Role of a beastlord.

[Zunar]

Actually my pet peeve is knights who run out of mana and ask for Paragon, but at the same time have SE blocked. And there are less useful buffs on them.

I'm already on Quellious, don't bother asking.

One word for those knights imo........DENIED!
:-D

[wildwaters]

Actually my pet peeve is knights who run out of mana and ask for Paragon, but at the same time have SE blocked. And there are less useful buffs on them.

I'm already on Quellious, don't bother asking.

I only ask for paragon when I die... If your knight is going OOM and has se blocked they aren't too bright are they? I'd be curious as to what useless buffs they were wearing though.

And I wasn't.

[Smobon]

Everybody has played the beastlord with several different roles really. Tank, dps, kiter, and/or off-tank. Personally, I have made my beastlord the best tank possible. Now, if we were to tank better, than obviously are dps would be cut more....but I think our dps is already too low. It is difficult that we are able to do so much, yet be able in a group to give so little.

I do want to see some more utility, like an upgrade to incapaciate, some sort of buff or maybe AA to help increase attack and perhaps put some overhaste on it or something. Like a group version of spirit frenzy.....that they didn't go through with for SoD. We would need something unique though and that is hard to come up with. I think that there should be someway of when our warder dies that it would help out us, or whole raid with a buff of some sort. Once again, trying to come up with something unique will take some time for this class that's role is clearly broad and hard to focus on.

That is probably one of the reasons people just want more dps. Hopefully something will surface with Underfoot.

[Umlat]

What follows are my ideas and observations about the beastlord class. In some cases, I'm sure there are mistakes in how I think things work. Some of it is purely my point of view, most of it I'm trying to be as objective as possible. There are suggestions and ideas on different things, some of which fall in the do it now category, some of it in the do it soon category. There are parts that are in the wishful thinking category too. That doesn't mean we shouldn't discuss them
though. I am not advocating that any other class should be "nerfed", only that there are areas where we may have been shortchanged, overlooked, neglected or lost ground because of unanticpated consequences from (necessary)changes made to EQ over time or because of real world issues such as the dreaded deadline or that staff may have moved on to other things and that problems, ideas or plans didn't get passed on for any number of reasons. This isn't an attempt to assign "blame" for what exactly happened and why. It is intended to be more of a "This is what we've got. How do we
go about correcting any flaws? What should we add to the beastlord class at this time and at what point(level)? And where would we like to see the class go?" I'm sure a lot of this has been said before, but this is my $0.02 on the subject.

What is a Beastlord?

We need to define, as a group, who we are and what we do. Where we should be competent, where we
should be lacking and where we should have abilities unmatched by any other class. And why.

My view is that we are protectors and champions of animals and animal spirits. Unlike a shaman, who tend more towards aiding and interceding for humanoids in spiritual affairs, beastlords tend towards intervening on behalf of those animal spirits and their charges in the physical world. In exchange for our oath to serve, we are granted a familiar spirit, our warder, who aids, protects and to some degree guides us as well as an array of other abilities to fufill said oath. Unlike other "pet" classes, our relationship with our warder is more a partnership of equals than a master/servant one. Our other abilities are very much defined by what where our power and learning come from. We are limited to "natural" armor, mainly leather, hide or fur and rarely chitin or shell, as our martial abilites have evolved from an emulation of the animals around us.

Similarly, we tend towards weapons that most closely do this as well, from small, fast weapons that mimic claw, fang and horn to slower, ponderous ones that crush like a trampling mammoth. Our magical abilites are reminiscent of a shaman's, particularly those that are animalistic in nature, such as borrowing the attributes of an animal like its speed or strength. Damaging venoms and infections. The ability to hinder and weaken our foes, much like a wolf might hamstring its
prey. Heightened senses, the ability to conceal onseself. The bitter cold of winter, a danger to many animals, is another of our tools. More unique magics, such as the ferocity of a predator or the ability to replenish mind and body with the energies of our surroundings are given to us as well. All so that we can stand in two worlds to the benefit of both.

