We have been asked about new aa's and new spells that we would like and a few of the post I read I agree with but other I just have to LOL about. What I would like to see more before they add new spell / aa is for our class to be defined.
What is the role of a Bst in the following?
Group
Raid
I played many MMO over the years and one thing I seen is when they balance the char the game dies. all class end up becoming the same and in the end their little to make them stand out.
Currently what makes bst stand out ?
Paragon. Now with out of combat regen and the high HP/Mana caps it almost to the point that it not adding that much and went from being a high request on raid to some thing that most the time no one even knows we cast it.
Maybe as a fix and End regen. Or up the mana / hp so that it makes an impact.
Fero. This is a line that when first came out was wonderful. It help with both DPS that wanted the boost and tanks that wanted resist. I remember using it not only in raids but in group all the time. I would love to see it return.
If it returns I like to see it do some thing maybe add Resist that go over the cap. That way it can have it use back with so many player max resist the resist it adds is nothing so going over cap will add back that use for it. As for DPS add enough attack that you can see the effect on a parse. I don't think it need to be a big improvement but at least something that can be seen. Maybe 5 more DPS would even be worth dusting off this classic.
Pet. Our pet went from being one of the top pets in the game to almost as gimp as the non pet classes. I would love to see our pets improved.
Gear) Mages pets are summoned with gear. Often on a raid my pet will die and now my pet is ½ what it used to be when fully geared. Asking a mage mid fight to regear my pet is not going to happen. An idea to fix this is maybe an AA / spell that will let us scavenge gear that we can use to gear our pets. I not saying it need to be better gear then what mages summon but something on par that we don't need to find a mage every time our pet dies. If they feel that it taking away from mages then give us a line that is just under the current line for mages. After all some thing is better then nothing.
Wader) Mages / nerco have different types of pet they can use in different ways. War pets to tank / Rogue to dps / monk to stun / caster to nuke. Ours tends to be an all in one where it used to tank dps and then proc to get the stun and nuke. The problem I see is that over time our all in one has gotten small upgrades where Their different pets based on what they want it to due is now by far out performing. I again am not saying that we need to have the best pet but I would like to see an improvement.
The Idea I have to fix this is the pet buff line. Rather then just giving us a stun dps proc of our pet how about adding a few others that will not stack but that we can use to define our pet to what we want it to do.
Example (Rune / AC proc ) This would remove the damage proc and the stun effect but give the Pet AC and a rune so that it can tank better.
( Damage proc) Rather then a damage / stun proc how about a proc that is a lot more damage that way we can pick if we want to have the stun or the extra damage.
( AE stun ) maybe add an AE stun that done no extra damage but would be used in times.
The goal of this is to not over power our pet but to more so make it useful. As a beast lord we work side by side with our pets you would think that over time we would focus in on our warder skills and help bring out their talent.
I think working on these 3 things Pet / Paragon / Fero that are class defining abilities for a bst that it will help improve our class and help add meaning into our role in groups and raids. With the new Hard mode for raid each class I feel need to have a key role and I feel bst are slowly getting pushed out so If the CL are able to help that is what I would like to see give us some thing that says lets get a bst in here for _________ we could use really use that.
QuoteParagon. Now with out of combat regen and the high HP/Mana caps it almost to the point that it not adding that much and went from being a high request on raid to some thing that most the time no one even knows we cast it.
Maybe as a fix and End regen. Or up the mana / hp so that it makes an impact.
While I would love to see endurance regen added to our para line I have to disagree with the rest of your statement. Whle ooc regen has been a huge help to all of us mana users, during combat is when Focused Paragon shines, at least on a number of the mobs we raid it is a huge help to clerics and other mana users, but primarily we use it on healer classes. On some raids we have specific people we feed constantly as soon as it drops and other times its when asked. To say though that it is something that no one even knows we cast means to me that its not being used to its full effect on your raids. MGB para is also something that has been extremely helpful during combat....at least thats how I see it.
I'm perfectly content with the role I play on a raid and in groups. I'd rather not give up current durability of our class to have stronger pets. I'd rather not give up current DPS roles to have stronger pets. If your pet dies constantly on raids, you are doing something wrong. If you want to have a pet that can tank or out DPS most classes, play a mage. You want to FD, play a monk or an SK. You want fade, play a bard. You want to heal, play a cleric. You want to port, play a wizard or druid. Getting my point?
If your guild doesn't know the power of PoS or fPoS, then get off your butt and educate them, or find a guild that will utilize you in the role the beastlord fills.
We have a role, stop trying to change the class to fit whatever you want to see done. You want to be the end all, be all class, go play Diablo or Morrowind.
/rant off
The problem is, for some guilds, paragon just isn't really needed much. The mega-dps guilds like Triality or CT kill many of the mobs so fast, that there's far less use for the ability.
Thanks to the abysmal expansion we're in clearing tower is not anymore a highend guildy privilege, it is actually done by all highend and most middle game guilds nowadays (on my server its farmed by 4 guilds and another 2 will do soon). That means that the equipment level evens up and is generally so high that paragon is next to useless. No fight takes long enough to make it usefull nowadays except to keep my own dps up on events of 4 or more minutes. Healers in general do not have a real mana problem nowadays, quite a few clerics in my guild even load up nukes and their hammer pet to dps a bit during their main-heal job.
Fero is a really sore issue as many melee dps still ask for it, however parses show it is more effective to cast yowl than fero even the best melee dps you have. It was acknowledged to be useless a few years ago allready by prathuun in a house of commons chat, and he admitted to just add a new version every expansion because he doesn't have a clue what to do with it. Since Underfoot is not a level raise expansion i rather hope we will be spared a new version.
DPS in general is okay, we could use some minor tweaks like much increased neg hate abilities and a higher dps warder, however i would not like to see a nerf in personal dps to favor our warder, especially if its survivability lags even farther behind than it does allready (a fully mage equipped and raid buffed warder has around 29k hp, that is considerably less than what we require for silky apps).
if you watch, a lot of other classes have utility and dps top
so why we dont have utility and top dps at same time.
slow is overrated, like fos and a few hp buffs also. a crappy heal that you need to cast 10 times to be at full hp.
monk have fd/pull tools and dps
magician have coth and ds shields, summoned stuff and top dps
ranger have harmonized arrow lot of dps aa and tankablity and good dps
rogue have smokebomb and quite some other stuff and top dps
necro has fd/snare/root levitationgroupbuff groupmanasteal, and top dps
there can be a few more examples
i mean why would we be a utility class with lower dps?
what do we have for uber utilities that for example mages can easy do a few k dps more.
stand up for your class and see the bigger picture that other classes have utility and dps at same time.
we should be at least at ranger dps and the gap with mages need to be much smaller then it is.
...
Quote from: rhaug on August 02, 2009, 10:40:31 AM
we should be at least at ranger dps and the gap with mages need to be much smaller then it is.
Aren't we now? No ranger has out dps me so far nor monks. However every bit more dps is welcomed warmly.
What comes to utility, I'm not sure what to request for utility. Maybe somekind of splitting ability with longer recast like mages have. Tracking ability would be awesome add on in my book. More pet utility would be great to have. Make pets able to taunt mobs off from PCs like they used to (in Kunark) so they could off tank. Maybe somekind of mez proc for pet (change steeltrap from slow to mez proc eg.). I'm not having huge aggro issues, but I guess more deaggro would be ok to have.
Buffwise I'd like to see bst buffs boosted somehow. SE is getting lesser and lesser good, so is paragon. Focus is rather useless in raid environment and in most of grps.
Fero is pretty useless, make it boost DPS classes special attacks like BS, frenzy, flying kick, kick etc and make it group buff, innate AA or aura. I'd like to get long lasting group haste or make it innate AA. Make cure portion of pet heal cure beastlord aswell (I don't want any more targetable cures).
-Raz
Quote from: Razimir on August 02, 2009, 03:02:11 PM
Fero is pretty useless, make it boost DPS classes special attacks like BS, frenzy, flying kick, kick etc and make it group buff, innate AA or aura.
I like this idea, as an aura. Add XX dmg weighted per class.
Why should i be forced to give up anything for a better pet? We are fine, it's our PETS that arent. Fix the broken PET. Its been almost a year now, as usual. And nothing has been done.
Anyone saying we as bstlords have to give up something for a stronger pet is falling into to a mage's image of what a bst should be and that's just NOT what a bst is.
We need to make up our own minds of who we are, and not let mages or any other classes do it for us.
Personaly i coudn't care less if i step on mage toes for stronger pets, we need them as much as they do.
Shamans? for better utility? TOO BAD. Then find or create something that is our own that doesnt suck past 4 expansions. Shaman are part of our heriatage, yet our stat buffs are redundant.
I think our pet problem is if they boost our pets dps up we would most likely be the most powerful hybrid and or melee class at group level if they did mage pet level dps or even half of it, no other pure melee or hybrid would be close to us this is only at the group level where they seem to balance everything from. I believe we are balanced around at least other hybrids dps and utility wise and not around mages so in order for our pets to be increased we would have to either give up some personal dps or stagnant some personal dps they will not let us be top dps class at the group level, now tanking for our pet they maybe could boost up some but how do we get them to do this?
Someone has to be the most powerful hybird in a group, why shoudnt it be us?
This issue with increasing the power of the pet is that they view the pet & ourselves as a single unit.
They take into account our total dps output in optimal situations. If they decide the max dps gain we get out of an expansion is 500 and we request a massive pet increase and we get 400 for the pet.. that only leaves us with 100 remaining for us.
Take this into account when making requests. When the pet dies, we can keep going on, dpsing, summoning another pet if we can or choose to. When we die, we float or go to bind and have to wait on someone else to get back into it.
Quote from: jitathab on August 03, 2009, 12:51:28 PM
Someone has to be the most powerful hybird in a group, why shoudnt it be us?
Sorry. But i dont agro with decreasing our personal dps for a pet thats useful. There's more then enough room to fix our warders without hurting us as individuals. I see mages and other pure melee cranking out 2x my dps on burst fights and sometimes on sustained fights. Maybe they get all the goodies aka suport classes like bards and sham, cus i know i don't usualy. It's just frustrating to be a dwindling class i once cherished.
EDIT: We wouldnt be in this situation if the warder didnt progressively slack to begin with.
Wow are people that upset with our class? I think our class is one of the top in the game. In our guild 2 of our bst are normally in the top 10 in dps if not top 12. They need to just semi fix a few items or remove them.
Now for fero it blows. I would love to see an aura or group keep everything the same just make it where it can hit more.
Pets are fine... if you can not keep them alive change class. AND THEY SNARE :)
Dots blow but are great on raids if you have chanter buff or aura(because of it being instant).
Our heals they should take away but I still use them they can help as a patch if you need them. But we are not healers so I understand.
We wear leather and you want to tank???? Then change class...
But really this post I did sucks but our class is great and really what I can do with my bstlord and a cleric bot bstlords are overpowered. I have always thought are class was on top of the game there is no class I'd rather play. Only 2 problems with our class heals/fero get rid of them or aura or something to make them worth while but if no changes I"m still loving my class and will never change it.
Quote from: kindarring2 on August 03, 2009, 08:54:49 PM
Wow are people that upset with our class? I think our class is one of the top in the game. In our guild 2 of our bst are normally in the top 10 in dps if not top 12. They need to just semi fix a few items or remove them.
Now for fero it blows. I would love to see an aura or group keep everything the same just make it where it can hit more.
Pets are fine... if you can not keep them alive change class. AND THEY SNARE :)
Dots blow but are great on raids if you have chanter buff or aura(because of it being instant).
Our heals they should take away but I still use them they can help as a patch if you need them. But we are not healers so I understand.
We wear leather and you want to tank???? Then change class...
But really this post I did sucks but our class is great and really what I can do with my bstlord and a cleric bot bstlords are overpowered. I have always thought are class was on top of the game there is no class I'd rather play. Only 2 problems with our class heals/fero get rid of them or aura or something to make them worth while but if no changes I"m still loving my class and will never change it.
I agree 100%. The way I see it there are two types of beastlords. One that wants to be the best class ever (tank, heal, FD, mezz adds, did I forget anything?). In other words, they are completely out of touch with the reality of the game. The danger is that these folks represent themselves as the majority of the class (mostly because they whine the most and loudest). I guess the other type is happy the way the class is. There are some issues that would be great if they were fixed. Here's my fix for the whiners:
1) get AAs and spend them on offense (our DPS is actually pretty good, not the best but respectable)
2) you might be immune to enrage (hint: your pet isn't) call them off before the mob enrages, they will actually live thru a fight!
3) load a heal and even a pet heal.
4) if you want to play a class that does something other than beastlords do, start that class
Quote from: Gutterr on August 03, 2009, 11:40:42 PM
I agree 100%. The way I see it there are two types of beastlords. One that wants to be the best class ever (tank, heal, FD, mezz adds, did I forget anything?). In other words, they are completely out of touch with the reality of the game. The danger is that these folks represent themselves as the majority of the class (mostly because they whine the most and loudest). I guess the other type is happy the way the class is. There are some issues that would be great if they were fixed. Here's my fix for the whiners:
1) get AAs and spend them on offense (our DPS is actually pretty good, not the best but respectable)
2) you might be immune to enrage (hint: your pet isn't) call them off before the mob enrages, they will actually live thru a fight!
3) load a heal and even a pet heal.
4) if you want to play a class that does something other than beastlords do, start that class
My name is Inphared, and I approve this post.
Quote from: Inphared on August 04, 2009, 12:19:56 AM
Quote from: Gutterr on August 03, 2009, 11:40:42 PM
I agree 100%. The way I see it there are two types of beastlords. One that wants to be the best class ever (tank, heal, FD, mezz adds, did I forget anything?). In other words, they are completely out of touch with the reality of the game. The danger is that these folks represent themselves as the majority of the class (mostly because they whine the most and loudest). I guess the other type is happy the way the class is. There are some issues that would be great if they were fixed. Here's my fix for the whiners:
1) get AAs and spend them on offense (our DPS is actually pretty good, not the best but respectable)
2) you might be immune to enrage (hint: your pet isn't) call them off before the mob enrages, they will actually live thru a fight!
3) load a heal and even a pet heal.
4) if you want to play a class that does something other than beastlords do, start that class
My name is Inphared, and I like having a high post count so people think I'm important.
that's better
My peeve is we have become a cut and paste of the average melee all blending into obscurity with nothing defining us as beastlords. If our warder isn't part of us that makes us a beastlord then why have it?
As for enrange, the pet can't block, hence it gets raped by any meleeing mob regardless of pet being in enrage mode.
Quote from: Panthur on August 04, 2009, 03:14:46 AM
As for enrange, the pet can't block, hence it gets raped by any meleeing mob regardless of pet being in enrage mode.
Maybe i am confused as to the meaning here but enrage is riposte not block. As far as where that comment comes from (i think) he was saying that we are immune, pets are not, back them off and they will live most likely.
I believe we are a dps/utility class but are we more dps or more utility? As I stated in a post in a different thread: our buffs have stagnated in comparision to other classes such as clerics and shaman. I would like to see our buffs curve up in a similiar move as our parent class has. The second move I would like to see is an improvement to our pets. There is no reason we should sacrifice our personal dps to see an improvement to our pets. As far as tanking goes, I think that stems from us being a ~solo~ class. I don't think that really fits the description of our class any longer. (at least not the higher levels)
Those of us tanking: are they raid beasts tanking/soloing in higher end group zones or what? Unfortunately for me the tanking route I took was due to the fact I rolled a beast as my first character and has been my main ever since. Every toon I made after that was to support my beast. Even tanking toons such as warriors never really went much further than getting up to decent levels but no aa or gear to support them. Another thing on tanking is the off-tanking role I've found myself, at least, performing. In that respect I would like to have more tank type ability. But not anything on par with true tank classes.
I agree we need this thread and I hope a lot of beasts post here on their thoughts. This way we can unify and take this to the devs and get our class back on track.
No where did I say I wanted to not be a Bst. I not asking to be able to due it all. I started a bst on day 1 and have Loved it every min. alot of the things I was asking for where to bring back what we had in the past. if we can scaled correctly would would have been way over powered and I didn't want that and so I offer a trade off to be able to due what we could when we first were born.
I left the game for 3 years and over that time the bst has dropped from the standing it was and the voice was not able to over come and maybe your content with what was taken from you but as a bst that knew a better time if the GM are asking I like to have back what been stolen.
Buffs where never as good as a shammy but if one was not around our would be asked for back in the day. as for today they not even an after thought. Shammys have gone over cap for years our now with new gear are nothing. No I don't want to see us with better then shammy buffs but I love so see us get some of there older ones that go over cap so when non around we can fill in.
Tanking were we ever ment to be MT no but in group many many times I remember stepping up and off tanking with my pet for a group. I used to also on inc would send my pet to tank one of a double pull. he would taunt and hold untill the mez could get to it. this also help for when mez broke it would go to my pet over the chanter.
healing I know of countless times I step in to help patch heal and saved a group from being sent to bind both when grinding and on raids. yes these days our heals are little but I still use them.
Paragon when it 1st came out was a lot of mana / hp compared to what players total hp/mana was. the sad part is over time we gained more HP and MANA and spells are costing more mobs hitting for more just %wise paragon has been scaled back the high teirs give less per tier then the starting tiers so do I want it fixed ya I would like to see the same mana / hp I got for T1 and I get for T13 with the growing mana/hp pool and the harder hitting mobs why not have a spell that when 1st add made and impact make an inpact now. and for those of you raiding and use it a lot I sorry but I just don't see it. now with the 3 6 man raids I held on to it to MGB but in 54 mana raids like it was said before it un needed the mobs die to fast that most ppl still 40%+ on mana no need to use it. most the time we finish events and everyone is 60%+ on mana I used it when it pops but even if I didn't they would still have mana left at the end so ya currently I feel it dosn't make an impact. 36 man tower raids ok I used it on event 2 and 6 other then that in was in the ready and not needed.
if they don't make any changes will I stop playing a bst no I love my bst to much. I just want my bst to not be sliding back words each year because the GM's can't figger out what role we should play and so we get shafted and back slide. the class was a great one to start and other classed have scaled up over the years where we scaled down.
Quote from: Gutterr on August 03, 2009, 11:40:42 PM
4) if you want to play a class that does something other than beastlords do, start that class
Or if you want only more DPS not utility, start another class.
There is no set skills or roles for majority classes in this game execptions are warrior and cleric. All other classes have somekind of utility and some other roles. Many classes has evolved and beastlords have too. Even pure melees got mez, slow, snare etc. Rangers got HA and nice little other tricks lately. It makes me wonder why some ppl just wanna keep bsts from evolving further? Lets face it, beastlord as class sucked when it was published, the only catch we had back then was melee class who has a pet. I'm happy that some people had somekind of vision and evolved us the stage we are atm.
What is so special about beastlords, that makes us beastlords?
- We are good dps (wasn't there originally)
- self levitation and self fixed invisibility
- uber 65 lvl and 70 lvl slow spells.
- 55 lvl protective spirit disc
- our warder can snare (wasn't there originally)
- We can feed some mana, which is getting less and less important (wasn't there originally).
- some minor heals
- SE spell line (which is getting moot)
That is about all we got atm and there is no room for more utility or improvement? I love my class, but I'd like to see some "out of the box" thinking when devs asks what we want. Min max thinking will not get us anywhere.
I have never been more content of our class as now, but we can't stop evolving or we will be that redheaded step child again, the one we used to be.
-Raz
quote
Quote from: Gutterr on Yesterday at 07:40:42 PM
I agree 100%. The way I see it there are two types of beastlords. One that wants to be the best class ever (tank, heal, FD, mezz adds, did I forget anything?). In other words, they are completely out of touch with the reality of the game. The danger is that these folks represent themselves as the majority of the class (mostly because they whine the most and loudest). I guess the other type is happy the way the class is. There are some issues that would be great if they were fixed. Here's my fix for the whiners:
1) get AAs and spend them on offense (our DPS is actually pretty good, not the best but respectable)
2) you might be immune to enrage (hint: your pet isn't) call them off before the mob enrages, they will actually live thru a fight!
3) load a heal and even a pet heal.
