowered Cripple or a pair or stacking spells that will measureably decrease the damage dealt by a Mob?
Just my thoughts from a part timer BL and Most timer Necro.
Loketh 70 nec, Tahnel 57 BL, Mahnk 53 Monk.
The problem with that Hughman is if they implement a new debuff that decreases mob dps alot, they would have to change the fight system completely. With new Bst debuffs every fight would become so much easier that every raiding guild would finish Demi-plane in a month.
The raidmobs as it is are calculated to make it interesting for clerics to keep ppl alive, with a uber Bst debuff we all could watch Oprah while raiding.
Alltho i realy do love our current defence disc (the fast reuse timer is just awsome and has save my ass more times then i can count) i would realy like to see the duration extended to something more useful on raids like a 30 sec duration would realy be awsome. Maybe in a form of a second defence disc with a longer reuse then our curent. Would give use the abilaty to grab that extra add that a knight dident get and keep it off softys till thay can get to it class can grab it off us. I kinda do this allready on some events and would love to beable to do it more effently.
Ohh sorry i know i just posted but this thought just came to me.
One thing that no one has atm is the abilaty to regin endurence thay took it out some time ago for what reson im not totaly sure of but if thay would somehow make fero or even add in a new buff that only bst's could use to add to stam regin this would greatly incress the need for haveing that second or thrid bst it would have to be a single target buff so it wouldent be to over powerd of course. Would make fero realy a wanted buff for dps and tank class's for not only the atck/dps incress but the abilaty to do one more enernce useing atck disc would be well worth haveing a bst cast fero on you. Just a idea if im totaly wrong on this idea let me know lol
what if we had an aa that would allow our pets to shield others on the raid and absorb some of the dmg that player would take. just thought i would toss it out there see what people say
Aye, something like that seems to interest a lot of beastlords. However the problem with that is that all of our pets mitigate very bad and dont avoid much so they are very bad tanks, the second problem is that all but the spire servant focused pets have pretty low hp so they cannot take much damage in the first place.
If pets would receive a substantial tanking upgrade (something mages ask for for years now) it would be a viable way to increase our utility. Substantial here means that they increase the pet avoidance and mitigation by a big factor, around 5 would be good.
first off if any of the idea's i post have been posted already, i apoligize. It's been a while since i have actively raided seriously, and only recently started playing again.
Prior to the 2 most recent expansions, multiple bsts were always wanted, not just because of drops going to waste, but because of the usefullness of MGB and Paragon. It couldn' be used every raid target but normally you could use it every other boss mob depending on how fast or slow the party moved. again this isn't to debunk anyone, but just a reminder that there are other things we can do on raids.
With that being said, I do also agree there is a noticable downward slope in DPS and usefullness, (If it still works) mgb Paragon even fully upgraded, isn't anywhere near as useful as it used to be. Getting group Fero spells would be nice and I would love to see it. Other things, which I think I mentioned once before, targetable proc buff, stackable with weapon procs, on the same timing schedule as Fero line. Single target, most you will get at any 1 time is 3 people, and unaffected by SCR. Having 2 or 3 people procing an extra 160+ damage from time to time should over all benefit both soloing(buffing yourself) group(yourself and 2 others) or a raid while not being too overpowering. Leave the -agro in so it will at most benefit yourself and others attacking while not being able to cast it on the MT. depending on how much it actually adds, possibly extending the duration, and recast time to keep from having to recast it every x seconds. Or in a different fassion, an AA that will allow you to cast pet buffs on others/self. Minor attunements to existing abilities we already have should help tremendously.
Purrs,
70 bs of Stromm
As much as I want DPS and not be a debuff class, the one line of spells we could look at are enhancements to the cure lines.
e.g. curing poisions, diseases and so on.
These buffs save raids and make the casters valuable, sure other people have this stuff but i dont think its a spell line that any class is protective of.
However would still say DPS boost please!
To the post a few lines above about debuffing (even though it's over with) - I just want to point out that enchanters are the universally-recognized debuffers. They can touch every offensive stat a mob has and do it better than anyone.
Anyway - about the DPS thing. . . why not just give beastlords innate double attack, and then let the multiple-attack rate scale up on the very high end?
Is that too much dps? You know what? It's probably not. The DA cap could be set lower-per-level for BL's if it were. Someone play with a parser and see what would happen~
I'm serious. Maybe I just have the thread on "who is *not* a lvl 70 beastlord" stuck in my head, ruining my thought process for this, but (ignoring twinking 'corrections') beastlords are never really top dps on the way up to 70 anyway. And we wouldn't be with double attack. But all the screaming for more dps - maybe it could be stopped with double attack coming in early, triple attack at 65, and so on with AA's and such.
Bard's get DW but not DA because they have 50 ways to kill a mob and can gain xp faster than anyone. We are not on that level. DA for beastlords wouldn't be a ruin of game balance.
Eh, these are my thoughts.
Firiona.Goom
(fennin.faza)
Hey guys.....been reading through this endless thread and would just like to give my view on the matter.
I like having buffs and being a utilityclass but i wish we had a bit more dps. We arent even close to the best guildrangers or monks in end game. I do around 400dps without discs and i hardly use my pet on raids as he dies on every boss.
Alot of good points have been made through this thread and i like the idea of making us what we should be, BEASTlords....give us several AA petprocs for debuffing and manarecoursing. Also the idea of giving us the ability to tripleattack and quad would increase our dps substantially and actually make us more dps than wars. We are en par with wars atm and its embarrasing to say the least.
When it comes to spells. SA should have an endregen to it and SV should be upgraded. Today NOONE but myself want SV on our raids. Simply cause ppl prefer BBB. HP is obviously > atk even for dps classes. Maybe make SV same HP as BBB?:p Or add resists to SV?
When talking about Fero. It should have been made a groupspell with OOW so hopefully they make it group in next expansion with the same manacost. I rarely use it on other players simply cause i CBA. It costs too much mana and its a hazzle timing the reusetime on it. Fero is a very useful spell, not because of the atk it adds as any atk over 2-2.1k is worth close to nothing, but because it adds 65 to all resists, which on endgame bosses can mean the difference between life or death.
Fact is: On raids, we arent doing much else than buffing SA on random /request or buffing SA on raidprep as our dps is < depressing.
We dont have to be top dpsclass or even second best but be nice to even be CONSIDERED a dpsclass:(
Well just my 2cp
haven't read nearly all of the post, but haven't seen Paragon of spirit mentioned once. I have recently returned after over a year and a half off. I remember when mgb paragon used to be a very desired thing(back in SSRA and VT and early-elemental planes... as far as i got by the time GoD/OOW came out) , but this aa hardly seems a big boost in grps anymore with the high hps and mana everyone has now. Would there be any use in significantly increasing paragon of spirit so that it could be used during raids to replenish hps and mana lost to a boss. I know they added some aa to improve paragon, but if I'm not mistaken it was really weak and still remains fairly undesirable. Personally would like a considerable buff here.