Rationales for why things were and how things have changed.

1) Beastlord pets don't need to do as much damage because beastlords have slow -- Well as slow no longer affects most mobs much higher than "partially", can take multiple casts to land due to poor resist mods and hasn't been given an upgrade since lvl 70, I'd have to say this argument has lost a lot of its weight. Also, our slows have no effect on double attack ratings or flurry ability. So we still see those massive quad or more hits hammering in for thousands of damage, even if there is a bit more time between each group. Me personally, I would prefer if "slow" as a class of spells was redefined so that they included simple % increases in the lower level spells and as the spells grew in level the % increase of slow went down, but % penalties to double & triple attacks and flurries were added in and increased. The goal would be to keep the DPS of a
slowed mob about the same for "revamped" slows as "old" slows, but to try to spread out the damage over time as opposed to getting short, massive spikes of damage from several simultaneous hits.

2) Beastlords melee, so their pets don't need to tank like some other pets do -- might be true if we were able to split mobs with root or calm type spells. As it is, beastlords retain their major deficiencies -- inability to split mobs, inability to do AE damage and an intrinsic inability to get away (ie Gate, Feign Death, Evade, Divine Aura). While we can leave pet behind to "take it for the team" as it were, if it is a "paper tiger" (or wolf or bear, etc.) it can't last long enough for us to zone and we aren't exactly in a position to be supporting it. soon after our warder dies, summoning mobs will drag us back to face them anyway. We also use our warders to "off tank" (note the word TANK in there) one or more of the mobs we can't split off on a pull. Continually tossing heals and blocks to keep it alive works at a cost of personal DPS and there is a large margin for error with fizzles, interrupts and stuns from being hit by the mobs you are meleeing. We also have no defensive proc to stun mobs, no ability to cause AE damage, no special pet to jump in and take it for the team, etc., just us and our warders.

3) Beastlords aren't as reliant as mages on their pets -- Of our 20 spells/discs from 81 to 85 (the fewest of any hybrid) 10 of our spells are warder related. We get several AAs that are for our warder. Some of the abilities we rely upon require us to have an active warder. Dead warder often equals dead beastlord shortly thereafter. We depend on our warders a lot.

Things that should be addressed primarily as "Fixes"

1) Growl -- it was a straight 20% ADD (when it stacked) now its a 20% REPLACE (since it doesn't any more). With Rank III Pet haste and Growl from SoD the damage increase as it stands is 10 points for me (with EM8, ie 259 to 269) on a max hit and 17 points on a max crit (404 to 421) -- so % dmg increase should be 20% higher than bonus from haste buff - (possibly upping to 20% for lvl 61 and 25% for 68, or these might require a spread range based on level) 29% to 31% for the level 76 to 80 spell and 32% to 34% for lvl 81 to 85.

2) Resist Mods -- In short, they are awful. Most hybrid spells have resist mods built into them. Ours for the most part don't have this (lvl 70 slow -30, poison DD -10, just about all the rest are zero). I think there was some plan to give us a malo like ability sometime back but it got quashed. But it looks like they left our spell resists at next to nothing. Other hybrids have 0
mod spells/songs, but most of them have mods built into them ranging up to -500 or higher, or they are marked unresistable. Most are less than this, but on the whole I'd have to say our spells end up being resisted quite a bit more. Even shaman DoTs get a (-15) built in in addition to malo. So we should get some sort of resist mod, be it a malo effect or some more negative resist mods added to our dds/dots/debuffs. I would like to see the latter.   

