Revising the top 10 List...

[Tastian]

There has already been a lot of feedback about the top 10 lists, so what I'm going to do now is put up a partially revised list and get more input on where items should be and how you'd like certain items addressed.  I'll likely start a poll in the next couple days for issues like feral swipe that have several possible changes.  Please post your feedback in this thread and I'll make changes as we go.  A very similiar post will be on the SoE boards as well, but posting on either thread is ok as I'll monitor both and tally results accordingly.  If at all possible it'd help me a lot if you simply replied in the form of...

1) Blahblahblah
2) blahblahblah
etc.

If you don't have a suggestion or are happy with how it stands just write no comment or N/A or something to that effect.  Please feel free to get as specific or put as much detail into your response as you want.  I'll probably leave this up through the weekend and likely tuesday of next week put up the revised list for a copule more days of feedback before I pass it along on the 23rd.  Thanks again for all your feedback and suggestions.

Beastlord -

1. WAS -Fix Pet shrink (should have the ability to shrink 3 times)

REVISION -  Increase skill caps (reasons being improves weapon selection, doesn't actually change much in terms of power, etc)

2. WAS - Increased skill cap on weapon skills

REVISION -  Aggro issues (reason being that beastlords generate more aggro per point of damage overall than most classes.  A beastlord is usually much higher on the hate list than other players that are doing more damage even when the beastlord isn't slowing or debuffing at all)

3. WAS - Add Beastlord only weapons

REVISION -  Do we want this to stay?  I know many want the skill caps addressed, and that would help weapon selection a great deal.  Do people still want to see more beastlord specific weapons?  If so I'll leave it in where it is or shift in in the list as people want.

4. WAS - Improve pet speed so they can keep up

REVISION -  Do we want this to stay?  I personally like the idea of our pet being summoned and moving at a higher movement rate kind of like the mage epic, but want to make sure others feel the same.  Again, please let me know if you want to keep it and if you feel it needs to be shuffled on the list at all.

5. WAS - Add an AA that allows a suspended minion to zone

REVISION -  There has been a lot of talk about this and currently they just don't want suspended pets zoning for various reasons.  Several good suggestions have been made, but I'm not sure what will come of that.  As it stands I don't really think this item has to be on the top 10 list as it's known and being addressed and effects several classes.  If you want to leave it again let me know, if you want it replaced please offer suggestions with what you'd like to see replace it.

6. WAS - Improve warders similar to what mage's received

REVISION - They basically said that no changes like this were planned at this time.  Please offer suggestions as to what you'd like to see take this spot in the top 10 list.

7. WAS - Add an AA that gives an extra attack with 2HB weapons

REVISION - They said it'd be looked at for future expansions.  Personally, I'm more in favor of AAs that boost our damage regardless of weapon choice.  Things like BF and SCF, etc.  This is likely something to bring up again for OoW, but for now I think this spot is open.  If you'd like to see the item stay, then please say so.  Otherwise, please offer suggestions on something to take its place.

8. WAS - Improved pet heals

REVISION - This is currently being evaluated and I'd just like to add a bit more information to it.  Basically just having the heals cast faster so they can actually be used.  Pet mend is the only heal that most beastlords use because the others are just too slow for when you need them and don't heal enough to make up for the time spent.  Please offer suggestions or more clarifications though as you feel needed.

9. WAS - Allow Hobble of spirits, to stack with ALL pet proc buffs

REVISION -  Again this is currently being evaluated.  It's a change that would add a lot of value to hobble and actually see it get use from some beastlords.  I might add more information here, but it seems pretty obvious to me.  Feel free to offer any feedback though.

10. WAS - Allow the Feral swipe AA to work in PvP and it doesn't offer any advantages

REVISION -  This one is going to be a bigger issue as it's one of the items that has several very good options in my opinion.  Right now some people have suggested adding a DEaggro component to Feral swipe, others want it to block out kick to reduce spam clicking, etc.  I'm probably going to put a poll up to see where most stand on this.  The range is still a little too short, so that's an obvious change.  Please leave your thoughts on the AA and suggestions for it here and I'll see what we come up with.

[bham]

What I think of what you have so far.