Also maybe for fero since some people don't want to be buff bots, besides improving it give it a longer duration, but with a longer recast time...... something like 20 minute buff with 8 minute recast time, which would give u 2.5 casts per beastlord. This would cut down on the amount of time a beastlord would spend buffing while still adding to a beastlord's utility in a raid, as well as solo.
Also just thinking outloud here, possibly an ability to sacrifice/morph w/ our warders, imbuing us the ability to gain extra attacks/more damage or something along those lines so that we can maintain some of the dps of our pets in battles where they cannot be used effectively.
just some thoughts. and if some things are entirely wrong or out of it, it is because i have yet to experience much OoW/DoN/DoD/PoR
Hey there Hurath :)
perfection and fero are both buffs (see the title of the thread) :p
Absorbing our pets has been considered and the general consensus is we don't want it because if it was an option, we would use it ALWAYS. And most don't really like the idea of losing their pet even if its ostensibly a "choice".
I personally want to see beastlords gain more buffs, including MUCH better kitty crack spells. I mean 10hp/mana per tick is nearly negligable compared to the chanty line. If I'm soloing I need buffs to survive, and when the chanty crack is gone that leaves me with my own buffs, which becomes a slow crawl. Stat buffs are one thing I really wish they'd add an upgrade to soon, I know a lot of folks have their stats perminently capped wi/out buffs, but there are those of us not so ubber that could still use as much help as we can get. I could care less about fero though, I never saw a huge difference with it. I love the pet recourse spells, and really wish they'd make a line of them with longer lifespans than growl honestly (and that stack with growl line).
I am still new to these boards so it is taking me a while to read all these nice posts. As far as raiding goes with us being same as a warrior DPS ... thats really hard for me to believe. Our guild is in Demi atm and it is not uncommon for one of the beasts to be first or in the top 5 of DPS for a boss. That also depends on what our role is on each raid.
Perfection could use a boost for the Mana part of the spell. 660 mana is not alot of mana to a raiding cleric or caster. Wouldn't say it needed a HUGE boost but instead of 110per tick maybe 150 - 175.
Fero being a group buff would be nice I usually keep both FoI and Fero up on raids because I keep it on 4-8 people while raiding. Although I could see where that would be a nuisance to people that do not raid and the ones that just solo. Even if the group buff was the same as the FoI stats just about double the mana cost. However I would rather see Fero line be made into a more desirable buff. I know on our raids it is, but as I have read on here that is not always the case. I like the combat effects Idea since that is really hard to max out without severely hurting your avoidance and accuracy.
SV Line well I do not believe we were intended to have the best HP buff here. About the only time I use SV is on Raids when we are short on Pallies or Soloing.
I was at the last Fanfare In Atlanta and talked to several of the developers about where we was intended to be DPS wise. I was sad to find out that without our pet we should be Dion about the same DPS as a bard. I hopefully will be at the next Fanfare. If anyone is able to go to one they should go at least once. The Best of the Best Tourney is alto of fun.
QuoteI was at the last Fanfare In Atlanta and talked to several of the developers about where we was intended to be DPS wise. I was sad to find out that without our pet we should be Dion about the same DPS as a bard.
Keep in mind when they say this they are not including hastes, spells, pets, discs, and varias other abilities that are tied into our DPS. They usually mean just pressing auto attack and going. This doesn't even include kick and the like.
Trust me even then we might be slightly higher then bards beause of the weapon lines we get from the monk half *shrug*\
Itemization and spell lines really are a huge difference in what we are suppose to do.
What I like to know is when you throw everything into a pot, what our DPS is suppose to be.
Dang warriors need to stop hiding behind that dang pre luclin quote about DPS and hybrids. :?
Ok well I have had different experiences as a low end beastlord, and now a high end beastlord.
When I was a low end beastlord, they loved me for dps and I WAS CONSIDERED A DPS class, I was also big for SA constantly and Fero. I also used my pet or pets and discs always at raids and MGB Paragon or Purrfection was alwayyyyyys loved and appreciated for mana mostly but also for health. Also funny enough, my guild had 5-8 beastlords at one time, in the same raid. And let me tell you, if you put that many beastlords together, their pets go attack together trash mobs...my god...stuff just dies so fast like no tommorrow. Its quite amazing watching a pack of wolves,tiggers,leezards,crocs, and bears, just run at the same target and munch it to bits in 30 seconds.
When I became a high end raiding beastlord, things changed. I am NO LONGER CONSIDERED A DPS CLASS at all. This really pisses me off more than anything and downright hurts my feelings. People will name classes off the top of their head, and yes the brand new Zerker class gets mentioned and so does every other class EXCEPT BEASTLORD. That I think speaks tons in the fact that we have become the INVISIBLE CLASS. So invisible that we barely exisit since everyone can do everything better than us. Again this really hurts me as a beastlord and my feelings.
The ONLY things that have not changed in my high end raiding guild is, them wanting SA constantly...and now they want FERO TONS more, and they want it cast much faster and more often than I can, even if I used both feros, and they will occassionly want my Purrfection MGBed, but right now its becoming such an extreme rarity its depressing.
Unlike everyone else here for high end bsts that say they don't use a pet b/c it dies all the time, well I use my pet ALL THE TIME and I keep it alive perfectly fine. My pet has pet affinity and that AA helps TONS, with all the free buffs I get, plus the filtering tools given to us now, I can have almost a 9-10k hp pet plus myself at 15k hps raid buffed.
My heals are EXCELLENT, I don't see where they need to increase even more, my Heal AAs crit TONS when I do use them to splash the pet once or twice and I use Pet Mend CONSTANTLY during an AE hit and it also crits for almost 8k Mana Free and pet is back at full HPs. There are *some* bosses that due to the boss having too many big HP hitting AEs in a row, that yes I would not be able to sustain a pet (think HQ) and so I don't bother in that situation. But a good majority of the time, I have my pet with me 99% of all raids, PLUS my werewolf, which I cast every time the spell refreshes on everything I can...lol.
Now for me - I see that folks do not want us to get more buffs, and well I'm sorry but we need better buffs. Big BIG upgrades to our buffs. Changing SA line to lasting longer so that we can now ATTEMPT to compete with everyone else on how big their buff timers on was nice, but I STILL think that it can have that timer made even LONGER than what was given to us. Seriously my SA atm lasts 101 mins long and I am the only bst in my guild that has the longest lasting SA (and we have myself plus two other constantly raiding bsts and yes all three of us raid AT THE SAME TIME and are always wanted). The main reason we are wanted for thou is...funny enough mainly Fero, second SA, third MGB Purrfection, fourth and lastly our mediocre dps. This is CURRENTLY the experiences I am having, right now in a Demiplane Guild.
