Needed Beastlord Changes

Zaela said:
High end bst dps with pet seems pretty good, a little higher than a monk in the same gear in straight melee (no kicks or spells, I'm a lazy parser) and that's not considering the benefits of cunning and so on.

It seems to me that if the pet dies to AEs so fast that you can't realistically keep it healed, a somewhat bigger pet wouldn't really help much. A better ability to keep the pet you have alive would be more effective in the long run, I'd think. Of course, I have no idea how effective bst pet healing is currently, and it doesn't seem to have come up in this thread :eek:
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I'm hoping for stuff that gives the pet better saves. Pet saves don't scale with the encounters.

Maybe adding saves to companion strength would be in order?
Maybe pet saves will only be addressed in tomes?
 
pet saves would make an awesome tome if its doable.

the difference is, thats something you earn, not "i think beastlords should be better. so make them better" like this thread is.
 
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I think I bring up a good point in that beastlord pet's saves don't scale with encounters. Adding something like +5 save all per point of companion strength would help with pet survivability, which is something zaela said is a problem.
 
Sabotai said:
Well one of my hopes is that this new pet coming in Iksith will be great... So thats something... i also do not see why we can't have 250 weapon skill... Why is that a big deal? We should be able to do that so i can get my 72 atk back... That does not seem like a huge problem, seems that no one has really said much about it... I just hope that the class can be looked at overall...
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The fact that beastlords don't get double attack and 250 weapon skills should be quite telling. If they are the ONLY melee class that suffers from this, you should ask yourself, why? Well, no other melee class is classified as a utility class. Beastlords are so awesome to have on raids. They can haste, buff atk (in more than one way), mana/health regen, spell damage..etc. Think about this, what melee class can cast a targetable haste? That's pretty crazy if you think about it. Haste is such an important buff, even if it's not a super high % one. If it's assumed that beastlords maybe increases say, 5% of raid dps (very conservative), and your raid is producing 3500 dps, that's another 175 free dps. Plus WTF they get pets!!!!! NERF BEASTLORDS !!!!! :p
 
I tend to agree. Beastlords dps is mostly done through the others on the raid. My only gripe is that I noticed that I'm spending so much time healing on raid events, that I was hoping for some help in that issue.

On a raid a beastlord should be: casting cunning, keeping savagery up on at least 2 targets, keeping your pet alive and dealing solid dps to the mob through melee and dots/dd.

Beastlords are busy enough on raids. No lack of utility there. No lack of dps there.
 
Kasreyn said:
I think I bring up a good point in that beastlord pet's saves don't scale with encounters. Adding something like +5 save all per point of companion strength would help with pet survivability, which is something zaela said is a problem.
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I'd think Companion Health would be more appropriate than Companion Strength, but the overall suggestions sounds like a very good one.
 
GuiardoTuneweaver said:
I'd think Companion Health would be more appropriate than Companion Strength, but the overall suggestions sounds like a very good one.
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It's long been an issue with pet classes in general, due to the overall overwhelming tendency of encounters to have an ae at the very least a few times during the fight, and often constantly. While that may be a design problem more with some of the fights, pets generally tend not to survive, pigeonholing various pet classes into either support or mostly useless roles on said fights, where it would be far more beneficial to take a class in that doesn't need to worry about keeping their pet alive.

Barrier Ward helped this quite a bit as far as mages are concerned. Of course it lasts 5 minutes, and fights can last quite a bit longer than that. This was originally suggested quite some time ago actually. Way way back in one of the mage threads. It was a reasonably good idea then, it's a fairly good idea now.

Now if we're talking about it being there, and going off when that particular piece of gear with the companion focus is taken off, it might be a better idea to split it up. Most people tend to pop on and off CS and CH just when they zone, in order to keep the benefits, without the gear hit. Obviously not intended, and more of a flaw with the mechanics. If it was at that rate one might as well just eliminate those pieces or or make CS and CH augs. Instead, a fairly good solution may be to just split up the resist benefits on both foci, giving one an actual reason to wear it and not exploit engine flaws.

