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If not buffs, then what?

Started by Tastian, October 18, 2005, 05:07:09 PM

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Essant

In order for a group fero to be really 'worth it', its going to have to be much more than a boost to atk and some resists on raids.  Raid buffed, I'm over 2K ATK as it is, and know most of our rogues and rangers are going to be, too.  Fero'ing clerics is pretty pointless, so what we are talking about here is the desire to create melee dps groups in raids that possible comprise of rogues and rangers, and beastlords and perhaps shaman so that they could benefit from group fero or we could mgb it 'on occasion' for a particulaly nasty boss that might need the extra resists for the whole raid.  We know any ATK increases over 2K-2100 is pretty pointless, so its going to have to be something else like cleave or double attack rate or strikethrough or all of the above.

Personally, I don't care.  Personally, I dont want to be a utility class.  I want to be a moderately-high dps class, and its perfectly OK with me if I only parse 80% of what the top melee dps'ers parse, I dont have to match rogues and rangers and berzerkers to be happy.  But what WOULD make me happy is having the ability to off tank and split tank raid trash with my pet again like we used to be able to do back in older content.
Elder Essant Le'Fur
70 Vah Shir Beastlord of the Rathe
Brotherhood of the Spider
My Stuff!

Tastian

"Personally, I don't care.  Personally, I dont want to be a utility class.  I want to be a moderately-high dps class, and its perfectly OK with me if I only parse 80% of what the top melee dps'ers parse, I dont have to match rogues and rangers and berzerkers to be happy.  But what WOULD make me happy is having the ability to off tank and split tank raid trash with my pet again like we used to be able to do back in older content."

The question to you then is still why take another bst?  You say you don't want to be a utility class, you understand your dps will be moderate, but not top of the line, so what is it to bring a bst along?  Even back in the day when bst did OT some we still weren't even close to the best at it.  We had slow which helped, nice aggro gen from some spells, but we still soaked damage worse than almost every other class.  Pals finally got some upgraded aggro gen, SKs had dread gaze and other tools for awhile now,  extra warriors are always on raids, etc.  OT'n is almost in the same boat as healing in that we will just never be good enough at it to actually have it make a noteable difference.

I guess part of this issue assumes that bst that don't want utility/buffing actually want other bst on the raid.  Do some of you just want to be the only bst around and have it so bst aren't desired past the 1st?  If not then we fall back to the question of what makes a raid take a bst over another class.  Think about it like a guild that is recruiting a few open slots.  They already have 100% bst RA.  What is it a bst can say or bring to the table that will make the guild give them the raid slot over just a pure dps like a rogue, or perhaps a major utility like a shm that adds dps to others and adds more options to the raid?  Again this isn't about raids taking 12 bst, but rather trying to justify even the second bst on a raid? 

Grbage

To make it desirable to have more then one bst in a raid how about a buff that is group but last the same base as fero of 6.5 minutes with 6 minute refresh and can not be used with MGB. Mana cost would have to be determined by %gain from the buff

For melee: AE ramp avoidance %, Damage taken modifier, Dodge Modifier, Spell shield, End regen, etc.

For casters: Mana regen(make it better then SA but not stackable), spell shield %, DoT shield %, etc.

This would make it desirable to have a bst in a melee, tank or caster group depending on the buff and is stackable as you add more bst to the raid.
Grbage Heep
85 Beast of Torv

Tastian

I've thougth about exactly that gr, and so have others, but again you run into some that don't want to buff or spend the mana.  For the spell you describe to be useful overall it would likely cost somewhere between 1.5k and 2.5k mana.  Lots of bst don't want to give up that many nukes or fizzle a spell like that.  8P

This thread is about trying to find things other than buffs that would warrant an extra bst or two on the raid.  There are already tons of suggestions for buffs/utility based upgrades, but some argue againist those or don't want them.  I'm not even sure there is something other than buff changes that would really fit for bst to add the needed utility to warrant extra group spots, but since some bst are very much againist the buffing I was hoping they might also have some ideas for what to change instead. 

Iskandar

If you discount DPS (which isn't a guaranteed "gotta have that class" ability) the main thing left is spells... buffs, heals, cures, and debuffs. There's two ways we can go about having any of them: either we cast them, or the warder procs them.

Being a pet class, and a BEASTlord no less, I personally like the idea of our warder having such utility... a series of utility abilities that allow the warder to proc a single or group recourse for heals, regen or cures, or to proc various debuffs and detrimental effects, such as Hobble/Fetter.