So things or ideas to make beastlords more wanted?
Give us LONGER LASTING SA, even more than what you have already given us, we NEED SPELL CASTING REINFORCEMENT MASTERY PLEASE! Competing vrs a Chanter who gives 224mins of ONE CRACK/Mana Buff compared to our 101 mins is a joke. Make it at least 180 Mins at LEAST.
Give us a GROUP FERO that can be MGBED. THIS IS THE KEY that will help us be wanted, the more bsts you got , the more Fero can be MGBED, or Purrfection, or SA, just to make certain things easier, aka buffing, and even heal/mana regen recovery. Also maybe a MGB AA to LOWER THE TIMER for ALL CLASSES so that MGB can be cast every hmm 40-35mins maybe?
Give Purrfection a boost in how much mana and hp is gathered back for MGB Heal purposes.
and finally maybe we can try / discuss / brainstorm from this new idea I just brainstormed on the fly as I was typing...lol..
!!!!! NEW IDEA !!!!!!!! :
Maybe if you gave Beastlords an innate ability or special ability this will make us more popular and wanted in groups and raids again....I am basing my idea from funny enough, a Charm slot item. I came up with this idea from that Charm Slot item that states, "whenever you are surrounded by members of the same class, your charm gets stronger." Well how about we take that and instead of putting it into an item, we put it into an actual class like the beastlord?
We are a Beast LORD. Since we are specialists in training/maintaining beasts of all kinds (Examples: wolf/tiger/bear/leezard/balisk) we should be able to somehow make any beast that is in our prescence better in some way... for we are the Lord of all things Beastlike. You could turn this ability into that it effects only other beastlords if you have more of them around you, BUT if you did I think that would not help as much since it would only affect the same class, so therefore I think it needs to be that, the more beastlords you have in a raid or group, this special ability activates (even if you only have one raiding beastlord). Also we should have it increase a certain percentage for if you have two beastlords at a raid or group, and three ect..you get the picture.
Now what is the Special Ability you ask?
Here it is: The more pets of ANY CLASS that they are in a raid or grouped with a Beastlord, all owners' PETS will have an increase in DPS/HPS by *insert percentage or number here* and the SAME percentage will affect the WHOLE RAID OR GROUP MEMBERS THEMSELVES..!
You can make this a Innate Ability that you gain at certain levels, of course the higher the level, the better the ability gets and it will automatically override the old ability with the newest/higher version according to level.
Now, if beastlords could have something, this special, and that could actually work and benefit not only themselves, but a raid or a group,I think you'd see beastlords wanted more. Other notes and ideas, this could be an ability that only will "turn on" so to speak when your in a group with at least one more person, or within a raid. This way the beastlord would not be giving its pet an extra boost while we solo. You can say that for arguments sake, the reason we do not gain this special ability when solo is because we are "training" our pets.
I think this idea fits into the category in which you are looking for Tast, its not a buff since we don't cast it, and it will make other beasts happy here since its not a spell to purchase thru plat, nor do they use mana to use, it just...happens automatically :)
Please discuss and let me know what you think, like I said I just came up with this on the fly and I got myself excited now...LOL
I didn't read all the 8 pages, but i thought of a ideal. What if you can cast a Buff on our pet that will improve all the pet's that are grouped with Bst. This pet buff will increase dps and maybe the resistance of those pet so they have better chance of survival again AE mob.
So we not trying to become Player buffer, but we are master of pet buff a role that fit our title.
magi were sorta given similar to that already.. the PoR aura is a 5% damage mod to pets. Overwrites might.
I didn't know about Mage aura, but why in hell :evil: we don't have a Aura!
Still, having specialize pet spell to increase effectivness of pet in Raid situation will be great. As all other's aspect of buff are already cover 10 times better from others class. Even if they added regen endurance to our crack Bst spell, you still only 1 Bst in raid to do it.
Buffing first of all is a very big part of the bst class, our dps is not good enough for us to Sollie rely on to get us groups(this also goes to our usefulness in groups) getting guild invites cause 1 bst in a guild would be enough. As a raiding bst when we face a boss mob or something, our raid leader puts me in groups with melee, and i fero all of them, keeping fero on 6 ppl at once is a difficult task in and of itself, but it can be done. In groups i still find myself feroing a rog or zerker just cause it seems to be habit, of course fero is one of those buffs that is always on me. In response to the if not buffs question, the only answer is buffs, we need our buffs w/o them we become a second rate melee class with a pet (which could also be considered a buff. People who complain because they don't want to be a buffing class need to play a rogue or wiz, obviously this is not the class for you.
Now what i would like to see them add to our spell list is a group fero, people say that fero is only good for raiding, I'm gonna have to disagree on that because the atk and resist component on the spell would be a huge boost to any groups dps and there chance to resist any spells that the mob would cast, also a second spell i would like to see is a canni type spell that would mimic the shm version but would be just as good as the SK version of lich is to the necro version, maybe a 40'ish version of canni. I mean we are part shm our spells reflect that and i think a lower lvl canni could be put to alot of use.
Group Fero is the debil :evil: DEBIL!
kk.. folks.. go read the analysis Tastian did for what the mana cost would end up being on group Fero, based upon the comparison of similar single target buff (FA) turned group (Champion). Go read his parsing analysis of what Ferocity does for dps, not just bst. I've seen parses on very high end monks to where it increases their dps a whopping 11 dps.... when they were popping out almost 900 dps. Lemme see.. 11/900 ~= 1.222% dps increase.. for a relatively massive amount of mana.
Now.. your Raid leaders will then expect your role to be to pop out this probably, at the very least, 2200mana point buff on everyone, as much as it is possible to cast. I've got 12k mana, raid buffed. That's prolly 6 casts before I become OOM (add'll cast due to mana regen in the interim 2 mins). That is 2/3rds typical full raid force nowadays (54 man exped limits are so bloody annoying). Now.. a vast majority of those folks will be adding it to their blocked buffs list because they don't want it to use up a buff slot.
Your raid leaders might also want it mgb'd at times. There's an even more incredible amount of mana pissed away on a pretty worthless buff and our mgb role of PoS (yeah, it sucks atm, but I still get it called for) goes down the drain.