3) Our Warders are THE pet caught in the squeeze ... A number of mages seem to want our warders to be noticeably inferior, while minor pet classes have been getting their pets boosted. So that leaves me with a pet that is 259/404 max dmg that boosts to 269/421 with growl as it is. Friend's air pet hits for a max crit of 711(EM8), my fabled pet weapon pet hits for a max crit of 564. Seen posts saying that SK rk ii pets hit for 294, and ENC rk ii pets hit for 292, plus their pets
are getting more and more of the general pet AAs for things like HP, flurries, crits, etc. (I use an EM8 focus and have max pet aas). So warder is on the losing end of things as minor pets begin to exceed our warder on max damage and the gap between the max damage of mage pets and our warders keeps getting wider. And our crits are capped at 1.5x dmg.
If this keeps up, we'll soon cease counting as a major pet class anymore. Bumping crit cap to 2x dmg max and combine with growl fix and my warder would be hitting for 259/518 and around 304/608 with growl -- still noticeably less than a mages (which is fine), but better than the minor pets.

4) When mages were given the Promised heal line, we lost what could be considered a "class defining ability", ie best pet heals. Without mages giving up anything to us in return. I certainly can't see other classes giving up anything that might even come close to a "class defining ability" without throwing a major class wide fit. Mages aren't even a Wisdom based
class, which is a requirement for every other class with major healing ability. We should have gotten something/some things in compensation ... and not simply another pet Heal. Minax's Mending is nice, but 1) there isn't room on the spell bar for it all the time and 2) We weren't given the spell retroactively. (Note : even though all the spell lists (including EQPlayers) say mages get the SoF Promsied heal spell, it doesn't look like it got implemented, so this point is a bit of a wash at the moment.) So things to get in return? The double rune Prism skin instead of the single one on our pet Procs, and having that on more than just our main damage one? On hobble of spirit too maybe? Also see 5) for breaking into "class defining ability" stuff.

5) Special Tradeskill items (incl Pet gear) -- we have research skill now, which is hideously overpriced in terms of AAs required to get skill to a level where we can make the EXTREMELY limited, somewhat arbitrary spells and tomes we're allowed -- once we complete our 2.0 we should be able to learn/research a spell : Summon Feral Essence (lvl 65). All it does is summon a no trade item called a feral essence. This would be used in a series of BST only recipes for research skill. It would allow us to make class specific combines in our hybrid research kit. Totems. Something we learned as we completed our epic 2.0 - how to make a totem. Why shouldn't there be other totems we can make to help us channel the spirits of the wild to enhance our abilities? One that summons gear (7 armor+belt+2 weapons in one 10 slot bag), gear better suited
to our warders, for only our warders (if possible). I'm sure there are a number of others we could come up with that would be useful to us and/or to other classes. A basic place to start would be charged ammo totems with different animal familiars, some all/all some restricted by class or race. I don't want to step on mages toes, but at the same time running down a mage every time a warder dies and to get pet gear isn't all that attractive. And in a lot of cases, all that happens is you get people making a mage bot/alt to be a gear dealer.

6) Research -- We can get to 200 skill without paying AAs. After that its 4 AAper 10 point raise in skill cap up to 300. Compared to the other tradeskills (3AA to raise cap to 300), this is way overpriced IMO. Furthermore, the useful recipes (ie spells/tomes) we can make are limited to most hybrid quest spells/tomes at 55 and 68 to 70, plus most 71 to 75 spells from TSS expansion, all of which have trivials over 300(Of those, there are exceptions that aren't makeable by hybrids) The combines we can do for practice stop being buyable at 243 and you can then push it to 262 with researcher ceramic clay combines if you farm the drake wing webbing. After that, its spells/tomes only, which puts each combine at 750pp+. (figuring roughly 10 combines per skill up gained, this works out to a minimum of 285kpp, plus cost in time or pp
for 380 drops. Then add 500 more (successful)combines to max trophy.) With no mastery AAS available, failures are higher as well. As mentioned above, we should get some unique things to our class to make (totems). Beyond that, add all hybrid spells/tomes from level 1 to what we can make. As possibly give us mastery AAs (even if hybrid research rk 10 is a req) and/or an AA line that allows us to make all spells and tomes.