I also the idea of making them AA abilities, just like Hobble, since there's no need to worry about an already-full spellbar or mana... as AA abilities, they wouldn't change your target when cast either, and now that we have two hotkey banks there should be ample room for their buttons. They could be made to overwrite each other, allowing us to buff and rebuff our warder with effects appropriate to the situation at hand... we could even swap out effects mid fight -- say you have an effect on the warder that lifetaps the mob and does a group heal recourse -- but mana is running low and Perf is down, so you swap mid-fight to a mana sieve ability that recourses a mana regen on your group.

There's a lot of possibilities for a series of abilities like that, and a great deal of flexibility with them (after tonight, I'd sell my first born AND his brother if Blinky could proc a group disease cure! :-D ) -- I can easily see the same flexibility in a system like this that Bards enjoy with their songs. The effects wouldn't need to be large either, considering the frequency with which our warders attack and proc even a small boost would have a noticeable cumulative effect. What started as a couple of snare effects could easily become something much much greater!

And pet /shield.... omg, Blinky did it a third time just a week or so ago! Three times in just as many years! I wish I coulda caught the moment on video... it's like a Bigfoot sighting :lol:  I would so love for him to be able to do that on a regular basis... those sun-crazed cats in Scarlet Desert do it all the time, those underfed pumas in Ascent do it too, but my little blinking tiger can't! :x (OK, maybe he's not so little...) The warder is a warrior by class, as I recall, so I don't see why it can't do a basic warrior-ly thing like /shield... I can name quite a few Chanters who would love to have a dedicated bodyguard on a raid hehe!

Disciplines are also something that could be better utilized. Zerkers, as a class, are built on Disciplines of one sort or another, including some very effective DPS-boosting ones. Something similar (though much less extensive I would imagine) could be adapted for us. Discs to increase various combat abilities would be the easiest implementation... maybe then we could get some endurance put on our class armors, since we'd actually be needing it :-D

If enough of these sort of changes are added, I could easily see my guild picking up a couple more Beastlords. It adds group utility, which can easily translate to raid utility (or solo utility for that matter), and it does so without requiring more spells or spellslots or mana. Plop a Beastlord in a caster group, have the warder /shield the Chanter, and clicky the mana regen recourse proc on him.... or swap him to the DPS group, have the warder /shield the healer, and clicky a heal or attack-boosting recourse proc on the warder while the Beastlord discs their group DPS ability.
Wildcaller Iskandar Darkpaw --  80 Beastlord, Cohort Chalybeius, Cazic Thule

"Didn't ya hear? That which doesn't kill you makes ya stronger. So suck it up, OK?" ~C.C.
"That which doesn't kill me makes me stronger. That which does kill me I will hunt down after I respawn." ~D.H.

Goradana

First off, i dont raid at all, and i understand basic idea was how to get nother BST wanted on raid. It has been mentioned it should be something that helps the nonraiding beast as well. But if youre looking for something to make u wanted on raids, it could be done as either an AA (costs much, wont be worth spending points on as a nonraider), or a spell/disc/ability that u gain by completing raid/quest/progression. Then it could be a raidtool u get, as beasts like me that dont have use for it, will never get it.

I play much 2boxing with druid, bring a few friends along, or do pickup groups, and the upgrade to Fero would be much welcome. Only time i really use it now is either in the group where i stay FM all the time anyway, or when im tanking and fighting castres the extra resist can help.

I dont mind the casting/buffing tough, so for me it might as well be a spell as something else. But bottom line id say is that if it is something that helps your whole group raise DPS, u can use it for groups, and making it recast time as long as durration it would require a beastlord in every group of melee in raid.

Nor as ubergeared as many raiders, keeping Fero on 2-4 melees in group, and being slower/haster kiled my mana back at PoP, and changing it into a group buff that i would guess takes 1k or more mana every 6-8 minutes would make it useless in small groups, so id like to keep the single, and get a groupversion added.

Keep up the good work Tast, i understand u must put lots of time into making us all better in game.

