What are beastlords "best" at, what defines our cl

[Mneumenth]

I agree. Comparably equipped/AA'd BL will "out-tank" a Ranger

Define 'tanking ability'  :wink:

We can out-agro a ranger im sure, but we cannot take damage better then a ranger, or any other melee class for that matter, as parses of class defensive capabilities have shown. When it comes to soaking up damage, we are in fact #8, because bards beat us as well. When it come to agro-management, we're prolly at the number 4 or 5 slot.

/hugs

Good morning!

I was referring to the greater innate ability of the BL to "bob & weave" (Avoidance) over and above the shared AA's CA/LR.

As far as take the hits....Ranger definately will stand the punishment better.  In a practical sense that means he may be able to take 1 more direct hit, hehee.

:lol:

/wave

[Coprolith]

I was referring to the greater innate ability of the BL to "bob & weave" (Avoidance) over and above the shared AA's CA/LR.

Avoidance is included in those parses i mentioned. Looking at the combined effect of avoidance and mitigation we're still last of the melee classes (heck i suspect mage earth pets are better then us in that respect)

Looks like 8th from your list, and i must say your list doesn't look right. Think bards and shaman can tank better then us.

Bards yes, shaman no. We even come out above the plate wearing clerics. This is because priests have a Defense skill that is considerably lower then ours, they have no parry/block or riposte at all, and their dodge skill caps at 75ish(100?).

/hugs

[Rhutubok]

Why do we need to be best at any one thing in particular? I'm not sure lacking a clear specialty negatively affects our balance or value (where value = fun, ease of playablity, effectiveness in solo, groups or raids or desireability).

[rraane]

In raid situations our guild has been experamenting to good results with the bst pets buffed with V taking out adds to reduce the amount of healing our main healers have to do. The biggest problem has been the pallys and sk's stealing the mobs our pets are holding for the MA while he is on the main mob.

Other than that we cast SD and Paragon on raids and so a bit of damage as well.

To be fair most classes have very limited and specific roles on a raid, why should a bst be different? Mages get to nuke and COTH peeps in, Necros dot and pull, rogues damage and CR and sometimes pull etc etc.

Rraane

[Toiler]

Interesting input. I spent about 40% soloing, 50% duo'ing with a Necro, and 9% grouping (LDoN) and maybe 1% raiding. I'm not feeling beastlords are underpowered, but was looking for a clear/defining roll in raids or in groups.

LoL - I guess the desire to be more an essential toon than just a useful one was getting to me... But I weaned myself from that last night, 3 hours on my old cleric toon reminded me of why I like my beastlord  :lol:

Still think it would be cool to get some sort of animal harmony, animal mez, of some sort. Kinda keeping in line with Necro undead mez, or Mage summoned mez. Or something unique...

[Hudena]

Why do we have to be the BEST at anything, we are the perfect case for "the whole is greater then the sum of the parts".   On LDoNs in the past few months BL's are used for slow, CC and tanking.  I join a group we dont need a plat tank, we dont need a shaman and we dont need a chanter a BL can do all 3 jobs.   What shaman and chanters ARE used for is buffing before the fight and then left in camp.  Have never seen a BL logged on for buffs and then camped.  I do like a group with a GOOD warrior and chanter, then I can just about go full tilt.

just my two coppers

[Latang]

At raids, I am effectively a SD/paragon/Fero bot for the casters and dps's. It makes me a little sad. DPS wise, despite having one of the better weapon combo's available to us, my melee dps is around 130 ish non disc, not including pet, since pet generally eats 1 ae ramp or 2 or 3 ae spells and I gotta stop attack for 9 sec to heal him (if he gets the heal before dying horribly).  So in my opinion, we are there for speeding up the cleric's/wizards/mages/druids  mana regen and increasing a few rangers or rogues dps.

Damned if bst isn't the most fun I've had playing this silly game tho =P

[Catgal]

Best stat buffer

I think he is talking about Ferocity.

[TerjynPovar]

Ferocity isn't known for it's "stat buffing" though.

Ferocity is quite possibly better than any individual shaman buff, but shaman are still better buffers in general.

And, although this doesn't matter in the slightest in the long run, when it comes to mitigation based tanking (where DPS doesn't really matter, it's all about spikes...AKA tough raids) Beastlords lose to everybody except for Casters, even Shaman/Cleric/Druids are better tanks for that.  If you didn't have the mana for the DPS, then you might use a Beastlord in hopes that the spikes aren't there, but in general you'd be better off trying to tank these with a Priest than a Beastlord.  Of course nobody would ever bother to sink as low as a Beastlord or Priest for these anyway.

[mrowrr]

At raids, I am effectively a SD/paragon/Fero bot for the casters and dps's. It makes me a little sad. DPS wise, despite having one of the better weapon combo's available to us, my melee dps is around 130 ish non disc, not including pet, since pet generally eats 1 ae ramp or 2 or 3 ae spells and I gotta stop attack for 9 sec to heal him (if he gets the heal before dying horribly). So in my opinion, we are there for speeding up the cleric's/wizards/mages/druids mana regen and increasing a few rangers or rogues dps.