7) Xgrip Jaws line -- this spell line is beyond useless as it is. Only place I would use it is on raids, if it could stick. Move the Effect from the "slow" slot to the same slot as the "languour" proc slot and have it overwrite it. Then it will at least land and do some damage if shammies/chanters are around to trump the slow. Increase the number of times it will land before
wearing off as well, and/or prevent it from proccing on a mob already under its effects. All 10 procs are generally gone on a single mob. Otherwise, kill it and replace it with something else...

8) Ferocity line -- Seems to have become a glorified attack buff these days, since the resist boosts dont help much (if at all) and neither does the STA boost. So change ferocity from 80+(SoF era, when they became available) to give HEROIC resists (or at least an increase to resist caps) and possibly a sv corruption boost as well. And make the STA heroic as well,if reduced in amount. Pretty sure it would end up being a little more in demand. (and much as the stat cap increase is a mostly shammy thing, the resist cap/heroic resist could be ours)

9) Pet movement buff -- build it into pet haste. I've actually had situations where no innate pet runspeed bonus has been an absolute pain. I've run away from mobs in Field of Scale ending up on the other end of the zone and have cleared aggro to the point of being Out of combat for regen purposes. But since pet lost SoW at some point, he still had aggro and dragged those mobs all the way across the zone with him. So out of nowhere, while I'm sitting swapping spells, this huge
mass of iksar shows up, destroys warder (and merc since 1 heal landed) and they all walk off since I had iksar illusion up. It's been said runspeed wasn't to be built it in to warder/pets because they want us to have to pay attention to it. Managing 6 pet only buffs kept up all the time, plus heals and 4 or 5 situational buffs, plus any regular buffs we decide to cast on warder, in addition to pet commands and watching for enrage isn't enough to keep us busy?

10) Pet Casting as a "Class defining ability" -- Of all of the pet classes in game, we are the ONLY (melee) class expected/required to be casting spells on our pet in the middle of melee as a matter of course. Growl spells, Xgrip (yeah right), pet heals, possibly pet block/resist and so on. One of our defining abilities, as an outgrowth of being the only melee oriented major pet class, is that many of our pet spells should be able to be to cast as "yellow" spells and not require a target change. There isn't a fundamental limit to magic itself, as hobble of spirit, companion's blessing, summon companion, mend companion, etc. can affect pet without our needing to "target" it. Leaving it the way it is can be a recipe for trouble since we are often in close to multiple mobs, some which may be mezzed, etc. Other areas where I find this causes headaches is in groups and raids. Having the targeting circle bounce from mob to pet and back because you
are MA for group or raid can cause headaches. Even simple things like  human reaction time and reflex can lead to a lot more errors when you are in close.

11) Group Bestial Alignment -- Nothing major wrong with it, but having the illusion as v1 and the actual effects as v2 makes them differing durations after aa/foci. The similar ranger ability is v2 on both, don't see why ours can't be, even if it lets us MGB it (which would be nice).

12) Remove Curse -- At this point we are the only wisdom based class that doesn't have any ability to remove curses(on something besides our warder). Why? We should get some or all of the remove curse line of spells with each spell showing up a couple of levels later for us than they do on a paladin. Then either a spell similar to the ranger cure all or Radiant cure AA at the higher levels.

13) Taste of Blood -- Blood frenzy needs to overwrite itself if it is activated again. Give it a better chance of working and/or a better condition to activate. Make blood frenzy last longer for each extra rank purchased. Something to make it a little more useful or consistent.

Things that should/could be added to our abilities.