4) if you want to play a class that does something other than beastlords do, start that class
reactions like this are exactly the reason that we stagnate over the years and drop down on the table.
because people dont ask anything and then they dont give us anything new. where other classes just ask and get some stuff.
i see us more as a combat class, with some small utilities.
so in that way i like a power up of our dps abilty and pet dps.
the best utility we have is fos and pos, that needs to be scaled up a lot towards current mana hp pools.
there are not many healers that go oom in our raids,
i ask some dps aa, burst dps will be nice.
and i love pets thats why i choosed a beastlord, so i dont mind some new summoned pet aa, not like attack of the warders but more like a alternative yowl on a 15 min timer.
in that way also a summon pet gear aa, or bettera pet that comes with full gear.
tired of asking mages the same stuff over and over.
a way to drop aggro quik on a short timer refresh
and a fix of our pet dps, the pet dps really need a good improve.
since its the cause that we dont have full double attacks etc.
so its reasonable that the dps from the pet should be higher then it is, its around 450 atm?
for some real special aa, what do you want? something like harmonic arrow, or smokescreen
or a indoor pacify aa or some kind of trap that makes us able to split mobs?
I think it'd be cool if we could use the warder more as utility.
Maybe if we could use different warder buffs to make it change it's usefulness.
ofc these abilities would then not stack.
1) Tanking buff (ability to tank better, and maybe even make it able to taunt off players if desired)
2) Dps buff (more dps, but maybe not able to snare or slow or stun)
3) Ranged Dps buff (maybe make it take more damage in melee in this "mode")
4) Dps + snare (slightly less dps than no.2)
5) Dps + slow (again less dps than 2nd option)
6) Dps + stun (-------"-------)
7) something cool [insert here]
Well, maybe someone else has better ideas, but this gives an idea of what I'm aiming at :-)
During PoP/GoD we were a well balanced class, did nothing particularly well but the overall package was fun and desirable in groups/raids. That's the state I would love to see us returned to instead of 2nd tier dps class with almost no utility.
Fixes:
-Make it so our pets are summoned fully kitted (like mage pets), give us the full pet aa line (like mages), give our pets block (like all the rest of the pets), give our pet parry parity, 2 hit rune (like mage pets) then we would have a pet that not only would survive but could tank again. As for DPS, would be nice but yeah we have to decide if our dps should be locked into us or the pet. I would personallly like to dps parity with mage pets too but at least make it so shiny bob doesnt do as much or more dps then a basic bst pet.
-Buffs, we used to buff as well as a shaman by throwing the spell book at someone where a shaman could do it in just a few buffs. Give us stat cap breaking sta/str/dex to add to our focus/sv, not as desirable as shaman buffs but still wanted if a shaman wasnt around.
-Debuffs have become more important as slow has been nerfed. Something more recent then incapacitate would be nice.
-Heals/cures, we've been left out in the cold on these for no apparent reason. Give us the boost all the rest of the healing classes got.
Those are easy enough changes that would not "overpower" us a class and would not take anything away from another class.
Quote from: rhaug on August 04, 2009, 09:09:07 AM
quote
Quote from: Gutterr on Yesterday at 07:40:42 PM
I agree 100%. The way I see it there are two types of beastlords. One that wants to be the best class ever (tank, heal, FD, mezz adds, did I forget anything?). In other words, they are completely out of touch with the reality of the game. The danger is that these folks represent themselves as the majority of the class (mostly because they whine the most and loudest). I guess the other type is happy the way the class is. There are some issues that would be great if they were fixed. Here's my fix for the whiners:
1) get AAs and spend them on offense (our DPS is actually pretty good, not the best but respectable)
2) you might be immune to enrage (hint: your pet isn't) call them off before the mob enrages, they will actually live thru a fight!
3) load a heal and even a pet heal.
4) if you want to play a class that does something other than beastlords do, start that class
reactions like this are exactly the reason that we stagnate over the years and drop down on the table.
because people dont ask anything and then they dont give us anything new. where other classes just ask and get some stuff.
i see us more as a combat class, with some small utilities.
so in that way i like a power up of our dps abilty and pet dps.
the best utility we have is fos and pos, that needs to be scaled up a lot towards current mana hp pools.
there are not many healers that go oom in our raids,
i ask some dps aa, burst dps will be nice.
and i love pets thats why i choosed a beastlord, so i dont mind some new summoned pet aa, not like attack of the warders but more like a alternative yowl on a 15 min timer.
in that way also a summon pet gear aa, or bettera pet that comes with full gear.
tired of asking mages the same stuff over and over.
a way to drop aggro quik on a short timer refresh
and a fix of our pet dps, the pet dps really need a good improve.
since its the cause that we dont have full double attacks etc.
so its reasonable that the dps from the pet should be higher then it is, its around 450 atm?
for some real special aa, what do you want? something like harmonic arrow, or smokescreen
or a indoor pacify aa or some kind of trap that makes us able to split mobs?
It is just as easy to say that it is *bunnies* like you or whoever else who asks for a 2 sec CH, Fade, FD, DA, Insta nukes for 20k base have been the cause of the stagnation in our class, because SoE will just rule out all our suggestions as pie in the sky. Do not start trying to belittle those players that want to see reasonable increases and increases that are in line with the class rather than shouting that x gets this so we want it to. I like the reasonable suggestions many have made such as Grbage above:
Realign our pets to be a solid second place well in front of necro's and shadowknights but behind mages. Increase their tanking ability through defensive skills and equipped gear already on the pet when summoned.
Give us a new focus overstat buff along the lines of the first shaman version. Give SV a small DA chance so that its not awful but still behind rangers. Also give us a new debuff that may even stack with other buffs to give us a raid utility for some of the future events.
Why not give us a chance to have critical ticks on FPoS and PoS through AA's so that it heals double the amount for mana and hp's. It exists for hot's on most healing classes could be useful to have it and give it an easier bang for the buck increase along with the expected increase in ranks we'll get.
Fero aura with special attack increases on it but also something for us to gain from it such as feral swipe etc.
I have to agree with alot of what Maylian says.
Thing is I do not agree with all of the 'whiners', as gutterr calls them, that we are so horribly broken.
We are an EXCELLENT, and in some cases HIGH DEMAND class. Hell we could use another good beast or two in Conviction. There are almost zero good beasts on Quellious from what I've seen. Giny is pretty cool but I've met some real losers too.
We need to put fero into an aura and get our pet up defensively. Other than that I am very happy with our class.
In theory I like the rune proc idea mazame, it would be a good boost to the group geared solo beasts who want to pet tank.
If you think paragon is useless you are mistaken >.< You can always cast it and SE on me after I get raped by adds. I usually am to busy to send a tell for it and I know any sk/pally has to have mana to aggro.
Basically if people are dieing your paragon should be down.
Now I would love to see endurance regen on it mainly to get warriors up faster on raids. I would also love to see critical paragon ticks like sited above.
Just my two cents.
-tony
(wildwaters/poisonwaters of quellious)
Beastlord has never been and probably never will be a high demand class.
A) I said in SOME CASES
B) I probably should have said 'in some cases GOOD beasts are in high demand' because if you are good at your class and people know it you are gonna be in demand.
D) Some servers, Quellious among them have few beasts and few good ones.
My guild is fortunate to have good beasts but all but one are having alot of RL issues and they aren't available to us. Allthough another one is showing up more.
So in our case one good, high RA beast would be a high demand toon beacause we need them to be on and raiding.
Also I prefer to always have a beast in my groups to paragon/buff/dps and sometimes even slow. >.<
To me a well played beast is essential.
I think Brael had a good idea on the sk site with the voting on aa's and crap, at least to weed out a few of the less popular or unrealistic suggestions. Probably a little late in the game for us to get on that, though I guess that old post has loose rankings. But if they ask for ideas, they're gonna get em. We're a pretty versatile class and people are going to have very different perspectives in a lot of cases. Not that some ideas don't make me go "Oh bother." (or my ideas do the same for others, I guess). And certainly some people do a rather poor job of presenting their ideas, however out in left field they might be to begin with.
I am fairly happy with the class (less so with eq in general, but I digress). Part of that I'm sure is being a high aa beastlord in a mid tier guild, though from the sounds of it some of you high end beasts still make out alright. A zerker friend of mine said to me awhile ago after some parse, "Jeez, if it weren't for all the whining on soe boards, I wouldn't even know beasts were broken". And there does seem to be a lot of negative perception, people (not necessarily just beasts) lumping us in with paladin/druid as the classes in need of some serious help, etc.
Anyway, there are some good ideas out there and hopefully they'll get hammered out during beta into something most of us will appreciate and enjoy. Some people will never be happy, of course.. until they get laser beam eyes and some sort of megaman arm cannon. Mmm, megaman arm cannon /drool
And *chuckle* at the high demand bit, though I get what you're saying, Wild.
this is what i like to see in the next expansion
fix of our warder dps/tankability/aa line why are we called a beastlord, this means a lord of beasts!
some new summoned pet aa
a good aa ability to drop aggro quik, it seems its too easy to grab aggro, especially when you work your ass off to burn dps. maybe a weapon proc that decreases hate?
continual growth of the way of personal dps
better heal, for todays hitpoints pools.
a new debuff aa that is usefull on raidmobs and unique compared to other classes.
fero aura with mod on special attacks or bonusdamage for group.
i like the crit thing on fos pos.
anyway i feel we deserve some raidutility
that makes us popular for that.
i dont see that i ask too much.
a small step forward can help us a lot.
if you compare with some classes they really get a lot of new stuff over the last expansions.
then i feel a bit oldfashioned as a beastlord.
lets hope the next expansion does something refreshing for us, rather then the standard upgrades we always got over the years.
Wildwaters, from my experience of high end raiding since Luclin i would say our demand is not really high. Yes, two beastlords in a 54 man raids do make sense if they know how to play, you could probably fit one in a 36 man raid and two if you lack dps classes. That is of course for the usual raiding guild that can field a full 54 man raid every day they do raid (which isnt much anymore, 2 days to clear SoD, 3 to 4 days if you're slow to clear hard mode too).
That said, we are not bad dps, however if your guild setup is dps centered you will probably have all dps group spots taken by primary dps classes and we begin to lag seriously behind, SE is not really all that high in demand, paragon even less and fero is completely useless. So what can we do in those cases? If we are lucky and get a dps group spot we can indeed shine, however any primary dps class is still superior (as they should be) including mages and rangers on multi-mob events (on single mob events we are about even or have a slight advantage).
Id never say no to more DPS but i do make out ok on raids. Ive had to work pretty hrad to do that (ton of AA, and gear) but it can be done. Id love to see us gain back some of our Utility, FPoS rocks when people go down on raids im the first one hitting them with a mana feed and if i have time some buffs, other than FPoS i believe weve lost a lot of our utility. What id like to see changed is:
Fero becomes an Aura with a dmg mod increaes and overcap added for resists... This alone would bring back a large part of our Utility on raids... we would be a staple in the dps groups and the resists would not likely make a huge difference as everyone now adays has 700 resists or so but it all helps right?
Second id love to see Devs add overcap stats to our focus line, The raw hp buff is nice but in today's content hardly anyone wants it unless thye have absolutely no choice and who could blame them really.. I dont wanna see anything on par with Shammy focus but even give us half of their stat overcap buffs and it would make a big difference.
Pet dps SUCKS everyone knows this, but whats the harm in at least making our pets surviablity on par with mages? Its not like im ever going to tank stuff with my pet unless i want to take a nap and come back to find mob dead... Not having to worry so much about pets health or if hes taking hits would be great and cant really hurt game balance that bad really...
Leave our dps alone if u will, but bring back some more Utility!
Quote from: Catnip_Inny on August 04, 2009, 07:29:45 PM
Pet dps SUCKS everyone knows this, but whats the harm in at least making our pets surviablity on par with mages? Its not like im ever going to tank stuff with my pet unless i want to take a nap and come back to find mob dead... Not having to worry so much about pets health or if hes taking hits would be great and cant really hurt game balance that bad really...
Leave our dps alone if u will
ding ding ding >.<
one of the great things about beastlords is we can play them how we like.
Some Focus on DPS
other Love their pets.
Some like to Nuke/Dot
other like to Live
Some like Heal
So many roles of a bst that from day to day you can mix it up and not feel like your doing the same old thing every day. I love my bst I love my pets and I love to be able to fill in where needed. some times I pull out my heal and spot heal is it the best no but a few times when the group healer gone down I been able to keep ppl up until the healers been called. So ya bst are great but yes at the same time I want to see us move forward not saying what we have is bad but I like every kid at christmas likes new toys. I like to know that what I do makes a difference and so ya I want things that can help those I group and raid with.
I think the Crits on paragon would be great and I don't think there anything wrong with a wish list. it dosn't mean we hate the class only that we have dreams.
after all anyone else find that as the lord of bst we can't even charm animals I always found that odd. not that I could ever see passing up my warder for a charmed pet but still it be fun for when were messing around.
and as we all play bst differently our Ideas for the class are going to vary but I the fact we are willing to come here and fight over idea back and forth I think show we all love our toons and want the most out of them we can get
I was just thinking. Didn't we get sense animals like back at level 10. Which sucked but as being a beast lord it would be cool to be able to track but only be able to track animals.
I agree Track would be some thing that would fit in with the class
Quote from: Dilgartownguard on August 04, 2009, 05:56:39 PM
Beastlord has never been and probably never will be a high demand class.
Completely false in any context of raid or group content, past or present.
Quote from: Sharrien on August 06, 2009, 01:55:04 PM
Quote from: Dilgartownguard on August 04, 2009, 05:56:39 PM
Beastlord has never been and probably never will be a high demand class.
Completely false in any context of raid or group content, past or present.
Your mileage may vary. When I log on my bst I don't get group invites from stragners anymore, way back when within a few minutes of logging on I would get several without putting up LFG. Matter of fact LFG has gone the way of the Dodo on my server, I'm sure on others it is still quite lively.
On raids, we don't skip a beat if none of our bst show up (non-mandatory raiding alliance). No one screams they need SE and there are no raid mechanisms where having a bst would make things go smoother.
I admit my reply probably went a little too far, but comments like that tick me off. Sure, it takes a very high number of AA and decent gear, but given those, a beastlord is a force to be reconned with and makes those mages and rogues out there to work hard to stay on top of parses.
Quote from: Sharrien on August 06, 2009, 01:55:04 PM
Quote from: Dilgartownguard on August 04, 2009, 05:56:39 PM
Beastlord has never been and probably never will be a high demand class.
Completely false in any context of raid or group content, past or present.
Sadly, you're wrong. My guild likes BST, but we're a fairly low dps guild, so the fights are longer and a well played BST shines. FPoS gets well used too. But, BST don't offer the same level of utility or dps to a high dps guild like CT or Triality. That's not to say they don't have BSTs (Inph is in CT), but it's much harder to be desired.
When the announcement came that raid numbers would be decreased again to 42 before this expansion, Beastlords were the first class that people expected to be dropped from a raid. Well played, we're good still, but just don't shine as much as we once did. We simply lack a niche right now, and aren't quite well rounded enough.
Our guild never seems to stick beasts in wait when we do hard mode >.<
Quote from: Sharrien on August 06, 2009, 01:55:04 PM
Quote from: Dilgartownguard on August 04, 2009, 05:56:39 PM
Beastlord has never been and probably never will be a high demand class.
Completely false in any context of raid or group content, past or present.
Dilgart hit the nail on the head....everything we do someone can do better, no niche skills which demand a place. Even more a retarded statement when you're commenting on the entire history of the class.
I agree with May here, almost any situation you can come up with in the game of everquest. Another class could do it better then the beastlord.
Quote from: Jili on August 08, 2009, 01:55:52 AM
I agree with May here, almost any situation you can come up with in the game of everquest. Another class could do it better then the beastlord.
Well, yeah, everyone can do better but I have the cool looking bear!
1) Improve Pet defense (Its DPS is fine)
2) Improve our Buffs (Overcap)
3) Heal (non-pet, possibly like Rangers)
Those are the top priorities that need fixing.
3) Increased DPS (80/10/10 PC/Spell/Pet split respectively) *I think this is the current split, correct?*
4) PoS and FPoS Increases
5) HP/Regen Line
Things we need every expansion and is our current class defining abilities
6) Personal Slow upgrade (Spell lvl. vs. Mob lvl reasoning)
7) Haste that lasts 30 minutes, Group version if their feeling really nice ;) (No other mods, just so its better than potions)
8 ) 2HB AA
Stuff they can do but haven't...
9+) Fero, Taste of Blood, DeAggro (no damage preferable), and Pets summoned w/gear (no weapons)
Things that are BROKE but we have survived with out for so long even if they worked, we would probally be lost.
P.S. Our DeAggro isn't broke, I just want DeAggro on a 18 sec refresh (I admit it)
improve pet dps also, its very low actually as it is now.
when even the mages asks to improve our pet dps and defensive
you can know that we are underpowered for our pet.
my idea is 80/85/90 procent of mage dps pet.
and increase max hit to about 450 or 480?
check todays weapon damage noncrit and you should have the normal pet hit max.
our class name is beast lord
we dont have double attack since our pet was part of our dps.
these days its dps is pathetic for todays mobs.
hope the next expansion repairs our pet.
Quote from: AbyssalMage on August 08, 2009, 03:30:45 AM
6) Personal Slow upgrade (Spell lvl. vs. Mob lvl reasoning)
The best that we should hope for on slow is an identical spell with a lower recast time. If they improve the -MR portion of it, they will just boost mobs magic resists, and need to rework every spell to suit.
Quote from: Khauruk on August 08, 2009, 12:55:27 PM
Quote from: AbyssalMage on August 08, 2009, 03:30:45 AM
6) Personal Slow upgrade (Spell lvl. vs. Mob lvl reasoning)
The best that we should hope for on slow is an identical spell with a lower recast time. If they improve the -MR portion of it, they will just boost mobs magic resists, and need to rework every spell to suit.
They would increase MR only if Shammies and Chanters got a boost in theirs, since they can actually lower it alot, we can't they would probably leave MR alone. Then again shammies and chanters would want better resist and would probably get and then they would raise mob MR putting us back where we were.
I would like to see more abilities that impy us being attuned to beasts or warder. Stuff that has meaning to our class, related to animals or if not with their vision of beastlords, then our warder.
Right now our warder is so weak, most of us pretend to be melee a la necro style and don't even bother with a warder becuase it poofs in an eyeblink.
Quote from: Panthur on August 08, 2009, 10:02:05 PM
most of us pretend to be melee a la necro style and don't even bother with a warder becuase it poofs in an eyeblink.
Sweet sweet hyperbole. I'm all for a boost to the warder, but personally, when mine dies it's usually because I wasn't paying attention. Only mid-tier guild so maybe it's sheer warder-smackdown in tower, but so far, it hasn't been too bad.
I sure hope it's hyperbole. If he's serious, he's mis-representing the "most" I'm aware of. I'm talking real beastlords, of course, not boxers who don't pay enough attention to control a pet.
Quote from: Panthur on August 08, 2009, 10:02:05 PMRight now our warder is so weak, most of us pretend to be melee a la necro style and don't even bother with a warder becuase it poofs in an eyeblink.
Like I said:
Quote from: Gutterr on August 03, 2009, 11:40:42 PM
I agree 100%. The way I see it there are two types of beastlords. One that wants to be the best class ever (tank, heal, FD, mezz adds, did I forget anything?). In other words, they are completely out of touch with the reality of the game. The danger is that these folks represent themselves as the majority of the class (mostly because they whine the most and loudest). I guess the other type is happy the way the class is. There are some issues that would be great if they were fixed. Here's my fix for the whiners:
1) get AAs and spend them on offense (our DPS is actually pretty good, not the best but respectable)
2) you might be immune to enrage (hint: your pet isn't) call them off before the mob enrages, they will actually live thru a fight!
3) load a heal and even a pet heal.
4) if you want to play a class that does something other than beastlords do, start that class
If your not using your warder then you should have rolled another class. a warder adds so much to our class that any time mine is not up I feel naked so to speak.
what you say gutter
is also quite another extreme way of thinking.
there can be also a way to enpower our class without asking for everything or the unpossible.
i am happy with my beastlord and at the same time i think we can use some boost in a dps way and our warder way and another utility way.
to make us shine more or more usefull, unique in raids.