1. Skill caps. Agree. All weapon skills to 250. If they MUST make H2H the preferred option, then increase the others to 240.

2. Aggro issues. I dont have a problem with aggro atm. Mostly cause I tank myself. I DONT want an overall, permanent aggro decrease. Either a self-buff that procs de-aggro or a spell that you cast to drop aggro, or both, is the way to go. We shouldnt get some thing for nothing. Using up either a spell gem or a buff slot to lower aggro is a fair trade.

3. Add beastlord only weapons. I am indifferent.  8) Personally I think it should be lower down the list.

4. Improve pet speed. All pets should share your innate run/swift journeys AA.

5. If pets can zone then suspended pets should zone. Maybe make it so you cant zone with 2 pets. If you have a pet out when you zone then, and only then, suspended pet is lost.

6. I am happy with my warder.  :lol: If I can get the mage pet HP/mitigation AAs to work on after I finish alacrity/fury that would be even better. I know that the warder is 1 or 2 round speed hump in the high-end. Currently warder resists are linked to player resists. Perhaps warder AC could be linked to player AC.  :idea: This would allow warder survivability to scale with content to some degree.

7. AA for extra damage with 2hb. I also would prefer AAs that increase my DPS overall, especially passive ones. I have every one there is except feral strike.  :cry:

8. Improved pet heals. I 3-box a beast, mage and cleric. Both the pet classes have fully hastened mend. It gets used quite a bit. The weird thing is that my mage keeps his 1200pt heal memmed always and Bham never has his 2100pt heal memmed unless soloing, and rarely then also. In other words, I find the mage pet heal more useful than the beastlord heal! Casting time > amount healed > mana efficiency. We need a fast effective pet heal (say 1800 in 4 secs), even if it costs 800 mana per cast.

9. Improved Hobble would be nice. I think making it stack would be overpowering. Instead make Hobble 2 do the snare, plus a 75 DD AND 0 sec stun.

10. I dont have feral swipe so I wont comment on it.

Thats my take on the items you have in the list. My order of priority would be as follows. Points not covered above are in bold for emphasis.

1. A fast useable pet heal. (1800hp in 4 secs for 800 mana)
2. Increase skill caps to 250 (or at least 240).
3. A new blast heal for players. Chloroblast doesnt cut it even with max healing AA and focus item. It should be at least on par with the ranger GoD heal. Fast casting for a decent amount is imperitive. Mana efficiency is less important. 600hp in 2.5 secs for 300 mana is fine I think.
4. Zone with a suspended pet (as long as you dont have one in play at the same time)
5. Give me the HP/mitigation AAs that mage pets get for my warder. Give warders 1 extra AC for every 2 points of AC the beastlord has over 1000. Maybe 1 for every 3? I dunno the exact numbers but you get the idea.
6. Give me a self buff that makes me proc an aggro lowering effect. Give me a fast-cast spell that lowers aggro instantly.
7. Give me an improved slow in OoW ,if you arent already. It should be about 66% with a -20 resist modifier, or possibly a prismatic save with no modifier?
8. Make my warder share my run3/swift journies AA.
9. Make a Hobble of spirits 2 AA, it procs a 5 tic, 60% snare with 75 DD and a 0 sec stun.
10. Give me more DPS AAs.  :twisted:

You are doing a great job, Tastian :)  Keep it up.

[Hereki]

Condensed version of Tastian's list so that people can more easily quote it:

1. Increased skill cap on weapon skills
 
2. Aggro issues
 
3. Add Beastlord only weapons
 
4. Improve pet speed so they can keep up
 
5. Add an AA that allows a suspended minion to zone
 
6. Improve warders similar to what mage's received
 
7. Add an AA that gives an extra attack with 2HB weapons
   
8. Improved pet heals
 
9. Allow Hobble of spirits, to stack with ALL pet proc buffs
 
10. Allow the Feral swipe AA to work in PvP and it doesn't offer any advantages

[Hereki]

1. Increased skill cap on weapon skills

Yes.  Reason for this is weapon choice.
 
2. Aggro issues

I can get aggro, but can't shed it.  OK for solo, bad for group, getting to be an issue for raids.
 