0) A couple of unique things I've been toying with are a combined Invisiblity/IVU (rationale - dealing with the physical/non physical duality req'd for hp/mana regen simultaneously gives us a starting point from which to combine the 2 at the same time. Its doable with 2 casters at the moment, but it could be argued as possible for us. The other is a way to "anchor" someone to prevent a mob from summoning them. Whether its ablative (x number of times per cast), potential
(has a chance to prevent an attempt and any attempts for the next few seconds), and/or threshold based (mob is x level or lower) in its mechanics would be something to discuss, as would any side effects/consequences (for example Spirit of the Beaver - gives the target a 50% chance of resisting a summons and any other summons for the next 12 sec if the check succeeds. A successful resist results in 500 hp dmg plus 250/tick for 2 ticks to the person affected.)(Have to love an animal that will chew its own testicles off and throw em away so that maybe you'll let it live). I'm just so sick of all the many situations that end up being mostly guaranteed death or interminable fighting because of a bad pull or even a riposte on a summon at the slightest hit mob while running away. There are some extrinsic methods available to allow getaways, not always possible to get them or have them. It would be another buff give us something different.

1) Spells -- we get 20 spells/discs from 81 to 85 atm -- other hybrids get 23 to 27. Of our spells 10 involve our pet including 3 pet heals (!!). We deserve a couple of extra spells to close this gap a little. Things I can think of as possibilities :
   
   1) Sha's Wrath - self proc that's a version of the 1.0 proc. -- One that adds an "overslow"/v3 slow (and/or dbl attack/flurry debuff) and a DoT, or
   1a) Sha's Wrath - An upgrade, in that its both a slow and a stat debuff spell in one.
   2) Might of the Elders - an upgraded version of Frenzy(lvl 47) that adds AC, heroic Str, Dex and Agi instead of std stats (and maybe a 3x atk bonus?), that might or might not affect our warder as well.
   3) Rabid Venin(?) a combined Poison/disease DoT similar in mechanics to the RNG Fire/Cold DD.    
   4) A second swarm pet that acts like a cleric hammer/wiz swords (something with crows, sending a murder of crows after someone sounds fun at least)
   5) Pact of the Phoenix - A pet DI/DA spell. (totem effect possibly?)
   
2) We need some form of END regen (at least I do). Even without using things like empathic fury, I find Foray rk III burns though End quite fast. I personally think PoS/FPoS should have an End component. But as this would apparently skew some balance the devs have in place, my second choice is to add an End bonus and End regen to Pact of the Wurine equal to its Mana Regen.

3) Boost Runspeed from Pact of the Wurine to 70%.

4) AAs - Several suggestions here :
   
   1) More ranks of Bestial Frenzy - Rank 11 to (15 or 20) would add a bonus to Triple Attack instead of Double Attack.
   2) Feral Senses (3 ranks) - Our senses become as acute as that of various animals, enabling us to dodge (rk 1), block (rk 2) and riposte (rk 3) attacks coming in from 360 degrees, not just in front of us. (Not sure if we already dodge 360 or not.)
   3) Pack Leader - Each rank adds 1% or 2% to our chance to summon 4 werewolves via our "Moon" spells.
   4) Attack of the Warders - when I saw the name, my thoughts were more along the line of summon 5 swarm pets, 1 each of wolf, bear, scaled wolf, gator and tiger as opposed to 3 of the same kind as normal warder summoned. Either way, this needs some more teeth damage wise. If it stays at 3 of normal warder then I would also like to see a Pack Master AA, that adds one extra pet per rank.
   5) "Ways of the <animal>" - Beastlords, through their knowledge of animals and the ways of the spirits of the beasts, learn to mimic them in fighting technique. Some of these could include :
      
      a) Ways of the Cobra - Boost maximum strikethrough cap by 1 per rank (5 ranks).
      b) Ways of the Bear - Boost max Stun resist cap by 1 per rank (5 ranks).
      c) Ways of the Tiger - Add a "Raking Strike" proc to kicking attacks.
      d) Ways of the Monkey - Increase melee attack range.
      e) Ways of the Mammoth - Reduces knockback from blow/effects.
      f) Ways of the Monkey - Increase maximum melee attack range.
                                g) Any others?

