Beastlord Burst DPS

[Inphared]

Two things:

1) This is not about Shadowknights vs. Beastlords. Make a new thread if you want to discuss that. Stay on topic.

2) Keep it civil.

Thanks!

[Zunar]

Maybe I should qualify that so I dont feel like an asshole.

The point was that we could easily be bumped up with in those mod ranges. The point of linking sk stuff was to illustrate that a bump was not out of balance.

Personally Id bump bestial to 200.

You are missing the point that that particular sk ability has a silence attached to it.

Etc etc etc.

When you say that SKs got large bumps that is a very relative statement. Beasts got minor bumps in melee but LARGE bumps in spells. The result is that if you aren't lazy you got more of a bump then Sk's did in SUSTAINABLE dps. It comes down to those who use what they are given. Sk's (imo) tend to be players who maximize everything available to them so if you are unable to sustain higher dps than a sk then you are not working for it.

I am sick of hearing that sks can out dps beastlrods because its a load of horse hockey.

/rant off

Well, beastlords and SKs are very different, and I wouldn't compare the 2 classes dps wise.
Sks did however get a large bump up, which was probably needed, and the way
Visage of Death and overall SK Dps abilities work, makes it stack very well even with the silence.
You can cast DoTs, click epic, leech, harmtouch, spire? and then click Visage, and watch the dps roll in from the massive damage over time and melee dps.

Beastlords don't have much to speak of stacking dps abilities with multiplicative effect.
Instead of saying SKs are overpowered....I'd say it only shows how we are underpowered, and in serious need of attention...hence this thread.

[Sharrien]

Also, one of the issues we have is Beastlords (in our testing) seem to be better off in the group game, but in a bad way in the raid game. The problem of course is, adding value to the raid side, without blowing the group side out of balance.

It's absolutely on my radar, but not something I can likely make drastic changes to until the expansion.

Something I posted in the AA suggestions:
Ferociousness of the Pack - short re-use akill attack that scales up with the number of PCs or pets on target's hate list, similar to Jolt of Many (but as an AA, not a spell like mages' Jolt).

I know that another button to mash isn't everyone's favorite idea, but something like this could easily be added to the kick/swipe/foray social that most of us have.  This ability could be scaled for a modest dps increase for a group setting and could ramp up at a steeper rate for the numbers present on a raid.  It would also see significant output when discing, again with the largest gains during a raid.  Groupers would also see a nice burn increase if teamed with other pet owners or time their disc with using Attack of the Warders (assuming it would be based on pets on hate list).

If scaled right, something like this could give beastlords a nice boost in raid dps without getting too crazy in a group setting.  Just don't scimp too much for groupers, we need love there too!

[Grbage]

Two things:

1) This is not about Shadowknights vs. Beastlords. Make a new thread if you want to discuss that. Stay on topic.

2) Keep it civil.

Thanks!

How can I keep on topic when your gif keeps distracting me?

[Grbage]

I think we should take a look at the discs we already have to work on them for upgrades instead of giving us more buttons to click.

Bestial frenzy to empathic fury. Nice upgrade but the long recast timer limits its uses. Also the retarget to pet is a pita.

Foray line. Love it. Does it work based on the weapons you have equipped? If it doesn't shouldn't it?

Feral swipe. Nice single hit aa once every 30 secs. Same with foray line. I would like more ranks in it.

3rd spire. What is this supposed to do? Can we get this fixed so it works right?

I think my point is hit up the discs that are melee based that are or should be weapon based for damage so it will scale up with weapons in regards to group or raid.

Special attacks like Foray are given a skill attack rating and damage is based off that skill. Foray happens to be 134/148/163 for ranks 1-3. So basically Foray RKIII base damage is equivalent to swinging a 163 damage weapon.

[nedoirah]

I think we should take a look at the discs we already have to work on them for upgrades instead of giving us more buttons to click.

Bestial frenzy to empathic fury. Nice upgrade but the long recast timer limits its uses. Also the retarget to pet is a pita.

Foray line. Love it. Does it work based on the weapons you have equipped? If it doesn't shouldn't it?

Feral swipe. Nice single hit aa once every 30 secs. Same with foray line. I would like more ranks in it.

3rd spire. What is this supposed to do? Can we get this fixed so it works right?

I think my point is hit up the discs that are melee based that are or should be weapon based for damage so it will scale up with weapons in regards to group or raid.

Special attacks like Foray are given a skill attack rating and damage is based off that skill. Foray happens to be 134/148/163 for ranks 1-3. So basically Foray RKIII base damage is equivalent to swinging a 163 damage weapon.

