Top 10 list, May '08

[Vidyne]

Don't really have it sorted to a list of importance, hence why I had not posted it yet.

1.  Aggro issues - Even with Roar, I find myself unable to do much in most regular groups past melee short discs, Howl, and an occasional nuke.  Roar will drop the aggro for a moment, then i'll be right back on top after a nuke.

2.  Cures - We have fallen behind rangers by a good distance on our curing ability, when we used to be above them in curing.  I'll settle for just being able to cure curse in some way, but wouldn't mind a better poison cure. 

3.  Fero - not sure if it can be made usable again, but it doesn't really get any use with most beastlords I talk to.

4.  Penchant - Lower it to 49% and it will solve some of the issue, but you really need to make it better than potion haste in duration.

5.  Taste of Blood - extremely low damage improvement for an extremely low amount of time, at an extremely low chance to occur.

6.  Pact of the Wurine - Having a 1 second shrink clicky, this hasn't affected me as much, but it would be bothersome to reshrink everytime it was used.  The duration could be improved some, and there is a stacking issue with our AA Beastial Alignment.

7.  DoTs - They could be made a little more useful somehow, as it stands most of the community doesn't use them.

8.  Pet Models - There are new bear models in the game, new cat models in the game, Trolls want their gator back or I thought they did.  I'm not sure how hard it is to give us new models for pets...  It is rather odd that one of the elders for the beastlord 2.0 is a new model, but the pet for that class is the old model.

9.  Lockfang - the dot effect is not really desired by me, and it may be by others, but I would think it's detrimental to enchanters.  Also there is no way for the beastlord to know when the slow wears off on lockfang or steeltrap.

10.  That's all I have for now.

[Tiroon]

• Linked Spells: I'm wasn't too upset seeing the poison nukes linked but why our ice spell line? Unlink them or give an explanation why this was suddenly nerfed.


• Ferocity: I use it as a resist buff. Since I don't need a recent version for that I use the level 65 one. I am still waiting for a Fericoty worth casting. I like the idea about adding corruption but that alone wouldn't make me use a newer version.


• Haste: I would like to see a haste that is better than a NPC merchant buyable potion. The current one with a mana cost appropriate for the pet haste buff just isn't cutting it. I would like a 55% group haste with a reasonable timer. Just as a reference: The merchant sold potion is 1.5 sec casting time, 30 minute duration, 50% haste.


• Pact of the Wurine: Make the illusion part optional or remove the conflicts with Bestial Alignement and remove the need to re-shrink after re-casting it. Twice casting the shrink spell after re-casting Wurine just stinks.


• Invisibility: Add a fixed duration invisibility.


• Avoidance Both parent classes have an avoidance buff. Shaman through the Foresight line of spells, Monks through theirr aura. Make the Foresight line castable by beastlords. See also next item.


• Shaman Spells: Beastlords used to be get Shaman spells once the spell was obsolete to Shamans, i.e. Shamans were able to cast better versions. I would like the see our old spell lines refreshed and brought up to date. (And don't tell us we have our own spell lines - the one unique and desirable buff we had left, the Spiritual Light line, can now be bought from NPC merchants at pretty much the strenght of the newest level 1 spell.)


• Pet models: Don't waste resources on changing my kitten to the new model. The current cat model is no cat, it's a caricature of a parody of a cartoon cat. If I wanted cartoon I'd play WoW.


• Community Leaders: When will a beastlord representative be named? I do not want our class to be represented by a player who has a beastie alt but is unable to even read all of the 5 or 6 posts we get here per week.


• Just a reminder: Beastlords were finally restored to treehugger faction with the SoF expansion. Please don't forget to keep us there. :wink:

[Maylian]

This is pretty much in order of my preference and if only the first 2-3 things get "fixed" then I will happily come back and start playing again.

1. Cold Nuke Linking - Historically these have never been linked over the last 6 years and don't see a reason to do so now. Poison nukes can remain linked although I would prefer those to be seperate to but can see how that might be overpowering.

2. Peerless Penchant recourse - make it the same duration as the underlying pet haste. As 99% of the people have said it is unusable in its current incarnation, 6 months of complaining about this to all the dev's has seen no response.