Like I said:
QuoteLike I said:
Quote from: Gutterr on August 03, 2009, 11:40:42 pm
I agree 100%. The way I see it there are two types of beastlords. One that wants to be the best class ever (tank, heal, FD, mezz adds, did I forget anything?). In other words, they are completely out of touch with the reality of the game. The danger is that these folks represent themselves as the majority of the class (mostly because they whine the most and loudest). I guess the other type is happy the way the class is. There are some issues that would be great if they were fixed. Here's my fix for the whiners:
1) get AAs and spend them on offense (our DPS is actually pretty good, not the best but respectable)
2) you might be immune to enrage (hint: your pet isn't) call them off before the mob enrages, they will actually live thru a fight!
3) load a heal and even a pet heal.
4) if you want to play a class that does something other than beastlords do, start that class
For a raiding Beastlord, the warder is really detrimental for the class. We are being held back because all other classes and devs see warder as utility, when its just a DoT you need to pay attention to all the time.
We sacrifice big time vs other melee because of the warder:
Ranger 270 Double Attack, 410 Triple Attack. 4th best tank.
Beastlord 75 Double Attack, 70 Triple Attack. Worst melee tank.
Does the warder make up for that gap in skills and defensives? -Nope not close with the 400 dps, and making us tank worse then Rogues. And the constant attention demand to keep that weak DoT alive.
Best for the class would be to lobby for same skill levels and tanking as Rangers and Scrap the warder.
This would turn us into another version of Ranger, but would help the class alot.
I personally would like devs to be able to balance classes better and keep the warder(But I dont see that happening), I use him all the time and feel nekkid when he is not there.
Note that this is not what I WANT to happen, its what NEED to happen if devs will have a chance to balance us somewhat correctly.
"But you have a pet!" Always makes me laugh, at least in terms of raiding (exception being snare, which is likely not intended anyway). Getting rid of the warder seems a bit extreme though, like kayaking through a convenience store.
If you are implying i am whining i dam well am and have a right to be. What do u expect when i posted over 9 months ago the problems with our warder, and betting it would not be fixed until MAYBE after the next expansion came out. I am a beast LORD, i made this class because of my bond with my pet, whihc back in the day was a perfect partner and was able to make its upkeep, and we were able to upkeep IT (vial heals). It had a PURPOSE to being at our side.
Today? it is a liabilty that i have to keep an eye 100% on, thus keeping my focus away from my tasks and duties on the raid.
I am whining because the warder is so degraded it's barely worth casting and we have nothing in return for its weakness to compensate.
It is just so frustrating, that despite all posts people made regarding warder's inneficiency, after so long its still ignored. I should not have to work my arse off 4x as hard as any other class just to make even. I did not spend 3k + aa on a pet as a major pet class to have a dot as a pet that must be so closely watched that i cant raid as a raiding bst without such a huge hassle.
PS: I woudnt mind some 2hb aa mods, to make the skill useful again.
EDIT: I can't type!
So back to the topic. What is the role of a beastlord? Hmm well this is how i see it. Provide mana regen, and replenishment on draining fights (necros, enchanters do it better) Provide okay dps if played to perfection. (most all melee classes, casters do it better with much less attention and gear) Fill a raid spot. Eat healers mana. Ya know what, we have NO role and the posts on this board seem to prove that. So many have wildly different visions of what the beastlord class should be but what are we really? Everything we do others do better. As some of you know when sod was launched i was in the dev's ear hard to get our warder fixed along with a few mages that agreed i got brushed off with promises of fixes but nothing ever got done. Jili is dead on right with this comment "For a raiding Beastlord, the warder is really detrimental for the class. We are being held back because all other classes and devs see warder as utility" now the truth behind that is simple. The perception is correct for those dev's and other classes. Problem is we have become complacent and have tried to adapt to what is given us instead of lobbing to get our warder up to par or leave the warder as it is and up our personal utility/dps. We fell behind in SoD and we are going to keep sliding unless we as a class do something about it. Now i know i will see some comments from people that are top of the game in gear / arrogance / whatever, about how content they are with the class but that is not the majority of beasts but unfortunately those are the beasts that get listened to the most so suck it up and help make suggestions to the ones that matter. If we don't i guarantee you that this conversation will present itself again this time next year but with only 25% of the current beasts arguing.
What we realy need is to clear out the grey areas of our class definition, start from the basics and strengthen those. There are so many shades of our "roll" that obscure what we are, or were intended to be, that we no longer are anything anymore.
Quote from: Panthur on August 09, 2009, 06:52:34 PM
What we realy need is to clear out the grey areas of our class definition, start from the basics and strengthen those. There are so many shades of our "roll" that obscure what we are, or were intended to be, that we no longer are anything anymore.
AMEN
Quote from: Gutterr on August 03, 2009, 11:40:42 PM
I agree 100%. The way I see it there are two types of beastlords. One that wants to be the best class ever (tank, heal, FD, mezz adds, did I forget anything?). In other words, they are completely out of touch with the reality of the game. The danger is that these folks represent themselves as the majority of the class (mostly because they whine the most and loudest). I guess the other type is happy the way the class is. There are some issues that would be great if they were fixed. Here's my fix for the whiners:
1) get AAs and spend them on offense (our DPS is actually pretty good, not the best but respectable)
2) you might be immune to enrage (hint: your pet isn't) call them off before the mob enrages, they will actually live thru a fight!
3) load a heal and even a pet heal.
4) if you want to play a class that does something other than beastlords do, start that class
1) Our dps is at the bottom of the DPS ladder, any decent rogue/zerker/monk/ranger/necro/wizard will outparse us most of the time, guess some people have different definition of respectable. And honestly, I'd be fine with that, if we had a well defined role that made us desirable in a raid setting. Being delegated to mana battery is pretty much last on my list.
2) It's not so much the enrages, but the nasty AEs, and wild rampages that usually tear pets up. Thankfully AE rampage is hardly an issue in SoD (Fall of Tosk is about the only one that comes to mind), like it was SoF, but who knows what Underfoot content will bring in this regard.
3) When pet used to take 20k+ in one round of AE ramp, our mediocre pet heals did very little even when spam casting
4) It's not necessarily about comparing our abilities to other classes, but comparing the decline of our relative (compared to other classes) usefulness through the expansions.
Quote from: AbyssalMage on August 08, 2009, 03:30:45 AM
1) Improve Pet defense (Its DPS is fine)
2) Improve our Buffs (Overcap)
3) Heal (non-pet, possibly like Rangers)
Those are the top priorities that need fixing.
3) Increased DPS (80/10/10 PC/Spell/Pet split respectively) *I think this is the current split, correct?*
4) PoS and FPoS Increases
5) HP/Regen Line
Things we need every expansion and is our current class defining abilities
6) Personal Slow upgrade (Spell lvl. vs. Mob lvl reasoning)
7) Haste that lasts 30 minutes, Group version if their feeling really nice ;) (No other mods, just so its better than potions)
8 ) 2HB AA
Stuff they can do but haven't...
9+) Fero, Taste of Blood, DeAggro (no damage preferable), and Pets summoned w/gear (no weapons)
Things that are BROKE but we have survived with out for so long even if they worked, we would probally be lost.
P.S. Our DeAggro isn't broke, I just want DeAggro on a 18 sec refresh (I admit it)
1) Our pet dps is pretty bad as well. My warder is usually hovering just below 600 dps, which gets boosted to just shy of 1k w/ disc (which is still considerably lower than mage disc-less pet dps). As it is, our warder is around 15% of our total dps (5% of which is straight up procs).
2) While this may be fine for soloing or grouping when no shm is around, it won't do much to make us more desirable in raid situations.
3) Like ranger heals? Their heals are just as bad as ours, with the exception of the cure line spell they got back in TSS (or maybe it was TBS).
3b) My numbers are way different, for me, it's more like 55/30/15 or 55/23/22 for personal/spell/pet damage (depending on if yowl is included under pet or spell)
4) Even if they didn't change the net mana regen of those lines per hour for instance, I would love to see them triple the reuse time, and triple the regen amount.
5) Like with out mana regen abilities, HP regen line in general had degraded into near uselessness. I would rather leave it alone, and focus on more useful abilities. Shm regen buff was one of the first somewhat useful buffs that made my buffblock list (after spell haste) in order to make free up some needed buff slots for raid burns.
6) At the rate slow is mitigated by mobs these days, any upgrade to this spell line will not have a major effect. Our 65% slow is mitigated to somewhere around 15% (23% effectiveness), meaning that any 5% face value change to our slow will only have little more than 1% actual effect.
7) Yes, and ungroup it from our pet haste buff.
8 ) With the amount of disparity between 1h and 2h weapons for melees, I don't see this very worthwhile. Monks get such AAs, yet you never see any of them use a 2 hander (outside of arena jousting).
9) yes, more or less, I would rather not step on mage community's toes w/ summoned pet armor though.
Quote from: Panthur on August 09, 2009, 06:52:34 PM
What we realy need is to clear out the grey areas of our class definition, start from the basics and strengthen those. There are so many shades of our "roll" that obscure what we are, or were intended to be, that we no longer are anything anymore.
Well said.
Well, as to our role as bst, we're primarily a melee dps class, with some shaman spells.
As for utility...it'd make sense that our warder actually was more of a utility than a liability.
Throwing out some ideas here.
* make it tank better/survive AE ramp
* protect self, maybe even others..like a shielding ability
* maybe a pet dps disc, remove taste of blood and give us a triggered AA/disc for pet only?
* pet AE dps proc? helps us do some damage on weak trash mobs clearing
* pet invulnerability, like DA could be useful to save it when it's in trouble.
* ability to sacrifice pet for a nuke like a wiz manaburn/necro lifeburn. Ours could be called warders savage cry.
Those would make me a happy bst /nod
QuoteStarted by Mazame - Last post by Gamgan
Quote from: Gutterr on August 03, 2009, 11:40:42 pm
I agree 100%. The way I see it there are two types of beastlords. One that wants to be the best class ever (tank, heal, FD, mezz adds, did I forget anything?). In other words, they are completely out of touch with the reality of the game. The danger is that these folks represent themselves as the majority of the class (mostly because they whine the most and loudest). I guess the other type is happy the way the class is. There are some issues that would be great if they were fixed. Here's my fix for the whiners:
1) get AAs and spend them on offense (our DPS is actually pretty good, not the best but respectable)
2) you might be immune to enrage (hint: your pet isn't) call them off before the mob enrages, they will actually live thru a fight!
3) load a heal and even a pet heal.
4) if you want to play a class that does something other than beastlords do, start that class
1) Our dps is at the bottom of the DPS ladder, any decent rogue/zerker/monk/ranger/necro/wizard will outparse us most of the time, guess some people have different definition of respectable. And honestly, I'd be fine with that, if we had a well defined role that made us desirable in a raid setting. Being delegated to mana battery is pretty much last on my list.
2) It's not so much the enrages, but the nasty AEs, and wild rampages that usually tear pets up. Thankfully AE rampage is hardly an issue in SoD (Fall of Tosk is about the only one that comes to mind), like it was SoF, but who knows what Underfoot content will bring in this regard.
3) When pet used to take 20k+ in one round of AE ramp, our mediocre pet heals did very little even when spam casting
4) It's not necessarily about comparing our abilities to other classes, but comparing the decline of our relative (compared to other classes) usefulness through the expansions.
Quote from: AbyssalMage on August 08, 2009, 03:30:45 am
1) Improve Pet defense (Its DPS is fine)
2) Improve our Buffs (Overcap)
3) Heal (non-pet, possibly like Rangers)
Those are the top priorities that need fixing.
3) Increased DPS (80/10/10 PC/Spell/Pet split respectively) *I think this is the current split, correct?*
4) PoS and FPoS Increases
5) HP/Regen Line
Things we need every expansion and is our current class defining abilities
6) Personal Slow upgrade (Spell lvl. vs. Mob lvl reasoning)
7) Haste that lasts 30 minutes, Group version if their feeling really nice (No other mods, just so its better than potions)
8 ) 2HB AA
Stuff they can do but haven't...
9+) Fero, Taste of Blood, DeAggro (no damage preferable), and Pets summoned w/gear (no weapons)
Things that are BROKE but we have survived with out for so long even if they worked, we would probally be lost.
P.S. Our DeAggro isn't broke, I just want DeAggro on a 18 sec refresh (I admit it)
1) Our pet dps is pretty bad as well. My warder is usually hovering just below 600 dps, which gets boosted to just shy of 1k w/ disc (which is still considerably lower than mage disc-less pet dps). As it is, our warder is around 15% of our total dps (5% of which is straight up procs).
2) While this may be fine for soloing or grouping when no shm is around, it won't do much to make us more desirable in raid situations.
3) Like ranger heals? Their heals are just as bad as ours, with the exception of the cure line spell they got back in TSS (or maybe it was TBS).
3b) My numbers are way different, for me, it's more like 55/30/15 or 55/23/22 for personal/spell/pet damage (depending on if yowl is included under pet or spell)
4) Even if they didn't change the net mana regen of those lines per hour for instance, I would love to see them triple the reuse time, and triple the regen amount.
5) Like with out mana regen abilities, HP regen line in general had degraded into near uselessness. I would rather leave it alone, and focus on more useful abilities. Shm regen buff was one of the first somewhat useful buffs that made my buffblock list (after spell haste) in order to make free up some needed buff slots for raid burns.
6) At the rate slow is mitigated by mobs these days, any upgrade to this spell line will not have a major effect. Our 65% slow is mitigated to somewhere around 15% (23% effectiveness), meaning that any 5% face value change to our slow will only have little more than 1% actual effect.
7) Yes, and ungroup it from our pet haste buff.
8 ) With the amount of disparity between 1h and 2h weapons for melees, I don't see this very worthwhile. Monks get such AAs, yet you never see any of them use a 2 hander (outside of arena jousting).
9) yes, more or less, I would rather not step on mage community's toes w/ summoned pet armor though.
Quote from: Panthur on Yesterday at 06:52:34 pm
What we realy need is to clear out the grey areas of our class definition, start from the basics and strengthen those. There are so many shades of our "roll" that obscure what we are, or were intended to be, that we no longer are anything anymore.
Well said.
i like your realistic view of the beastlord
altough sometimes its not much fun to see in what position we are when compared to the total of everquest classes
anyway i appreciate that you just say how it its for most of us.
if we dont speak the truth about how it really is for most of us.
then we cant expect to see improves
when we show that we are actually a class in need of a lot of love and improves and support of the development team
we will get who knows a good change soon.
thumbs up!~
i see a strong beastlord class rising up in the coming time!
or is this positive thinking jeje?
Quote from: Obsessedwith on August 09, 2009, 06:44:52 PM
So back to the topic. What is the role of a beastlord? Hmm well this is how i see it. Provide mana regen, and replenishment on draining fights (necros, enchanters do it better) Provide okay dps if played to perfection. (most all melee classes, casters do it better with much less attention and gear) Fill a raid spot. Eat healers mana. Ya know what, we have NO role and the posts on this board seem to prove that. So many have wildly different visions of what the beastlord class should be but what are we really? Everything we do others do better. As some of you know when sod was launched i was in the dev's ear hard to get our warder fixed along with a few mages that agreed i got brushed off with promises of fixes but nothing ever got done. Jili is dead on right with this comment "For a raiding Beastlord, the warder is really detrimental for the class. We are being held back because all other classes and devs see warder as utility" now the truth behind that is simple. The perception is correct for those dev's and other classes. Problem is we have become complacent and have tried to adapt to what is given us instead of lobbing to get our warder up to par or leave the warder as it is and up our personal utility/dps. We fell behind in SoD and we are going to keep sliding unless we as a class do something about it. Now i know i will see some comments from people that are top of the game in gear / arrogance / whatever, about how content they are with the class but that is not the majority of beasts but unfortunately those are the beasts that get listened to the most so suck it up and help make suggestions to the ones that matter. If we don't i guarantee you that this conversation will present itself again this time next year but with only 25% of the current beasts arguing.
agree we need to stand up and say what we want to see changed on our class.
i feel open for positive ideas to our class
lets give the devs something they can work with and return a new shining beastlord class to us
that can compete again with the other classes in game
Gamgan...
Yeah, aware of slow mitigation and how useless the spell line has become. Seen more than one posting here and on Sony boards about people not even casting in groups anymore unless it's a named or their bored. I still cast it out of habbit and one day ill probally actually parse the benefit in group content. My guess is that parsing hundreds of 1 minute fights will show the RNG has more effect on Mob DPS than slow will. But until then, I'll still cast slow out of habbit and having a version that isn't resisted cause of spell vs. mob level will be a high priority.
With the exception of Rangers (and mabye Necro's) the other classes you listed should out DPS you/us in a raid setting. Guess it comes down to the event, "burst vs. duration", although not sure how munch even that argument holds now for figuring out where Mellee, Caster's, Hybrids, and Utility fall. Mabye DPS needs to be addressed for everyone with SoF/SoD causing as munch inflation as it did.
Being a Mana battery sucks, thats why Necro's petitioned to have their twitch line killed. But I like the "mana battery" only cause it is better than necro's twitch. It actually helps us where it was a drain of their mana. But I also understood that gaining the ability would cause raid leaders to focus it towards cleric's (some guilds do wizards from what Ive read) but I welcome it cause its mana free and works in raid, group, and solo where twitch only worked on group/raid and used mana.
Like it or not, we are a Slowing class. It does make a difference, probably around 15% on current content. I would recommend still using it as it is still one of our class defining characteristics.
Now if you think 15% is not enough, then I would build a case to improve it (add an atk debuff component, for instance) but we aren't gonna wish it away and just say Slow doesn't count. Enc and Shm have the same issue.
My role in groups is to 1) Slow and 2) DPS. Not really a bad role. It bothers me that I would boot myself in favor of a Shaman, but that does not mean we don't have a role, it just means that another class fills our role better.
My role in raids is 1) DPS, 2) Cast SE, 3) Feed mana to main cleric or other critical person on hard fights and 4) watch for emotes and do calls in /RS during fights. I am good for watching emotes and trigger phrases because I don't need to be in the typical CC, Tank, Healer channels.
What I personally want is more utility, in the form of CC (root, cast snare) or pulling (FD), even if it came at the expense of DPS. I would be ok if utility was tied to Warder, provided it was real utility (Slowing unslowable mobs for example). We have not gotten much real utility through our warders historically. Typically we are just punished when our Warder dies, because we can't cast certain spells, but that is different.
What I hear other BST ask for is more DPS and Aggro reducing abilities, not expansion of Utility, so I am sort of an oddity.
Personally I don't think asking for DPS is the way to go. We need to compete directly against the other pure DPS classes, and like it or not, we are not a pure DPS class. So every expansion that goes by where we ask for DPS, we lose more and more opportunities to gain utility. They are flat out bound in how much DPS they can give us, unless we can completely redefine our class.
I try not to post too much here, because my Utility-oriented view is different than most bst. If I am able to get into next beta, I would plan to spend most time parsing warders to get them back into shape, but I would leave the DPS versus Utility requests to someone else.
I guess if someone gets into beta they should let us know what list they plan to push.
Our warder snare is better than cast snare, tbh.
If we got worthwhile utility, for raids and groups, I'd gladly let my dps stagnate some. That utility needs to not be tied entirely to pets though. I don't see any given utility being worthwhile enough to do that though, but who knows? The last class revamps that SoE did were, imo, about spot on (druid, enc, sk, mage), so we may get some great stuff too.
Main cleric? What is that? I toss it mostly on clerics, but also on rezzed in knights, wizards, mages, sometimes an rezzed enc, and the occasional bard.
Largely it goes to whoever I don't get irritated by, and bothers to send me a tell, unless the fight's reaching a critical stage.
Paragon doesn't work on bards
Exactly. It's a fun way to piss them off in my guild.
Quote from: Khauruk on August 26, 2009, 12:12:39 AM
Our warder snare is better than cast snare, tbh.
If we got worthwhile utility, for raids and groups, I'd gladly let my dps stagnate some. That utility needs to not be tied entirely to pets though. I don't see any given utility being worthwhile enough to do that though, but who knows? The last class revamps that SoE did were, imo, about spot on (druid, enc, sk, mage), so we may get some great stuff too.
Main cleric? What is that? I toss it mostly on clerics, but also on rezzed in knights, wizards, mages, sometimes an rezzed enc, and the occasional bard.