   6) Something to give a 50 increase to safe fall cap - I'm tired of taking falling damage levitating down stairs.
   7) Extended Alignment - increase duration of bestial alignment/GBA by 6 seconds per rank.
   8) Additional ranks of group bestial alignment.
   9) Additional ranks of our bestial attacks, increasing damage/duration. Make the raven(a bit more damage and more duration on debuff) and gorilla(more damage longer/higher lvl stun) ones more on par with asp so they are worth using. An AA that lets us use 2 different attacks per cycle. (ie Asp, wait 1/2 of refresh time, then can use gorilla or raven, wait half of refresh time can use asp or (raven or gorilla), depending on what was used a 1/2 cycle back), etc.
   10) Attunement Mastery - Increase PoS and FPoS by 2% per AA.
   11) Critical Attunement(multiple ranks) - Gives a chance for each tick of Paragon/focused paragon to have double the effect.
   12) Pet spell crits - for all procs/(promised)heals, with one or more lines of AAs.
   
The Warder - its not just a pet.

Beastlords are unique among the pet using classes. We do not reanimate a nearby corpse or conjure and bind elemental constructs to our will. We don't animate weapons or dominate nearby creatures. We don't summon imps to help us channel and control magic energies. We are gifted with a totem spirit in recognition of our pact of service to the spirits. This spirit manifests as a particular animal based on our racial stock. It is guide, protector, companion and friend. We are a team, not master and servant. Sadly, this isn't much emphasized in the game, except by role playing. Some customization, both cosmetic and game mechanic based, would go a LONG way towards changing this. Some of these are things we've asked for for years.

   1) a Warder Tab on the Inventory Box - Basically a place to put an interface to do a lot of this stuff.
   2) Name field - where we can type and store the name of our warder that appears as <pet name> (<char name>'s warder) over warder.
   3) Type field - where the species of warder is listed.
   4) Skin field - allows choice of coloration/patterning based on type. Want a black wolf? Sick of having a tiger for a warder when you look like a siamese cat? Want your ogre to have a panda bear? This would let you.
   5) Auto equip box for pet gear - Drop pet gear here to equip instead of trying to hand it
to pet manually, with people running in the way, etc. (could even show up as the skin pattern of warder instead of having a class logo in it)
   6) Formation field - set where, relative to your character, your warder stands in non combat situations. IE, a step back and to the right, 2 steps to the left. Basically, anywhere but on top of the object you are trying to use or loot, which seems to be their preferred spot (Feline warders should, of course continue to end up in the most inconvenient spot. :-P)
   7) Faction - Amiably. AMIABLY!?!? After all we've accomplished together, all the pain and hardship, all the victories and we're only AMIABLE! Sigh. Solution - switch warder to start at the bottom of indifferent faction. Over time at certain points, like gaining lvl X, or AA x, a particular time played, some at random, and a set of "progression" tasks (task 1, do the newbie gear quests. Return to task npc for next task ...) beastlords receive tasks either via emote (you feel as though you are ready to complete your Blooding ritual.) or from your warder (<character name>, you are needed. Honor your oath and journey to <place>. The circle of <whelps/hunters/elders> will tell you of their need when we arrive...or Hail, <warder>. and some dialogue ensues.) completing these tasks increases your faction, so that over time it will get to
max ally. Why do we do this? Roleplaying for one, but in terms of game mechanics, change our warders so they are summoned with one piece of gear, a charm. Charm condition is "Increases in power as your warder faction increases", so that as we gain faction and develop a deeper and stronger bond with our warder, it gets better. Some tasks could also grant aa abilities to us (ie progression task complete your 2.0 has the reward of a scroll, focus feral essence (from above)).

