How do you feel about the class?

[bobokatt1970]

We are getting many hits from 85's that have a crapload of aa's... folks have played this character for eons.. and put the time in.  I was actually expecting levels here and there with low AA's... interesting.

[Bumkus]

We are getting many hits from 85's that have a crapload of aa's... folks have played this character for eons.. and put the time in.  I was actually expecting levels here and there with low AA's... interesting.

AAneras did a couple player distribution analysis over on the EQ forums.  He looked specifically at Mayong.

Bst was about average starting out, but had lower overall population at high levels because of lower retention.  BST, PAL and DRU were all in the same boat about that time.

Here is one of his theads.  I think he did others as well
http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?start=0&topic_id=121355&#1712053

Edit:
Here is another good population analysis thread
http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?&topic_id=151162

[bobokatt1970]

Freaking awesome stats. Thanks very interesting in analyzing our current pop.  Retention is the word of the day.

[wildwaters]

interesting

[Catnip_Inny]

love my bst but sometimes i wonder if it werent for me working hard for my 4.7K AA if id still be playing a bst main... seems more and more like SoE doesnt care about the class and its spread so thin that its hard to make improvements in any one area...

[Grbage]

love my bst but sometimes i wonder if it werent for me working hard for my 4.7K AA if id still be playing a bst main... seems more and more like SoE doesnt care about the class and its spread so thin that its hard to make improvements in any one area...

I think they are still gunshy from PoP era for bst. The nerf calls were loud and continous saying we were overpowered when in fact bst were well balanced. Ever since then we've just got a little bit dribbled our way at a time leaving us falling farther and farther behind.

[Panthur2]

85 bst 4k+aa

PC heals: Raids--my target is way dead before my 3sec 1964 base heal can finish casting, pray for a crit!

PC heals: Group--heal is slow inefficient and just lacking. I used to be able to pet tank (SOLO! not molo) and heal myself while keeping pet up. Now I can't even do that moloing. Well, to be honest, I was moloing mobs in FF (vigourous earths and spiders) for shawl 2.3 tailoring quest, but still, its pathetic how inefficient our heals have become.

Warder dps: raid---very disappointing, assuming he isn't dead to something enraging while I'm busy patch healing someone with said slow crappy heals (group healer died, new weak app cleric or something whatever the case, I end up healing group or trying to)

Warder dps: group--utterly pathetic, took me 15 mins molo a vigorous earth with my pet tanking and me pet clericing while slaping frozen venom and poison nuke out of melee range. Mercs are really bad in uf, especially in FF+ content hehe. (Takes me 3 mins to straight up tank one assuming merc doesn't forget to heal)

Utility: We have utility? Seriously, my slow doesn't last long enough on mobs these days. Make it 5x longer plz! At least then I wouldn't have to reslow the mob 5x while moloing above.

We lack utility bad. We are so outdated it's unbearable. SV? No one wants it unless no ranger or paladin. Focus? Same thing. No reason to bother casting it unless no shaman. And then when it is wanted we only have a group version which sucks mana like crazy when rebuffing dead raiders. Great when gom procs!

PS: give us a big bang spell to use gom with. Give us a heal that's useful and fast casting. Heck I woudn't mind if it sucked up 5x the mana so long as it was faster and 5x better.

Growl line–heal portion is lacking. Dmg portion hasn't been improved since it was originally implemented. WTF?!

Defensive disc–I'm still using the 12 sec lv 55 one. The ONLY one we actually have. Upgrade plz! Mobs hurt these days, this disc is nearly worthless.

We have 2hb ability yet we almost never use it past lv 60s. We have 0 aa for them. I wouldn't mind some aa/skills in that area. With mobs train wrecking me in uf, the swap for tanking would give me a reason to use a 2hb without losing craploads of dps in that situation. Other then for graphics and show, or because the item was dirt cheap and was gonna otherwise rot, I never see any high level bsts choosing 2h for anything at all.

[nedoirah]

This might be useful in terms of providing devs with feed back and it would satisfy my curiosity since I don't play the class as a main anymore...

Lets stick to people who play Beastlord mains - I'm not interested in beast alt opinions atm

Sadly I'm leaning more towards playing a shaman now but bst is still my main.

What do you think of the class at the moment? Obviously it needs improvment but are you happy with it? Do you feel that the class is 'dead'?

Yes unless they give us a solid direction and blanace our class that way.

Are you a raiding beastlord main, a grouper or soloer?

Group/solo

What level are you and how many aa?

85 w/ 1800 aa

What direction do you think the class should head? Should they play dps or support? Should they be good tanks? Healers?

DPS w/ support/utility

Are you satisfied with the upgrades you have recieved or are there rooms for major improvment or is the room for improvment more average?

I believe we need to be more in line with other classes like mages and pets and melee classes. We also need a better defensive capability since we don't take hits well.

I wont comment here cause I'm not a main but I would be interested in your answers.

-Tony