3. Add Beastlord only weapons

Stupid idea.  Drop it.  Issue 1 removes the need for this.  Anyone who has seen the PAL/SHD weapons that drop in PoP knows that common class specific weapons are dumb.
 
4. Improve pet speed so they can keep up

This would help.  I like the idea of them sharing our AA speed.  This isn't a really high priority because we can get shrew; in fact, it would help mages a lot more than us.
 
5. Add an AA that allows a suspended minion to zone

Would like to see this, but it isn't high priority.
 
6. Improve warders similar to what mage's received

Dump this.
 
7. Add an AA that gives an extra attack with 2HB weapons

No opinion.  If you want something like this, then you have to consider the trade off between 1 hand and 2 hand damage, and include 2 hand piercing as well.
   
8. Improved pet heals

I rarely use pet heals.  Sometimes mend, but that's it.  I agree with general comments that a faster cast heal is more important than a bigger heal.
 
9. Allow Hobble of spirits, to stack with ALL pet proc buffs

As it stands, Hobble is mostly useless to me.  A Hobble 2 AA that either stacked or added a small DD/stun, as suggested, I might get, whereas I am unlikely to get Hobble this side of 400 AAs.
 
10. Allow the Feral swipe AA to work in PvP and it doesn't offer any advantages

No opinion.

11.  Overall, I don't have many issues that I feel need correction.  The biggest game improvements for me would be to fix the bugs - collision, warping, etc.  For me, the biggest issue is fun.  The game needs to be fun to play, and that means a balance between easy and hard, and a balance between solo/group/raid.  In these terms beastlords are possibly the best balanced class, probably followed by necro and druid; clerics and shamans the worst.  Until the devs understand that having fun is more important than always balancing down, this won't be fixed.

[Deiadrox]

Good list.  Only 2 problems I have with our current aggro situation are:

1) No resist debuff, if something is resisting slow quite a bit we get lots of aggro because we are in melee range, a lot of times when there is no resist debuffer in the group I have to sit back, slow and then once I'm confident the tank has aggro I run in.
2) I find that on every raid I ever go on I'm next on the hate list once the tank goes down.  I guess that's why we have PS 12seconds to get the heck outta range, or let a pally/war/sk take control.  I'm not sure whether most BLs agree with that situation, I don't find it much of a nuissance unless no one tries to take aggro off me and I'm stuck tanking Reparm or something lol.(btw I'm casting nukes and dot's decently, but my point is some may prefer is the main DPS spells we have could have lower hate, and maybe(as an example) a lower level spell(such as flame lick) could be introduced for situations when we need aggro, I personally find slow sufficient in that case.  So after all that writing I'm basically saying that those in favour of lower aggro maybe prefer spells such as scorp venom, frost spear, trushar's and the like, to have lower aggro.  

Just a thought, I'm not having huge problems but I would prefer to be lower on the list during raids.  It may be in SOE's interests to keep Beasts as the proverbial speed bump.  Rofl.

[Skanda]

Can we toss in fixing the BF aa so they know we want it fixed sooner rather then later like Pet Shrink?

[Bheran]

1. Increased skill cap on weapon skills

I think this would be great, but would prefer seeing more hth weapons instead. I would drop this to about #4

2. Aggro issues

Aggro on dots is unreal. I'm consistantly getting shelled. Part of it does have to do with which spells I use, but as you have pointed out several times, Tast, dot aggro is stupid. We should not be getting near the aggro of what we are for doing less dps than many other classes.

3. Add Beastlord only weapons

While I'd love to see some more bst weapons floating around, I'm kinda in the same boat as the above poster - I'm simply amazed at how many knight weapons drop and rot in PoP. They've got one for every situation. I've been stuck using my SHO and HoH since the month after LDoN came out. (TZ has been killed about 15 times w/ no BF drop) So more drops that are viable to both mons and beasts, but not quite the level of knight weaps.

4. Improve pet speed so they can keep up

I realize that this may be an issue for younger bsts, but to be honest, I really don't think it's all that big of a deal. It'd be nice to have, but think it should be a tad lower on the priority list.

5. Add an AA that allows a suspended minion to zone

Personnaly, like the above one... it'd be nice, but think it should be a bit lower right now in priorities.