I have Foray rk III and have seen the differences in damage output vs. rk II. I recently toyed with an old raid mob in rcod and watched the damage of rk II vs. rk III. rk II did 600-800 (per hit) while rk III did 800-1000 (per hit) or more. This is an avergage btw. Also this is attacking from the front on a raid con mob.

[Khauruk]

Please, keep this to burst dps ideas.  Things like general scaling of Foray, FS, etc, are definitely not burst.

If there are no more ideas, I may just close the thread so it doesn't keep going off topic.

[Hzath]

If Elidroth reads this again I'd  be really interested in knowing which classes we should be comparable to dps wise, and how far off the mark they think we are at certain gear levels (T8 group, tower, T6 raid, etc.).  Would be interesting to know what sort of increases we should be hoping for, and give us a well defined place in the pecking order to shoot for moving forward.

[Thorgador]

Welcome to the boards Elidroth :), it's really encouraging to see a dev reading this forums!

Regarding Khauruk's post about non-pure burst dps abilities like Foray, FS, etc... beeing out of topic, I kind of agree, but I would like to point out that our burst aas and discs mulitiply such abilities, and our burst dps is scaled from that base; with that what I want to say is that if, for example, with Bestal Alignment III you increase All Skills Damage Modifier by 100%, you are actually boosting not only "plain weapon damage" but all of our other skills like kick, foray, etc..., and I would like to remark that by upping such skills you would up the burst too (I am awarethat sustained dps would be also affected) but if we up the damage of our Rake/Harrow/Foray line as a defining class skill (maybe through beastlord usable weapons, in a way backstab is beeing boosted with +'s and %'s) the impact would be far greater to the burst damage (due to incremental factors) than to sustained dps. I am sure a formulae could be obtained to not unbalance sustained and boost noticeably burst dps.

Regarding discs, I would like to know what is the "time limit line" where burst changes into sustained, is it 1 minute? 2 minutes? Taking 1 minute as base line for burst dps, we would really need to rework our aa's and discs to suit better to this scenario. IE BA lasts max 5 ticks = 30 secs (and GBA lasts 1 min, but I would not factor that aa in as personal bst burst dps) and both of our main burst discs (Bestial Fury and Empathic Fury) last 5 ticks too, but then this two are on same timer (making Bestial Fury to be almost never used).
What I would suggest here is a few things that could be tested:

- Unlink Bestial Fury and Empathic Fury discs timers, and if possible, make a better version of Bestial Fury (to be on par with EF's dps); this would allow to be under a dps disc for 1 minute.

- Make new levels of Bestial Alignment (if not already planned in) and bring the modifier to around 175%-200%

- Make a new aa (already existing for GBA) extended BA, abling to extend BA 3-5 more ticks (maybe 5 ranks 1 tick extend by rank?)

- Give new ranks of BA (and our discs if possible at all) an added + bonus to our Rake line (meaning to define Rake/Harrow/Foray/xxx as an universal damage type like kick, bs, etc ...), maybe +10/+15/+20 bonus to the base damage of the skill?, this could scale up with BA % skill damage modifier and boost burst a lot.

[Khauruk]

Regarding Khauruk's post about non-pure burst dps abilities like Foray, FS, etc... beeing out of topic, I kind of agree, but

Let's fight the fight we have a chance of winning here.  Elidroth deals with AAs, so if he wants to, and has approval to, up BST burn dps, we need to come up with an AA-only solution.  A solution which he can implement alone (i.e. no code support needed) would be far preferable too.

Could we get an estimated time for what you consider burst duration though, Elid?

[Mazame]

lets think about the goal here and that being improving our burst dps so the 1-3 min range of when a burn is called.  Most classes when Burn is called will hit ever thing that they can to stack and make the fight end asap.

the problem we have with AA is that most our AA in the current forum that are used for Burn don't stack we can use them one after another but using them together dose nothing or very little. that is why in longer fights we do ok because we follow one disc with another. where rog, monk, zerkers all have 2-3 disc they stack to get the effect they want.

the way I see it our short term disc are fine adding to them up our sustained dps because they can be used over and over. Burn disc would for us be more along the lines of

Empathic Fury  30 sec    (25 min 30 sec recast)
1: Increase All Skills Damage Modifier by 100%
2: Increase All Skills Minimum Damage Modifier by 400%
3: Increase Chance to Critical Hit by 100% with All Skills
Both us and pet
down side is targets pet meaning we lose time having to re-targeting the mob

Bestial Fury Discipline  30 sec  ( 25 m 30 sec recast )
1: Increase All Skills Damage Modifier by 100%
2: Increase All Skills Minimum Damage Modifier by 400%
only us

Bestial Alignment  40 sec  ( 24 min recast )
1: Illusion: Tiger
3: Increase All Skills Damage Modifier by 100%
4: Increase Chance to Resist Spell by 20%

Now BF and EF are on same timer so we have 1 min of burn if we can re-target fast. so the quest is if we looking to improve our Burst DPS I like to offer the follow ideas

1st un link BF and EF giving us this wont effect the group game much because having 3, 1 min burn aa out of a 26 min period is not that OP..

