I know you are better than this xal...

[Jaytee Bushwacker]

without pets, mages are SOOOOOOOOOO Much better off

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

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

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

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

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

[Coprolith]

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

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

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

Waittaminit...

[Jaytee Bushwacker]

I certainly see a problem with:

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

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

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

[Jaytee Bushwacker]

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

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

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

[Sikkem]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[TerjynPovar]

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

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

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

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

[Lorathir]

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

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

[Solonys]

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

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

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

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

[TerjynPovar]

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

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

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

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

[Incite]

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

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

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

[Sarrik]

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

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

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

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

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

[Mneumenth]

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

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

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

[TerjynPovar]

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

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

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

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

[Zatrik]

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

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

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

[Solonys]

"beastlords have it really good at the moment. "

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

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

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

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

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