6. Improve warders similar to what mage's received

I'm completely fine with mages having better pets. Would I like a better pet? Yup. But think this should be re-worded so it doesn't promote classism and bumped down some.

7. Add an AA that gives an extra attack with 2HB weapons

It'd be nice, move it up a couple spots, underneath the raising of the weapon skill.

8. Improved pet heals

Move this one up a couple spots - the terribly long cast time on our last one was great for pet clericing in SoL, not much use once you move up in levels and once you've burned your pet mend, you're in trouble.

9. Allow Hobble of spirits, to stack with ALL pet proc buffs

I haven't bought this AA at all. As it stands, it's all but useless to me.

10. Allow the Feral swipe AA to work in PvP and it doesn't offer any advantages.

I love the idea of adding a deaggro to it. I'm really a bit disappointed about how little it hits for on average. I almost always have fero and an avatar proc up, and yet it very rarely hits for max, and often misses completely.

New things to introduce to the list - please but up the BF at #1!. I feel like every AA I get is something that's been hard worked for, and to find out that one of the ones I was happiest with has been bugged irks me endlessly.

The player heal- while I never want to be in a position of being a secondary healer, for the longest time, chloroblast was enough to save someone until a real heal could land. With how hard mobs are hitting now, I'd like to see a small improvement in this area.

[Rhaynne]

1. Increased skill cap on weapon skills
- Keep this here

2. Aggro issues
- Add a aggro reduction component to feral strike

3. Better healing
- A new heal similar to the ranger GoD heal... make it our rune turn in if they want.  It's not like anyone that can get Group IoS would ever actually use it.

4. Pet Healing
- Reduce the casting time of our long cast pet heals by half.

5. Add an AA that allows a suspended minion to zone
- Add a check to remove unsuspended pet if one is suspended.

6. Pet speed
- Allow pets to share movement AAs of their master or summon innately with SoW.

7. Overall increase of DPS enhancing AA.
- Improved Bestial Frenzy, Punishing Blade, etc.

8. Ritual Summoning
- Adjust ritual summoning to deliver ~18% increase in pet performance as it does with both Magician and Necromancer pets

9. Allow Hobble of spirits, to stack with ALL pet proc buffs

10. Lower the reuse timer on Bestial Alignment so that it becomes a viable AA to use.  Also allow it to overwrite illusions and maintain the shrunken state of the user.

[Aneya]

1. Increased skill cap on weapon skills
100% for this.

2. Aggro issues
This should be looked into.

3. Add Beastlord only weapons
No real need for class only weapons unless they plan on having one for each class.

4. Improve pet speed so they can keep up
I don't think this is an issue. Can always cast spirit of shrew or SoW to speed up pet.

5. Add an AA that allows a suspended minion to zone
Not an issus if they get pet zoning to work

6. Improve warders similar to what mage's received
Replace with improve Beastial Alignement. There are many ways to improve BA. Can lower cost to 3/3/3 instead of 3/6/9 or can reduce recast time with higher ranks, or can increase spell resist component with higher ranks. Basicaly, as it stands there is not much incentive to go beyond BA1.

7. Add an AA that gives an extra attack with 2HB weapons
I rather have our weapon skills raise to 250. I say drop this.

8. Improved pet heals
Not an issue for me. They are adding new pet heals in the next expansion anyways.

9. Allow Hobble of spirits, to stack with ALL pet proc buffs
I don't plan on getting Hobble of spirits unless they make is stack with other pet proc buffs. So this would be high on my list.

10. Allow the Feral swipe AA to work in PvP and it doesn't offer any advantages
I like the idea of adding a de agro component. I might actualy get this aa if that was added. On the other hand de agro would make it useless when you are tanking.

[Jkal_Shihar]

1.  Increase skill caps (reasons being improves weapon selection, doesn't actually change much in terms of power, etc)
Agree, I hate having to pass up certain weapons if I want to stay on top of my DPS.   

2. Aggro issues (reason being that beastlords generate more aggro per point of damage overall than most classes. A beastlord is usually much higher on the hate list than other players that are doing more damage even when the beastlord isn't slowing or debuffing at all)
Like I said before, the joke of the day is when we do raids and they start betting how long till I take aggro.

