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Race Question: Ogre or da big Cat

Started by zurdo, May 10, 2005, 11:44:54 AM

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zurdo

Do I Make a Ogre Or Do I make a big Cat???????

BACKGROUND:

I am going to make a new Beastlord and multi box.  I would say I'm an intense casual player.  Casual because I hate raids but intense since my play time is as high as some hard core raiders.  I think I will solo/duo the new Beast to 60 but my long term goal is getting groups with the Beast then when theres no group-- duo with the druid but ---soon as I get a chance back in a high level group of 6 -(65+)with the Beast...

I like melee possiblites of the Ogre.. I think the Ogre might be the best duo match with my druid, matched with my druid, looks like Ogre could tank better than the Vah Shir... But in a group my Beast won't have to be Main Tank (I know the pet can tank  but 2 tanks is better)  Not sure if Ogre would be good for groups cuz of mana issues where he's casting slow alot and maybe mind buffs.

I'm not sure about armor either, maybe good Ogre armor is more rare and expensive than Vah Shir.  I'm kinda ignorant on what armor is available for Ogres (or the costs) since I've always been a pure human caster.  I do pickup groups mostly, not raids. 

ISSUES:  Armor Costs, Mana, and Groupability those are my big issues.

DONT CARES:  I don't care about race issues and faction, and the xp penalty doesnt seem to bad.  The cat does look cooler but I'm not making my decision based on that.

Everybody seems to pick the Cat and it does have alot of plus's to it... but the Ogre has some awesome stats... I don't want make the same mistake I did with my druid I made him as a human and have regretted it.

Thats the background... heres the QUESTION:

If good Ogre armor will cost a zillion plat more than Vah Shir or requrie  hard core raids, I need to make the cat instead.  If the Ogre doesnt have the mana for a group, i need to get the Cat.

Thanks for taking the time to read my long and possibly stupid question..but its not so stupid to me...

Zurdo
A Beast to Be Born Later........




zurdo

One more thing... I did read the Race selection article on this site so I did my homework,,, but I still have these questions..

Zurdo

Nusa

Armor Costs: Most items you will want are usable by both races, so pretty much the same. You may even find your druid has some gear that can be borrowed to get you  past the early levels. Some crossover between leather classes after all.

Mana: Ogres starting wisdom is lower, but not so horribly low that gear wont fix it. I'd put all your starting points in wisdom for either race. Your mana pool will be big enough for slowing and buffing regardless of what race you choose.

Groupability: You didn't even suggest what the problem was here. Beastlords function pretty much the same in groups regardless of race. Ogres will get more requests to shrink, but Vah Shir are fairly big also. At least shrinking is free for us.

Bottom line, pick what you want and have fun. The issues you raised are non-issues, in my opinion.

Knodey

cats get sneak! be a cat...

*quotes Rarrum* Cats will take over the world!

Thaeliun

I think that the most important question on race is which one will be more fun for you.  Once you are into your higher levels, it ultimately it won't matter at all which race you pick so fun is the best deciding factor.

I went with Ogre because I liked the bear.  The starting stats were just a bonus (one which made low level life a lot easier).  The one factor that I did not think about but which made a big difference was frontal stuns!  I don't get stunned from the front and it has saved my life and that of my groups many many times.  I've seen other BSTs get interrupted during a crucial pet heal in a tight situation and cause the whole group to fail.  This can be overcome later with AAs though so especially if leveling into AA range is going to be easy for you with a high level druid 2 box, it still really won't matter in the end.

Fangolor

Cats look cooler but I like the no stun from the front of an ogre if you want to be a tank.  In the end it doesnt matter.

zurdo

Seems like everyone says either race doesn't matter or.. get the Ogre for no stuns or get the Cat for sneak...

Never played a melee , but my caster has been stunned before so I can kinda see how this would be useful.

Sneak I don't really know much or how useful it would be or how hard to live without., is it like an invis? My druid can invis although it fails alot on other people....any thoughts would be welcome

thanks for all the comments..