Essant

The amazing thing about beastlords is that every once in a while we can do ass-saving things that affect the outcome of the raid.  The ability for us to do that comes from our tanking ability, our pet's tanking ability, and our heals - but our ability to do those things is getting harder and harder to do, and thats mostly blamed on raid  content (even so called 'trash mobs') that can rip us to shreds in a couple of seconds not even mentioning our pets.  The ability to 'step up' and provide some sort of emergency off-tanking / crowd-control / fast-healing someone who's about to die is what makes the class FUN to play.  Has nothing to do with our buffs.  I think any beastlord here who is experienced in his class and has a good feel for it and good reactions knows what I mean, and thats all I really want is for that to scale up better past the PoTime level than it has, because thats the way I like to play.  It is a trait that is most commonly reserved for the hybrid classes, bezerkers and rogues can't do this sort of thing although rogues bring additional value to a raid aside from DPS
Elder Essant Le'Fur
70 Vah Shir Beastlord of the Rathe
Brotherhood of the Spider
My Stuff!

jitathab

Ok Tastian seeing your DPS order Tier 3 would be acceptable to me, however currently I find it extremely difficult to attain that, without constantly casting DoD pet its impossible. I have to work my arse off to maintain DPS and it burns my mana out fast. So whatever else the "it" is I dont want to see it affecting DPS, so nothing mana intensive.

Some possible "its"
However the endurance bar is fair game, so what about, as I have touched on before, give us some more surviveability thing, e.g. absorb portions of AE and drain end because of it, or endurance transfer to make us desireable to a dead war. Immortal pet be too much, easy to abuse on raids and would make soloing pretty trivial
One of my guildy wars says they have s WAR end regen AA already, so could add that to perfection or SA. Paragon used to be raid saving and now it isnt, so maybe revisit that old argument yet again and concentrate on upping our out of date buffs rather than creating something new.


Dummkopf

QuotePersonally, I don't care.  Personally, I dont want to be a utility class.  I want to be a moderately-high dps class, and its perfectly OK with me if I only parse 80% of what the top melee dps'ers parse, I dont have to match rogues and rangers and berzerkers to be happy.  But what WOULD make me happy is having the ability to off tank and split tank raid trash with my pet again like we used to be able to do back in older content.

Well, sorry to break it to you, beastlords were always designed as a utility class and the case you describe above fits one existing class very well. Welcome to the world of rangers, they can tank better than us (every melee class can, we have the druid softcap), they even can offtank nameds if the need be for a few seconds and do moderate dps, not to mention very handy snap aggro abilities.

QuoteThe amazing thing about beastlords is that every once in a while we can do ass-saving things that affect the outcome of the raid.  The ability for us to do that comes from our tanking ability, our pet's tanking ability, and our heals

I seriously dont know in which world you live, but our tanking ability was always the worst of every melee class, our pet was never a viable offtank in any raid situation (if you dont include Crushbone). Yes, we could offtank in Time phase 1 and 2 and splat after 12 seconds from phase 3 on, but so could everyone else who could keep enough aggro, we sometimes assigned shamans to offtank in phase 1, they never had a problem and that was back before LDoN was live, no augs, no other boosts.

Back on topic i think the only way to make beastlords more desired on any raids is via more utility, dps is something we will never be as good as melee classes so that will not be a reason to bring us along. To put some more utility on our pets is not a bad idea but it has to be carefully balanced because pets have theyre own problems like aeramp for example. It would be nice however if our old buffs could be adapted to the game as it is now and not like it was 2 years ago. Especially SA, Paragon/Perfection and Fero need a few buffs. SA and Perfection receiving endurance regen in the same rate as they have manaregen would help us a lot, fero, well, theres another thread dealing with that.

tacyttik

I can only think of 6 categories for desirability on raids:
1: Tanking - end game we cant do it, trash that hits for 1800+ and rather fast eats through us.
2: Buffs - on a raid we have SA, fero, and paragon.
3: Debuffs - the only debuff I can think of that's exclusive to us is Roar of Thunder.
4: DPS - we never will be highest on this list, and we shouldnt be.
5: Healing - again, one of those never be the highest things.
6: Misc - this is where rezzing, CoH, corpse summoning, FD/fade pulls, SoS, riposte type abilities come in.

We could ask for end regen, but I remember EQlive posts stating end regen wasnt very likely, but it'd be most useful as a 1 or 2/tick addition to SA, which still doesnt require more than 1 bst.

Fero requires 1 bst per 4 fero-ees, 8 if you use both, but I'd hate to have continuous buffing of a short duration buff be my admission price. It's also very mana intensive, and if we're expected to rebuff SA on those that die, it becomes less feasable to do.

Roar of Thunder could be a reason to have 2 or 3 bsts on a raid, if the debuff lasted longer. A duration of 2.5 mins would make it possible for 3 bsts to keep a mob continuously debuffed. The debuff is less than synapsis spasm, but since they stack it'd be a good way to weaken the harder hitting boss mobs.

