If not buffs, then what?

[Shamno]

I do see a noticable difference with the 70 pet then the 68 one, but it isn't really damage difference. It is 3 points a swing with the RSS focus when cast to make an even 100 max hit. the 68 pet hit for 97 or something....this with the 1.5 clicky and basic beastlord buffs of course. Surviability though does seem to increase from the 2 pets, so I am happy about that.

I am only Timed flag so I am not really running to those horrible AoE rampages mobs that often, so I can't speak much about pet surviabiltiy at high end quite yet.

To me we are starting ot run into an actual mana crunch in some ways. With the swarm pet and DoN spell, I can run OOM every fight...and with SA new mana cost revival of the dead afterwards and then leading to another fight a minute or 2 down the linet runs into some issues of me maintaining that same pace. Grant it I know we are a burst DPS class, but I always seen the DoN spell and the swarm pet as substained DPS tool in a raid environment.

[zzmaller]

Well hello again all
I am in a end guild raiding guild and i find that not only is it hard to on my mana pool on raids to keep up with Sa slows mob position and trying to keep up with 4 feros is a nightmare.

What i think that would work is if we had a single group fero target pet and recast off pet like growl.
1) this would make it so i had to only fero onces every 6 Min's
2) would make it so more raids would want more then one bst at raid.

Now i don't think the fero we have is what this spell should be its should be something specail something a raid would want like 250-300atk 100to all resist combat effects

[Tastian]

"To me we are starting ot run into an actual mana crunch in some ways. With the swarm pet and DoN spell, I can run OOM every fight...and with SA new mana cost revival of the dead afterwards and then leading to another fight a minute or 2 down the linet runs into some issues of me maintaining that same pace. Grant it I know we are a burst DPS class, but I always seen the DoN spell and the swarm pet as substained DPS tool in a raid environment."

Part of this issue is that beastlords finally have options and uses for their mana.  Almost every other mana based class could put themselves OOM if they just chain use various spells.  Before DoN my bst could sustain fero on 4 people and I'd drop two nukes almost everytime they popped.  Growl gave us another option and the depths pet another one.  The depths pet isn't something to sustain all fight every fight though.  It's a dot in many ways and as such is just another dps option we have available. 

I do know some bst have felt a bit of a mana crunch latly, but that really is just what almost all other mana based classes deal with.  Sks that are bite'n, spearing, snaring, terror'n for aggro, etc can have issues.  A pally that is dropping stuns and healing a lot.  Especially caster classes like a druid or a cleric as I think we've all been in a group at one time or another where a cleric or enc put themselves out of mana or too low on mana from nuking or something else and then couldn't handle things when they got rough.

One of the big issues with fero that I think this kind of gets at and some others have touched on is exactly how often do people want fero to be used?  There were some bst in the past that just sustained it on 4 people.  Some that use it for just big boss fights, some that use for resists etc.  Do people want fero balanced so it's a sustained short duration buff like avatar where you really do add a lot to the group, you put in some work, but the overall groups damage is much higher than if you simply nuked/dot'd with that mana instead of buffing?  Or would people rather it be situationally useful where maybe you buff it before a big boss fight, or maybe solo players just use before they pull a named or breaking a camp or whatever? 

It seems like some people see fero as an always on buff, and others see it more as a potent, but infrequent buff to help kick things up that extra notch. 

[jitathab]

Fero always up :)

[Sindaar]

(I haven't read all the posts yet, so incase this was already suggested, just ignore me)

One ability that might be inplementable which would raise the interest for beastlords on raid:
The ability would desummon your pet and it would then put a protective/offensive buff onto all people within a certain radius of your pet(or you). (% based buff would be prefered so that it can progress with content, could also be a 25%hp/15%mana area heal (instant), or a magic (both dot/dd) absorbing shield, or such)
This ability after being used would prohibit you to use a pet for a certain time (30mins no pet and slow our cast times and melee etc etc (whatever seems appropriate relative to the gain)) and it would drain a very large %-age of your mana (say 80% of your mana pool).  (Or an alternative it could put us into a temporary stasis)
Why make us sacrifice the pet? Well I think this kind of ability should be powerful, but obviously have some large drawbacks for us.
This would definitely make 2 or 3 beastlords a viable option, but not too many more because if they use that ability they'll be rendered close to useless for a bit..

While yes, those that want to see high dps numbers, they'll definitely not like this ability, but I think this ability would only be useful in large number raids (which is the main discussion point)

Btw the numbers are just suggestions/examples... the end product would most likely look quite a bit different..

Cheers,

[Chickennuggets]

As far as fero specifically, I usually try to keep it up on myself at all times, and will try and rememeber to keep it on tank, and sometimes another melee dps if I'm not slowing (other wise I just dont have the mana regen after factoring in growl and nukes).

[hakaaba]

Since this seems to have degenerated into another fero talk thread :p

Keep it single target please.  If anyone wants it to be a group spell think about this:  a 2k mana spell that you can no longer specify exactly who you hit (if theres 2 rogues in a group with a mage druid and cleric or something) and prolly wont be greatly improved would just suck.