(I'm sure that necros and mages would want their own versions of this, but it is a pet thing that we should be the best at.)
   8) Pet Models - need to be updated. Use the updated feline model for vah shir, TSS bear model for ogres, the modern alligator model for trolls if the basilisk is unpopular, the more realistic wolf skins for barbarians. As for the Iksar, I'd suggest polling to see if the scaled wolf with different skins is acceptable or if a change of animal is desired. My thought is to use the SoD racnar model as the Iksar warder if a change is needed. It's classified as animal, from Kunark, has modern graphics and has a few skin options already and it is a lot cooler looking, in my opinion. And please, regardless of final models, update warder appearance in existant quests, like the circle of elders at the end of 2.0, bestial alignment models on non beastlords, a couple of the spirits in 1.0 and draz's warder, etc.
   9) "Bond" spells - spells that affect warder and beastlord. All of our pet spells could have been this from the start. We would have summoned warder with the old button (a shorter cast time though, and by now it could zone with buffs). Casting "spirit of <name>" buffs pet to appropriate level/stats to warder and give us a general buff for the level. Pet haste should have given us haste and eventually group haste. Pet heals should have also healed us for a lesser amount. The proc spells could have added various "bestial strike" procs that could act as progressively better debuffs. Is more of a thought for EQ next at this point I guess, although adding the self heal recourse to our std pet heals or to Minax's Mending is doable.

Magelo profile screwed up atm - Umlat

[Maylian]

Some nice ideas and well written, I do like a lot of them and glad a lot of decent ideas for our pets rather than just the stock "increase player dps"

[Kanan]

Awesome post Umlat.  I love most of the ideas.  Many have a very original feel too.  Please.. go throw that somewhere over on the EQ boards too, since there's not that much, if any, Dev viewing here.

[Mordeb42]

Umlat, you have some good ideas and insights.

I am not going to write a book, but I want to respond on a few topics.

1) I agree that beastlords do not have a Master/Servant releationship.  Flowing from this concept the devs should design some AAs/spells around it.
Maybe a Divine Arb that includes you and your pet?  Actually now that I think about it, I like the concept of a Divine Arb between Bst and Pet + ~10k hps to the pool to split between the two.

2) I like the concept of pet casting.  Pet can buff growl line.  Make this an AA buff on the pet, and the pet can use the ability every 2 min or something.  Similar to how some NPCs have abilities not spells now.

3) I don't think our class should have a FD or root.  But I am not against a pet similar to the enchanter line that has high agro and no dps.  Maybe a graphic of a dog biting the mobs ankle. 

[Catnip_Inny]

Great post Umlat hopefully that and some of the other good ones will be passed on to devs or posted on EQ boards... this no class rep thing kinda sucks now cause seems the bst voice isnt very loud or goes unheard :)

i really like the researchable totem line and summoning gear for pet via reserach and doing stuff like epic 2.0 ect

[Thelynxeffect]

Umlat,

A very nicely written post.  Please do post it on the soe boards.  I will also be making a point of asking one of my guildees who is a community leader (or something like that) to try and bring this to any/all devs etc that will listen.

[nedoirah]

Umlat you have read my mind. I love a lot of your ideas and you have really touched on what I was hoping for with this particular thread. I have a couple suggestions though.

Make pact of the wurine have a recourse effect to hit our pet with most of the effects we recieve. (hp accuracy and maybe an illusion?)

Remember back in LoY (cringes thinking about that expansion) we got a spell (bond of the wild) that buffed both us and the pet. I would like to see more of those spells. Also make it stack with all the other stuff out there... gallantry bloodworg and the such.

For the animal attacks to be doable they would have to be activated. I really like those suggestions.

[Jili]

No more activated abilities please, I already wear out one keyboard and one mouse per raid from mashing buttons!

[Zunar]

No more activated abilities please, I already wear out one keyboard and one mouse per raid from mashing buttons!