And from having to cast this so much, you will no longer be nuking, casting BE, nor dotting (if you for some reason actually like casting dots.. /shiver). You will just be buffing. That's it. You will become nothing more than a buff bot. I don't have objections to buffing, per se, but that is not the core role of the class. It would devolve us into one trick ponies, except our role can be substituted by a boxed toon, and where would that leave us.
In summary, SAY NO TO GROUP FERO!! PLEASE DEAR GOD BY ALL THAT'S HOLY!!
NO GROUP FERO! NO GROUP FERO! NO GROUP FERO! NO GROUP FERO! NO GROUP FERO!
I don't know how many times i will have to say this but for the love of god stop asking for useless buffs! We don't need pieces of crap like group fero taking the place of something else that could actually be useful.
1-2% increase in dps for a large amount of mana is useless, no matter how you try to rationalize it. For less mana we can increase our own dps by 10% or more using Growl of the Panther. So if you imagine a group fero costing at least 3x single cost, your talking about increasing one groups dps by the same amount as you would increase your own dps with one cast of Growl for an incredibly large amount of mana. It's just plain stupid to want a group fero in the current form.
Ask for Fero to be upgraded with increased chance to crit/proc/double attack/etc .... before asking for a useless buff to be made groupable.
You do not see sham champ or panthering a whole raid, most likely if they added group fero it would be group only, and since i'm alrdy dropping over 2500 mana feroing 4-6 ppl group fero is a welcome. Also having you fero parse be even slightly accurate you'd have to do atleast 50 parses with the same buffs that means, the same buffs mgb, warcry, auspice etc , the same group set, with the same ppl with the same epic clicks at the same time with the same disc fire off at the same time. well i think i made my point that any parse is not accureate to a degree of 5-10% eaither way.
Also panther is a 20% dmg mod, that doesn't mean a 20% increase in dps.
Laissez.. tastian has done an incredible amount of his own parsing for ferocity.
The monk who did that parsing on fero had it on for a 10 or 12 (I forget which) hour parse. The data I mention is good info. The return on it, in its present form, is pathetic.
You are right abt shm not champing an entire raid. Its not worth a GoM proc to cast on a caster group. (my kingdom for GoM, but that's a total pipe dream) I broached the subject to my guild once. They, for some reason, went gaga over the idea of group fero. Except they frankly have no idea of the costs involved. I wasn't able to nor willing to argue the point there. But you know what they really liked the idea of? the resists.. that's it.. just the resists. The casters, of course, thought it would be a big dps increase.. /points at parsing data that says that ain't so (love peeps that got nfc abt such stuff talking about it. Much like some people who've never played a pet class always whining about pet push.)
grawr! bleh.. some other board stupidity tickin me off a bit.
The parse information is around. It backs up how poor the return is on attack over 2k. Asking for this waste of spellbook space to be group (and 99% probability would be that it would not even be /tgb'able) would make them think they are granting us what we want and making another grievous error instead.
Can only back the others up, Fero in its current state is nothing usable except for the resists and even that is pretty much useless at least at the higher end (maxed resists for the most part prior fero). The monk parse was very impressive and even worse than what you see for bst only parses, my own around 15 hours of parsing do show a very small percentage increase in dps for us, but apparently it is even less for pure melees.
Asking for a groupversion of a useless spelll wont make it any better, so i wont ask for it if they do not upgrade fero in a way that it is usable again. Oh, just for reference, our 3 beastlords dont use fero on raids anymore since raid parses do not show any increased dps at all.
If people want resists, there already is a +50 all stat resist mask in dodh that is questable by everyone. Fero is not worth 750 mana for resists alone for 6.5 minutes base.
How about a BL only AA that may help mitigate the biggest (and unjustified) complaint that any group or raid has about warders.
NO PUSH.
Now almost every melee class and many casters contribute to the mobs skating all around the battle area but it is always "Beasties, stop the PUSH!"
We spend a good deal of our time calling the warders off the mob and repositioning to counter the caster push. So much so that we get commands for it.
How about a Restrain AA. It would allow a warder to stop all attacks and casts, be invulnerable but hold the mob where it is for, say, 30 seconds. Think police dog grip on the mob's yayas. With a recast of 15-30 minutes or so it could only be used on major mobs. The raid to hire on multiple beasts to help position the mob and hold it with the MT.
It would drop our dps by a bit, but as we all know, we are not known for our dps at the high end.
Other than that, how about SA covering all 3 needs - +HP, +MANA, and +END.
ya know.. except for the invulnerability part, I REALLY like that one. Doesn't fit the cats or bears or gators so well, from a roleplay aspect, but I do like that idea. Adds a helluva utility. Granted, I don't see it happening, but that is a neat one.
I would so love an AA such as that. Would help so much for us to be able to stop a mobs movement for 1 min or so. This would add another demention for us raid utility wise, not the we have one atm. I would also like to see an upgraded Perfection. I would spend 50 aa's just to get perf to 500 mana a tick. Just a thought
I can see you concerns about group fero, but what i do during a raid, is quite a bit of feroing, useally i try to get everyone fero'ed b4 we engage, and just forget about wear offs on everyone but myself, so having a group fero for me would be a huge upgrade. I'm not gonna blow my whole mana pool feroing a raid, that would be pure ignoreance and if fero was actually needed i would proally end up dieing due to lack of mana and no heals. I seriously doubt that they will give of a group fero, just cuase the sham community would complain to much about how its too close to champion.
What i want to see most of all tho is a canni, through aa or spells i don't care.
You do understand laissez that all your feroing amounts to an insignificant increase in raid dps for a large amount of mana, right? It only makes atk classes drool when they see their atk numbers.
I love the idea of "restrain". It's the best idea I heard in a long time and one that actually makes perfect sense from a role playing point of view, would be useful on raids, and would be difficult for people to complain about.
I do relize that but them drooling makes them happy then i'm ok with that, plus it gets me in the dps groups, and skyrockets my dps. The high amounts of mana is a none issue since i'll regen to full b4 both fero's refresh.
Quote from: laissez on August 25, 2006, 04:31:50 PM
useally i try to get everyone fero'ed b4 we engage, and just forget about wear offs on everyone but myself, so having a group fero for me would be a huge upgrade.
According to your magelo, you have no Beneficial Focus, so in reality, you're only keeping Fero on 3 targets before it wears off of your first ones. Seeing as you keep it on yourself, that's (maybe) only 2 other people you're keeping Fero'd. Not really worth it.
Quote from: laissez on August 25, 2006, 04:31:50 PM
I'm not gonna blow my whole mana pool feroing a raid, that would be pure ignoreance and if fero was actually needed i would proally end up dieing due to lack of mana and no heals.
The underlined part is what everyone else has been saying. Fero just isn't worth it. Adding a group version would be... well...
not worth it.