3. Dots - If cold nukes remain linked then dots need serious attention to make them viable options for the ever increasing spell line ups we have. Have them either a) increase the damage and resist mod b) decrease cast time and increase resist mod c) all of the above.

4. Ferocity - Keep it linked if you want but make it a viable and useful spell for all beastlords. Those at the leading edge of raiding rarely use it even for resists apart for e-peen reasons to see 4k+ attack. It has a semi-quasi use for lower end beastlords but no where near the function SoE have said it should be. With the linking of them maybe having a group version and single version, but as everyone else has said some mod2/3's or DA/TA.

5. Wurine - Make it like necro lich lines in that the buff is seperate to the illusion. It is annoying to say the least to constantly reshrink or not be able to use those illusions some have paid through the nose for in dkp / Pp.

6. Invisibility - Fixed invis AA or spell. Like everyone else has said all other invis casting classes have one.

7. Lockfang / Steeltrap - A decent idea but again extremely poor implementation. This should be more easily monitored by us to see if the slow lands / wears off. Dot component can be an issue in mez breaking, but the biggest issue is that almost no one uses it.

8. Cures - These need to be bumped in power. Rangers have seen a linking of their heals and cures yet we have stagnated on the cure side and our heals only keeping up in amount. Either give us more powerful cures to counter the obvious advantage the linking of cure/heals rangers have or give us heals that work in the same way.

9. Agro - Since the linking of the poison / cold nukes I haven't seen so much of a problem here, but roar of thunder is still a negligable hate loss at max'd ranks compared the amount of AA's we have to spend on it. One of our parent classes has the most powerful hate loss tool in the game, we should at least have more than the two methods of hate loss we have at the moment i.e. roar of thunder and attack off.

10. Iksar pets - Personal bug bear, 4-5 years these have been bugged in their animation. Whilst many bsts want new models for all which I'm not opposed to. Iksar pets and by proxy bestial alignment for iksars looks rediculous.

[Sharrien]

1.  Add something to fero, there are many good suggestions above like triple attack, crit chance, elemental damage, procs, etc.  It should also have corruption resists.

2.  Increase duration of the haste recourse from peerless penchant to match the duration of the pet buff.

3.  Fix familiars so that they can be used along with warders without killing them when the buff wears off.

4.  AA shrink would really be nice so that we don't have to swap spells whenever we cast wurine.

5.  Curse cures.  Rangers get them, we should too.

6.  Swarm pet AA.  We are the only pet class without a swarm pet ability.

7. Taste of Blood.  Has almost no chance of actually giving a benefit.  Most of the time when a mob dies there will be a lag before the next is pulled an engaged, wasting the benefit on the very very rare chance that your pet gets a kill shot.  Have it trigger instead after several successful flurries or numbers of crits within 30 seconds or after dealing a certain amount of damage in a given time or something like that.  That fits with the "taste for blood" theme and would actually trigger when it can be of use, during a fight instead of after it's over.

8.  Fixed invis.  Way overdue.

9.  Improved cripple, good call.

10. Last and certainly not least.  We need a community rep.  It's fine that we are all free to submit feedback via PMs to the devs, but if we don't have a rep that is privy to insider discussions, we won't even know when something dumb is going to happen until it hits live and won't have a chance to give our take on it while there is still a chance for change.  We NEED a community rep.

[TabarQuell]

1. Cold Nukes - Unlink them, sure the effects of using a lower level nuke over just meleeing become questionable the further down you get the line, but what if you can't melee? That leaves us heavily in the, uh.. cold...

2. Ferocity - Unlink them. make them useful.  It's supposed to be a 'short term, high mana cost offensive boosting buff'  but the offensive part has died off considerably.  If ya slash add a group version and boost the duration we'll end up with a buff similar to Ranger's Predator line.

3. Defensive Abilities - We lost part of our defensive abilities in SoF when the mobs gained strikethrough.  We've been #2 in avoidance, and dead last in mitigation among melee DPS/hybrids.  With strikethrough cutting into our primary defensive ability, we're going to really be hurting in upper end SoF content.

4. Wurine - Separating the Illusion from the buff would be nice, an alternative would be to make the illusion work like the gnomebot illusion in SHIP (which stacks with other illusions, the most recent one being the one that stays).  It could also be made into a version (Pact of the Wurine Pup?) that comes pre shrunken.