/Agree to some extenct...but it's also damn fun with new attacks  :-D

[wildwaters]

I kinda like new attacks so long as they are all on seperate times and refresh quick so I can hot button them /grins

[Goldy]

Nice write up Umlat.  Lots of good ideas for improving our class but I'm still at a loss where the developers perceive the BL's to stand in the end game.  I'm talking about raiding.  We aren't near the top of the list for DPS, we have no buffs to offer the raids other than SE which isn't enough to really pull us into the raid.  Focus para is nice but again not enought to have a raid want a BL.  Ferocity is kind of a novelty since its a long refresh and short duration; not a real benefit to the raid (I see it as mostly self buff); now is only good for atk, the resists are useless since raid gear keeps that capped.  I view us as the druids were a few years back, no one wanted them in the end game and the mages were prettly much in the same boat.  They wined and the delevelopers improved those classes and now are wanted in the raids.  Druid skin and heal spell lines have much improved, mages pets were boosted, gave them heals, etc and pushed them high up on the dps list.  I'm afraid if they don't come up with something to make us unique and needed in the raids the BL class will fade into a group only toon.  I'm not sure improving some AA line will get us there, we need some kind of defining charateristic to have a raid need us.  If they don't want us high on the dps list and only to offer SE and para I don't see us going anywhere.  Look at the new MM in POK, there is no BL choice, not much to offer that is unique to our class.  BL's are fading fast and most of the other classes don't really see a need for them anymore except to fill in a group.  Its slowing becomming a joke in my guild.  I don't have the time anymore to start a new toon that works in the end game.  If we get pushed out of raids I'm afraid my days of playing EQ will be over.  Help is needed!!!

[AbyssalMage]

Nice write up Umlat.  Lots of good ideas for improving our class but I'm still at a loss where the developers perceive the BL's to stand in the end game.  I'm talking about raiding.  We aren't near the top of the list for DPS, we have no buffs to offer the raids other than SE which isn't enough to really pull us into the raid.  Focus para is nice but again not enought to have a raid want a BL.  

Twincast has put us at a disadvantage but with the parses I've seen some of the community put up, the ship isn't sinking yet, but it definitely has ALOT of holes.  Focused Paragon on Cleric's/Wizards or those recently revived helps you to contribute to the overall efficiency of the raid but again, its a band-aid on a "gusher".  Also cordinating a Raven's Claw rotation on Raid mobs and not spamming the key will benefit everyone if it isn't being done already.

Ferocity is kind of a novelty since its a long refresh and short duration; not a real benefit to the raid (I see it as mostly self buff); now is only good for atk, the resists are useless since raid gear keeps that capped.  

Leave it in the back of your spell book  :cry:

I view us as the druids were a few years back, no one wanted them in the end game and the mages were prettly much in the same boat.  They wined and the delevelopers improved those classes and now are wanted in the raids.  

A druid's only home is a raid or boxed.  If a Merc can't keep you up, you probally need a real cleric anyways

Druid skin and heal spell lines have much improved, mages pets were boosted, gave them heals, etc and pushed them high up on the dps list.

I think the developers know how we feel about mage heals.  Druid skin is basically a joke now unless someone forgot to tell me about a buff combination that doesn't work with cleric buff line


I'm afraid if they don't come up with something to make us unique and needed in the raids the BL class will fade into a group only toon.  I'm not sure improving some AA line will get us there, we need some kind of defining charateristic to have a raid need us.  If they don't want us high on the dps list and only to offer SE and para I don't see us going anywhere.  

Thats why I'm glad your posting.  Now if we could get someone at Sony to listen

Look at the new MM in POK, there is no BL choice, not much to offer that is unique to our class.

No Beast's in clasic and we would out preform DPS wise vs some of the other classes thanks to our uber pet.  But not having /pet hold would screw us also in Sol B

BL's are fading fast and most of the other classes don't really see a need for them anymore except to fill in a group.  Its slowing becomming a joke in my guild.  I don't have the time anymore to start a new toon that works in the end game.  If we get pushed out of raids I'm afraid my days of playing EQ will be over.  Help is needed!!!

Aye, the ship isn't looking as pristine as it used to, few more holes than I like, but I can still get a group faster than a druid or enchanter on Prexus so we don't need lifeboats yet.  Ill wait to see what Undershore brings us, but not holding my breath.  Fan Fair didn't look promising and everything released hasn't don't munch to improve that percetion.  They may need to release NDA so the beta testers can talk it up this year.