Perfection is one of our harder hitting reasons, even if it fails to scale to end game mana pools. MGB perfection can help a raid recover from a would-be wipe, but in it's current state only adds about 2 CH's per cleric. Upping the mana/tick would increase a raid's desire to have more than 1 bst on the raid.
---------------
That's all I can think of for improvements of what we currently have. Obviously we cant be the best at healing, or dps, or tanking, as other classes are specifically for those roles. We really dont have any misc roles that I can think of, which leaves us with buffs and debuffs.

New ideas:
Pet procs:
    Over-slow - slows a mob an extra few %. To keep balance among the other slowing classes, could make it not stack with our own slow, and therefore only beneficial when we arent the primary slower (wouldnt be fair in xp groups if we could slow just as well as enchanters). Not sure if that's actually possible with spell coding.

    Mini-HP/mana tap - a small tap, in the region of 10 or less/proc that hits the entire group. Only benefits 1group/bst, and ups our desirability. However it takes us close to what necromancers do, and its the exact same ability of SKs, except its a proc instead of a spell.

    The other ideas for pet procs would be something like -accuracy, or -CE for mobs that have single target procs. Of course, debuff procs will only require 1 bst, as long as that bst keeps his/her warder alive and buffed.

-------------------

My last idea doesnt really seem to fit under desirability, but I've come to think of it as such. Pet survivability. We lose desirability if we cant keep a pet up, due to it being 100+ DPS, and would be moreso if some new pet proc was added.
The pet rune is supposed to help my pet survive rough situations, yet it rarely works well enough to help my pet survive a situation I can laugh at. IMO pets should be immune to damage shields, or at least have the pet rune make them immune. I'm sure I wasnt the only bst that was severely disappointed when a freshly casted pet rune wore off when my pet did a single quad. Pets hit too often with the side effect of low dmg/hit for DS effects, the same mob I can melee endlessly without seeing my HPs drop my pet will lose 30%+ of its health on.
Pets dont get benefits from each focii outside of dmg, hps, and possibly accuracy (that I'm aware of). Players get gear and AAs that gives shielding, avoidance, SS, DoTS. Pets rely on:

Pet rune - which can only take 4 hits (can get removed before recast timer is up), has a fairly long cast time (takes away from our dps), and a longer recast (pet could easily get hit with an AE before we can recast it). Pet runes are like if a ranger had to cast a rune spell on themself every 4 AEs or else risk losing the use of their left arm. (Ok, so maybe not that bad, but it still eats away at possible dps.) Many highend expansion boss mobs have more than 1 AE. Quarm has 8. Mobs like that make it a requirement to recast rune every 30 seconds, and quite often my pet gets suspended before boss mobs because I feel it'd lower my dps to keep it up. On AE ramp trash mobs I cant call my pet off fast enough (or I do call him off in time, but by the time he stops attacking, turns, and starts running, he's a pancake). With player to server latency, a pet LoH often finds no pet to be healed.
Pet heals - Cast time isnt bad, but it still takes away from our dps, and usually when a pet needs a heal, it also needs a pet rune. There really isnt a way to make heals work well in raid situations. (I would like to thank sony for lowering cast times, and putting in cures on pet heals, classes that get RGC rarely are willing to cast it on a pet mid-battle)

Solutions - Make pets not hurt by DSs, along side of ramp. Lower the cast time on pet runes, and consider increasing the # of blocks by 1 or 2.

shenk

I would also like to see a faster cast time on the DoN spells (growl of panther).  The spell only raises our hp cap by 1.5k and gives us the hps though a HoT, so those hps don't really exist on us unless we keep the spell up.  This isn't hard on raid targets but i do feel i'm just sitting there a few seconds that I could be swinging.  Also, I don' t like how it chews up 650 mana ever 1 min for me or 1.5 or so for pet.  I would like to see the spell last just as long on pet as myself with AA ext buffs.

bham

Beastial Blight AA - Costs 9 AA

Effect: Reduce targets offense and defense skills and all saves by 15
Duration: 1 min (extendable by detrimental extension focus)
Re-use: 2.5min
Range: 200
Cast time: 1.5 sec
Resist: -500 MR


We increase the DPS of everybody, and decrease the DPS of the mob. You need 2 or 3 beastlords to keep it up full time on one mob, more if the event has multiple mobs.