3.  Add Beastlord only weapons

I'm partial to this, one I would like to see bst only weapons but two like a few have already said. You will be seeing a lot of weapons probably rotting due to the tag.

4. Improve pet speed so they can keep up

I wouldn't mind my warder sharing my run AA's at all. Most of the time I rarely buff sow on myself. (still working on Run4 and 5 though.)   

5. Add an AA that allows a suspended minion to zone

Nah, pass on this.

6. Improve warders similar to what mage's received

I'm quite happy with my warder's performance. What I would like to see is some tweaking to Bestial Alignment though.  Shorter recast, longer duration, I don't know but it needs something to stand out. I have BA1 and while its nice, its just a toy at the moment.

7. Add an AA that gives an extra attack with 2HB weapons

Call me a Traditionalist, I'm partial to dual wielding weapons more then carrying a big stick. Most of the time, I fight to the side or behind the mob so riposte's and such are not a problem.

8. Improved pet heals

Only way they can improve the pet heals is make them shorter cast times. Other then that the heals themselves are fine.

9.  Allow Hobble of spirits, to stack with ALL pet proc buffs

One of the reason's why I never bothered with this AA. Yeah, its nice to snare the runner but without my warders other proc to help in the damage, its just useless to me at the moment.

10.  Allow the Feral swipe AA to work in PvP and it doesn't offer any advantages

I know nothing of PvP to be honest so I don't know of the effects Feral swipe has. But I do aggree with a few posters by adding a de aggro to it. And maybe not make it so restrictive. Getting the your out of range message  even though you are in the mobs attack radius is a bit, um...... BS if you ask me.

[Dummkopf]

1. Increased skill cap on weapon skills

Should stay nr 1 for sure, this reduces the need for point 3.

2. Aggro issues

Should be looked into, a jolt type spell would be nice, adding a deaggro to feral strike would be another idea. Look into dot-aggro (not a bst only issue)

3. Add Beastlord only weapons

Only if other classes get class only loot. This was the case in time and was bad there, since monks and beastlords always bid against each other.

4. Improve pet speed so they can keep up

Dont really care although run5 would be nice.

5. Add an AA that allows a suspended minion to zone

Yes, destroy the unsuspended pet if you have 2 up. If not possible let us invis our pets.

6. Improve warders similar to what mage's received

Mages should have the most powerful pets, but at the moment our warders mitigation is way too low for being an allround pet.

7. Add an AA that gives an extra attack with 2HB weapons

Should be something for OoW, not really important at the moment. I would replace this point (and bump it up to nr 2) with the need to replace our GoD group IoS spell by a decent heal, heal over time would be the best in line with our parent class and it should be in line with the ranger heal.

8. Improved pet heals

Half the cast time and everything is fine, at the moment theyre useless just because the cast time is too long.

9. Allow Hobble of spirits, to stack with ALL pet proc buffs

I doubt that will ever happen but an improved hobble with a dd component and a 0 second stun would be nice.

10. Allow the Feral swipe AA to work in PvP and it doesn't offer any advantages

No idea about PvP and i dont really care, but put some deaggro on it and correct the range.

[Bengali]

1. Increase skill caps -I have wanted this since December, 2001.  Among all the other reasons listed, I would be able to figure out that a 21/19 weapon was always an upgrade over a 20/19 weapon.  Currently if the higher ratio weapon isn't h2h, it may not be better.

2. Aggro issues - agree.

3. Add Beastlord only weapons - not exactly -- I'd revise this to be "more weapons that make sense for beastlords".  MNK/BST isn't always a good archetype because monks and bsts have significant differences in the way they do melee damage.   BRD/BST actually makes more sense the way that PAL/SK does.   So while weapons that have a decent ratio and a big proc might be too powerful in a warrior's or monk's hands, they might be appropriate for bards and beastlords.   I'd put it lower on the list though.

4. Improve pet speed so they can keep up - agree, especially if pathing remains the way it is.   It's not a super high priority so you can move it down if you want but I think it's fine being on here.

5. Add an AA that allows a suspended minion to zone - indifferent to this.  I'd say take it off the list but I can't think of anything to replace it at the moment so I'd say just move it to the bottom.