They don't need to add a group version of a crappy spell. That would be, again, not worth it. They need to upgrade the current spell. Things that I would like to see, are maybe an attack cap increase, or some kind of mod like double attack or critical hit mod. The duration for the buff makes up for it being "too good", because it's a virtual impossibility to hit more than 5 targets per raid (with DPoB focus).
You might want to look over my magelo again maybe my hat "hint hint"
My apologies. You have a 30% Beneficial Focus.
My point still stands though -- change the 3 people that you keep Fero on to 4 people. :-o
Amazing DPS boost? I don't think so.
Aye considering our new spells. 1 cast of the swarm pet is more likely a bigger boost in DPS and/or damage to the raid then one cast of fero on any class. It is simple ratios now.
Alright to explain myself alittle more, i'm not trien to compare the effectiveness against our walf pet, b/c you don't have to do one or the other, our dps is not that great, and any little bit i can squeeze out i can. Also i keep 2 fero's up so i can fero 4 ppl and useally it won't wear off b4 the mob falls. Normally i only do this on burn mobs, keeping fero on 4 ppl during vish would not be a good use of mana b/c you can't do both cast wolf pet and fero 4 ppl, feroing other ppl is situational, there's always gonna be a mob that when its dead you still have mana left.
Dunno, i can dump around 13k mana in 3 to 4 minutes if i really want to. And that is of course without casting fero. The dps melee in my guild parsed it either themselves or just had a look at those parses done by others and now dont even ask for fero anymore. Another free spell slot to mem a nuke or a cure. Of course there are some fights that are faster, but not at the at the current raiding game anymore (wait, i just realised we only do DK at the moment, not even DPoB anymore).
I can dump 11.5k mana in 7-8 mins with 3 dd's and wolf pet, that also includes the 1:12-1:24mins worth of disc where i don't cast anything.
Wonderin about the growl lines and if they gonna get an upgrade in this next exp, tbh they arent that bad of spells for certain situations.....sure not all the time but on named raid mobs.
I know on more and more of the raids we are facing (AMV / JELVAN /PORTIO etc) we are typically doing roar rotations and using abolish disease quite a bit.
On encounters like visch we are valued for healing.
What I would like to see and think would be useful on raids is maybe an ability that allows our warders to take a percentage of the damage inflicted on a chosen target until the warder dies ( he would actually have a useful purpose on encounters where one round of aoe rampage would kill him since soe has the pet atk inside max range, park him and shield someone)
I would also like to see sv stack with bbb (that does not help with the arguement for more than one beast on a raid though), or better yet dont change sv, but give us an SV type spell that instead of hp / atk it adds a fixed amount of endurance.
An RC type ability would bring us more usefulness (perhaps only against certain spells)
Or an ability that could be used once per day or something that would make a chosen target immune to death touch type spells.
I wouldnt mind another debuff spell like roar of thunder either.
I also wouldnt mind an aura that would give a percentage bonus to heals spells that affected all in the group.
Quote from: Killian22 on September 03, 2006, 09:43:16 PM
Wonderin about the growl lines and if they gonna get an upgrade in this next exp, tbh they arent that bad of spells for certain situations.....sure not all the time but on named raid mobs.
The nice thing about growl is that it scales indefinately because it's a straight % gain. Unlike, say, fero. *nudge* *nudge* heh. Of course, the hp doesn't scale so hopefully we'll get some kind of an upgrade eventually but its not terribly urgent.
Saw this on page 1 and didn't feel like reading all 10... so sorry if anyone has built upon this
QuotePossibly allowing it to /shield other players would make it more interesting also.
Why not an AA for something like this, with a limited duration, like 2 ticks.
/petshield cleric01
The short duration would prevent it from being too overpowering yet would allow a tanking class to gain agro and save a much needed member or group/raid. Making it unusable on ourselves would keep other classes from complaining that it is overpowering and it would add a huge utility to our toolbox that would make us desireable in groups and raids. I could see beasts being assigned to support classes in raids, the more healers/CC a raid has the more need of bsts on that raid.
EDIT (after inphared's reply)
Perhaps a warder that is summoned with a player targeted and assigns it to that player (if game mechanics would allow this) and allow the warder to attack only when cleric01 is attacked. Low dps but high defensive capabilities would make it feasable to take some damage. Any offensive acts (ala DA) by the player would make it poof so that it can't be exploited by melee classes for a /shielding effect.
The only problem I see with that is that our pet can't take any damage worth mentioning. The pet would die before the shielding had any real value.
The new slow proc has some potential though.
well /shield only takes half damage and a raid buffed runed pet could probably survive 3 ticks of half damage if it was lucky. And if it was unlucky...well i'd be glad to sacrifice my pet if it saved a cleric. (shows how useful pets are nowadays :p)
This is a quote from a Paladin officer in my guild, from a Beastlord application thread.
"About getting another beastlord I am indifferent. To be honest I could live without any BST every day. In terms for raids I havent seen anything which indicates we need the BST on a raid.
But this player looks like an addition to the guild as a player and not as a raid tool thats why I vote for his app.I am curious about his performance."
At first after reading it I became hurt and was going to reply with a "how much paladins sux" post, but after calming down a bit I realized that I agree with him somehow.
We DO need some raid utility, just not sure what to add that is not there already... :|
Yep I agree we need something. With the new regen rate out Aura of Spirits seems to me to be rather lacking. It would me very nice to have it upgraded to be a noticable and more useful tool on raids. Or maybe even a MGBable Beastal Frenzy based ATK line for when your raid really needs a burst of DPS.
Well having reached 74 (almost 75, yeh I know I slack :-P) and gotten pretty much whats useful to us as far as spells go I gonna put my 2cp in here on what I can.
Yeh do somthin with fero cause I dont even gotta be 75 yet to see that its still crap, I ask rogues and zerkers all the time on raids wtf they wanna waste a buff slot on that spell for when its turn around is lacking these days, sure its great for casual players who might not have atk capped and the resist boost is nice for everyone but the stamina...come on throw us a bone here. I've got a few suggestions on this and I am prolly just repeating whats been said time and time again.
1. Make this thing either last longer, like alot longer cause its just to mana intensive for the time it last say what 30 mins or make it stay the same time and make it a group spell. This makes it scale well for raiders and casual players alike.
2. Either make it add more END to you or an enhanced regen on end, this kinda scales to the raiding side of the house more cause of the 5 min cool down to start OOC in raid zones so SOE wont do that proly but we can hope :-P.
3. Add a % mod to somthin with it to make it more desirable nuff said. Rangers get it as does their parent class. Shamans get it as they are one of our parent classes we should as well, nothin major but somthin.