Largely it goes to whoever I don't get irritated by, and bothers to send me a tell, unless the fight's reaching a critical stage.
I have been in the main tank group in raids lately, so I watch that cleric's mana bar to see if i need to feed mana. Otherwise I use it for myself to sustain my own dps. I also use it on rezzed people. forgot about that. Focused Paragon has been a good ability for us.
Cast snare offers some utility that doesnt come with pet proc snare. For 1, it allows me to maintain aggro on those rare kiting opportunities and it gives multiple chances to land snare before engage. trying to snare a hard hitting mob with pet is a death sentence to warder, because as soon as snare fires, the mob turns on the warder. Since proc snare generates so much hate, so I tend not to use it on raids. I dont want to build up hate on bear unnecessarily.
Quote from: AbyssalMage on August 25, 2009, 03:20:58 PM
With the exception of Rangers (and mabye Necro's) the other classes you listed should out DPS you/us in a raid setting.
I would remove the "and maybe Necro's" because that's entirely false. I think only Wizards should really be saying and maybe Necro's should out dps us as Necro's should always be near the top end of the parse, especially in a raid scenario.
I don't think many of us are opposed to utility increase and I think I'm quite clearly in favour of it from previous posts in this and other threads. I would prefer that this utility isn't solely through the warder unless there are some large improvements to our warders. I would like to be a mini shaman in groups with the ability to dps but to also add a small increase into group dps through a proc buff and overstat buffs.
I think my opinion on FD is well documented so I'll refrain from commenting on that. What I want to avoid is being a battery to people, we know they're not going to add endurance to paragon as SoE have been clear about this, Paragon does need a big boost to compensate for mudflation but most fights just aren't long enough for it to make too much difference. I would like other special attacks like our AA's gorilla smash etc but have some that are group beneficial rather than mob detrimental.
Just some opinions, not necessarily well thought out since I'm damn tired this morning
Quote from: Khauruk on August 26, 2009, 12:12:39 AM
Main cleric? What is that? I toss it mostly on clerics, but also on rezzed in knights, wizards, mages, sometimes an rezzed enc, and the occasional bard.
I <3 you... woudl you liek to move to quellious? LOL!
Actually my pet peeve is knights who run out of mana and ask for Paragon, but at the same time have SE blocked. And there are less useful buffs on them.
I'm already on Quellious, don't bother asking.
Quote from: Nusa on August 27, 2009, 08:50:45 AM
Actually my pet peeve is knights who run out of mana and ask for Paragon, but at the same time have SE blocked. And there are less useful buffs on them.
I'm already on Quellious, don't bother asking.
One word for those knights imo........DENIED!
:-D
Quote from: Nusa on August 27, 2009, 08:50:45 AM
Actually my pet peeve is knights who run out of mana and ask for Paragon, but at the same time have SE blocked. And there are less useful buffs on them.
I'm already on Quellious, don't bother asking.
I only ask for paragon when I die... If your knight is going OOM and has se blocked they aren't too bright are they? I'd be curious as to what useless buffs they were wearing though.
And I wasn't.
Everybody has played the beastlord with several different roles really. Tank, dps, kiter, and/or off-tank. Personally, I have made my beastlord the best tank possible. Now, if we were to tank better, than obviously are dps would be cut more....but I think our dps is already too low. It is difficult that we are able to do so much, yet be able in a group to give so little.
I do want to see some more utility, like an upgrade to incapaciate, some sort of buff or maybe AA to help increase attack and perhaps put some overhaste on it or something. Like a group version of spirit frenzy.....that they didn't go through with for SoD. We would need something unique though and that is hard to come up with. I think that there should be someway of when our warder dies that it would help out us, or whole raid with a buff of some sort. Once again, trying to come up with something unique will take some time for this class that's role is clearly broad and hard to focus on.
That is probably one of the reasons people just want more dps. Hopefully something will surface with Underfoot.
What follows are my ideas and observations about the beastlord class. In some cases, I'm sure there are mistakes in how I think things work. Some of it is purely my point of view, most of it I'm trying to be as objective as possible. There are suggestions and ideas on different things, some of which fall in the do it now category, some of it in the do it soon category. There are parts that are in the wishful thinking category too. That doesn't mean we shouldn't discuss them
though. I am not advocating that any other class should be "nerfed", only that there are areas where we may have been shortchanged, overlooked, neglected or lost ground because of unanticpated consequences from (necessary)changes made to EQ over time or because of real world issues such as the dreaded deadline or that staff may have moved on to other things and that problems, ideas or plans didn't get passed on for any number of reasons. This isn't an attempt to assign "blame" for what exactly happened and why. It is intended to be more of a "This is what we've got. How do we
go about correcting any flaws? What should we add to the beastlord class at this time and at what point(level)? And where would we like to see the class go?" I'm sure a lot of this has been said before, but this is my $0.02 on the subject.
What is a Beastlord?
We need to define, as a group, who we are and what we do. Where we should be competent, where we
should be lacking and where we should have abilities unmatched by any other class. And why.
My view is that we are protectors and champions of animals and animal spirits. Unlike a shaman, who tend more towards aiding and interceding for humanoids in spiritual affairs, beastlords tend towards intervening on behalf of those animal spirits and their charges in the physical world. In exchange for our oath to serve, we are granted a familiar spirit, our warder, who aids, protects and to some degree guides us as well as an array of other abilities to fufill said oath. Unlike other "pet" classes, our relationship with our warder is more a partnership of equals than a master/servant one. Our other abilities are very much defined by what where our power and learning come from. We are limited to "natural" armor, mainly leather, hide or fur and rarely chitin or shell, as our martial abilites have evolved from an emulation of the animals around us.
Similarly, we tend towards weapons that most closely do this as well, from small, fast weapons that mimic claw, fang and horn to slower, ponderous ones that crush like a trampling mammoth. Our magical abilites are reminiscent of a shaman's, particularly those that are animalistic in nature, such as borrowing the attributes of an animal like its speed or strength. Damaging venoms and infections. The ability to hinder and weaken our foes, much like a wolf might hamstring its
prey. Heightened senses, the ability to conceal onseself. The bitter cold of winter, a danger to many animals, is another of our tools. More unique magics, such as the ferocity of a predator or the ability to replenish mind and body with the energies of our surroundings are given to us as well. All so that we can stand in two worlds to the benefit of both.
Rationales for why things were and how things have changed.
1) Beastlord pets don't need to do as much damage because beastlords have slow -- Well as slow no longer affects most mobs much higher than "partially", can take multiple casts to land due to poor resist mods and hasn't been given an upgrade since lvl 70, I'd have to say this argument has lost a lot of its weight. Also, our slows have no effect on double attack ratings or flurry ability. So we still see those massive quad or more hits hammering in for thousands of damage, even if there is a bit more time between each group. Me personally, I would prefer if "slow" as a class of spells was redefined so that they included simple % increases in the lower level spells and as the spells grew in level the % increase of slow went down, but % penalties to double & triple attacks and flurries were added in and increased. The goal would be to keep the DPS of a
slowed mob about the same for "revamped" slows as "old" slows, but to try to spread out the damage over time as opposed to getting short, massive spikes of damage from several simultaneous hits.
2) Beastlords melee, so their pets don't need to tank like some other pets do -- might be true if we were able to split mobs with root or calm type spells. As it is, beastlords retain their major deficiencies -- inability to split mobs, inability to do AE damage and an intrinsic inability to get away (ie Gate, Feign Death, Evade, Divine Aura). While we can leave pet behind to "take it for the team" as it were, if it is a "paper tiger" (or wolf or bear, etc.) it can't last long enough for us to zone and we aren't exactly in a position to be supporting it. soon after our warder dies, summoning mobs will drag us back to face them anyway. We also use our warders to "off tank" (note the word TANK in there) one or more of the mobs we can't split off on a pull. Continually tossing heals and blocks to keep it alive works at a cost of personal DPS and there is a large margin for error with fizzles, interrupts and stuns from being hit by the mobs you are meleeing. We also have no defensive proc to stun mobs, no ability to cause AE damage, no special pet to jump in and take it for the team, etc., just us and our warders.
3) Beastlords aren't as reliant as mages on their pets -- Of our 20 spells/discs from 81 to 85 (the fewest of any hybrid) 10 of our spells are warder related. We get several AAs that are for our warder. Some of the abilities we rely upon require us to have an active warder. Dead warder often equals dead beastlord shortly thereafter. We depend on our warders a lot.
Things that should be addressed primarily as "Fixes"
1) Growl -- it was a straight 20% ADD (when it stacked) now its a 20% REPLACE (since it doesn't any more). With Rank III Pet haste and Growl from SoD the damage increase as it stands is 10 points for me (with EM8, ie 259 to 269) on a max hit and 17 points on a max crit (404 to 421) -- so % dmg increase should be 20% higher than bonus from haste buff - (possibly upping to 20% for lvl 61 and 25% for 68, or these might require a spread range based on level) 29% to 31% for the level 76 to 80 spell and 32% to 34% for lvl 81 to 85.
2) Resist Mods -- In short, they are awful. Most hybrid spells have resist mods built into them. Ours for the most part don't have this (lvl 70 slow -30, poison DD -10, just about all the rest are zero). I think there was some plan to give us a malo like ability sometime back but it got quashed. But it looks like they left our spell resists at next to nothing. Other hybrids have 0
mod spells/songs, but most of them have mods built into them ranging up to -500 or higher, or they are marked unresistable. Most are less than this, but on the whole I'd have to say our spells end up being resisted quite a bit more. Even shaman DoTs get a (-15) built in in addition to malo. So we should get some sort of resist mod, be it a malo effect or some more negative resist mods added to our dds/dots/debuffs. I would like to see the latter.
3) Our Warders are THE pet caught in the squeeze ... A number of mages seem to want our warders to be noticeably inferior, while minor pet classes have been getting their pets boosted. So that leaves me with a pet that is 259/404 max dmg that boosts to 269/421 with growl as it is. Friend's air pet hits for a max crit of 711(EM8), my fabled pet weapon pet hits for a max crit of 564. Seen posts saying that SK rk ii pets hit for 294, and ENC rk ii pets hit for 292, plus their pets
are getting more and more of the general pet AAs for things like HP, flurries, crits, etc. (I use an EM8 focus and have max pet aas). So warder is on the losing end of things as minor pets begin to exceed our warder on max damage and the gap between the max damage of mage pets and our warders keeps getting wider. And our crits are capped at 1.5x dmg.
If this keeps up, we'll soon cease counting as a major pet class anymore. Bumping crit cap to 2x dmg max and combine with growl fix and my warder would be hitting for 259/518 and around 304/608 with growl -- still noticeably less than a mages (which is fine), but better than the minor pets.
4) When mages were given the Promised heal line, we lost what could be considered a "class defining ability", ie best pet heals. Without mages giving up anything to us in return. I certainly can't see other classes giving up anything that might even come close to a "class defining ability" without throwing a major class wide fit. Mages aren't even a Wisdom based
class, which is a requirement for every other class with major healing ability. We should have gotten something/some things in compensation ... and not simply another pet Heal. Minax's Mending is nice, but 1) there isn't room on the spell bar for it all the time and 2) We weren't given the spell retroactively. (Note : even though all the spell lists (including EQPlayers) say mages get the SoF Promsied heal spell, it doesn't look like it got implemented, so this point is a bit of a wash at the moment.) So things to get in return? The double rune Prism skin instead of the single one on our pet Procs, and having that on more than just our main damage one? On hobble of spirit too maybe? Also see 5) for breaking into "class defining ability" stuff.
5) Special Tradeskill items (incl Pet gear) -- we have research skill now, which is hideously overpriced in terms of AAs required to get skill to a level where we can make the EXTREMELY limited, somewhat arbitrary spells and tomes we're allowed -- once we complete our 2.0 we should be able to learn/research a spell : Summon Feral Essence (lvl 65). All it does is summon a no trade item called a feral essence. This would be used in a series of BST only recipes for research skill. It would allow us to make class specific combines in our hybrid research kit. Totems. Something we learned as we completed our epic 2.0 - how to make a totem. Why shouldn't there be other totems we can make to help us channel the spirits of the wild to enhance our abilities? One that summons gear (7 armor+belt+2 weapons in one 10 slot bag), gear better suited
to our warders, for only our warders (if possible). I'm sure there are a number of others we could come up with that would be useful to us and/or to other classes. A basic place to start would be charged ammo totems with different animal familiars, some all/all some restricted by class or race. I don't want to step on mages toes, but at the same time running down a mage every time a warder dies and to get pet gear isn't all that attractive. And in a lot of cases, all that happens is you get people making a mage bot/alt to be a gear dealer.
6) Research -- We can get to 200 skill without paying AAs. After that its 4 AAper 10 point raise in skill cap up to 300. Compared to the other tradeskills (3AA to raise cap to 300), this is way overpriced IMO. Furthermore, the useful recipes (ie spells/tomes) we can make are limited to most hybrid quest spells/tomes at 55 and 68 to 70, plus most 71 to 75 spells from TSS expansion, all of which have trivials over 300(Of those, there are exceptions that aren't makeable by hybrids) The combines we can do for practice stop being buyable at 243 and you can then push it to 262 with researcher ceramic clay combines if you farm the drake wing webbing. After that, its spells/tomes only, which puts each combine at 750pp+. (figuring roughly 10 combines per skill up gained, this works out to a minimum of 285kpp, plus cost in time or pp
for 380 drops. Then add 500 more (successful)combines to max trophy.) With no mastery AAS available, failures are higher as well. As mentioned above, we should get some unique things to our class to make (totems). Beyond that, add all hybrid spells/tomes from level 1 to what we can make. As possibly give us mastery AAs (even if hybrid research rk 10 is a req) and/or an AA line that allows us to make all spells and tomes.
7) Xgrip Jaws line -- this spell line is beyond useless as it is. Only place I would use it is on raids, if it could stick. Move the Effect from the "slow" slot to the same slot as the "languour" proc slot and have it overwrite it. Then it will at least land and do some damage if shammies/chanters are around to trump the slow. Increase the number of times it will land before
wearing off as well, and/or prevent it from proccing on a mob already under its effects. All 10 procs are generally gone on a single mob. Otherwise, kill it and replace it with something else...
8) Ferocity line -- Seems to have become a glorified attack buff these days, since the resist boosts dont help much (if at all) and neither does the STA boost. So change ferocity from 80+(SoF era, when they became available) to give HEROIC resists (or at least an increase to resist caps) and possibly a sv corruption boost as well. And make the STA heroic as well,if reduced in amount. Pretty sure it would end up being a little more in demand. (and much as the stat cap increase is a mostly shammy thing, the resist cap/heroic resist could be ours)
9) Pet movement buff -- build it into pet haste. I've actually had situations where no innate pet runspeed bonus has been an absolute pain. I've run away from mobs in Field of Scale ending up on the other end of the zone and have cleared aggro to the point of being Out of combat for regen purposes. But since pet lost SoW at some point, he still had aggro and dragged those mobs all the way across the zone with him. So out of nowhere, while I'm sitting swapping spells, this huge
mass of iksar shows up, destroys warder (and merc since 1 heal landed) and they all walk off since I had iksar illusion up. It's been said runspeed wasn't to be built it in to warder/pets because they want us to have to pay attention to it. Managing 6 pet only buffs kept up all the time, plus heals and 4 or 5 situational buffs, plus any regular buffs we decide to cast on warder, in addition to pet commands and watching for enrage isn't enough to keep us busy?
10) Pet Casting as a "Class defining ability" -- Of all of the pet classes in game, we are the ONLY (melee) class expected/required to be casting spells on our pet in the middle of melee as a matter of course. Growl spells, Xgrip (yeah right), pet heals, possibly pet block/resist and so on. One of our defining abilities, as an outgrowth of being the only melee oriented major pet class, is that many of our pet spells should be able to be to cast as "yellow" spells and not require a target change. There isn't a fundamental limit to magic itself, as hobble of spirit, companion's blessing, summon companion, mend companion, etc. can affect pet without our needing to "target" it. Leaving it the way it is can be a recipe for trouble since we are often in close to multiple mobs, some which may be mezzed, etc. Other areas where I find this causes headaches is in groups and raids. Having the targeting circle bounce from mob to pet and back because you
are MA for group or raid can cause headaches. Even simple things like human reaction time and reflex can lead to a lot more errors when you are in close.
11) Group Bestial Alignment -- Nothing major wrong with it, but having the illusion as v1 and the actual effects as v2 makes them differing durations after aa/foci. The similar ranger ability is v2 on both, don't see why ours can't be, even if it lets us MGB it (which would be nice).
12) Remove Curse -- At this point we are the only wisdom based class that doesn't have any ability to remove curses(on something besides our warder). Why? We should get some or all of the remove curse line of spells with each spell showing up a couple of levels later for us than they do on a paladin. Then either a spell similar to the ranger cure all or Radiant cure AA at the higher levels.
13) Taste of Blood -- Blood frenzy needs to overwrite itself if it is activated again. Give it a better chance of working and/or a better condition to activate. Make blood frenzy last longer for each extra rank purchased. Something to make it a little more useful or consistent.
Things that should/could be added to our abilities.
0) A couple of unique things I've been toying with are a combined Invisiblity/IVU (rationale - dealing with the physical/non physical duality req'd for hp/mana regen simultaneously gives us a starting point from which to combine the 2 at the same time. Its doable with 2 casters at the moment, but it could be argued as possible for us. The other is a way to "anchor" someone to prevent a mob from summoning them. Whether its ablative (x number of times per cast), potential
(has a chance to prevent an attempt and any attempts for the next few seconds), and/or threshold based (mob is x level or lower) in its mechanics would be something to discuss, as would any side effects/consequences (for example Spirit of the Beaver - gives the target a 50% chance of resisting a summons and any other summons for the next 12 sec if the check succeeds. A successful resist results in 500 hp dmg plus 250/tick for 2 ticks to the person affected.)(Have to love an animal that will chew its own testicles off and throw em away so that maybe you'll let it live). I'm just so sick of all the many situations that end up being mostly guaranteed death or interminable fighting because of a bad pull or even a riposte on a summon at the slightest hit mob while running away. There are some extrinsic methods available to allow getaways, not always possible to get them or have them. It would be another buff give us something different.
1) Spells -- we get 20 spells/discs from 81 to 85 atm -- other hybrids get 23 to 27. Of our spells 10 involve our pet including 3 pet heals (!!). We deserve a couple of extra spells to close this gap a little. Things I can think of as possibilities :
1) Sha's Wrath - self proc that's a version of the 1.0 proc. -- One that adds an "overslow"/v3 slow (and/or dbl attack/flurry debuff) and a DoT, or
1a) Sha's Wrath - An upgrade, in that its both a slow and a stat debuff spell in one.
2) Might of the Elders - an upgraded version of Frenzy(lvl 47) that adds AC, heroic Str, Dex and Agi instead of std stats (and maybe a 3x atk bonus?), that might or might not affect our warder as well.
3) Rabid Venin(?) a combined Poison/disease DoT similar in mechanics to the RNG Fire/Cold DD.
4) A second swarm pet that acts like a cleric hammer/wiz swords (something with crows, sending a murder of crows after someone sounds fun at least)
5) Pact of the Phoenix - A pet DI/DA spell. (totem effect possibly?)
2) We need some form of END regen (at least I do). Even without using things like empathic fury, I find Foray rk III burns though End quite fast. I personally think PoS/FPoS should have an End component. But as this would apparently skew some balance the devs have in place, my second choice is to add an End bonus and End regen to Pact of the Wurine equal to its Mana Regen.
3) Boost Runspeed from Pact of the Wurine to 70%.
4) AAs - Several suggestions here :
1) More ranks of Bestial Frenzy - Rank 11 to (15 or 20) would add a bonus to Triple Attack instead of Double Attack.
2) Feral Senses (3 ranks) - Our senses become as acute as that of various animals, enabling us to dodge (rk 1), block (rk 2) and riposte (rk 3) attacks coming in from 360 degrees, not just in front of us. (Not sure if we already dodge 360 or not.)
3) Pack Leader - Each rank adds 1% or 2% to our chance to summon 4 werewolves via our "Moon" spells.
