NDA LIFTED!!! SoF here we come

[Sikkem]

This appears ot be very good news for the Tanking beastlord.

Less big damage spikes  :evil:

I wanted to give a head's up on one of the balance changes we made with SoF NPCs since it has a positive impact on the usefulness of some areas that have been losing their meaning over the years.

In SoF zones, NPCs have been given new offense values that are balanced against the AC values of modern players.  Prior to SoF, NPC offense had been pretty stagnant and hadn't really increased much since Planes of Power while player AC values have made tremendous gains.  This led to the situation where high end players were generally hit for minimum damage values by baseline NPCs.  In turn, adding more AC had diminishing returns and debuffs that reduced NPC offense (such as attack debuffs or strength debuffs) also lost some effectiveness.

To correct this, NPC max hit values were lowered and their offense values were raised so that the overall DPS of the NPC was unchanged, but the average player will now be hit for about half the maximum amount of damage on average instead of being hit for the minimum amount of damage most of the time.  This change has two main effects:

1) Additional AC is now more meaningful.

2) Debuffs that target offense related abilities are now more meaningful.

This only applies to NPCs in Secrets of Faydwer zones.  All previous NPCs retained their old offense values.

Rashere

[Jili]

Only good thing about that is now I wont have to tank in any group, whatever the setup.

Casters got a bigger AC migitation upgrade than we did, and with their new shield block AA's they will probably outtank me in any content. Nice to have Wizzies and Necros tanking for the group, at least their aggro is sufficient to keep the mob off me. =)

AC on Bst armor have been very bad for many expansions now, I know monks raiding a few expansions behind me with 1k more ac.

[Sushe]

Pact is a light grey werewolf.. req'ed that you be 76 only

I posted/feedbacked for a white wolf.. /shrug

[Khauruk]

Casters got a bigger AC migitation upgrade than we did, and with their new shield block AA's they will probably outtank me in any content. Nice to have Wizzies and Necros tanking for the group, at least their aggro is sufficient to keep the mob off me. =)

They won't though...they'll still be way behind us.

[Sikkem]

Casters got a bigger AC migitation upgrade than we did, and with their new shield block AA's they will probably outtank me in any content.

Whilst that  is true the post by the dev was about damage being more even over the course of a fight, a change I am really looking forward to as damage spikes caused my death more than anything else.

[Maylian]

Completely non aug'd in tier 4 raid armour I was at about 3.5k AC

[Caurion]

Lol so many beastlords want to be the best of everything...let our pets outtank and outdps all other pet classes, let us group haste like a chanter, let us dps like a zerker, let us tank like a monk.  We aren't meant to be superman

I agree as we seem to be the jack of all trades, master of none (minus our SE/Paragon :evil:)

After reading up a bit more on our spells, yeah....not the greatest. They could have done a better job with improving our haste. I guess on paper it sounded good, but doesn't look like it took well in Beta. I hope they fix it! And  I coudn't agree more that Taste of Blood is the suck!!!!!!!! 3 ticks? Not even long enough for me to pull another mob to camp /sigh

[maxawesome]

What's awesome is that they have this new line of pet-hardening aa's, and you guys are all up in arms about necro pets potentially out-DPS'ing your pets, but what you forget, and was only briefly mentioned in this thread, is that bst playstyle dictates the pet be able to off-tank reasonably.

It sounds like the devs have made a step in the right direction there.

As for necros, and having switched to a necro as my main, I can tell you without a doubt that pets are waaaaay down the list of our "give a shits" in terms of DPS.

There are several instances in which I won't even summon a pet, even in solo'ing situations. Little Goner just doesn't make much difference in my DPS in a 1.5 min yellow or red con kill.

So, to add a vie-style guard aa to my repertoire just ain't going to amount to much as a necro, while as a beast, that type of thing is much more impactful.

[VintruceFV]

Im gonna hold my opinions till after i can log on and try these off beta, see how they work on my daily grind =P. overall im excited and think we got some good treatment this expantion. better then any before lol

[Zarrites]

I don't know why they bother with those lame dot line of spells - I haven't used them since I was 65 when I would use it for aggro - which they nerfed.  They need to add a small resist mod to make me even consider using them.

I couldn't agree more

posted by: Jili

Only good thing about that is now I wont have to tank in any group, whatever the setup.