Pet Surviability:
With this new exp we see promised mending, now I have played with this spell in raids and solo/group and imo its not to bad and I think SOE went in the right direction with this as it has alot of potential but as it is atm its geared more toward casual than raid because as we all know raid mobs usually AE ramp these days and 18 sec delay on that heal isnt doing us any good cause we have to back the pet up and possibly get outta the fight completely for it to fire before the pet goes poof from a round of ramp. IMO the simplist fix to this is to just make the pet at all times fight at max melee as to avoid ramps and what not, and if SOE has a problem with that just tell em "hey the pet goes poof if the master dies anyways so why punish the pet anymore than neccesary" :-P. No invul to ramp/rage/AE spells just make em fight at max melee is that to much to ask.
Spells:
Heh well I guess we arent the only ones that saw a crap return on spells this exp but dang can we get a freaking group haste or extend the time pls. I swear if i gotta click a whole group with my clicky bp again at 10 secs a click every 20 mins I am gonna flip a wig. I mean seriously we dont ask for a better haste we only ask for a group version of the same haste or extend the time on it is that so much to ask.
Pet Procs: ok the cold and magic only procs have gotta go. Havent gotten the DoT proc yet so cant comment on that one. In PoR they gave us a fire proc and I was like wow somthin different continue to do that so our pets arent limited in their dps in certain areas.
Burst Pet and Growl lines: Ok I really like these spells as they add a good amount of dps to our class. Now as far as I know from lookin at alla their is a new spam pet in order with the new exp so lets hope it goes live and is a good bit better. As far as growl goes we didnt get an upgrade to it this so that makes this the 3rd exp it hasnt gotten one, imo this is a very good spell in certain situations and needs to be upgraded.
Focus: Well I'm happy they made it group so I guess we cant complain but would be nice for em to combine IoS with it think it was called erm Fo7 or somthin like that and make it group :-P. I say combine the stats cause not all have max stats so would be nice for them.
SE: ok the scaling to mana sucks for these nuff said make it better
DPS:
IMO we saw a pretty decent upgrade to dps the last few exp with Rake, Spam pet and double attack skill (think it gives us 50% base DA at 75 with max DA AAs and max DA skill iirc so thats not to bad) so if SoE intends to continue doing this keep it up.
As far as rake goes would like to see it upgraded or have an AA that either lowers the reuse time or improves its base dmg or whatever like they did with jagged swipe AA. Would like to see us get Round kick but thats just for visual stuff cause ikkies loo cool doin it :-P.
i have not looked at every page here and i have been out of game for dam close to a year, but from what i have seen on tss and even PoR. We Have have gteen alot of our DKP fixed with rake and jagegd claws and now even dub atk its low in skill but it works much better now i think.
i have a few thoguths on how we could become more useful at raids may of been said all rdy but hey way not voice it yet agien its up to the bst family alone to get us up and going i know some of us want to keep use rounded and othere just dos.
the fact of the matetr is we will NEVER be a top or even clsoe to top dps class. i know this when i started a BL as my main from warrior. we are an ok dps class that should bring more help then dps then anything. for the ones that think we need mroe dps i would say thats not what a BSt is about. thats my thoughts. but here is a few thigns that might help. i know a few aa foums of thigns might not work for every one But its just a thought fill free to call me a dumb ass for saying it.
OK i think we should have 2 upgrades Mainly for the raid area on bst.
1) a semi fast cast 2 ish sec maybe 3 Melee based spell dub atk ST cleave type effect as well thigns of that sort. but make is a short 45 sec to 1min buff. be nice on raids for your gruop and could bring a burst of dps if placed in a melee gruop.
2) caster type. damg mob's nuke crit mod thigns for casters same thing fast ish cast 45 sec to 1 min lasting
i could see othere one of theses in an aa forum would coast a bit but overe all worth it.
Pet shielding --is a grate thought i think useful soloing raids well every where.
Pet debuff -- also i like this thought even at a 60 ish lvl debuff from a debuff caster this would be rather helpful still can work.
Group Fero i think this would be a grate thing would need single cast and gruop tho solo and raiding forums but vere all would make us more wanted.
the bigest thing i know thats wrong with the raiding bst if the buffing. personly i dont like it but it's apart of my class. at raids i tend to spot heal slow and buff alot i do try to dkp as a main part but i have offtanked until tanks got back up and in the fight even helped Spot the Main tank when healer get killed little thigns save can help how people fill aboult having bst's on raids ist is mroe your play style then any thing. our spells and ability's do play a role in it but alot of bst's have to well wake up and play the class as it was ment to not just as a dps.
my thoughts take them to heart if you want to , but it's just my 2 copper.
A new spell or AA....Call it Beastial Blight
Effect: lowers the targets effective level by 3 (maybe an AA with 3 ranks, lowers the targets level by 1/2/3)
Duration: 1min
Recast: 3min
Resist: disease -400 or something that is very rarely resisted
the level-lowerinf effect will reduce the targets melee DPS slightly, make its spells slightly easier to resist, increase the melee and spell DPS done to it slightly, and will in certain situations allow a mob to be effected by spells that it currently isnt (ie stun and mezz level limits)
If a mob is under the effect of this ability when it dies it gives experience as if it were the 3 levels lower. Ie a 77 mob will now give exp as a level 74 mob. Loot tables and faction are uneffected by this ability.
By making the reuse 3 times longer than the duration, 1 beastlord will only be able to keep it up on 1 mob 1/3 of the time. In groups this will require the beastlord to save it for the right mob, while the loss of experience means in some cases it will be counter productive. This will also encourage guilds to have 3 beastlords, allowing a beastial blight rotation to be kept up on a single raid target.
Beastlords need a new ability that makes them more desireable in both groups and raids. Currently our slow is holding us back, in that we cant get much in the way of upgrades while we have it, but its usefulness is slowly being mitigated into nothingness....
Beastial blight is my answer to this problem.
I have to say that Beastial Blight idea sounds pretty damn good. It has positive and negatives associated with it. I just wonder if the coding would be possible. If i get into beta again I'll try to run this idea by the AA/spell devs. As an AA it wouldn't make it into this next expansion because the smaller February expansions normally don't have AAs included but possibly as a spell or an AA in the large September expansion.
thats an interesting idea. I don't think an exp penalty would be warranted though. Effective level would not affect the mob's hit numbers or hp, just allow it to on average hit a little less hard/often and on average be hit a little harder/more often. I'd imagine this would be a couple times more effective than a standard cripple. But i can definatly see a use for this type of ability on raids, where a stacking debuff contribution would be amazing.