5. Lockfang / Steeltrap - Make it more effective as a 'pre-slow' idea instead of as a main slow, change the slow % to 64%, drop the silly counters/fade thing, have it only last 1 minute flat (like growl), and have it take 0.5 seconds to cast.  That way we can use it to preslow a mob while we work on getting our main-board slows to stick.

6. Debuff spells - Slow is fine and dandy and all, but with increasing mitigations on slow it's effectiveness is dying, revival of our incapacitate line and an addition of a malo line would be nice fillers for the debuff power lost from slow mitigation.

7. Cures - another dead line that has fallen by the wayside, while (what i consider to be) our parallel class, rangers have gotten an all-in-one heal/cure spell that added another type of counter to their ability to remove, i wouldn't mind a new cure spell or ability so i can finally bag the PoFire clicky i've been holding onto for three+ years.

8. Agro Loss - I believe it has been estimated that at maximum level, Roar of thunder only drops about 500 hate, which is about as much as is gained by hitting harrow once.  With no AAs to reduce our agro from spells nor any direct way to drop agro as most other melee classes get (Monk - FD, Rogue - Evade/Escape, Ranger - Jolting Kicks) any beast who is on slow duty in group content will have a tough time balancing out slowing mobs and doing DPS without ending up being the tank for the group.

9. Invisibilty - Fixed duration would be awesome... and i think Mr. Ford is working on just that...

10. Haste - This isn't so much a problem for me, ever since it was fixed from what it was going to be in beta (3-4-5 minute duration on the recourse for each rank) and the time efficiency for the recourse still beats celerity once you get more than one melee in the group.  Extending the duration of this, would be a convenience, one which i wouldn't mind.  Although having a group version (one which could then be MGB'd on slow nights / pickups where shaman / chanters aren't available) would be really nice.

Out of Game thing:  Community Rep / Community Leader from the Beastlord camp, so far as i've heard, no one has been invited who has a beast main, or at the very least they're being quiet about it.

[Grbage]

1. Ferocity- Make it useable or just stop upgrading the line. There is no reason to spend spell resource time on a spell that doesnt get used.

2. DoT's- To make them useable they need to have a resist modifier added, shorter duration and hit harder. Without those changes just let our dot line die out. As it is mobs regularly resist the dot and if it does land the only time it will run full course is when soloing, in groups the mob will be long dead before the dot runs it course.

3. Buffs/debuffs- Our shammy side has been slowly dieing out and needs to be revived. We used to be able to buff almost as well as a shammy by using more spell slots then them. Then stat cap busting spells were put in place for shammies and we've been left in the cold since then. Debuffs? Don't make me laugh our last non-slow upgrade was lvl56(?).

4. Cold spells- The spells were left unlinked on purpose by the devs at the time they were developed. Instead of linking them they put on a long recast timer to balance them. Sooo, either unlink the spells again or go back and shorten the recast timer on them. Personally I would prefer a shorter recast timer.

5. Haste haste haste- Haste in a bottle has been better then our best haste (celerity) spell since they came out. Faster cast time and last longer. This made no sense but Peerless makes even less sense and was no fix. It's a mana hog of a spell to have to recast every 15 minutes to haste a group and overwrites the longer lasting haste in a bottle. This is just plain wrong and needs to be addressed. It should of been taken care of in beta but we were ignored then as we are now.

6. Defense- Yeah, I know you went through and redid defensive parses during SoF beta. Guess what, you need to do them again. Slow used to be what saved our hides and allowed us to tank decently but since the all prevalent slow mitigation our tanking has gone down hill. Now mobs have strike through and our ability to tank has gotten even worse.

7. Deagro- Roar of Thunder has not been that good since day one. It damages and mob and has a deagro component that barely covers the dd/debuff portion of the aa. Once we get agro the only real way to get rid of it is to turn off attack and back up while hoping the tank can regain agro. The lesser geared/aa'd the tank the worse the situation is.

8. Two handed weapons- We have zero, nada, nothing, no aa's that helps improve our damage while using them. It's long past due we are given the 2h aa's other classes get to make these a viable option to use over dual wielding. I have to think this is an oversight since we keep getting bst only 2h that drop in the game.