Casters got a bigger AC migitation upgrade than we did, and with their new shield block AA's they will probably outtank me in any content. Nice to have Wizzies and Necros tanking for the group, at least their aggro is sufficient to keep the mob off me. =)

AC on Bst armor have been very bad for many expansions now, I know monks raiding a few expansions behind me with 1k more ac.

don't act like a ranger

All in all, I'm still kind of upset that our pet pretty much slows instead of us now. I like the fact that we can dps instead of cast it, but don't like the fact that we don't have full control over it. I'm pumped about getting new double atk AAs. I like the fact that someone is starting to actually make our pets right. I'm glad they didn't make fero an aura or group spell. Single focus paragon is a good idea, but didn't make up for the group paragon enough imo. I hate the idea of being stuck in a healer group.(wtf) More promised mending in addition with the hott and runes will make it 100% easier to keep pet alive. They need to make a spell or AA that gives pet a chance to proc a group haste while attacking if they are going to go that route,(omg I would choke the heck out of a dev, that haste is an insult) or just make it a group buff that we can cast that at least matches the length of our old one.(my dream would be for him to proc a 5 or 10% overhaste which could get us into dps groups) The upgrade to roar to make it a faster reuse will be a great addition for our argo. All in all, we could of made out a heck of a lot worse, I'm looking forward to coming back to play if and when I get the chance.

Savage Lord Zarrites of Solusek Ro
Beastlord of the 70th Scale

[Panthur]

Our pets slow instead of us now??? News to me, and i wouldnt use that pet spell over a dd proc anyways.

[Kilori]

Well ok, if the necro pets arent out dpsing Shep, Im ok with pretty much everything else Im seeing posted. Yeah, its not OMGZ! We're GODZ! but eh, If Im not sat out of every raid and I still manage to out dps a ranger or two I'll be happy.

A freekin fixed invis woulda been nice tho! And while we're dreaming, could we get a self/pet radient cure or something? So I dont have to pray I have enough mana to outlive the Stitch DoT (for example) if my curer dies? Rangers have a self cure /whines

And it will be nice to be able to walk thru a zone and not agro all the wolves and bunnies..I wondered what I did to make em all mad at me.

Patch FASTER!!

[Grubar]

Personally im still thinking that our usefullness is raids is still extremely limited.  Pets ok.. glad to have it.. but there are alot of zones that ae's still mess with pet hold and well that extra pet dps will be pocketed or not summoned at all (Also seems to be a pet hold bug that if you summon or take out of pocket and do pet hold without moving them 1st they ignore it completely). About the only way we will become usefull to raids if our dps is up'd to the point that we show up in upper dps slots on meelle right now on equaly geared classes zerkers highest, rogues/monks closs to equal, rangers below them and bsts below that, and yet we tend to draw more agro per dps then any other meele/hybrid class with less ways to lower agro.  Soloing stuff is nice and all that but this being a multiplayer game needs classes setup for multi-playing.  Im just praying these changes will bring us at least on par with rangers in dps dept if not slightly above.

Just my 2cp.

Oh and gimme my gator back.. OMG.

[Inphared]

If you're not doing more DPS than a ranger then there's something wrong. Our raid usefulness has also gone up tremendously. You just have to put it in practice to see it.

[Sikkem]

Our pets slow instead of us now??? News to me, and i wouldnt use that pet spell over a dd proc anyways.

Lockfang Jaws
Classes:      Beastlord level 80

Description:

      4: Add Proc: Lockfang Jaws Strike rate mod 200
      8: Increase DEX by 75

Spell GlossaryDetails: Raw Spell Data, Lucy Spell View
Spell Type:   Beneficial    Skill:   Alteration
Mana:   300    Target Type:   Pet
Casting Time:   3    Duration:   3.0 mins @L1 to 10.0 mins @L4
Recast Time:   2.25    Resist:   Unresistable (0)
Fizzle Time:   2.25    Range to target:   100
AE Radius:   0    Interruptable:   Yes
Location:   Any    Time of Day:   Any


Lockfang Jaws Strike
Classes:      None

Description:

      2: Decrease Attack Speed by 70%
      3: Increase Disease Counter by 24

Spell GlossaryDetails: Raw Spell Data, Lucy Spell View
Spell Type:   Detrimental    Skill:   Alteration
Mana:   0    Target Type:   Single
Casting Time:   Instant    Duration:   1 ticks @L1 to 1 min @L10
Recast Time:   0    Resist:   Magic (-60)
Fizzle Time:   0    Range to target:   200
AE Radius:   0    Interruptable:   Yes
Location:   Any    Time of Day:   Any
Reflectable:   Yes


The info from Kumbaja stats it has an 8 proc limit so the original spell doesn't work the assumption would be this spell suffers from the same fault.

Actually can any beta beasty tell me what the difference is between this and steeltrap jaws? I am looking on alla's and obviously missing the obvious as I cant see one. :?