Our problems solved. Might break content. Discuss

Bham - Cleric - Mage - Wizard - Tentrix
Bertox

Oiingo

Wild Servants Call
Mana Cost: 1000
Level: 70
Casting time: 10 seconds
Duration: 18 seconds
Type: Group
MGB: Yes
Distance: 100
Reuse: 15 minutes
Cast on you: You call forth a wild servant to aid you in battle.
Cast on others: ____ calls forth a wild servant to aid them in battle.
Effect: SumWildServ60
Uses short duration buff box

SumWildServ60
Summons a pet on the next successful melee attack which targets their current opponent.  Level 60 pet with roughly 2500 HP, low resists, relatively low melee (aim for 1000-2000 damage total), and a small old world model so they don't create unnecessary inconvenience due to the increase in lag that's possible, nor physically block other player characters. When the pet poofs (not through death), give the remaining pet HP to the individual melee.

Two questions answered at one time: Utility (heal) and DPS.  Beastlord utility through utility for all of the melee.

I don't know about anyone else, but I find my DPS to be at a relatively good spot right now, relative to other classes, the one place where I often lack is through utility at raids.  With the increased duration on SA, it tends to last through ``farm nights,'' and only becomes troublesome when new content is explored, but that's just something you have to deal with if you are going to engage new content.

Utility, however, is at an all-time low.  As mentioned with the Ferocity thread, we could use something breathtaking, so don't discount the idea so readily.  :)
Predator Oiingo Boiingo (80 beasty) of <Triality> on Maelin Starpyre

hitchhike79

So yea... group Fero? no thanks, its already a mana intensive spell as is for little gain, a group version would be horrid. But if im the minority here i have this idea; Bards though not so much are grouped with dps to crank the dps a bit, why not give us a self target only version of fero that hits only our group(non mgb of course), along  tweaking fero up to something like +acc +ce +endurance or whatever. so then we have a use of having more than just one around in raids. Its restrictive enough to not be that over powering and then grouping us with nukers and healers is good with para/perf or group us with melee for the dps is an option as well.

Stigian
Machin Shin of Xegony


Prelgor

Quote from: Iskandar on October 19, 2005, 05:39:11 AM
Being a pet class, and a BEASTlord no less, I personally like the idea of our warder having such utility... a series of utility abilities that allow the warder to proc a single or group recourse for heals, regen or cures, or to proc various debuffs and detrimental effects, such as Hobble/Fetter.

Let me disclaim everything by saying that I don't raid.  I'm also only level 60. 

I also like the idea of pet based utility via Hobble-type debuff procs.  Make an assortment of three or four of them, and every raid will have a use for that many different beastlords.  Make the debuffs stackable with standard debuffs, of course (e.g. make a resist debuff stackable with Tash/Malo).  This can also address the "I hate buffing" crowd by making the warder buff have a reasonably long duration (so it only has to be refreshed every 15 minutes, or longer).  And, it makes Fluffy/Fido/Binky worth keeping around.  :)   

Perhaps pet DPS could be given some advantage.  It is now impossible for a pet to steal aggro from a player.  What if we take advantage of that and give the pet some obscene aggro generation buff?  The pet then zooms up in hate, the tank taunts to hit (ObsceneHate+1), and the clerics and chanters breathe a little easier. 

Pet off-tanking is great utility.  Perhaps introduce a line of very expensive but fast, big pet heals, or perhaps expensive pet buffs that push mitigation through the roof - either way, have minimal recast delays and do what it takes to make "pet cleric" a viable but expensive strategy.  This way, a beastlord could burn tons of mana propping up the pet for a minute or so, until the other players finish dropping another mob, although perhaps we couldn't afford to do this every time while chain-pulling.   

Personally, I enjoy being a buffer.  I don't have IOS yet, so I load myself down with nearly a dozen self-buffs when I solo.  I'm amazed when I talk to beastlords who cast nothing but beastcrack.  When I hit 65, I will enjoy having Fero to spread around, when appropriate.  I would like to suggest that the Fero line also be kept up-to-date.  I think of our latest pet buff as essentially pet Fero.  Buff other players, the pet, it's all good, and perhaps some players like buffing themselves more than buffing others. 

This can be another point of diversity.  One beastlord, who likes buffing, keeps up the latest Fero on a few key people, but doesn't have mana for much else.  Another beastlord burns mana on DPS or debuffs, but can't afford much else.  Another beastlord keeps up the UberHate buff on his warder (for example), but can't afford much else.  Another beastlord stands ready to prop up a pet-offtank as necessary.  And so on.  This would allow beastlords with different tastes to gravitate towards (and perhaps take gear/AA to specialize in) different roles.