Iirc that was originally a question of foci being to important. However they already are. Without them sorry to say, a character isn't worth a damn in most cases imo. Especially compared to one with the foci, at least as far as casters go. This goes even for what some consider the relatively minor elemental foci.
 
My points were people that play the class see a reasoning behind these changes. I am not exactly sure why hands on experience would be some sort of sub-par support of ideas for changes. If there is an opportunity for the devs to look at it, it would be great. The weapon skill increase is a small change that would make all BL's I know happy. The pet having greater saves would be a huge benefit to the class. If our new pet that comes in iksith is a great upgrade to our current and benefits higher raiding encounters that would be great... Its not I want these changes! I would just like to see some class improvement in areas where I and others may see it lacking....

Thanks for taking the time to look into if you do.
 
If they get their dps upped then why would they be a utility class any more? On raids you would then Savagery yourself and focus on your dps. I think upping the survivability of their pets is the way to go. Not upping their dps. If Sazir and his pet can sometimes = Eustace's dps. BST's were never meant to compete with rogue/rangers dps.
 
Even wth the pet, I don't believe beastlords can equal rogue/ranger in DPS, even pass same tier monks (when he's not out of combat due to pulling).
The thing is if you wanna increase DPS, and refuse to account savagery (about savegery on yourself, it's an option but not most efficient), there's always the latest beastlord spells that will let you spend some mana (Venom & Harsh Winter).

BST pet heals are the best around so it's not too much of a problem. Along what Kas suggested, I'd see a Companion Health with some resists scaling with it, and a Comp Strength with some Damage Increment scaling with it. This would emphasize more on pet dps without being too overpowered (would only affect their self proc in a case of a beastlord). This would at the same time make those two focus super important to keep worn.
 
Instead, a fairly good solution may be to just split up the resist benefits on both foci, giving one an actual reason to wear it and not exploit engine flaws.
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I'd love to actually wear the gear and not have to swap it on, problem is there isnt that much out there for a BST
http://forum.shardsofdalaya.com/showthread.php?p=166286#post166286



Even wth the pet, I don't believe beastlords can equal rogue/ranger in DPS, even pass same tier monks (when he's not out of combat due to pulling).
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Actually in lower tiers because they pet will do ~65DPS (with compstr4+nonrelic buffs) BST probably do equal rogue/ranger DPS. Since the chars wont have AA/Tome/Gear to do a ton of damage the pet already starting that high makes the BST look pretty good.
Now higher tiers yeah, i dont see a BST doing that well
 
Sabotai said:
My points were people that play the class see a reasoning behind these changes. I am not exactly sure why hands on experience would be some sort of sub-par support of ideas for changes. If there is an opportunity for the devs to look at it, it would be great. The weapon skill increase is a small change that would make all BL's I know happy. The pet having greater saves would be a huge benefit to the class. If our new pet that comes in iksith is a great upgrade to our current and benefits higher raiding encounters that would be great... Its not I want these changes! I would just like to see some class improvement in areas where I and others may see it lacking....

Thanks for taking the time to look into if you do.
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Your points are still mostly invalid, since you are looking at it from the perspective of "this is my class, and i think it should be better. Other people who play this class agree."

These arent reasons for change. These are "i want it" reasons.

Pet resists not scaling with encounters is a *VALID* concern that addresses a real problem. You brought it up, but the solution you provided sucks from a balance perspective.

In fact, I will address each point you made:

Spiritual Vigor
- Increase Duration to match SSS - Maybe this is an oversight and was planned to be the same duration? - It wasnt, but why are we doing this?
- Make it able to be stacked with Call to Battle. SSS stacking with Call to battle makes it a better spell. - I dont know where your logic lies, but to make it stack, SV would have to have atk removed to keep things balanced.

Uncap weapon skills
- I believe in EQ live - stop right there. Invalid point, and your comparison to live is completely irrelevant.