The problem with that would be that the devs would then have to create a lower version for every mob out there. In some cases, that wouldn't be an issue, but wit named and/or specific targets they would have to create a table like they do with pets and pet focus. What damage do they give, what damage would they take, how are resists set. I like it, but I see way to many dev hours being obligated to creating such a spell/AA
Im not sure exactly how the code would work.
I was thinking the formula that determines wether you resist a mob's spells and wether it resists yours would simply take into account that the mobs level was now lower and you would have a better chance of getting a good result.
As for melee, the mobs HP, Damage bonus and Damage interval would stay the same. But becuase it was lower level, it would hit the tank for max slightly less often, and everyone would hit it for maximum sliightly more often. Wether the formula for these already takes into account relative level, I just dont know. If the formula doesnt, then it may be a case of debuffing the mobs offense and defense skills by 15 to achieve the same result.. do mobs even have offense and defense skills?? I assume so.
Either way I dont think a whole new mob would have to be coded for the effect to work...
The developers have to create a data file for each pet that works with each pet focus. This is the current problem with MoD and the 62/64 pets (they were never created). The files that support each pet tell max damage, resists, levels, everything. Now, to delevel a named (read unique creature), they would have to create a file for each level that it could be and fill in the data for each level (resists, hits, avoidance, etc). With non-named, it probably would be as much of an issue, but still some, after all a wyvern could be level 44-48 (not positive on that), so to delevel a 48 wouldn't be an issue, but they would still have to create a file for 43, 42, 41. My thoughts on it, and I'll admit I could be wrong.
bham's latter suggestion, re: lessening of attack/defense probably could simply enough solve that issue.
No, they would not be willing to increase the size of the creature db by at least 2 (one for base levels, one for debuffed for us).
Then you are talking about an atk debuff of some kind other than slow and/or a resist debuff of some kind, both of which fall under shammy/druid/ench realm
Well lets see here, I am a full time Raid Beastlord. My pet is on every raid every boss. I almost never loose him. I make sure I have him up for MGB's I put him on hold so he doesn't run around and cause havoc when the AE's go off "IE: All the dam time". My pet survives almost everything up to a point. Razorthorn is about the only zone that I put him away and only bring him out bosses.
Beastlords have 1 problem before we start getting more DPS. We can't dump aggro like Monks, Rogues, Rangers, Wizards, Enchanters, (Dont know about Zerkers). Roar has got me more aggro than I enjoy playing with. If we get more DPS we need something to help us not end up tanking trash. I am 15.6K Raid buffed and thats not helping when I am getting quadded for 2K+. While I would like to see us in a higher DPS role I can't honestly say we are able to do it effectively due to aggro management.
My guild uses Aura of Spirits on raids so our beastlords save MGB's when its appropriate so we are ready for the AE's, I get asked all the time for Fero by Monks, Rouges, Beserkers, Rangers. Depending on the fight I could have 1 to 3 ferocity spells loaded just cause I get put into a DPS group for the sole purpose of fero on them. I can keep Fero going on 9~12 people depending on how hard I am working on it.
So its a bit of a toss up on what we are doing as to what role we play. Are we Utility? Yes.. Are we DPS? Yes..
There are drawbacks on both sides of the fence though on what you do and how you do it. I would like to see something done with the Roar line though so we can up our DPS with out going splat.
Speaking from a more middle of the road raiding experience, a frustration for our guild is having all the healers (cleric, druid, shaman) keeping melee alive in Tacvi, leaving less optimal classes to cure AE counters and spot heal the fingerwagglers. The beastlord was designed as a hybrid of the shaman, and as such has heals, buffs, and cures similar to shamans. If you advocate better healing, the priest classes will scream bloody murder and demand higher heals as well. It would be nice, but I'd rather fight than heal. However, I wouldn't mind beastlords being the kings of cures, especially poison and disease. I can cure all kinds of counters off my pet with a single pet heal, but I can't cure crap off myself, that just doesn't make sense. Give beastlords either the best cure, or just below the best cure for poison and disease, something that is in keeping with our shaman side of our origins. Say we mastered the lore of the snake, and uncovered the secret to resisting its venom, for instance.
Not going to happen, and Like hell we cant heal. I have kept my group alive many times on Vish and other encounters.
Quote from: Skraach on January 16, 2007, 05:22:10 PM
I can cure all kinds of counters off my pet with a single pet heal, but I can't cure crap off myself, that just doesn't make sense.
Makes sense to me...we're the veterinarians of EQ :)
We lost the title of hybrid cure kings with TSS (at least between rangers and beasts, not sure about pallies). Rangers got a multi cure that included poison/disease/curse counters, maybe not large (haven't done research), but a few casts and they can cure a curse, whereas we are still stuck with our old individual poison/disease cures without any curse cures.
Quote from: Soriab on January 16, 2007, 06:32:53 PM
Not going to happen, and Like hell we cant heal. I have kept my group alive many times on Vish and other encounters.
Never said we can't heal, but you are missing the point. No one is going to recruit beastlords to heal for a raid. Wouldn't recruit them for a superior cure either, but cures in addition to the rest we have to offer does provide some appeal. And I see no reason why it won't or shouldn't happen. No one's claimed to be the masters of curing that I am aware of, so whose to say we can't ask for that title and the spells to go with it? The question seems to be what would give us a defined role on a raid, being the king of cures would certainly be a defined role for those encounters.
Most of this was originaly posted by disco a while back on TSS beta but....since SoE is slacking I feel it needs to be reposted I like it I know some of these are a little out-dated and some are in developement but I would like to see others implimented
1. Our warders are still lacking a heavy DPS upgrade that makes them as viable as other pet classes. The pet focus from DoDH was a very essential upgrade to the survivability of our pets, but unfortunately, the dps did not scale as well as we would have liked. Oroshar was a simple piecemeal upgrade that was supposed to have been reviewed after PoR launched, but with Rytan leaving, it never got the attention it deserved.
2. Much like Magicians, Bestial Empathy has become a nice addition to our DPS. I think that adding additional levels of this spell, that would allow the Beastlord to call multiple werewolves, would be a step in the right direction of possibly shifting -beastlords' grumbles about our warder's viability as simple DPS.
3. Beastlords, since Luclin, have become increasingly a DPS class rather than the original utility class that we were supposed to have been. There was talk of utility based procs for our warders during PoR's beta, and it's been an idea that's been hammered to death on the Beastlord forums. Adding different types of procs that affect the group (Via the same mechanics as necro/sk taps), would be a welcome addition that might add desirability for our class in not only single group situations but raid situations. Adding procs that tap mana back to the group, increase a certain combat skill for a small duration – the suggestions here are endless, but would require significant balancing for them no to be too overpowering.