Nusa

#7
Yup, there are racial benefits, and talking about them tends to bring out the racial pride partisans. You very explicitly said you didn't want to hear about race issues, so I only answered your question above. But now that you've asked:

Sneak is better than an invis if you're out of the mobs line of sight. Doesn't matter if the mob sees invis or not, so long as it doesn't see you. Even if you ARE in the line of sight, aggro radius is reduced noticably. You do move slower when sneaking. Vah Shir only get it at a 50 skill, so you have to expect several tries to get it to stick. The secondary benefit is that it allows you to use any merchant, regardless of faction. Certainly you can live without it, but it's a valuable tool at times.

Safe-fall is the other Vah Shir benefit, also at a skill of 50. Goes quite a ways toward reducing or eliminating falling damage from hillhopping and or getting tossed by mobs.

The Ogre frontal-stun immunity is a pretty cool feature too, and unobtainable from gear, so far as I know.

Ogre's can slam too, but I suspect that has a fairly low value to most.

If I were starting over, I would seriously look at the Ogre myself.

jabby

for me the big issue with ogres is the xp penalty. up to 53 it doesnt matter but after that each lvl i noticed it more, and that was on my ogre warrior, who gets a bonus from being a warrior. (warriors and rogues get a bonus to exp)

but the frontal stun immune is *very* nice, if you do alot of tanking

Latang

There are times now that I wish I had gone Ogre, but that's mainly when I'm tanking stuff. The stun can be annoying, and my stun resist isn't good enough to shake it off very often. Sneak is worth it's weight in gold tho, and the lack of exp penalty to me weighs too heavily on the vah shir side to reccomend anything else. Cats > all =P


Train Engineer, Chief Hermit of <Mystic Nobles>

Kivuli

You will be staring at your warder for a very long time and he/she won't change. You should consider whether you wish to stare at a Lucin-era tiger model or an original EQ-era bear model for the rest of your beastlord's career. It's a purely cosmetic difference but one that most overlook and regret later.

Zatrik

If you want to do a lot of tanking you can't do better than an ogre or iksar.  As for the wisdom difference, BLs are melees.  They're not pet clerics.  You'll get plenty of wisdom later on in life when it matters, and with BL crack and pot9 (or whatever your druid has) will be a good amount of mana regen.  If you go vah shir I would put the points in stamina, and for ogre put the points in wis and maybe bump agi to 75.  In the end, I don't think it matters a lot, I went iksar but there's times I wish I had gone for ogre for the no stun thing, or troll for the small pet.  There's no xp penalty on AAs and since you're going to be powerlevelling anyway I don't think it's going to be a big issue.
65 Beastlord of Al'Kabor
Visit our little Mac server at eqmac.com or if you have a Mac download the client and get a free cd key here.

Gungagunga

Sneak is handy to have if you want to approach merchants or npcs that would otherwise not be so cordial to you but even using sneak successfully and walking in front of that same npc will get you killed if he doesnt like you that much.  Safe fall also kinda nice to have but with the hp regen available with bst crack and our regen spells occasionally taking dmg cause you go down to steep of a decline isnt a biggie really... now for the cons.  Cats eat at something like twice the rate as other races so you will spend alot more time summoning food/drink or buying more than you would with any other race.  I would go so far as to say anytime you see a Vah Shir 80-90% of the time your looking at a beastlord.  If you want to be remembered as something special your going to have to do something pretty awesome to set yourself apart from the masses for anyone other than your friends.

Ogre better starting stats on avg other than wis which is easy enough thru gear or ldon augs.  No frontal stun... I really cant say enough about this.  Before they changed casting time yesterday on pet heals if pet was offtanking and getting beat down i would simply stand in a position to take dmg from both my mob and his and cast that 9 second heal without interuption tho i'd likely be hit 4+ times.

*disclaimer these opinions taken from a biased beastlord who travels the path less chosen.

As for ogre gear if you need advice just take a look at my magelo in sig.  It is off 2 lvls and few ldon augs, AA's but gear wise everything but maybe 1 item is bazaarable and with server merges I would expect prices to drop so shouldnt cost you a ton of money to get most of what I have.

Dreead

Hello.
Iksar for the win.
Bassed on just our physical apperance, we rock the cat's world.

Constaq

Go with Oger.. Its just plain fun to park your lvl 70 focused bear in the hallway into pok from the Guild lobby... muahahahha.. Nothing but bear!

I love the no stun it drives me nuts when i do get stunned pulling and such.