9. Pets came a long ways in SoF and that is much appreciated. Can you now give them via aa or innate run speed mods? It would be nice if they could keep up when we run off with run5.

10. Invis- I do believe we are the only class who can cast invis but don't have a fixed invis. In this case cloudy potions are not better then our invis but they are just as good. Unreliable at best.

Put me down as wanting a class rep again sitting on the 'ol review board. Someone who plays a class as an alt generally doesnt have the same perspective as someone who plays the class as a main.

[Jebasiz]

If at all possible could a moderator keep this list updated at the top of thread?  Also, given how different developers cover different areas(and my limited knowledge of beastlords, please organize your gripes/suggestions in a format that is easier for me to correctly forward. 

For example:
Spell problems:
- ferocity - brief description of what the problem is
  - suggestion
- peerless penchant - brief description of what the problem is
   - suggestion
-
-
-

AA's::
- pact of wurine - brief description
  - suggested fix
-
-
-

pets
- iksar animation broken
- fluffy isn't strong enough
-  we can't heal them fast enough(ficticious examples illustrrating my lack of class knowledge!)

melee
-
-
-

Itemization
-sof gear shortcomings
-
-
-
-

etc.

basically..so I can give the proper developer their own list and them be able to see what you feel your problems are and quickly identify what type of solutions(practical solutions only) you're looking for.  When a CL beastlord main is named/appointed(I've requested that one be appointed), a lot of this won't be necessary..I really just don't want to cause any harm by misrepresenting your issues.

[TabarQuell]

Spell problems:
- ferocity - Ineffective for the Mana Cost / Duration
  - Make it Cost Less and Last more, akin to Ranger's Predator
- peerless penchant - Haste Recourse does not last long enough for the mana cost
   - extend the duration on the recourse
- Cold Nukes - The line was linked with no rime or reason
  - an Explanation of why they were linked or a de-linking of the spells.
- Incapacitate - best statistic lowering spell we have
  - Add a new one in.
- Steeltrap / Lockfang Jaws - Situational at best, DoT Component makes Lockfang even more situational
  - Let Sha's Revenge / Legacy overwrite the spell when it lands
  - Remove the counter limit and make it 1 minute duration with 0.5 second cast time
- Abolish Disease / Counteract Poison - Our best cure spells
  - Add new better cure spells perhaps a combo group cure like Blood of Nadox or a Heal + cure spell like Potameid Balm
- Invisibility - Lasts a few minute to an hour <random> more often than not fails at a bad time
  - Give us a fixed Invis, even if it's Self-Only like Spirit Veil
- Salve of Feldan - has been largely unused due to Promised Mending / Renewal being so much better.
  - Reduce the cast time to 0.5 and add a recast time (~12 seconds) and double the amount healed to make it a viable option over or with Promised Mending / Renewal.

AA's::
- pact of wurine - Illusion doesn't stack with Bestial Alignment and makes you Huge sized when cast
  - Change the illusion on pact to be like the necromancer line (seperate spell icons) [Preferred]
  - Make it so the Illusion doesn't make you so big. [secondary]
  - Make the illusion on another spell slot (like Mazicul's Magical Makeup) so that we can cast another illusion. [secondary]
- Roar of Thunder - Hate loss is not as big a gain as it should be
  - Increase Hate Loss in some fashion (boost up the initial, add a reduction over time)
- Taste of Blood - Yeah...
  - Turn this into a clicky bonus effect like Hobble of Spirits, but instead of getting the 'killshot' spell, you get the Blood Frenzy effect, add a lockout of 20 minutes or so to turn this into a 'burn DPS' AA.

Pets
- iksar animation broken (i don't play an iksar, but they still say this happens)
- Pet Tanking - Pet is tough, but i've still seen him get one rounded on the Fabled sayryn (haven't had Fortify companion on an AE mob so it'll be a bit before i can see how well that does)
  - Innate AE mitigation

Melee
- Tanking Ability - SoF introduced mobs with strikethrough, which drops our ability to OT or Tank a mob significantly
  - Increase Beastlord Mitigation ability
-

Itemization
  - I'm not 'cutting edge' so don't look for much comment from me on itemization although..