6. (REPLACEMENT) Click off pet buffs -- self explanatory

7. (REPLACEMENT) Pet proc buffs overwrite each other - I'd really like to be able to switch between Rellic and whatever else without having to dispell my warder or kill it.   With pet affinity it's much harder to even keep my proc buffs at my warder's top spot so they can be dispelled.  If we can click off pet buffs, however, then this really isn't needed.

8. WAS - Improved pet heals - If by improved they mean "fast enough to land before the pet is destroyed" then I'm all for it, and I'd move it up my list to as high as number 3.  Changes in mana costs would be appropriate so that the heals weren't overly effecient compared to cleric heals for example.   But we need something that is fast (and a mana hog) like supernal light is for clerics.

9. WAS - Allow Hobble of spirits, to stack with ALL pet proc buffs - agree, or just add a moderate DD component to it (like 80) and call it a day.  I'd probably just prefer the DD component, since having two proc buffs creates issues as to which one is going to be checked first to prevent double procs, etc.

10. WAS - Allow the Feral swipe AA to work in PvP and it doesn't offer any advantages - agree.  The range could use increasing and either the damage/accuracy upped considerably or the reuse lowered somewhat (maybe both, I'm not sure). The deaggro component is interesting, but I'm wondering how useful a once-a-minute deaggro ability would be.  My guess is not all that much, particulary since it misses half the time.  It would also have to lower enough aggro to compensate for the damage it does when it hits.  That's not a hard thing to do but I guess I'd mention it.

[mmxstryker]

Any way we can get the Bestial Alignment AA needing to be revised on this list?

http://www.beastlords.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2744

Also, I'd like to see some different H2H graphics, but I'm a little biased because my freaking claws (Velium Inlaid) lean the wrong way in my primary hand... (with luclin models ON, not the inside out problem).

[Rarrum]

1. Replace Teruptan Spirit with some type of heal (either direct heal like ranger's GoD one, or a heal over time)

2. Increased skill cap on weapon skills

3. Agro issues need worked out.  Not all things should have agro reduced, as we still need to retain our ability to get agro fast in an emergency.  Lower agro from nukes is a start.  Lowering agro of DoTs would only be useful if mobs didn't die long before the DoTs duration is up.

4. Improve pet speed so they can keep up - Pets should benefit from movement aa's, such as run5.

5. Add an AA that allows a suspended minion to zone, OR allow a suspended pet to zone if you don't have another pet up.

6. Add an AA that gives an extra attack with 2HB weapons

7. Improved pet heals.  In GoD current ones are way too slow.

8. Remove the recast time from our lvl 65 slow.  At this level shaman now have a slow with a resist modifier, and beastlords have almost lost their ability to get things slowed fast (before we die).

9. Bestial Alignment needs changed somehow.  Either have the duration and % chance to block a spell increased as you buy more levels of it, or decrease the re-use time with more levels.

[Skratchen]

1.  Make more beastlord/bard weapons with simular ratios.  Bards' weapons are usually higher ratio damage to delay.  We're both dual wield classes without the benefit of innate double attack and beastlords should have simularly scaling ratio weapons simular to what bards get.  We shouldn't be tied down to monk ratio weapons when we don't share the monks' superior natural attack rates.

2.  Increase Weapon Skill caps

3.  Exchange the group IoS spell rune for a more appropriate GoD heal.  HoT or direct blast heal, as long as we get something that makes sense.

4.  Aggro reduction skill/aa/spell/buff... something.  I'd prefer aggro reduction in the form of a skill or self buff rather than beastlords needing to get to level 60+ and then invest in aa's before they can get aggro reduction nor would I want to have a jolt type spell hogging up another spell slot just to have aggro reduction.

5.  Suspend minion while zoned/Suspend minion III

6.  Pet heal cast time is tooooo long.  Cut the pet heal cast time in half.

7.  A new aa to increase burst damage

8.  An extention of Bestial frenzy to add more chances for double attack

9.  Agree with Rhyanne

Ritual Summoning
- Adjust ritual summoning to deliver ~18% increase in pet performance as it does with both Magician and Necromancer pets

10.  Change Hobble of spirits to stack with ALL pet proc buffs