4. Group Fero – this ability seems to have the beastlord community split. There are those of us that want it, and others that don't see the need. Frankly, with ATK being where it is on high-end raiding, its usefulness simply doesn't compound to what it was originally intended for. There are numerous suggestions for a new spell line that might fix this, and with the way TSS is handling spell progression, it might work very well. Fero itself needs an overhaul, to perhaps rid its self of the +STA and +ATK, to give actual combat effects, such as +crit, +accuracy or something such as that. Making the spell a group spell, or perhaps even an aura, would increase the use of the spell and bring it more in line with what is needed to make it a viable option.
5. DoTs – a lot of us disliked the change to Scorpion Venom, especially in tanking situations, because it destroyed a principle snap agro ability of beastlords. We are left spamming Incapacitate now. That was one of the only DoTs that I think beastlords really ever used, because they simply are horribly balanced and not worth a spell slot. I would be nice to see in TSS a DoT that was actually worth loading, instead of having three nukes up.
6. SA – We've been constantly told that adding one mana regen to Spiritual Ascendance would be unbalancing, yet we see clicky effects that do 10 mana regen on their own. The SA line has needed a major upgrade, not a piecemeal upgrade, for a long time now. Beastlords have suggested that endurance regen be added to it, to make it a viable spell for all classes, but nothing was ever heard back. Perhaps the last few spell levels of the new SA spell (I am assuming there will be one) could have an endurance regen component.
7.With the way the game has changed since Paragon was a much desired raid/group item, there must be some larger changes to this skill besides simple stat increases. This, even moreso than Fero/SA were the defining ability of beastlords on raids. It needs more help.
I would suggest something unique, that would provide a nice, but non-overpowering boost, while giving bsts some raid desirability they've been losing.
Something akin to -
Add 10% Chance to fire Gift of Mana
in addition to the base mana/hp regen of it. Another one is the % regen vs pure numbers mentioned above, but I think we all can understand how that may not be possible (balance concerns).
Theres many things that would work, but IMO the base boost to Aura of Spirit will still end up lacking and not address the issues I mentioned above. Thus, this (or something similar) as an extra is needed.
8. SV - This spell line has guide us through and been a very benficial buff to us. There are those of us who love this buff and think its very useful and a nice trade off from the paladin line and ranger line of hp buffs. I am suggesting adding a mod to this making it in essense like howl of the pred like rangers have but with hp / atk / and another mod, Combat affects, a stackable cleave mod, accuraccy mod something making this buff worth using again. Thus making it a worthwhile spell to buff raids and dps classes with adding to our utility aspect
-That about sums up what I would like to see changed in beastlords this time around. I feel we have lost our jazz and nitch in raids like we used to have. We are a rock solid class in groups, but in raids we lack the need to be there anymore. Any questions or comments please post.
I dont see any of our buff lines having a significant future, our "focus" and SV line combines add so little HP that it equates to 1/3rd of a round of damage from trash mobs. They are there as comfort factors for casters and only cast when a paladin or shaman are not available.
SE has had diminishing returns up until TSS, but then very few BSTS will get the RK III version for some time, so that has yet again missed the marked.
Haste is beaten by a bottle, as is invisibility.
If we are a buffing class then so are necro's
Perosnly i Dont think we would get a cure. dont get me wrong i would like one. but thats a step going the wrong way asking for it we mine as well try but i dont see it going any where.
Haste is long broken for us its what a lvl 60 spell? can buy potuion in PoK better then it for 39pp a pop i sued to buy them by the stack untill i got sick of spening all that pp on then and just Farmed my self an ornate tunic for the same spell we have. atm our haste is not worth meming. not for me any ways i much rather Keep BE or a nuke up i like the endru buff thoughts. would think being one witht he wilds we should know about this type of thing as beastlrods. i have been reading and i like alot of the input many of you are coming up with itas just a matter of Doing the derv's work for them i think. plane to scale it dont overe power it and then just might even think aboult looking some of it over.
and yes i think Fero needs a Long over duo overhaul. the sta and suck we even use helll the only part of it wanted is the atk.. i personly liek the resists i find it a bit harder to get my resists maxed out without a bard. but the again who does not.
i think we should have 2 GRUOp copys of the spelll
Fero 1 Mass atk 400-500 ish and a fero/cleave/ somethign effect.
Fero 2 Single cast Self only low mana (400-500) not to much lower then ours now but then again it's a self buff make it kinda liek yalp but bsty style atk add ina dub atk % like 6-8% on it and reists
i think this would help keep fero on us a nice one for soloing there is a grate dea of things we are all most likey thinking aboult ot have we need tog et them out and try to take a vote or poll find out what we as a gruop liek the most and sumit it =-) thats my 2 copper. Blarp out
I still think the post I made is a good direction for us as disco was the original owner of most of that information but I have talked to alot of bsts serverwide who feel the same.....I just feel its a good thing to repost this as a direction for us to go in
I know this may be late to the discussion, but...
It seems to me that Beastlords are the Masters / Alpha Dog of the pet kingdom. And when I think of raids, I think of pack tactics trying to bring down a big creature. So, what if there was an AA or series of AAs that summoned a stationary ward. What this ward would do is count the number of pets within it's range each tick and use that number to either increase each pet's damage or provide some group abilities to just those pets. It would be a short enough duration that multiple BSTs in a raid would be beneficial, and it would encourage other pet classes to use their pets as well to increase the pet number. Essentially it's power would be linked directly to the number of pets in a raid at the time of the AA being used (or per tic). A zerg for pets.
Depending on how you ramp up the power of the effect, it would essentially be useless for a solo BST but it could still be nice in groups. Additional AAs could increase the power, range, and possibly duration. Maybe even lower the level of pet required to count. When I think of this idea, the thought of a Pet Focus is what brought it to mind.
Sorry if my thoughts are disjointed. Been up a couple days now. LOL.
mages already have that in aura affect called rathes str or w/e its called
im a raid bst, i got 18.7khp with growl / trib and have the AC of a crushbone orc,
i love playing a utililty for grp but i also love to raid, and thats were we are poor, not only do we have little to offer in terms off buffs, OOC regen has made AoS (paragon) mostly pointless.
in raids at high end, (well, from OOW onwards) pets are so hazardous in wiping raids, taking ramp etc when /pet hold fails , accedentally not put on, pet push etc... that most guilds will not allow pets to be used unless its a straight forward kill with no tactics.
with my 2.0 and a pimp ass tonfa this gives me the dps of a small badjur and a few random /tells for fero.. not the most fun in the world.
maybe this issue has/ hasnt been mentioned, im new to this site and just putting in my 2cp.
oh, and why oh why are we using the same single target/ short duration haste that was on lvl55 ornate armour, haste potions are the same spell with better a better duration then our haste and i use them myself as its more convinent.