4) Attack of the Warders - when I saw the name, my thoughts were more along the line of summon 5 swarm pets, 1 each of wolf, bear, scaled wolf, gator and tiger as opposed to 3 of the same kind as normal warder summoned. Either way, this needs some more teeth damage wise. If it stays at 3 of normal warder then I would also like to see a Pack Master AA, that adds one extra pet per rank.
5) "Ways of the <animal>" - Beastlords, through their knowledge of animals and the ways of the spirits of the beasts, learn to mimic them in fighting technique. Some of these could include :
a) Ways of the Cobra - Boost maximum strikethrough cap by 1 per rank (5 ranks).
b) Ways of the Bear - Boost max Stun resist cap by 1 per rank (5 ranks).
c) Ways of the Tiger - Add a "Raking Strike" proc to kicking attacks.
d) Ways of the Monkey - Increase melee attack range.
e) Ways of the Mammoth - Reduces knockback from blow/effects.
f) Ways of the Monkey - Increase maximum melee attack range.
g) Any others?
6) Something to give a 50 increase to safe fall cap - I'm tired of taking falling damage levitating down stairs.
7) Extended Alignment - increase duration of bestial alignment/GBA by 6 seconds per rank.
8) Additional ranks of group bestial alignment.
9) Additional ranks of our bestial attacks, increasing damage/duration. Make the raven(a bit more damage and more duration on debuff) and gorilla(more damage longer/higher lvl stun) ones more on par with asp so they are worth using. An AA that lets us use 2 different attacks per cycle. (ie Asp, wait 1/2 of refresh time, then can use gorilla or raven, wait half of refresh time can use asp or (raven or gorilla), depending on what was used a 1/2 cycle back), etc.
10) Attunement Mastery - Increase PoS and FPoS by 2% per AA.
11) Critical Attunement(multiple ranks) - Gives a chance for each tick of Paragon/focused paragon to have double the effect.
12) Pet spell crits - for all procs/(promised)heals, with one or more lines of AAs.
The Warder - its not just a pet.
Beastlords are unique among the pet using classes. We do not reanimate a nearby corpse or conjure and bind elemental constructs to our will. We don't animate weapons or dominate nearby creatures. We don't summon imps to help us channel and control magic energies. We are gifted with a totem spirit in recognition of our pact of service to the spirits. This spirit manifests as a particular animal based on our racial stock. It is guide, protector, companion and friend. We are a team, not master and servant. Sadly, this isn't much emphasized in the game, except by role playing. Some customization, both cosmetic and game mechanic based, would go a LONG way towards changing this. Some of these are things we've asked for for years.
1) a Warder Tab on the Inventory Box - Basically a place to put an interface to do a lot of this stuff.
2) Name field - where we can type and store the name of our warder that appears as <pet name> (<char name>'s warder) over warder.
3) Type field - where the species of warder is listed.
4) Skin field - allows choice of coloration/patterning based on type. Want a black wolf? Sick of having a tiger for a warder when you look like a siamese cat? Want your ogre to have a panda bear? This would let you.
5) Auto equip box for pet gear - Drop pet gear here to equip instead of trying to hand it
to pet manually, with people running in the way, etc. (could even show up as the skin pattern of warder instead of having a class logo in it)
6) Formation field - set where, relative to your character, your warder stands in non combat situations. IE, a step back and to the right, 2 steps to the left. Basically, anywhere but on top of the object you are trying to use or loot, which seems to be their preferred spot (Feline warders should, of course continue to end up in the most inconvenient spot. :-P)
7) Faction - Amiably. AMIABLY!?!? After all we've accomplished together, all the pain and hardship, all the victories and we're only AMIABLE! Sigh. Solution - switch warder to start at the bottom of indifferent faction. Over time at certain points, like gaining lvl X, or AA x, a particular time played, some at random, and a set of "progression" tasks (task 1, do the newbie gear quests. Return to task npc for next task ...) beastlords receive tasks either via emote (you feel as though you are ready to complete your Blooding ritual.) or from your warder (<character name>, you are needed. Honor your oath and journey to <place>. The circle of <whelps/hunters/elders> will tell you of their need when we arrive...or Hail, <warder>. and some dialogue ensues.) completing these tasks increases your faction, so that over time it will get to
max ally. Why do we do this? Roleplaying for one, but in terms of game mechanics, change our warders so they are summoned with one piece of gear, a charm. Charm condition is "Increases in power as your warder faction increases", so that as we gain faction and develop a deeper and stronger bond with our warder, it gets better. Some tasks could also grant aa abilities to us (ie progression task complete your 2.0 has the reward of a scroll, focus feral essence (from above)).
(I'm sure that necros and mages would want their own versions of this, but it is a pet thing that we should be the best at.)
8) Pet Models - need to be updated. Use the updated feline model for vah shir, TSS bear model for ogres, the modern alligator model for trolls if the basilisk is unpopular, the more realistic wolf skins for barbarians. As for the Iksar, I'd suggest polling to see if the scaled wolf with different skins is acceptable or if a change of animal is desired. My thought is to use the SoD racnar model as the Iksar warder if a change is needed. It's classified as animal, from Kunark, has modern graphics and has a few skin options already and it is a lot cooler looking, in my opinion. And please, regardless of final models, update warder appearance in existant quests, like the circle of elders at the end of 2.0, bestial alignment models on non beastlords, a couple of the spirits in 1.0 and draz's warder, etc.
9) "Bond" spells - spells that affect warder and beastlord. All of our pet spells could have been this from the start. We would have summoned warder with the old button (a shorter cast time though, and by now it could zone with buffs). Casting "spirit of <name>" buffs pet to appropriate level/stats to warder and give us a general buff for the level. Pet haste should have given us haste and eventually group haste. Pet heals should have also healed us for a lesser amount. The proc spells could have added various "bestial strike" procs that could act as progressively better debuffs. Is more of a thought for EQ next at this point I guess, although adding the self heal recourse to our std pet heals or to Minax's Mending is doable.
Magelo profile screwed up atm - Umlat
Some nice ideas and well written, I do like a lot of them and glad a lot of decent ideas for our pets rather than just the stock "increase player dps"
Awesome post Umlat. I love most of the ideas. Many have a very original feel too. Please.. go throw that somewhere over on the EQ boards too, since there's not that much, if any, Dev viewing here.
Umlat, you have some good ideas and insights.
I am not going to write a book, but I want to respond on a few topics.
1) I agree that beastlords do not have a Master/Servant releationship. Flowing from this concept the devs should design some AAs/spells around it.
Maybe a Divine Arb that includes you and your pet? Actually now that I think about it, I like the concept of a Divine Arb between Bst and Pet + ~10k hps to the pool to split between the two.
2) I like the concept of pet casting. Pet can buff growl line. Make this an AA buff on the pet, and the pet can use the ability every 2 min or something. Similar to how some NPCs have abilities not spells now.
3) I don't think our class should have a FD or root. But I am not against a pet similar to the enchanter line that has high agro and no dps. Maybe a graphic of a dog biting the mobs ankle.
Great post Umlat hopefully that and some of the other good ones will be passed on to devs or posted on EQ boards... this no class rep thing kinda sucks now cause seems the bst voice isnt very loud or goes unheard :)
i really like the researchable totem line and summoning gear for pet via reserach and doing stuff like epic 2.0 ect
Umlat,
A very nicely written post. Please do post it on the soe boards. I will also be making a point of asking one of my guildees who is a community leader (or something like that) to try and bring this to any/all devs etc that will listen.
Umlat you have read my mind. I love a lot of your ideas and you have really touched on what I was hoping for with this particular thread. I have a couple suggestions though.
Make pact of the wurine have a recourse effect to hit our pet with most of the effects we recieve. (hp accuracy and maybe an illusion?)
Remember back in LoY (cringes thinking about that expansion) we got a spell (bond of the wild) that buffed both us and the pet. I would like to see more of those spells. Also make it stack with all the other stuff out there... gallantry bloodworg and the such.
For the animal attacks to be doable they would have to be activated. I really like those suggestions.
No more activated abilities please, I already wear out one keyboard and one mouse per raid from mashing buttons!
Quote from: Jili on August 30, 2009, 04:54:07 AM
No more activated abilities please, I already wear out one keyboard and one mouse per raid from mashing buttons!
/Agree to some extenct...but it's also damn fun with new attacks :-D
I kinda like new attacks so long as they are all on seperate times and refresh quick so I can hot button them /grins
Nice write up Umlat. Lots of good ideas for improving our class but I'm still at a loss where the developers perceive the BL's to stand in the end game. I'm talking about raiding. We aren't near the top of the list for DPS, we have no buffs to offer the raids other than SE which isn't enough to really pull us into the raid. Focus para is nice but again not enought to have a raid want a BL. Ferocity is kind of a novelty since its a long refresh and short duration; not a real benefit to the raid (I see it as mostly self buff); now is only good for atk, the resists are useless since raid gear keeps that capped. I view us as the druids were a few years back, no one wanted them in the end game and the mages were prettly much in the same boat. They wined and the delevelopers improved those classes and now are wanted in the raids. Druid skin and heal spell lines have much improved, mages pets were boosted, gave them heals, etc and pushed them high up on the dps list. I'm afraid if they don't come up with something to make us unique and needed in the raids the BL class will fade into a group only toon. I'm not sure improving some AA line will get us there, we need some kind of defining charateristic to have a raid need us. If they don't want us high on the dps list and only to offer SE and para I don't see us going anywhere. Look at the new MM in POK, there is no BL choice, not much to offer that is unique to our class. BL's are fading fast and most of the other classes don't really see a need for them anymore except to fill in a group. Its slowing becomming a joke in my guild. I don't have the time anymore to start a new toon that works in the end game. If we get pushed out of raids I'm afraid my days of playing EQ will be over. Help is needed!!!
Quote from: Goldy on September 22, 2009, 03:43:17 AM
Nice write up Umlat. Lots of good ideas for improving our class but I'm still at a loss where the developers perceive the BL's to stand in the end game. I'm talking about raiding. We aren't near the top of the list for DPS, we have no buffs to offer the raids other than SE which isn't enough to really pull us into the raid. Focus para is nice but again not enought to have a raid want a BL.
Twincast has put us at a disadvantage but with the parses I've seen some of the community put up, the ship isn't sinking yet, but it definitely has ALOT of holes. Focused Paragon on Cleric's/Wizards or those recently revived helps you to contribute to the overall efficiency of the raid but again, its a band-aid on a "gusher". Also cordinating a Raven's Claw rotation on Raid mobs and not spamming the key will benefit everyone if it isn't being done already.
Ferocity is kind of a novelty since its a long refresh and short duration; not a real benefit to the raid (I see it as mostly self buff); now is only good for atk, the resists are useless since raid gear keeps that capped.
Leave it in the back of your spell book :cry:
I view us as the druids were a few years back, no one wanted them in the end game and the mages were prettly much in the same boat. They wined and the delevelopers improved those classes and now are wanted in the raids.
A druid's only home is a raid or boxed. If a Merc can't keep you up, you probally need a real cleric anyways
Druid skin and heal spell lines have much improved, mages pets were boosted, gave them heals, etc and pushed them high up on the dps list.
I think the developers know how we feel about mage heals. Druid skin is basically a joke now unless someone forgot to tell me about a buff combination that doesn't work with cleric buff line
I'm afraid if they don't come up with something to make us unique and needed in the raids the BL class will fade into a group only toon. I'm not sure improving some AA line will get us there, we need some kind of defining charateristic to have a raid need us. If they don't want us high on the dps list and only to offer SE and para I don't see us going anywhere.
Thats why I'm glad your posting. Now if we could get someone at Sony to listen
Look at the new MM in POK, there is no BL choice, not much to offer that is unique to our class.
No Beast's in clasic and we would out preform DPS wise vs some of the other classes thanks to our uber pet. But not having /pet hold would screw us also in Sol B
BL's are fading fast and most of the other classes don't really see a need for them anymore except to fill in a group. Its slowing becomming a joke in my guild. I don't have the time anymore to start a new toon that works in the end game. If we get pushed out of raids I'm afraid my days of playing EQ will be over. Help is needed!!!
Aye, the ship isn't looking as pristine as it used to, few more holes than I like, but I can still get a group faster than a druid or enchanter on Prexus so we don't need lifeboats yet. Ill wait to see what Undershore brings us, but not holding my breath. Fan Fair didn't look promising and everything released hasn't don't munch to improve that percetion. They may need to release NDA so the beta testers can talk it up this year.
QuoteA druid's only home is a raid or boxed. If a Merc can't keep you up, you probally need a real cleric anyways
Sounds like you group w/ subpar druids. The ones I group with heal 10x better than a merc, and are more than ready to enter into CC and dps roles as well. Mained by a smart person, druids are pretty damn amazing again.
Quote from: Khauruk on September 22, 2009, 02:25:46 PM
QuoteA druid's only home is a raid or boxed. If a Merc can't keep you up, you probally need a real cleric anyways
Sounds like you group w/ subpar druids. The ones I group with heal 10x better than a merc, and are more than ready to enter into CC and dps roles as well. Mained by a smart person, druids are pretty damn amazing again.
Yeah I like duids too. Attack debuffs and dps is good and heals are good too.
I spent a good portion of the double exp weekend non-stop pulling 6-10 mobs in mech gaurd on my sk with just a single druid healer. Of course I boxed beast a bit and kept her paragoned but she was kick ass >.<
When I was building SK and tanking on my beast one of my druid friends could keep me up easy on some rough content.
I'd have to agree with Kh that you must know some suckass druids.
For the longest time, the Dru/bst duo was arguably the most powerful in the game. It's still a seriously effective one.
Quote from: Khauruk on September 22, 2009, 02:25:46 PM
QuoteA druid's only home is a raid or boxed. If a Merc can't keep you up, you probally need a real cleric anyways
Sounds like you group w/ subpar druids. The ones I group with heal 10x better than a merc, and are more than ready to enter into CC and dps roles as well. Mained by a smart person, druids are pretty damn amazing again.
Quote from: wildwaters on September 22, 2009, 05:13:20 PM
Quote from: Khauruk on September 22, 2009, 02:25:46 PM
QuoteA druid's only home is a raid or boxed. If a Merc can't keep you up, you probally need a real cleric anyways
Sounds like you group w/ subpar druids. The ones I group with heal 10x better than a merc, and are more than ready to enter into CC and dps roles as well. Mained by a smart person, druids are pretty damn amazing again.
Yeah I like duids too. Attack debuffs and dps is good and heals are good too.
I spent a good portion of the double exp weekend non-stop pulling 6-10 mobs in mech gaurd on my sk with just a single druid healer. Of course I boxed beast a bit and kept her paragoned but she was kick ass >.<
When I was building SK and tanking on my beast one of my druid friends could keep me up easy on some rough content.
I'd have to agree with Kh that you must know some suckass druids.
The problem you post Wildwaters is that your grouping where your gear & aa's > content. Yes, I know some sucky Druids and trying to convince them to DeBuff was an exercise in futility. Thats why I don't group with them.
If the Druid is able to provide CC along with Main Healing and Debuffing and then throws some DPS in the mix, sounds like this is more content where the gear & aa's > content. If Cleric's have trouble with damage spikes of some of the current higher zones using Promised, HoT, and Fast heal to keep a Tank up I don't see how a Druid is going to make this better as Main Healer.
In Raid environments, the Druid has seen signifigant gains in order to keep his individual Group & the Raid going. But in the Group role, they still lack the fundemental abilities they used to have...
...I keep wanting to discuss the roles and utility druid's need inside a group and this isn't the forum for that...
What I want to discuss is that I don't ever want to see us get to this point. I want the Beastlord community to continue to discuss the latest expansions, spells, abilities, and how best to use them. I want our role in a raid and group to mean something and not a become a charitable reason for inviting us. Where the items are dropping that fellow members might find as upgrades or "cool" trinkets or quests that have good rewards.
But in order to get to this point we need something more than what we are getting from the developers. I haven't been a big fan of raising our pet DPS but have been a great fan of increasing pet survivability and tanking (You can search the many posts I've done on the topic). But many want our pet's to be real "beasts" and I'm not against that, just I worry about competing with Mages about what they think is their role as "Pet class." It's easier to say, increase the amount of damage we do and unlink our Disc's so we can provide the damage Rangers' do while their utilty would be pulling and ours.....
....What is our utility other than slow? In group setting's FPoS isn't as essential unless non-stop pulling and you don't have a group member with a weak bladder or RL concerns taking care of children. We have hobble for back up snares and a few buffs we can cast once all the GL buffs fall off our group members or until they can run a box out or get a "drive bye." But other than that, we only have our DPS and slow, wich is being phased out of the game. So discussing what are "role" is, is a healthy discussions and we've handled it better than some class boards (remember to pat yourself on the back after reading this).
Note to self: Need to do some parses on Slow in the group game
Quote from: AbyssalMage on September 22, 2009, 07:28:31 PM
Quote from: wildwaters on September 22, 2009, 05:13:20 PM
When I was building SK and tanking on my beast one of my druid friends could keep me up easy on some rough content.
The problem you post Wildwaters is that your grouping where your gear & aa's > content.
Let me qualify 'rough content'. Group geared sub-1000 aa druid healing my beastlord tanking in korafax up to two mobs at a time. Not only was she healing me, dpsing and debuffing but she was doing it with fairly efficient mana useage.
Again I was paragoning as soon as it popped and slowing.
As far as us being charitable inivites on raids and stuff, I suppose that is why when we do hard tower we try and make sure we have at least one beast in there somewhere? It may also be the reason why as an SK I go looking for beasts to group with, cause I'm charitable, uh-huh (of course if you suck at playing beast I'll drop you faster than Obama dropped ACORN).
Having a discussion about our role in groups and raids is healthy and beneficial.
Stating that any class is useless or should only be used on raids or boxed is short sighted and indicates that you don't understand the class well or haven't had the opportunity to witness good ones in action.
Btw, FPOS is a pretty powerful tool if you use it.
As far as utility, well everyone bitches about our lack of it but I have yet to see any one offer a viable suggestion as to what our utility should be.
Everyone likes our class because we can do a little bit of everything but as soon as we turn around we forget that and start looking for what we are good at. You can't have it both ways.
You either excel at one thing or you are pretty good at alot of things.
If you are good at everything you lose any kind of balance and wouldn't need any other classes.
Now I don't like raiding my beast because it takes alot to do it well and I prefer to tank. However, I always enjoyed being able to slow, buff, mana regen, dps, of tank in a pinch and generally make my groupmates lives easier and efficient.
If you play well and to the full extent of your abilities (no matter your class) you are going to be valuable in any setting.
AbyssalMage, its nice to see someone mostly agree with me. I don't want to be a downer on this topic but it's probably time to shock someone and let them know the frustration of the BL community. A lot of these posts seem to focus on the group aspect of our class like slow, etc. I'm still looking for a defining characterstic for us from a raid perspective. Maybe most of the BL's left in the game are just grouping toons, I don't know. Its funny how this game has oscillated around the classes over time. Over the years you can see "cheats" for the lack of a better word that classes have received. Necro's the most, heavy dots, snare, FD, you name it. Recently the rangers got the magic arrow, that has placed them in a major cheat area in my opinion. Ranges are out there laying waist to mobs with that arrow and head shot (group aspect). I have a buddy that can get somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 AA in about 1/2 hour solo. It will slow down some after he gets over 1000. Anyway, I understand the BL class was introduced in Luclin and really didn't fit into the roles offered in the game at that time and still probably doesn't. They did make the pet monstrous at the time. The mages bitched and they have changed that over the years. I think the BL was really a duplicate of a mage to some extent, why they now picked them to be better at dps than us is who knows? I picked up the BL because it was fun to play, we were part monks which I thought would be good at dps with a twist, some dps being split between the pet. I saw the slow as kind of a cheat that made us good at soloing. I kind of feel the say way, why ask for something over the top but hay, that is how the game has progressed over the years and maybe that is the only thing that will stand us apart. Anyway, I ramble on (in raids sorry if cryptic). I haven't verified it but saw someone post that our dps, pets dps, and our spells are about 1/3 each for the total. I know most of the time our dots won't stick on the named raid mobs, maybe that can be an improvement for us from a dps stand point. The druid skin, symbol and WOD is the combo I'm talking about, better than Gallentry. Got to run, oh yea, the BL's aren't represented in the new MM since it was suppose to mimic the game back then, Luclin wasn't out yet.