2nd  up the time on all 3 of these to 1 min  that will give us 3 min of burn on fights that have multi rounds like tower 6 / Fippy / beast we could pick to burn all 3 min on one part or break them up on 3 different parts this would let us have to option and freedom  to decide what will be best for the raid.

3rd would be to upgrade the AA them self  my thoughts would be as followed

Empathic Fury  1 min    (25 min 30 sec recast)
1: Increase All Skills Damage Modifier by 200%
2: Increase All Skills Minimum Damage Modifier by 500%
3: Increase Chance to Critical Hit by 200% with All Skills

Bestial Fury Discipline 1 min  ( 25 m 30 sec recast )
1: Increase All Skills Damage Modifier by 150%
2: Increase All Skills Minimum Damage Modifier by 400%
3: Increase Chance to Hit by 20% with All Skills

Or change BF from minimum damage mod to skill damage so it could be stacked with EF or BA

Bestial Fury Discipline 1 min  ( 25 m 30 sec recast )
1: Increase All Skills Damage Modifier by 150%
2: Increase All Skills Damage (100)
3: Increase Chance to Hit by 20% with All Skills

Bestial Alignment  1 min ( 24 min recast )
1: Illusion: Tiger
2: Increase Proc Modifier by 30%
3: Increase All Skills Damage Modifier by 200%
4: Increase Chance to Resist Spell by 20%


4th request would be to change 3rd spire I know it a 10 min reuse and so not so much a long the lines of burn but like others have said  we have 1st spire for melee skill 2nd spire for pet .. how about changing 3rd spire to spells. that way during burn we could  click it to improve our spell dps and have it effect stack with our melee burning.

Currently 3rd spire =

Third Spire of the Savage Lord
Increase All Skills Minimum Damage Modifier by 30%
Increase Chance to Hit by 7% with All Skills
Increase ATK by 12

in truth we all ready have Attack mods, the skill damage mod is the same as GBA so we gain a +7% to hit if used with GBA not really worth using. but if we changed it to say


Third Spire of the Savage Lord
Spell Crit Chance (18)
Additional Damage to Spell (300)

I  feel this would give us more of a use as it could be stacked with out other disc


these changes I feel could be very simple fixes and would make a big impact on the Raid burn but as for group it would be a smaller impact because it on the longer recast timer discs that are being effected.

[Grbage]

That looks pretty good Mazame, it would do the trick nicely I think.

[Zunar]

I really agree that our third spire could use a change (again), and the spell idea isn't too bad at all.

About boosting our burst dps with AAs, without adding new ones, the only logical step is to do something with bestial alignment imo.
It could be remade to stack with empathic fury, and make em last longer than currently.

I also like the idea about adding "Feral" to bst useable weapons, like monks have flying kick mod, zerkers have frenzy, rogues backstab etc... It's a way to adjust bst sustained dps alittle, tied to itemization...perhaps something to think about for next expansion though.

I know that last bit was a slight derail, sorry about that :)
/derail off and back to topic..

[Martosh]

Pretty good idea to add some AA that gave our burn disk and BA a longer duration, this is not gonna change alot of thing for us in group content cause mobs go down quick but in raid it's gonna be much more effectiveness on our dps

i think un-linked EF and BF can be a good solution too on long fight

and i still think they should un-linked our spell like it was before but that's not Elidroth concern :P

[wildwaters]

I did some half hour parses on my beast against a 98 level dummy this weekend. I used self focus/sv/se and unrivaled. Since wildwaters only has about 2600 aa I reset them and bought all melee aa. Then I did 30 minutes of melee and then 30 minutes of bestial with freeze buffs. The average hit didnt quite double.

Now that was just pure melee with no extra mods and no pet.

Thinking about how beastlords burn you'd have to bump that 100% all skills mod up quite a bit to make enough of a difference to call it burst dps. You'd have to bump it up to the point where it would cost you damage to nuke while under bestial alignment.

Why not combine the mod on bestial with a spell oriented damage mod and just give us one more ability? Being able to use bestial alignment, empathic fury and another aa would put us about where we'd need to be I think.

Maybe a 1 minute and 20 second long ability that increases Increases All Skills Damage Modifier by 150%, the minumum damage by 150% and a spell component that increases all spells chance to crit and a chance to increase the damage done. Call it Feral Infusion or something.

That would fix our burst issues without us having to change how we dps to encompass higher melee mods.