Much better to keep it how it is as a powerful single target spell -- made even more powerful because of its limitations

[Sindaar]

reason why I suggested the area effect thingy is because some don't enjoy buffing fero at all, the spell/ability I suggested will bring raidutility while at the same time keeping those that hate casting fero all the time somewhat happy.
Also: if you'd make it a %hp/%mana/%endurance heal  or dot/dd spell shield, then it would affect everyone (and everyone would benifit).
DoT and dd spell shield obviously would mainly be useful against AEs and there usually (barring some exceptions) everyone is hit so it doesn't matter if a dps, pure caster or tank is hit by it. %hp/%mana/%endurance would also be beneficial for everyone. (I'm sure melees would love us for that and casters certainly won't mind etiher...).

Or alternatively, you could change it so that there's a recourse when you desummon your pet which hits whoever you have targetted (one target only, so you could make it more powerful, be it +accuracy/shielding/spell shield/dot shield or hp/mana replenishment or whatever you want...). But even if you change it to a single target spell I'd stil like it to bring a heavy penalty to us, but have a large impact on whoever gets it. So I'd still say pet desummoned, and it's gone for 30+mins and it drains a large part of your mana, BUT make it last longer than fero.. say 10-15mins base, so you won't even be able to keep it up on one single person, but 10-15mins base should be enough for a single encounter.

Don't think we'll get around the buff idea really, but at the same time it has to have a noticable impact while at the same time keeping most people happy... dunno, was just a suggestion :)

Cheers,

[Kanan]

I think the point that Tastian was trying to make when he started this thread has been made.

We don't really have any idea what else besides buffs of some sort we can bring to a raid that would make them want us over a rogue or wizard or other higher dps class.

IE, our buffs need increasing in effectiveness to make our company upon a raid worth the loss of dps of making the rogue sit out.

[Nekokirei]

is it me, or are we kinda, well, "overbalanced"?  i mean, if we make fero like an avatar, we're stepping on shammy toes,  we get more melee dps, aside from the aggro issues, and divison of power (warder),  we're stepping on monk/zerker toes-but still nowhere close to rogues i think.  our nukes, dots, and heals aren't close to their resepctive classes--and not meant to be.

pretty sure it's been suggested, but what about Perfection upgraded?  i say that b/c as i read through older posts, it seems our Paragon was highly desirable, but Perfection didn't keep up with the hp/mana PCs sport--and lose due to tougher mobs.

that, or something terribly monk related--as has been discussed, we share little in common despite being a parent class; more like a uncle or aunt really.

[Kanan]

when you talk about hybrids, we are the most hybridized class of them all: zerkers are a mix of warr & rogue, ranger dru/warr, sk necro/warr, pally clr/warr.  us: monk/shammy/magi.

So you increase us and you have 3 other groups that we are derived from that get complainy.

[Iskandar]

pretty sure it's been suggested, but what about Perfection upgraded?  i say that b/c as i read through older posts, it seems our Paragon was highly desirable, but Perfection didn't keep up with the hp/mana PCs sport--and lose due to tougher mobs.

In another thread, I suggested making Paragon and similar regen AA's from other classes (ie, Druid's Wood, etc) a percent-based effect instead of a flat number. This would allow it to scale up with players as they increase their mana/hp through itemization without making it overpowering on players with lower gear -- ie, for hp, if it regens 20% instead of 200/tick, a player with 5,000 hp and a player with 15,000 hp would both see a different amount of regen -- 1,000 hp for the 5k player and 3,000 for the 15k player. Perfection would then be upgrades to the percentages for hp/mana regen instead of to the flat numbers (or perhaps even adding increasing percentages of endurance regen to Perfection, making it a much more potent upgrade to Paragon).

But, to be honest, I really don't see this idea having a snowball's chance of ever being seriously considered by Sony anytime soon :-(

[Kanan]

do they have something to where they could do this?

ie, the effect looks at total hps/mana & does that much?

Only prob I could see would be complication of it doing the differing amounts of hp vs mana

[Nekokirei]

In another thread, I suggested making Paragon and similar regen AA's from other classes (ie, Druid's Wood, etc) a percent-based effect instead of a flat number. This would allow it to scale up with players as they increase their mana/hp through itemization without making it overpowering on players with lower gear -- ie, for hp, if it regens 20% instead of 200/tick, a player with 5,000 hp and a player with 15,000 hp would both see a different amount of regen -- 1,000 hp for the 5k player and 3,000 for the 15k player. Perfection would then be upgrades to the percentages for hp/mana regen instead of to the flat numbers (or perhaps even adding increasing percentages of endurance regen to Perfection, making it a much more potent upgrade to Paragon).

oh! i like that idea.  it'd bring a lot raid utility especially what with the END regen!  hrm, what about also making our defunct Invigor regen END as well?

But, to be honest, I really don't see this idea having a snowball's chance of ever being seriously considered by Sony anytime soon :-(

oh...poopie. =(

[Chickennuggets]

While it may not be even close to an answer to the question... every class has their "niche".  Why not make ours End regen?  Slap it on Paragon, and SA.  End gamers have virtually no need for a huge part of our buffs, the lower parts of the game wouldn't be taxed anymore by this addition (except for the added mana cost I'm sure), and it would be useful in EVERY aspect of the game.