Quote from: wildwaters on September 22, 2009, 05:13:20 PMLet me qualify 'rough content'. Group geared sub-1000 aa druid healing my beastlord tanking in korafax up to two mobs at a time. Not only was she healing me, dpsing and debuffing but she was doing it with fairly efficient mana useage.
Gonna have to call BS on this one. There is absolutely no way that a 30k manapool druid is keeping you alive while you're tanking 2 5k quadding mobs. Not to mention with "ease", haah. Not even with spam healing it's not happening. I know I had to bust out a merc or two alongside my cleric bot (3k AAs, 30k manapool) for Korafax nameds, because spam heals weren't keeping me alive past protective spirit.
Quote from: wildwaters on September 22, 2009, 05:13:20 PMAs far as us being charitable inivites on raids and stuff, I suppose that is why when we do hard tower we try and make sure we have at least one beast in there somewhere? It may also be the reason why as an SK I go looking for beasts to group with, cause I'm charitable, uh-huh (of course if you suck at playing beast I'll drop you faster than Obama dropped ACORN).
Guess RoI must be clueless to have this clearly powerful class sit out from hard raids, because for us beastlords are the class who sit out most often, and often enough, the raid has no beastlords at all (the only class that's happened to so far).
Quote from: wildwaters on September 22, 2009, 05:13:20 PMStating that any class is useless or should only be used on raids or boxed is short sighted and indicates that you don't understand the class well or haven't had the opportunity to witness good ones in action.
Not useless, since having a beastlord on a raid is better than leaving that raid spot empty. But almost any class is able to bring considerably more to the raid, either via their support/tanking or DPS abilities.
Quote from: wildwaters on September 22, 2009, 05:13:20 PMBtw, FPOS is a pretty powerful tool if you use it.
It's all right, but there's no need to glorify it. In group content, it's really not needed with 30 sec ooc timers, and most of the raid encounters are tuned to players' manapools. A few K extra mana won't make or break a raid. Yes, if some healer app managed to die somehow on these ridiculously easy raids, it could enable the cleric to cast 2 spells, but that really isn't going to save the day.
Quote from: wildwaters on September 22, 2009, 05:13:20 PMAs far as utility, well everyone bitches about our lack of it but I have yet to see any one offer a viable suggestion as to what our utility should be.
This decision is ultimately in SoE's hands. The thread on the AA suggestions has tons of good ideas about utility abilities.
Quote from: wildwaters on September 22, 2009, 05:13:20 PMEveryone likes our class because we can do a little bit of everything but as soon as we turn around we forget that and start looking for what we are good at. You can't have it both ways.
You either excel at one thing or you are pretty good at alot of things.
If you are good at everything you lose any kind of balance and wouldn't need any other classes.
Guess your definition of pretty good differs from mine, and a lot of other beastlords I guess.
Between staying in melee range, casting spells and discs constantly, and watching hp of both pet and self. It can get a little overwhelming sometimes.
As far as a beastlords "role" goes.
In a group i think we have to be the most aware, again stay in melee range cast 4 different spells + fpos and maybe can hang with mnk dps (both raid gear), our buffs are mediocre, they help, but eh, and slow...i don't use it unless it's a named mob.
I find a beastlord in a raid almost useless...SE is the only thing we have a use for at the moment. Our feeds(paragon) have almost no role if the healers are doing their job right. Our dps is at the bottom of the charts. Our survivability is low. Like Gamgan stated on hard raids, we're almost always sitting.
Quote from: Altof on September 29, 2009, 11:16:48 AM
As far as a beastlords "role" goes.
I find a beastlord in a raid almost useless...SE is the only thing we have a use for at the moment. Our feeds(paragon) have almost no role if the healers are doing their job right. Our dps is at the bottom of the charts. Our survivability is low. Like Gamgan stated on hard raids, we're almost always sitting.
Sorry, but I have to disagree. Granted, my guild is not end game and we have truely horrible luck getting weapon drops so our dps overall is not great, but we commonly raid with 4-5 beastlords every night. Our beasts are usually among the first chosen for the groups with a bard or shaman. When we parse, our beasts show in the top ten and compete with the rangers and monks, sometimes even edging out a rogue or zerker or mage. Survivability demands attention, probably more for us aggro whores than for most other classes, but you just have to minimize your porn window while raiding.
As for sitting, our guild is first come, first served. If you are on time to the raid you get in. If you are late or the raid is full we have a waiting list, but class is rarely a consideration. We do hard raids on off nights, so we don't have 54 people trying to get 36 spots. The only time I've been on line and sat during a raid was if I was late due to RL stuff.
Anyone that claims beastlords are useless on raids needs to stop believing the bullshit that if you don't dps like a rogue then you don't contribute. Any beast who claims that should re-roll or learn to play the class better.
Liked Umlat's post a lot, very well written and great idea's and insight on beastolrd's class; all of the AA's posted look like could us do lot of good and don't look imbalanced.
All in all, I'm one of those beastolrds that thinks that we are quite good as we are in the tanking department. That a mainly SoD group geared beastorld (like me) with a few raid drops here and there (and mostly old content) is able to tank with not many troubles T5 nameds (not tried nameds in Korafax but many in OBF and COD) should tell you something (although it is true that normally two healers are normally needed there, second one normally beeing my boxed druid).
The main point on how to focus the further beastolrds improvements is what are we supposed to do? and that changes in group or raid environment. A lot.
We can't expect to get improvements for both aspects of the game as it would imbalance the class a lot. So watching on our roles:
Raid beastlord roles:
- Dps
- Mana feeders
- Emergency slowers (for when a raid mob is very resistant pet slow is then usefull)
- Oh crap, all tanks/knight's have died emergency tank (not sure if that's possible in SoD, but I had to tank a few SoF nameds and did survive until a tank grabbed it back)
Group beastlord roles:
- Slower
- Dps
- Tank
- Buffer
- Situational CC with warder (a quite hard job with T5 mobs, but can be done)
what we want to be improved?
DPSIt is evident that the main role where raid and group beastlord is going to gain the most is the dps part, and as we all know at the moment 80-90% of our dps comes from ourselves (be it melee/summoned pets/nukes/dots) and rest of our warder's.
This I find sad, that developers brought our warder's to this when they where supposed to be an important part of our class when it first came out.
In my personal opinion, in the dps department, we shall do like 80% of a monk's potential dps (note potential, as I astonishingly outparse quite a few monks) and of that our warder should be doing around 30% of that dps. In group environment this is easier to achieve, just bump warders melee capabilites, up min/max hit and crit tables; but in raids we get the survability issue; it has improved a fair bit lately but it needs a final bump so they can survive raids without us beeing constantly watching after them (thats bound to a dead warder most of times)
SlowingNot much space for improvement here sadly, we are stuck with mitigation and slow cap, beeing a second class slower. Resists aren't such an issue lately, haven't have had my slow resisted twice for a loooong time, but the duration can be an issue, if you are main slower and have 3-4 adds to deal with, specially with recast timer. Have the duration raised from 1.5 mins to the 3.5 ase Sha's has, keeping the resist mod, and leave it as the 65% slow it is. I would even ask for the slow aa Shamans got now, maybe with an incremented cost, that would save us a spell gem (although that may be seen as overpowering /shrug).
TankingSo far, in the grouping perspective, having defensives maxed, and avoidance/shielding + defensive focuses (IB V + ID IV as groupable ones) allows us to tank efficiently the high end zone nameds; imho this means we are doing good on tanking department. As I said before, I managed to survive (for more than 1 minute) Clankwrench as MT(popping out shield and using all I had of course) when our tank died until a proper one grabbed it back. I'm sure high end beastlords could be MT for some raid nameds if they tried to for fun (and no, not with 12 clerics behind lol). I guess SoD's raid nameds no, but that is not what we expect aint we?
BuffingWell, this part needs some improvements, as we all know; focus/sv/se are our only real buffs we cast on other players (with the odd pet haste if no one haste pots in group) when grouping; maybe fero too if you get asked for. Raiding SE is our only buff. Much has been spoken about, making our focus cast overcap stats, fero brought as aura, etc ... in the end we are NOT a buffing class, thats shaman's role; make them better to suit us better for group content, but either way we are never going to get any buffs that shaman's will cast better, period. Apart of Spiritual line. Even fero is by far outshined by Champion, the only plus is resists and we all know this aint worth anymore.
CCSo far we can make the pet work as an offtank in some situations/zones but they have lost a lot of beeing a CC offtank as they have fallen well behind in their defensive capabilities. Either beef up their defense a fair bit (warder's need it anyway) or become "imaginative". A hobble-like aa or buff proc that could proc a small duration root (1 minute, and not breakable by pet) or a small duration (2-3 ticks) recursive mezz proc (of course exclusive, either hobble,root or mezz) could add a lot of utility for us in groups and raids.
Another imaginative proposals that come to mind:
Selective warder buffs/stances: have a range of buffs (maybe instead of actual pet haste, replacing it) / aas we cast on our warder that affect him (and why not the group) in specific ways:
Melee DPS buff "warder's rage": the warder becomes more fragile but deals more melee damage; the group gets some kind of dps increment type aura (like increasing min damage done by x%, or +X to crits; whatever that would stack with existing auras). Dps the pet does could be in the 60-70% of mage's air pet for example.
- Caster DPS buff "warder's fury": the warder becomes more fragile but procs like mad (any proc it has); the group gets an aura that powers up damage/crit chance of spells or adds Spell Damage or the like (altho this doesnt add much it seems)
- Defensive buff "warder's prescience": the warder does sustantially less damage but gains a great boost on defensive capabilities; additionally the group gets hit by a defensive aura (increasing dodge or block) or a group rune recourse off the pets proc (like absorving 500 damage).
- Healers buff "warder's careness": the warder deals no damage but procs lifetap-like procs with group-healing recourse (proc hitting for 500DD lifetap and healing 500 to group); the group gets a heal powering aura allowing healing spells to be cost less and get increased crit chance.
I'm aware that such implementations would take quite some work and some interfere with other classes (bards/enchanters/zerkers) but it would add a lot of utility for us and maybe desiderability both in group and raid scenarios.
AA's proposed by Umlat look awesome, specially the crit chance of paragon lines and the ones increasing our Moon's spell (our biggest source of spell dps atm); maybe that "Pack Leader" aa could affect not only to the Moon's line, but to any spell/aa/proc that has a set number of pets summoned. I'd love to see group BA have increased tiers, and become, in the end ranks, a valuable aa like Ranger's forest line, aa cost is secondary, if it were as good as GoF aa line id spend 12 aa a rank with closed eyes.
Anyway those are me two copper, one likes to dream :D
Quote from: Sharrien on September 29, 2009, 01:31:25 PM
Sorry, but I have to disagree. Granted, my guild is not end game and we have truely horrible luck getting weapon drops so our dps overall is not great, but we commonly raid with 4-5 beastlords every night. Our beasts are usually among the first chosen for the groups with a bard or shaman. When we parse, our beasts show in the top ten and compete with the rangers and monks, sometimes even edging out a rogue or zerker or mage. Survivability demands attention, probably more for us aggro whores than for most other classes, but you just have to minimize your porn window while raiding.
As for sitting, our guild is first come, first served. If you are on time to the raid you get in. If you are late or the raid is full we have a waiting list, but class is rarely a consideration. We do hard raids on off nights, so we don't have 54 people trying to get 36 spots. The only time I've been on line and sat during a raid was if I was late due to RL stuff.
Anyone that claims beastlords are useless on raids needs to stop believing the bullshit that if you don't dps like a rogue then you don't contribute. Any beast who claims that should re-roll or learn to play the class better.
Sooo many things are wrong with this post. First of all if your out parsing a rogue, zerker, or monk...then they must be terrible so that doesn't count. Second you put mage in there? wtf mage are not all that great of dps either on raids. Last, how in the hell would minimizing porn help our survivability? dunno why you attacked me but there was so many things wrong with that post i had to reply :p
Quote from: Altof on September 29, 2009, 05:48:10 PM
Quote from: Sharrien on September 29, 2009, 01:31:25 PM
Sorry, but I have to disagree. Granted, my guild is not end game and we have truely horrible luck getting weapon drops so our dps overall is not great, but we commonly raid with 4-5 beastlords every night. Our beasts are usually among the first chosen for the groups with a bard or shaman. When we parse, our beasts show in the top ten and compete with the rangers and monks, sometimes even edging out a rogue or zerker or mage. Survivability demands attention, probably more for us aggro whores than for most other classes, but you just have to minimize your porn window while raiding.
As for sitting, our guild is first come, first served. If you are on time to the raid you get in. If you are late or the raid is full we have a waiting list, but class is rarely a consideration. We do hard raids on off nights, so we don't have 54 people trying to get 36 spots. The only time I've been on line and sat during a raid was if I was late due to RL stuff.
Anyone that claims beastlords are useless on raids needs to stop believing the bullshit that if you don't dps like a rogue then you don't contribute. Any beast who claims that should re-roll or learn to play the class better.
Sooo many things are wrong with this post. First of all if your out parsing a rogue, zerker, or monk...then they must be terrible so that doesn't count. Second you put mage in there? wtf mage are not all that great of dps either on raids. Last, how in the hell would minimizing porn help our survivability? dunno why you attacked me but there was so many things wrong with that post i had to reply :p
Actually I was speaking to the top zerker in the game and we were discussing how decent beasts have occasionally given decent zerkers a run for their money and can often out parse other melee dps. It does happen.
Mages aren't horrible dps either. They may be the weaker of the silkies but they are pretty solid. Not sure why a mage would top out a parse all the time though.
Quote from: Sharrien on September 29, 2009, 01:31:25 PM
Sorry, but I have to disagree. Granted, my guild is not end game and we have truely horrible luck getting weapon drops so our dps overall is not great, but we commonly raid with 4-5 beastlords every night. Our beasts are usually among the first chosen for the groups with a bard or shaman.
4-5 beastlords getting first pick for dps groups?!? No wonder you guys never reached the end game ;). Just kidding (well, more or less), sorry, just couldn't resist. There's a reason to the madness behind what high end guilds do. Like why they don't recruit 4-5 beastlords, or why they have beastlords sit out from hard raids. Sure, 4-5 beastlords could keep 2-3 clerics perma paragon'd, which'll enable them to heal tanks longer, but at the same time, replacing them with real DPS will result in significantly shorter encounters.
Quote from: Sharrien on September 29, 2009, 01:31:25 PMWhen we parse, our beasts show in the top ten and compete with the rangers and monks, sometimes even edging out a rogue or zerker or mage. Survivability demands attention, probably more for us aggro whores than for most other classes, but you just have to minimize your porn window while raiding.
That doesn't necessarily say anything about how good beaslord DPS is, but how bad/lazy some of the rogue/zerker/monk/ranger players are.
Quote from: Sharrien on September 29, 2009, 01:31:25 PMAs for sitting, our guild is first come, first served. If you are on time to the raid you get in. If you are late or the raid is full we have a waiting list, but class is rarely a consideration.
This is another difference from high end raiders, where benefit to the guild mostly thrumps other factors (if you showed up 30 mins early or just 15). There's absolutely no way we'd make our 5 rogues sit out from a raid just because they showed up only 1 minute before raid time when the 36 spots were already filled.
Quote from: Sharrien on September 29, 2009, 01:31:25 PMWe do hard raids on off nights, so we don't have 54 people trying to get 36 spots. The only time I've been on line and sat during a raid was if I was late due to RL stuff.
Raiding only 2-3 nights a week, most of our nights are off nights.
Quote from: Sharrien on September 29, 2009, 01:31:25 PMAnyone that claims beastlords are useless on raids needs to stop believing the bullshit that if you don't dps like a rogue then you don't contribute. Any beast who claims that should re-roll or learn to play the class better.
It's not that we don't DPS like a rogue, it's many things combined. We don't DPS like a rogue/zerker/monk/ranger, and only marginally outdps warriors. Put a decent warrior with a shaman and a bard, and I'd love to see some of their parses (actually, will provide this for ya). Aside from the DPS issue, we don't really bring anything essential to the raid. SE is only marginally useful, I'm really close to putting that on my buffblock list to make room for more useful buffs (rogue poison). We do have paragon, which is ok, but as I mentioned above. Why would you want to make your encounters last longer just so you can have selected few casters mana regen boosted?
Below is pretty close to the optimal burst a beastlord can expect. Not completely the best possible parse, since I had no bard or MR, and had to hit protective spirit due to my aggro, so I was forced to use BA over fury. Note that I got outparsed by a warrior, and the top rogues with similar gear/AAs as me more than doubled my damage output. So saying we can't dps like a rogue, is almost like enchanters can't dps like a bst.