- Fabled Valorous Quarterstaff - it's Proc has a knockback which, with a raid of these things, push becomes old world again. (my raiding alliance has 10 of them)
  - Remove the Knockback.

[Garbuhl]

spell problems:
  -Ferocity: problem is very high mana costs for extremely minimal impact
      *recommend significantly lowering mana cost and/or add double attack or duelwield bonuses
  -Peerless Penchant: problem is too short duration on recourse.
      *recommend extending recourse to 30 minutes as to still be below shaman haste, but at least match potion haste duration
  -Celerity: problem is too short duration and very very long cast time.  In groups if people ask for haste I hand them haste potions as they last longer and cast quicker
      *recommend extending base duration to 30 minutes so with focus can finally be more useful then potions.  Shorter cast time
  -Shrink: problem is there are tons of clicky items that all classes can use that cast this spell 100x faster than we can.
      *recommend making 0.1 second cast time as this is a necessity in most situations and cannot possibly have a negative effect on gameplay
  -Infusion of Spirit: problem is this line was never upgraded
      *recommend adding a new spell that adds some over cap stat extension.  Just keep it below shaman levels of focus stats.
  -all of our DoTs: problem is they are often resisted and are not enough damage for their mana costs even when they are not resisted
      *recommend significantly increasing their damage and lower their mana cost.  Also there is a lack of disease focus items for beastlords making the disease line especially useless.
  -spellbreaker's bulwark: problem is its max damage before wearing off is 1 single AE from most high end raids from last couple expansions.
      *recommend increasing chance to resist spell to 40% for rk. 1, 50% for rk. 2, and 60% for rk. 3 and increase total mitigation to 45,000 for rk.1 up to 60,000 for rk.3

AA's:
  -Paragon of Spirits: problem is it hasn't scaled up at the rate gear has.  With players having 20,000+ hp/mana group paragon is only a very weak heal over time
       *recommend increasing both the hp & mana regen scaling of the spell
  -Pact of the Wurine: problem is requirement of the illusion.  I like being a troll, but for me to be at my best I have to be a werewolf and i lose "Slam" in werewolf form
      *recommend seperating the buff part from the illusion which would potentially fix the troll losing "Slam" ability in werewolf form as well as the need to reshrink often
  -need further levels of double attack & triple attack aa's
      *recommend adding AA's for 25 more double attack and 25 more triple attack
  -need two-hand blunt AA's: problem is we have much lower dps with even great 2HB weapons.
      *recommend adding AA's to increase double & triple attack with 2HB weapons as to make them a viable option for constant use.  Will only let us use this skill equally to the other weapons.
  -swarm pet AA: problem is we need burst dps as our discs are useless most of the time.
      *recommend adding AA's that can summon swarm pets every 5-6 minutes or add AA's that increase the chance that our swarm spell line summons additional pets

[Jebasiz]

Garbuhl,
Do you realize how little 25 more skill in double/triple attack will actually give you?  You won't cast fero cuz it's +10 dps..upgrading those to skills to that degree would probably be about the same type of upgrade.  More then 10 dps, but still insignificant.

[Inphared]

Incorrect. We double attack very often now, even with only a skill of 50. The Bestial Frenzy line that we get adds a percentage based double attack mod to our skill, so any skill increase we get is quite tremendous.

[Garbuhl]

Sure i'd much rather us have double/triple attack skills much nearer other classes, but I figure hoping for baby-steps is much more realistic.  As other classes are in the 200+ sure I hope we can get to at least 100 double & tripple attack, but either way I'd just like to see an improvement.  Also i'd rather have the constant +10dps from skills then casting 10% of my mana away on fero.  That same mana would cast bite & howl which trump that +10dps by a long shot.  If fero last for 30+ minutes I'd use it for sure, but as it stands its just not worthwhile to me.

Pets:
  pet focus: problem is pet summoning focus items don't have a significant enough impact
      *a high end raid pet focus should scale pet dps and hp/stats/ac up more so that a raiders pet is significantly more powerful than a lower end focused pet

I'm just trying to come up with realistic options that would help without needing months of balance work to implement.