Every beast chooses the role they want to play on a raid.  

I chose the role of  pre-slowing as have my guildmate beastlords and our guild looks at us as the first line of debuffs.  Fero goes on only myself or someone that needs resists because that's honestly the importance of the spell at the high end(most of my guild mates have maxxed their innate attack beyond belief but not everyone has maxxed their resists).  

Pets though a liability on high end raiding because of what you described above aren't always 100% of the time that hard off.  If they contribute somewhat to a fight then you're dps hasn't been offset that much, and using Calliav, Pet Mend, and a smaller heal can offset your pets demise considerably.

Again preslowing is a niche that isn't needed but is most assuredly welcome to raiding guilds.

I still think we're there for the Pre-slow, mana regen and the dps and that's a potent combo right there for any raid.

[Xarilok]

Ok, just to clarify:

When you are in a competition, and someone takes first, someone else TIES someone for 2nd, you take 3rd....not forth...its does NOT skip 3rd.

In my post, each rank is seperated by commas, with those tied (or nearly enough to not warrent discussion) seperated by forward slashes.

Tanking: Warriors are first.  SK/Pal are TIED for second.  Rangers/Berserkers/Rogues/monks are pretty tied for 3rd, with all 3 being worse than knight, but better than BLs, BLs are 4th, being better than everyone else.

Bards might mitigate better...so do clerics...but pure mitigation = tanking ability...Bard avoidance blows, period.  Look up thier repost/parry caps, and the level they get both of those skills.

Also...most rangers/rogues/berserkers do NOT tank-solo at level 65, where as many many beastlords do.  Therefore, the average level 65 beast will likely out-tank everyone outside of warriors and knights, simply based on gear selection that revolves more heavily on tanking.

Last I checked, rangers get the same heals BLs do, so how are they better healers?  Same heals + paragon would make BLs better, if you want to get into it.

We are pretty much tied with necro's for pet strenth, afaik theirs does a little better dps with ours tanking slightly better.  So, mage in #1, necro/bl in #2.  If you want to count every pet that is better than ours, then hell, bls are like #874 since every pet except a few beats our level 9 summon...I was only counting classes, not pets.

Anyway...if you two that claim BLs are worse tanks than shaman and bards....well, I don't care jack diddly if a shaman mitigates 10% better than me, when I avoid 40% more hits.

[Shirrkarn Ayge]

Just as an FYI Rangers get Sylvan Light

That definitely makes em better healers than us

[Mneumenth]

Just as an FYI Rangers get Sylvan Light

That definitely makes em better healers than us

Rangers have a rare chance to get this.  A very small percentage will see this spell, so to use it as a justification doesnt really apply, IMO.

[Grymlok]

When you are in a competition, and someone takes first, someone else TIES someone for 2nd, you take 3rd....not forth...its does NOT skip 3rd.

You might want to look again.  Many (most) ranking systems do just that.

Bards might mitigate better...so do clerics...but pure mitigation = tanking ability...Bard avoidance blows, period.  Look up thier repost/parry caps, and the level they get both of those skills.

Bud, when defensive parses are done, they usually don't give a hoot about who can dodge or mitigate better.  They take into account the one factor that matter: damage taken over time.  The parses made on the Steel Warrior show that EVERY other non-priest, non-caster takes less dps than we do.

Also...most rangers/rogues/berserkers do NOT tank-solo at level 65, where as many many beastlords do.  Therefore, the average level 65 beast will likely out-tank everyone outside of warriors and knights, simply based on gear selection that revolves more heavily on tanking.

This is an assumption, and a bad one at the core.  What defines a "gear selection that revolves more heavily on tanking"?  I solo all the time, and my gear selections are focused on two things: dps and efficiency (foci, regen, etc).  I know rangers that I raid with that have more avoidance and shielding than I do.  I know pallies and sks that have less.  You are making an argument with a bad assumption at its core.

Last I checked, rangers get the same heals BLs do, so how are they better healers?  Same heals + paragon would make BLs better, if you want to get into it.

Someone dissed the person who responded about Sylvan Light, saying it was beyond the majority of rangers.  But it drops in the Sewers and Vxed, which are the "open access" part of GoD.  Any decently skilled ranger should be able to get it if he/she decided to put the time into it.

Anyway...if you two that claim BLs are worse tanks than shaman and bards....well, I don't care jack diddly if a shaman mitigates 10% better than me, when I avoid 40% more hits.

Pay attention to what people are saying sometime, would you?

[Mneumenth]

Someone dissed the person who responded about Sylvan Light, saying it was beyond the majority of rangers.  But it drops in the Sewers and Vxed, which are the "open access" part of GoD.  Any decently skilled ranger should be able to get it if he/she decided to put the time into it.

I did not "diss" anyone.

It is available, but atm there is not a large % of Rangers who have this spell.  However with mudflation this will undoubtedly change.  The only reason I addressed this was the relative few who own this spell should not be a scale against which Rangers "Healing" ability is gauged.

For one who speaks of not over-generalizing and making assumptions, you seem to making some of your own.