Rallos Zek on 29/09/2009
| Damage by | Total | % of Tot | Time | DPS | Scaled | Hits | Max hit | Avg hit | Dmg to PC | NPC DPS | Special | |
| wiz | 975366 | 10.94% | 28 | 34834 | 30480 | 29 | 85441 | 33633 | 0 | 0 | | |
| wiz | 812950 | 9.12% | 27 | 30109 | 25405 | 29 | 81507 | 28032 | 10400 | 547 | | |
| rog | 699039 | 7.84% | 31 | 22550 | 21845 | 214 | 23491 | 3266 | 15600 | 503 | | |
| rog | 631963 | 7.09% | 31 | 20386 | 19749 | 202 | 23530 | 3128 | 13000 | 520 | | |
| wiz | 535543 | 6.01% | 29 | 18467 | 16736 | 22 | 86634 | 24342 | 0 | 0 | | |
| ber | 474620 | 5.33% | 30 | 15821 | 14832 | 107 | 13446 | 4435 | 4987 | 453 | G | |
| nec + pets | 404192 | 4.54% | 30 | 13473 | 12631 | 76 | 40574 | 5318 | 13000 | 520 | | |
| rog | 395925 | 4.44% | 30 | 13198 | 12373 | 152 | 22680 | 2604 | 0 | 0 | | |
| rog | 388392 | 4.36% | 29 | 13393 | 12137 | 129 | 22668 | 3010 | 13000 | 520 | | |
| nec | 376975 | 4.23% | 28 | 13463 | 11780 | 41 | 20242 | 9194 | 13000 | 520 | | |
| war | 366739 | 4.11% | 32 | 11461 | 11461 | 182 | 7172 | 2015 | 56059 | 1808 | | |
| rog | 360238 | 4.04% | 30 | 12008 | 11257 | 142 | 21456 | 2536 | 13000 | 520 | | |
| ber | 345517 | 3.88% | 31 | 11146 | 10797 | 67 | 16083 | 5156 | 33225 | 1072 | | |
| bst + pets | 311027 | 3.49% | 32 | 9720 | 9720 | 320 | 17432 | 971 | 38515 | 1242 | | |
| rng + pets | 303017 | 3.4% | 30 | 10101 | 9469 | 75 | 19164 | 4040 | 13000 | 500 | | |
| rng + pets | 294889 | 3.31% | 29 | 10169 | 9215 | 59 | 19276 | 4998 | 13000 | 520 | | |
| mag + pets | 194821 | 2.19% | 26 | 7493 | 6088 | 187 | 23007 | 1041 | 0 | 0 | | |
| war | 179702 | 2.02% | 31 | 5797 | 5616 | 113 | 5180 | 1590 | 24464 | 941 | | |
| dru | 167694 | 1.88% | 23 | 7291 | 5240 | 23 | 15303 | 7291 | 0 | 0 | | |
| brd | 164572 | 1.85% | 30 | 5486 | 5143 | 130 | 4926 | 1265 | 0 | 0 | | |
| nec + pets | 151896 | 1.7% | 29 | 5238 | 4747 | 46 | 16111 | 3302 | 13000 | 520 | | |
| shd | 148864 | 1.67% | 32 | 4652 | 4652 | 49 | 28476 | 3038 | 62307 | 1947 | | |
| enc | 91864 | 1.03% | 27 | 3402 | 2871 | 17 | 13974 | 5403 | 13000 | 520 | | |
| brd + pets | 87717 | 0.98% | 27 | 3249 | 2741 | 135 | 3781 | 649 | 0 | 0 | | |
Since the monks died on that fight, and their parses were not really representative of what they can do, here's a glimpse into their capabilities:
Rallos Zek on 07/09/2009
| Damage by | Total | % of Tot | Time | DPS | Scaled | Hits | Max hit | Avg hit | Dmg to PC | NPC DPS | Special | |
| wiz | 847009 | 9.5% | 34 | 24912 | 22290 | 23 | 81994 | 36826 | 15600 | 503 | | |
| rog | 566455 | 6.35% | 35 | 16184 | 14907 | 217 | 19032 | 2610 | 16962 | 530 | | |
| rog | 549120 | 6.16% | 35 | 15689 | 14451 | 182 | 20979 | 3017 | 7012 | 250 | | |
| mnk | 513981 | 5.76% | 36 | 14277 | 13526 | 419 | 16122 | 1226 | 30962 | 885 | 7 | |
| mnk | 484460 | 5.43% | 34 | 14249 | 12749 | 348 | 15740 | 1392 | 42900 | 2258 | 7 | |
| war | 475416 | 5.33% | 37 | 12849 | 12511 | 197 | 38889 | 2413 | 17870 | 616 | | |
| nec + pets | 463704 | 5.2% | 31 | 14958 | 12203 | 47 | 26858 | 9866 | 15600 | 503 | | |
| ber | 440918 | 4.94% | 34 | 12968 | 11603 | 103 | 15927 | 4280 | 0 | 0 | | |
| wiz | 434982 | 4.88% | 28 | 15535 | 11447 | 20 | 62876 | 21749 | 0 | 0 | | |
| ber | 394200 | 4.42% | 31 | 12716 | 10374 | 94 | 17230 | 4193 | 2712 | 2712 | | |
| mag + pets | 362186 | 4.06% | 35 | 10348 | 9531 | 294 | 29084 | 1231 | 52674 | 2394 | | |
| mnk | 347172 | 3.89% | 37 | 9383 | 9136 | 302 | 9739 | 1149 | 63616 | 2052 | G 7 | |
| nec | 345060 | 3.87% | 33 | 10456 | 9081 | 46 | 18474 | 7501 | 0 | 0 | | |
| bst + pets | 319117 | 3.58% | 36 | 8864 | 8398 | 251 | 16275 | 1271 | 50017 | 1613 | | |
| rng | 290401 | 3.26% | 32 | 9075 | 7642 | 50 | 12987 | 5808 | 0 | 0 | | |
| brd | 235703 | 2.64% | 35 | 6734 | 6203 | 163 | 6614 | 1446 | 15600 | 503 | | |
| rng + pets | 231369 | 2.59% | 34 | 6805 | 6089 | 75 | 14058 | 3084 | 7533 | 3766 | | |
| mag + pets | 228873 | 2.57% | 36 | 6358 | 6023 | 155 | 19549 | 1476 | 30912 | 1405 | | |
| bst + pets | 225561 | 2.53% | 34 | 6634 | 5936 | 215 | 15677 | 1049 | 28550 | 921 | | |
| rng + pets | 219202 | 2.46% | 36 | 6089 | 5768 | 59 | 21532 | 3715 | 6250 | 6250 | | |
| war | 191730 | 2.15% | 33 | 5810 | 5046 | 104 | 34790 | 1843 | 11314 | 943 | | |
| clr + pets | 178660 | 2% | 34 | 5255 | 4702 | 47 | 16614 | 3801 | 2707 | 108 | | |
| brd + pets | 178142 | 2% | 34 | 5239 | 4688 | 199 | 4462 | 895 | 31774 | 1271 | | |
| brd | 152339 | 1.71% | 35 | 4353 | 4009 | 164 | 3400 | 928 | 31187 | 1006 | | |
| enc | 87053 | 0.98% | 22 | 3957 | 2291 | 12 | 15274 | 7254 | 0 | 0 | | |
I realize this parse is slightly biased, since in essence it compares each class' best discs, so naturally when comparing current discs of other classes to our 7+ year old best discs, we won't be coming out ahead. Rangers seem to have similar top end disc, except they can "burst" for considerably longer than we can. Add to that the nifty AE attacks, and decent ranged attack for those encounters where close range combat is not desirable (either because of silence or nasty PB AEs), and they definately warrant themselves a spot in raid lineup.
Combined: Head Scryer Llkth on 20/09/2009
| Damage by | Total | % of Tot | Time | DPS | Scaled | Hits | Max hit | Avg hit | Dmg to PC | NPC DPS | Special | |
| nec + pets | 2995243 | 6.35% | 240 | 12480 | 12276 | 737 | 18598 | 4064 | 17376 | 434 | | |
| nec + pets | 2948867 | 6.25% | 239 | 12338 | 12086 | 798 | 19524 | 3695 | 1186 | 1186 | | |
| rng + pets | 2504637 | 5.31% | 243 | 10307 | 10265 | 583 | 26792 | 4296 | 0 | 0 | | |
| rog | 2432740 | 5.15% | 242 | 10053 | 9970 | 1442 | 23334 | 1687 | 0 | 0 | G 7 | |
| wiz + pets | 2367964 | 5.02% | 241 | 9826 | 9705 | 156 | 84262 | 15179 | 0 | 0 | 7 | |
| rng + pets | 2239209 | 4.74% | 242 | 9253 | 9177 | 1187 | 24038 | 1886 | 0 | 0 | G | |
| rng + pets | 2047797 | 4.34% | 242 | 8462 | 8393 | 1239 | 26873 | 1652 | 0 | 0 | G | |
| mnk | 2001703 | 4.24% | 243 | 8237 | 8204 | 1832 | 20882 | 1092 | 0 | 0 | G | |
| wiz + pets | 1799909 | 3.81% | 236 | 7627 | 7377 | 134 | 75225 | 13432 | 62400 | 8914 | | |
| wiz + pets | 1769827 | 3.75% | 232 | 7629 | 7253 | 154 | 79714 | 11492 | 41600 | 10400 | | |
| wiz + pets | 1707452 | 3.62% | 235 | 7266 | 6998 | 132 | 79975 | 12935 | 0 | 0 | | |
| mnk | 1667231 | 3.53% | 244 | 6833 | 6833 | 1533 | 15000 | 1087 | 0 | 0 | G | |
| ber | 1584197 | 3.36% | 242 | 6546 | 6493 | 745 | 11231 | 2126 | 0 | 0 | 7 | |
| bst + pets | 1521512 | 3.22% | 243 | 6261 | 6236 | 2023 | 14422 | 752 | 41250 | 301 | G | |
| mnk | 1517881 | 3.22% | 243 | 6246 | 6221 | 1390 | 19895 | 1092 | 23925 | 2991 | G | |
| mag + pets | 1482856 | 3.14% | 237 | 6257 | 6077 | 1075 | 28527 | 1379 | 0 | 0 | | |
| rog | 1467988 | 3.11% | 217 | 6765 | 6016 | 1096 | 15137 | 1339 | 0 | 0 | | |
| ber | 1458159 | 3.09% | 241 | 6050 | 5976 | 725 | 11948 | 2011 | 0 | 0 | | |
| mnk | 1407992 | 2.98% | 244 | 5770 | 5770 | 1476 | 22654 | 953 | 19800 | 9900 | G | |
| bst + pets | 1148016 | 2.43% | 239 | 4803 | 4705 | 1656 | 15012 | 693 | 0 | 0 | | |
| rog | 1046221 | 2.22% | 243 | 4305 | 4288 | 786 | 13793 | 1331 | 0 | 0 | | |
| mag + pets | 967364 | 2.05% | 234 | 4134 | 3965 | 606 | 29348 | 1596 | 15700 | 15700 | | |
| brd + pets | 934900 | 1.98% | 243 | 3847 | 3832 | 1017 | 4918 | 919 | 0 | 0 | | |
| brd + pets | 736389 | 1.56% | 243 | 3030 | 3018 | 889 | 6702 | 828 | 10725 | 10725 | | |
LOL, funny thing I just noticed is that I ended up #14 on all 3 of the above parses.
Quote from: Thorgador on September 29, 2009, 02:11:24 PM
Slowing
Not much space for improvement here sadly, we are stuck with mitigation and slow cap, beeing a second class slower. Resists aren't such an issue lately, haven't have had my slow resisted twice for a loooong time, but the duration can be an issue, if you are main slower and have 3-4 adds to deal with, specially with recast timer. Have the duration raised from 1.5 mins to the 3.5 ase Sha's has, keeping the resist mod, and leave it as the 65% slow it is. I would even ask for the slow aa Shamans got now, maybe with an incremented cost, that would save us a spell gem (although that may be seen as overpowering /shrug).
Slowing is slowly being phased out of the game. I would not be surprised if we'd see further mitigation abilities to slow from NPCs in the near future. Asking for any kind of improvements to our slowing ability is barking up the wrong tree.
Quote from: Thorgador on September 29, 2009, 02:11:24 PMTanking
So far, in the grouping perspective, having defensives maxed, and avoidance/shielding + defensive focuses (IB V + ID IV as groupable ones) allows us to tank efficiently the high end zone nameds; imho this means we are doing good on tanking department. As I said before, I managed to survive (for more than 1 minute) Clankwrench as MT(popping out shield and using all I had of course) when our tank died until a proper one grabbed it back. I'm sure high end beastlords could be MT for some raid nameds if they tried to for fun (and no, not with 12 clerics behind lol). I guess SoD's raid nameds no, but that is not what we expect aint we?
No, doubt anyone wants to be able to MT tower nameds. It'd be nice though if we could surrive more than a couple of melee rounds from tower trash without having to hit jolt asap when HoTT changes to us, or hit protective spirit if jolts are not up. I see rangers and even monks being able to tank those mobs reasonably well, but we don't even come close to their mitigation abilities.
Quote from: Thorgador on September 29, 2009, 02:11:24 PMBuffing
Well, this part needs some improvements, as we all know; focus/sv/se are our only real buffs we cast on other players (with the odd pet haste if no one haste pots in group) when grouping; maybe fero too if you get asked for. Raiding SE is our only buff. Much has been spoken about, making our focus cast overcap stats, fero brought as aura, etc ... in the end we are NOT a buffing class, thats shaman's role; make them better to suit us better for group content, but either way we are never going to get any buffs that shaman's will cast better, period. Apart of Spiritual line. Even fero is by far outshined by Champion, the only plus is resists and we all know this aint worth anymore.
Ideally, I would have imagined us to have a melee type support role, essentially the niche shamans fill in atm. The main issue with our buffs, is that they're either not very useful, or someone else has a better buff ours doesn't stack with.
Quote from: Thorgador on September 29, 2009, 02:11:24 PMCC
So far we can make the pet work as an offtank in some situations/zones but they have lost a lot of beeing a CC offtank as they have fallen well behind in their defensive capabilities. Either beef up their defense a fair bit (warder's need it anyway) or become "imaginative". A hobble-like aa or buff proc that could proc a small duration root (1 minute, and not breakable by pet) or a small duration (2-3 ticks) recursive mezz proc (of course exclusive, either hobble,root or mezz) could add a lot of utility for us in groups and raids.
Kind of iffy on this. We never really had any CC abilities, and it doesn't seem like a beastlord type ability. Warder offtanking may be all right, but if it comes to choosing between upping the warders defense or offense, I'll stick with offense all the time.
In general, I sort of agree with Umlat. I think the beastlord and warder bond needs to be the front and center of the class. When the beastlord thrives, the warder does well and visa versa. I would love to see our warders become something other than a weak (and fragile) dot.
Quote from: Thorgador on September 29, 2009, 02:11:24 PM
The main point on how to focus the further beastolrds improvements is what are we supposed to do? and that changes in group or raid environment. A lot.
We can't expect to get improvements for both aspects of the game as it would imbalance the class a lot. So watching on our roles:
We need both aspects. Not everyone is a Raider (Me) and not everyone Groups (Most Hardcore Raiders, they raid 5 days a week and need the 2 days off for real life crap). Then there are the people who fall in the middle of the Non-raider and the Raider who do a fair amount of both.
Quote from: Thorgador on September 29, 2009, 02:11:24 PM
Raid beastlord roles:
- Dps
- Mana feeders
- Emergency slowers (for when a raid mob is very resistant pet slow is then usefull)
- Oh crap, all tanks/knight's have died emergency tank (not sure if that's possible in SoD, but I had to tank a few SoF nameds and did survive until a tank grabbed it back)
Not sure about named on Raids but can see your "oh crap" on kited mobs. And I would have Pet Slow up 100% of the time in a Raid, Pet Snare shouldn't be needed with SK's, Necros, Rangers, and Druid's also in the raid.
Quote from: Thorgador on September 29, 2009, 02:11:24 PM
Group beastlord roles:
- Slower
- Dps
- Tank
- Buffer
- Situational CC with warder (a quite hard job with T5 mobs, but can be done)
I would switch DPS/Slower if you put them in order. If not.... :-P
Quote from: Thorgador on September 29, 2009, 02:11:24 PM
what we want to be improved?
DPS
It is evident that the main role where raid and group beastlord is going to gain the most is the dps part, and as we all know at the moment 80-90% of our dps comes from ourselves (be it melee/summoned pets/nukes/dots) and rest of our warder's.
This I find sad, that developers brought our warder's to this when they where supposed to be an important part of our class when it first came out.
In my personal opinion, in the dps department, we shall do like 80% of a monk's potential dps (note potential, as I astonishingly outparse quite a few monks) and of that our warder should be doing around 30% of that dps. In group environment this is easier to achieve, just bump warders melee capabilites, up min/max hit and crit tables; but in raids we get the survability issue; it has improved a fair bit lately but it needs a final bump so they can survive raids without us beeing constantly watching after them (thats bound to a dead warder most of times)
I was under the same assumption, but someone posted their current Raid DPS and they showed closer to a 60/40 split. So I'm going with that until I see more parses.
Quote from: Thorgador on September 29, 2009, 02:11:24 PM
Slowing
Not much space for improvement here sadly, we are stuck with mitigation and slow cap, beeing a second class slower. Resists aren't such an issue lately, haven't have had my slow resisted twice for a loooong time, but the duration can be an issue, if you are main slower and have 3-4 adds to deal with, specially with recast timer. Have the duration raised from 1.5 mins to the 3.5 ase Sha's has, keeping the resist mod, and leave it as the 65% slow it is. I would even ask for the slow aa Shamans got now, maybe with an incremented cost, that would save us a spell gem (although that may be seen as overpowering /shrug).
I wanna play where you play :-D I still cycle through both slow's when I don't have a Debuffing class with me. Granted, it isn't often but at least 2-3 times a session (4-6 hours)
Quote from: Thorgador on September 29, 2009, 02:11:24 PM
Tanking
So far, in the grouping perspective, having defensives maxed, and avoidance/shielding + defensive focuses (IB V + ID IV as groupable ones) allows us to tank efficiently the high end zone nameds; imho this means we are doing good on tanking department. As I said before, I managed to survive (for more than 1 minute) Clankwrench as MT(popping out shield and using all I had of course) when our tank died until a proper one grabbed it back. I'm sure high end beastlords could be MT for some raid nameds if they tried to for fun (and no, not with 12 clerics behind lol). I guess SoD's raid nameds no, but that is not what we expect aint we?
We don't go splat when we get agro. WOOT :-D
And no.....this isn't sarcasm. I remember going splat way too often in GoD and OoW when I got agro as a group geared Beast. (More so at the beginning of OoW before gear filtered down in the bazaar)
Quote from: Thorgador on September 29, 2009, 02:11:24 PM
Buffing
Well, this part needs some improvements, as we all know; focus/sv/se are our only real buffs we cast on other players (with the odd pet haste if no one haste pots in group) when grouping; maybe fero too if you get asked for. Raiding SE is our only buff. Much has been spoken about, making our focus cast overcap stats, fero brought as aura, etc ... in the end we are NOT a buffing class , thats shaman's role; make them better to suit us better for group content, but either way we are never going to get any buffs that shaman's will cast better, period. Apart of Spiritual line. Even fero is by far outshined by Champion, the only plus is resists and we all know this aint worth anymore.
When "were we not a buffing class?" :? :-o
Look at your spell book again. From 1-65 we had EVERY buff Shamen had at a lower version except Agility. We even had their "Frenzy" line. Gear inflation is the only reason our buffs became obsolete. And the fact that we haven't requested upgrades, and Shamen think they deserve a monopoly on Buffs like Mages want a monopoly on Pets.
To further expel the argument from others...
-->Rangers aren't a "buffing class" yet in groups they have buff's to replace a Druid's buffs if someone wanted them. They have Skin, DS, and a Regen line just like Druids.
-->Paladin's aren't a "buffing class" yet in groups they have cleric's "Aego" line along with symbol.
-->SK's aren't a "buffing class" in any sense of the word. Yet....They have upgraded versions of Necro's self buff's plus upgraded versions of Necro's theft spells.
I'm not argueing that these buffs aren't inferior to their parent classes (with the exception of SK's) but they continue to recieve them and smart players use them when the "parent" classes buffs fade. My point is we don't recieve ANYTHING from our parent class past 65 in the line of buffs. Also note that Rangers have additional "buff" spell lines unique to them that althogh aren't beneficial in a Raid format
are quite useful in a group format. So get off the bandwagon that we aren't a buffing class, we know that, but we also aren't a pure DPS class either.
BTW, go tell a Ranger he's a buffing class, I wonder what they would say? :?
Quote from: Thorgador on September 29, 2009, 02:11:24 PM
CC
So far we can make the pet work as an offtank in some situations/zones but they have lost a lot of beeing a CC offtank as they have fallen well behind in their defensive capabilities. Either beef up their defense a fair bit (warder's need it anyway) or become "imaginative". A hobble-like aa or buff proc that could proc a small duration root (1 minute, and not breakable by pet) or a small duration (2-3 ticks) recursive mezz proc (of course exclusive, either hobble,root or mezz) could add a lot of utility for us in groups and raids.
Another imaginative proposals that come to mind:
Selective warder buffs/stances: have a range of buffs (maybe instead of actual pet haste, replacing it) / aas we cast on our warder that affect him (and why not the group) in specific ways:
Melee DPS buff "warder's rage": the warder becomes more fragile but deals more melee damage; the group gets some kind of dps increment type aura (like increasing min damage done by x%, or +X to crits; whatever that would stack with existing auras). Dps the pet does could be in the 60-70% of mage's air pet for example.
- Caster DPS buff "warder's fury": the warder becomes more fragile but procs like mad (any proc it has); the group gets an aura that powers up damage/crit chance of spells or adds Spell Damage or the like (altho this doesnt add much it seems)
- Defensive buff "warder's prescience": the warder does sustantially less damage but gains a great boost on defensive capabilities; additionally the group gets hit by a defensive aura (increasing dodge or block) or a group rune recourse off the pets proc (like absorving 500 damage).
- Healers buff "warder's careness": the warder deals no damage but procs lifetap-like procs with group-healing recourse (proc hitting for 500DD lifetap and healing 500 to group); the group gets a heal powering aura allowing healing spells to be cost less and get increased crit chance.
I'm aware that such implementations would take quite some work and some interfere with other classes (bards/enchanters/zerkers) but it would add a lot of utility for us and maybe desiderability both in group and raid scenarios.
AA's proposed by Umlat look awesome, specially the crit chance of paragon lines and the ones increasing our Moon's spell (our biggest source of spell dps atm); maybe that "Pack Leader" aa could affect not only to the Moon's line, but to any spell/aa/proc that has a set number of pets summoned. I'd love to see group BA have increased tiers, and become, in the end ranks, a valuable aa like Ranger's forest line, aa cost is secondary, if it were as good as GoF aa line id spend 12 aa a rank with closed eyes.
Anyway those are me two copper, one likes to dream :D
Yeah, some of those are stepping on other classes toes but hey....we need to "jolt" the community
Quote from: GamganSlowing is slowly being phased out of the game. I would not be surprised if we'd see further mitigation abilities to slow from NPCs in the near future. Asking for any kind of improvements to our slowing ability is barking up the wrong tree.
Even if we want this or not it will be held against us for balancing as it has allways been done, we are still capable of slowing, and is part of our "balance". I'd rather make it valuable again than let it slide out of utility whilst been counted as one of our strengths when balancing classes.