[Icekracker]

Spell problems
- Ferocity - Inefficient in terms of benefit vs. cost
 - Suggestions:
   Add Mod 2/3's in the form of overcap accuracy/combat effects/etc.
   Group version for nearly the same amount of mana cost.
   Lessen the cost of the current spell as well as the cool down timer to make it useful.    
- Peerless Penchant - Recourse is ineffective and used little. Many have it blocked
 - Suggestions:
   Increase duration of haste recourse
   Change recourse entirely to a crit mod, double attack, or triple attack.
- Incapacitate - No upgrade since level 56. Used for aggro as much as a debuff.
 - Suggestions:
   New spell along this line is needed in line with current/future expansions.
- Invisibility - Randomness of the duration is a large nuisance.
 - Suggestions:
   Fixed-Duration, Self-Cast Invisibility Spell
- Cold Spells - Linking of spells cut DPS away from Beastlords. Why was this done?
 - Suggestions:
   Unlink cold spells if no justification is apparent.
- Cures - Beastlords have no way to cure the Malosina line of spell.
 - Suggestions:
   New spell or at least an upgrade to current cure spells.

Melee Offensive/Defensive
- Defensive Ability - Beastlords not able to tank as well even with improved mitigation.
 - Suggestions:
   Upgrade of Protective Spirit Discipline

Itemization
- Breastplate Clicky Effects - Clicky proc for pet not very useful.
 - Suggestions:
   Need a larger increase in effect or change effect entirely.

Most other problems have been voiced above.

[Vuncar]

**Spells**

Ferocity
---- Fix it, don't fix it, either way at this point I honestly don't care because the spell line has been dead to me for so long.  Just please stop giving me another nonfunctional useless upgrade every time levels increase.   I don't use the existing as-is Feros, and I certainly do not require another as-is copy that will also go unused.

Peerless Penchant
---- I'm not opposed to a group haste that has a lesser duration than single target haste, provided I get a single target haste that is better than what any level 60 toon can buy from a potion vendor.  Give me a single target upgrade to Celerity that has an hour duration and I'll will gladly continue to buffblock the borked recourse from Penchant with no further complaints.

Ice Nukes
---- Unlink.  Nuff said.

Debuff
---- Throwing Incapacitate and Flash of Light at mobs is great for generating agro.  Oh wait, I don't need to generate any additional agro.  Nevermind.   How about a debuff that actually sticks and uhhh ... debuffs?   Upgrade my cripple.

Lockfang/Steeltrap line
---- Situational use?  Fine.   I can live with that.  I rarely, rarely use this line but I understand it may be desirable in certain limited scenarios.  That being said, stop giving me an upgrade every time levels increase.  Its a highly situational spell.  In the unlikely event I feel the need to dust off a copy, I can make do with an older version.  No problem.  Really, its ok.

Damage over Time
---- As I recall, the last time I cast any DoTs was when a group suddenly became sans healer and we played chase the necro for a short while until a new healer replacement arrived.  I don't use DoTs because they are exceptionally weak and demonstrate an alarming resist rate.  DoTs in present usability could be permanently eliminated from Beastlord spellbooks and I might not even take notice.


**AA's**

Pact of Wurine
---- High annoyance factor coupled with a great AA ability.  Address the issues with illusion stacking/blocking, particular with functional illusion like Bestial Alignment.  I have little concern that I cannot sport a sporali illusion while I use Wurine.  To address illusion issues based on pure convenience or fun factors does me little good.  Address the shrink concerns.

Roar of Thunder
---- I require a better (or additional) means to shake agro.  Presently, I use Roar in essence as a long-refresh Feral Swipe, because to rely on Roar for agro reduction is both unfeasible and unreliable.  Its nothing more than a free hit to me.

Taste of Blood
---- I might buy this AA someday when I far exceed the point of diminishing returns, perhaps right after I max innate intelligence.  This AA is so extraordinarily weak that I cry a little bit inside any time I see a fellow beastlord in serverwide channel comment about just having purchased this AA.  Taste of No Blood would be a more appropriate name.


**Discipline**

Protection of Spirit
---- As I am consistently forced to walk the thin line between agro and dps, and considering the overall affect of the Roar line is generally inconsequential, I would genuinely appreciate the investigation of a mitigation AA that last longer than 2 ticks.

[Vidyne]

Only shamans have a way to cure malo-line that is spell based.  You might do better suggesting we be put on a low end of Radiant Cure,  1-3.