Quote from: AbyssalMageI wanna play where you play grin I still cycle through both slow's when I don't have a Debuffing class with me. Granted, it isn't often but at least 2-3 times a session (4-6 hours)
Lol, I kind of play in SoD zones, but it's true I rarely play in Korafax lately, can't remember if there the resists where higher. Maybe I overdid the number of non-resists, maybe 1-2 per hour of game play I can get a resistant mob that needs 2-3 slows to stick.
Quote from: GamganIn general, I sort of agree with Umlat. I think the beastlord and warder bond needs to be the front and center of the class. When the beastlord thrives, the warder does well and visa versa. I would love to see our warders become something other than a weak (and fragile) dot.
In this we agree, thats why I put out that "imaginative" buffs, to make the warder an important role of our gameplay, and even make them desired in raids, not the pocketed dot they have become over the years.
Quote from: AbyssalMageWhen "were we not a buffing class?"
Well, we are a sub-par buffing class, and by saying we are not a buffing class I meant that we are not a class wich buffs are unique, where I would put shaman,cleric, druid and enchanter mainly. Other classes have buffing capabilities of course but not as main ones.
Quote from: AbyssalMageMy point is we don't recieve ANYTHING from our parent class past 65 in the line of buffs.
We are just a paled version of shamans when to buffs it comes (and can't expect to be different), that what I wanted to mean. That said, I still buff SE/SV/Focus when we lack a shaman in our raid, lesser is better then nothing anyway; if grouped then pet recourse haste could come into play. I agree that we could very much use a Unity version for us, replacing the outdated IoS, should we get that we would have 4 buffs to supply when our parent class isn't around.
Quote from: AbyssalMageSo get off the bandwagon that we aren't a buffing class,
Maybe I expressed myself badly, I don't mean we are not a buffing class, but we are just a watered down buffing class, wich has only SE to offer to a raid (and thsi is even clicked off/blocked by a few raiders).
IF we want something special here, we should work towards unique and desired buffs we could provide, in the line of SE, and fero is the obvious target for improvement (despite the devs desidy on doing anything with this).
So, speaking about buffs (and beeing real for what it could be done by devs), I would fight for:
- Fero fix
- Beastolrd "Unity" version (IoS upgrade)
- Haste fix
Quote from: AbyssalMageI see rangers and even monks being able to tank those mobs reasonably well, but we don't even come close to their mitigation abilities.
Well that's expected, rangers wear chain and monks are our pure melee class **, I can accept both classes outtanking me, if I can tank the best group content of the current expansion then im fine. On a raid I would never expect to be a tank, nor offtank, thats where warriors and knights work is :-P.
Quote from: Thorgador on September 30, 2009, 01:16:23 PM
Quote from: GamganSlowing is slowly being phased out of the game. I would not be surprised if we'd see further mitigation abilities to slow from NPCs in the near future. Asking for any kind of improvements to our slowing ability is barking up the wrong tree.
Even if we want this or not it will be held against us for balancing as it has allways been done, we are still capable of slowing, and is part of our "balance". I'd rather make it valuable again than let it slide out of utility whilst been counted as one of our strengths when balancing classes.
Point is, slow is very unlikely to be improved in any way shape or form while they're in the process of diminishing its usefulness in recent expansions. It will be held against us, yes, but when asking for improvements to our class, I'd rather ask for stuff we actually have a reasonable chance of getting. Any kind of slow upgrade is not one of those.
Quote from: Thorgador on September 30, 2009, 01:16:23 PMQuote from: AbyssalMageI see rangers and even monks being able to tank those mobs reasonably well, but we don't even come close to their mitigation abilities.
Well that's expected, rangers wear chain and monks are our pure melee class **, I can accept both classes outtanking me, if I can tank the best group content of the current expansion then im fine. On a raid I would never expect to be a tank, nor offtank, thats where warriors and knights work is :-P.
Think you missed the point a bit. Monks wear leather, we wear leather, so why is there such a huge gap? I'm pretty sure most cloth classes could tank current content with two dedicated healers in group, too.
Quote from: AbyssalMage on September 30, 2009, 11:08:24 AM
Quote from: Thorgador on September 29, 2009, 02:11:24 PM
what we want to be improved?
DPS
It is evident that the main role where raid and group beastlord is going to gain the most is the dps part, and as we all know at the moment 80-90% of our dps comes from ourselves (be it melee/summoned pets/nukes/dots) and rest of our warder's.
This I find sad, that developers brought our warder's to this when they where supposed to be an important part of our class when it first came out.
In my personal opinion, in the dps department, we shall do like 80% of a monk's potential dps (note potential, as I astonishingly outparse quite a few monks) and of that our warder should be doing around 30% of that dps. In group environment this is easier to achieve, just bump warders melee capabilites, up min/max hit and crit tables; but in raids we get the survability issue; it has improved a fair bit lately but it needs a final bump so they can survive raids without us beeing constantly watching after them (thats bound to a dead warder most of times)
I was under the same assumption, but someone posted their current Raid DPS and they showed closer to a 60/40 split. So I'm going with that until I see more parses.
Here are some of my whole night tower clear parses from the last couple of weeks, you be the judge. The 60/40 may hold true for group geared beastlords, but it's nowhere even close for raiders.
Combined: Lord Brekt, Rider of Discord on 27/09/2009
| Damage by | Total | % of Tot | Time | DPS | Scaled | Hits | Max hit | Avg hit | Dmg to PC | NPC DPS | Special | |
| Gamgan | 12031157 | 3.06% | 5627 | 2138 | 2123 | 14299 | 22562 | 841 | 1103220 | 196 | G | |
| Gamgan`s warder | 2011503 | 0.51% | 5625 | 358 | 355 | 7491 | 2300 | 268 | 53011 | 10 | | |
| Gamgan`s pet | 1100144 | 0.28% | 5471 | 201 | 194 | 3305 | 907 | 332 | 50830 | 20 | | |
My damage = 79.4%
Melee = 58.9%
DD = 14.8%
DoT = 3.8%
Kick = 1.9%
Warder dmg = 13.2%
Melee = 10.7%
Procs = 2.5%
Swarm pet dmg = 7.2%
Combined: Lord Brekt, Rider of Discord on 22/09/2009
| Damage by | Total | % of Tot | Time | DPS | Scaled | Hits | Max hit | Avg hit | Dmg to PC | NPC DPS | Special | |
| Gamgan | 12545195 | 3.58% | 5735 | 2187 | 2186 | 14384 | 20319 | 872 | 809903 | 143 | G X G | |
| Gamgan`s warder | 2407273 | 0.69% | 5734 | 420 | 420 | 7568 | 2300 | 318 | 57545 | 12 | | |
| Gamgan`s pet | 1243805 | 0.36% | 5558 | 224 | 217 | 3577 | 907 | 347 | 122285 | 71 | | |
My damage = 77.3%
Melee = 53.2%
DD = 17.9%
DoT = 4.4%
Kick = 1.8%
Warder dmg = 15.0%
Melee = 9.4%
Procs = 5.6%
Swarm pet dmg = 7.7%
Combined: Lord Brekt, Rider of Discord on 20/09/2009
| Damage by | Total | % of Tot | Time | DPS | Scaled | Hits | Max hit | Avg hit | Dmg to PC | NPC DPS | Special | |
| bst | 12530793 | 3.32% | 5028 | 2492 | 2491 | 14672 | 16698 | 854 | 776745 | 155 | G | |
| bst`s warder | 2311088 | 0.61% | 5028 | 460 | 459 | 7559 | 2300 | 305 | 20505 | 9 | | |
| bst`s pet | 1003719 | 0.27% | 4904 | 205 | 200 | 2852 | 907 | 351 | 26087 | 19 | | |
My damage = 79.0%
Melee = 53.8%
DD = 19.4%
DoT = 4.1%
Kick = 1.7%
Warder dmg = 14.5%
Melee = 9.8%
Procs = 4.7%
Swarm pet dmg = 6.4%
Gamgam's parses show our pets to be a lower % of overall dps than my experiences (also as a raider).
Solo lesson burn in Beza (I don't suggest solo lesson burning in Beza):
Combined: A steamwork trooper in 1504s, 4385k @2915
--- Hzath 3058k @2035 (69.75%)
Hit 44.6%
Pierce 26.8%
Dir Damage 20.8%
DoT 3.6%
Kick 2.2%
Claw 2%
--- Hzath`s pet 678k @454 (15.47%)
--- Hzath`s warder 648k @432 (14.78%)
Claw 69.4%
Dir Damage 28.7%
Bash 2%
Scryer parse from a few weeks ago
Combined: Head Scryer Oomk in 442s
--- Hzath 2214k @5270 - 71.2%
Hit 32.9%
Pierce 27%
Dir Damage 25.7%
Claw 8.1%
DoT 5%
Kick 1.3%
--- Hzath`s pet 483k @1160 - 15.7%
--- Hzath`s warder 406k @968 - 13.1%
Claw 74.1%
Dir Damage 24.5%
Bash 1.4%
In general my parses have about that breakdown. On raids I'm typically ~ 15% warder ~15% pets ~20% nukes+dots (boosted from solo content by chanters and bards)
That looks about right. Bit over 400 dps for sustained DPS for warder, which was rougly 15% of your total dps, which are similar to my sustained parses for the tower clears. The main difference is the damage done by Yowl pets, which I'm sure if you were to combine the full night's tower clear would drop down considerably, and the remaining difference can be explained by the effects of bard aura and such (which I very rarely get a chance to experience in recent months).
Either way, our warder's damage is roughly 15% of our total damage output, wheter burning or not. And while the warder can reach upwards to 1k dps during burns, that's still less than the mage pet's base damage, which is pretty sad.
Combined: Head Scryer Oomk on 9/30/2009 in 547sec
Total
--- DMG: 46894255 (100%) @ 85730 dps (85730 sdps)
--- DMG to PC: 2388862 @4367dps
Inphared
--- DMG: 2731122 (5.82%) @ 5153 dps (4993 sdps)
--- DMG to PC: 87890 @324dps
Inphared`s warder
--- DMG: 483856 (1.03%) @ 920 dps (885 sdps)
Inphared`s pet
--- DMG: 413983 (0.88%) @ 807 dps (757 sdps)
--- DMG to PC: 5720 @5720dps
I realize I'd need more data, but I show my pet at around %18-ish of my own DPS. Not that that's any better than what I think it should be.
My bst is in group gear with toppish end group weapons but not all the offensive aa's (just shy 900aa total) and using a EM3 focus for the pet I was lucky to pick up. My self parses (mainly solo) show the pet is a fairly consistant 30% of my overalll DPS. I'm sure I can push that down to 20% by finishing up my offensive aa's.
Quote from: Gamgan on September 30, 2009, 09:25:44 PM
Quote from: Thorgador on September 30, 2009, 01:16:23 PM
Think you missed the point a bit. Monks wear leather, we wear leather, so why is there such a huge gap? I'm pretty sure most cloth classes could tank current content with two dedicated healers in group, too.
Because Monks used their role as pullers to bitch and moan and get huge defensive upgrades for survivability.
Then they bitched and moaned because 'no one needed a puller' and used that as a reason they should have very high melee dps.
/shrug they have different caps than we do and they are the only class that gets block from the back iirc.
Quote from: Inphared on October 01, 2009, 12:12:29 PM
Combined: Head Scryer Oomk on 9/30/2009 in 547sec
Total
--- DMG: 46894255 (100%) @ 85730 dps (85730 sdps)
--- DMG to PC: 2388862 @4367dps
Inphared
--- DMG: 2731122 (5.82%) @ 5153 dps (4993 sdps)
--- DMG to PC: 87890 @324dps
Inphared`s warder
--- DMG: 483856 (1.03%) @ 920 dps (885 sdps)
Inphared`s pet
--- DMG: 413983 (0.88%) @ 807 dps (757 sdps)
--- DMG to PC: 5720 @5720dps
I realize I'd need more data, but I show my pet at around %18-ish of my own DPS. Not that that's any better than what I think it should be.
18% of your dps, or 13.4% of your overall DPS to convert it into the measurement used above... We're all getting similar results for raid geared toons, be it during xping, sustained, or burst DPS. Point is it's far from the 60/40 ratio I responded to initially, and it's more like an 85/15. Whether or not that's enough, that's a different issue, I mostly posted the parses to corrent the 60/40 misconception.
Quote from: wildwaters on October 01, 2009, 02:57:03 PM
Quote from: Gamgan on September 30, 2009, 09:25:44 PM
Think you missed the point a bit. Monks wear leather, we wear leather, so why is there such a huge gap? I'm pretty sure most cloth classes could tank current content with two dedicated healers in group, too.
Because Monks used their role as pullers to bitch and moan and get huge defensive upgrades for survivability.
Then they bitched and moaned because 'no one needed a puller' and used that as a reason they should have very high melee dps.
/shrug they have different caps than we do and they are the only class that gets block from the back iirc.
And staff/shield block got added to the pullers arsenal as well. The difference between monk's leather and bard's plate is supposed to be offset by the fact that block >> parry. And when pulling, the ability to block hits coming from the back should thrump any AC softcap difference. Even if bards do get the parry/block from behind AA (can't check atm, since my bard account is inactive :x) the effectiveness of block over parry should offset any mitigation difference between the two classes. Then we can get into stuff like monk defensive >>>>> bard defensive for pulling and such.
So back to the initial question. Since the rationale that pulilng is the reason for the boosted AC softcap for the monks is out, why did they get the boost? Or more relevantly, why didn't we?
Edit: I don't really care what the monks said about why they needed it, I'm trying to think of the justification the devs had to implementing it. Initially I thought it may have been to offset the "avoidance tank" role being taken out with the introduction strike though mobs, which closes the gap between parry and block a bit with each new expansion. If this is the case, it certainly should have affected us as well. But who knows, the devs may have just caved to the monk demand.
Quote from: Gamgan on October 01, 2009, 10:25:31 PM
Quote from: wildwaters on October 01, 2009, 02:57:03 PM
Quote from: Gamgan on September 30, 2009, 09:25:44 PM
Think you missed the point a bit. Monks wear leather, we wear leather, so why is there such a huge gap? I'm pretty sure most cloth classes could tank current content with two dedicated healers in group, too.
Because Monks used their role as pullers to bitch and moan and get huge defensive upgrades for survivability.
Then they bitched and moaned because 'no one needed a puller' and used that as a reason they should have very high melee dps.
/shrug they have different caps than we do and they are the only class that gets block from the back iirc.
And staff/shield block got added to the pullers arsenal as well. The difference between monk's leather and bard's plate is supposed to be offset by the fact that block >> parry. And when pulling, the ability to block hits coming from the back should thrump any AC softcap difference. Even if bards do get the parry/block from behind AA (can't check atm, since my bard account is inactive :x) the effectiveness of block over parry should offset any mitigation difference between the two classes. Then we can get into stuff like monk defensive >>>>> bard defensive for pulling and such.
So back to the initial question. Since the rationale that pulilng is the reason for the boosted AC softcap for the monks is out, why did they get the boost? Or more relevantly, why didn't we?
Edit: I don't really care what the monks said about why they needed it, I'm trying to think of the justification the devs had to implementing it. Initially I thought it may have been to offset the "avoidance tank" role being taken out with the introduction strike though mobs, which closes the gap between parry and block a bit with each new expansion. If this is the case, it certainly should have affected us as well. But who knows, the devs may have just caved to the monk demand.
Devs have Stated that Both Ranger and Monks are what they call Light Tanks so i guess this is why they keep monks Returns so high, i dont beleive there softcap is any higher then ours though. What would really be nice is what they gave Rangers it must have been to offset Monks avoidance over them. Something like what is below would be nice for us with block instead of parry
Crackling Blades Rk. II
Slot Description
1: Add Proc: Crackling Blades Strike Rk. II
Crackling Blades Strike Rk. II
Slot Description
2: Decrease Hitpoints by 489
Auto cast Sheltering Thunder Chance
Sheltering Thunder Chance
Slot Description
1: 30% Chance to trigger: Sheltering Thunder
Sheltering Thunder
Slot Description
2: Increase Chance to Parry by 9999%
Every justification I've seen for monks having a higher return on AC post soft cap is to survive pulling in raids.
Rangers are where they are because SoE wanted them to be a clear 4th tank, just a bit under sk/pal. Nothing to do w/ monks.
Quote from: Khauruk on October 02, 2009, 02:48:09 PM
Rangers are where they are because SoE wanted them to be a clear 4th tank, just a bit under sk/pal. Nothing to do w/ monks.
Except a dev said they wanted Monks and Rangers to tank about the same since they are both light tanks. They boosted Rangers so they tank as well as them, before the changes Monks outanked Rangers.
Quote from: Camikazi on October 02, 2009, 08:00:59 PM
Quote from: Khauruk on October 02, 2009, 02:48:09 PM
Rangers are where they are because SoE wanted them to be a clear 4th tank, just a bit under sk/pal. Nothing to do w/ monks.
Except a dev said they wanted Monks and Rangers to tank about the same since they are both light tanks. They boosted Rangers so they tank as well as them, before the changes Monks outanked Rangers.
Heck i think before the changes we out tanked Rangers so it proves they will go back and boost a class up
I think it would be nice if that prism skin our pet gets automatically whenever Spirit of Vaxztn procs, would land on us too.
It wouldn't be like the ranger proc Sheltering Thunder, which protects them for 6 seconds from damage, but it's something :-)
I mean....fluffy isn't hardly an uber tank cuz of it, but I reckon it helps some, and it's a spell bst already use.
Quote from: thor on October 03, 2009, 03:20:09 AM
Heck i think before the changes we out tanked Rangers so it proves they will go back and boost a class up
I'm pretty sure we tanked worse then Rangers back then too, they were just below Monks so were raised up. Our softcap was lower and we were on Druid returns for a long time.
Combined: Head Scryer Oomk on 10/8/2009 in 355sec
Total
--- DMG: 46960483 (100%) @ 132283 dps (132283 sdps)
--- DMG to PC: 2230853 @6284dps
Altof
--- DMG: 1388333 (2.96%) @ 3933 dps (3911 sdps)
Altof`s pet
--- DMG: 274505 (0.58%) @ 803 dps (773 sdps)
--- DMG to PC: 34862 @1162dps
Altof`s warder
--- DMG: 242690 (0.52%) @ 691 dps (684 sdps)
--- DMG to PC: 983 @983dps
Back to this pet thing...If i'm doing my math correctly. My warder is doing about 8% of my damage. And the casted pet/attack of the warders is a little over 8%. I was in a Tank/cleric group for this fight and used 3rd spire instead of 2nd on this one by accident....Since this is the longest straight up burn fight for us i figured it would give the best results. I counting the casted pet as the beastlords dmg is fair, and since our warders can't tank or take a hit in raids makes his 8% sound very weak...i'd like to see fluffy take a little more part in the role of a beastlord as far as dmg goes. like 80/20 sounds fair counting the casted pet as our own dmg.
You didn't show your math, so I don't know where you went wrong, but you aren't even close. I didn't do the math either, but I can see that 10% of your dps is 391 dps, and both your pets are doing way more than that!
As for stating percent of damage a pet should do, it's pretty impossible to state without also stating under what conditions under which that pet should perform. Level, weapon, pet toys, any AA's that affect either the beastlord or the pet dps, discs, buffs short/long/song, auras, and content are all factors. The actual ratio is going to be all over the place depending on who you look at.
Quote from: Nusa on October 09, 2009, 08:32:25 AM
You didn't show your math, so I don't know where you went wrong, but you aren't even close. I didn't do the math either, but I can see that 10% of your dps is 391 dps, and both your pets are doing way more than that!
As for stating percent of damage a pet should do, it's pretty impossible to state without also stating under what conditions under which that pet should perform. Level, weapon, pet toys, any AA's that affect either the beastlord or the pet dps, discs, buffs short/long/song, auras, and content are all factors. The actual ratio is going to be all over the place depending on who you look at.
/agree
also (691 * 100)/6284 = 10.9% roughly
sry, i went off dmg, not dps.
And thats with pretty much everything for a pet, coa bp, t4.5 bp, rk3 buffs etc. Only way his dps would get better would probably from lynx or some bard thing. I haven't tested if our pet procs lynx more than us or what yet.
What I would like to see is an aug that will give our pets a boost on a proc. Something like the shard we get in oceangreen to boost our Foray spell.