Increase chance of Double Attack
- We spend aa's to get the opportunity to double attack, but the chance seems very small. I have talked to many higher tiered beasts and they
agree we need more reliable melee dps. - The chance is smaller than other melee classes, and its supposed to be. Again, no reasoning behind the change, just "Gimme. Others agree. Gimme"

On this overall subject our pets are usually dead in high end raid encounters due to ae's so that drops our dps, then we become low dps buff bots.
If we just received a buff melee wise with our skills being uncapped to 250, that would be great. We have no option to really go "all out" when we
need to. - A valid point, but your solution is wrong. Increasing the beastlords skills increases DPS overall, whether the pet is up or not.The solution is to increase pet resists in some manner, as kas brought up, helping survivability of the pet.

New Pet
- I know there is a new pet coming in iksith for BL's and Mages I really hope this is the answer to a few issues with the class. If we got a pet
somewhat reminiscent of the old mage epic pet in eq, that would be great. We could then change perspective on how the class is looked at. - Why are we giving beastlords a live epic mage pet? And why are we redefining the class?

All the same.. Good luck with your "I want it" requests. Historically theyve done well.
 
The issue with the pet is that if it got a substantial upgrade in dps and resists it wouldn't exactly change how the class is looked at. It would just give us a great pet to look forward to that could possibly survive and add to the class without breaking the game. Also I would hope getting the pet could be looked at as some type of archaic pet. Hard to get so that it benefits higher tiered Beastlords but doesn't overpower them in lower content....


I WANT IT... (ikaa <3)
 
futur3 said:
If beastlords get archaics, i want archaic backstab for rogues!

Please stop with the nonsense:(
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Isn't the planned upgraded Beastlord pet spell a type of quest spell that you have to raid at a certain level to obtain? Nonsense or not this looks to be exactly the type of thing they are already planning to do.
 
Sabotai said:
The issue with the pet is that if it got a substantial upgrade in dps and resists it wouldn't exactly change how the class is looked at. It would just give us a great pet to look forward to that could possibly survive and add to the class without breaking the game. Also I would hope getting the pet could be looked at as some type of archaic pet. Hard to get so that it benefits higher tiered Beastlords but doesn't overpower them in lower content....


I WANT IT... (ikaa <3)
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Beastlord pet is right where wiz wanted it to be as far as i know. I've just straight pet dueled archaic'd necros and mages and mine has fought pretty much every other pet class and from what i've seen. With equal tiered people he's a little less than dominated by the mage pet but can beat all the others pretty nice. This is keeping in mind healing the pet along with beastlord mana. Many people also don't seem to realize an increase in dps if you give the pet weapons. This is for all pets. When I dueled people though it was usually testing without any weapons but ful self pet buffs. Although the mage pet will almost always have mage weapons and should be counted as such

They are supposed to be right around this area? Confirmation?
 
Wesell said:
Isn't the planned upgraded Beastlord pet spell a type of quest spell that you have to raid at a certain level to obtain? Nonsense or not this looks to be exactly the type of thing they are already planning to do.
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Yes, but it's not archaic. Archaic is clearly for wis/int casters only. No hybrids.
 
ryutakin said:
I've just straight pet dueled archaic'd necros and mages and mine has fought pretty much every other pet class and from what i've seen.
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I don't think a duel would be the best way. You'd probably want to parse bst, necro and mage pets against the same mobs and track their dps and mitigation. I'd probably use toons with complete pet aa's, same pet focus, and only use the pet only buffs.
 
Just a couple of comments.

I find it hard to believe that a beastlord will approach Eustace's dps unless Eustace did a ninja AFK. I am not calling anyone a liar, but there has to be more to that encounter. I dunno, maybe Eustace got mezzed or something?

I would not include haste as a raid utility benefit. I may have hasted on a tmap or two. I think there was once, maybe twice I have hasted at the end of a raid when a lot of people left and we were gonna hit one last ancient target to back gear. But no, a beastlord is hardly ever your best choice for haste. I would say they are the last choice, except perhaps bard. The main use is if the shaman and enchanter are too busy to haste the rezzed monk (*cough* cilulizi *cough*) or to haste the rezzed guys until the haster has manna.

Eustace, nothing but respect for you bro. But just how are you going to accurately parse different raids and conclude the difference in dps and healing is solely due to a few buffs. I can't see that being very scientific at all. At our tier (and certainly your tier), many casters are already clicking off my SB to save a buff slot because they have really good FT already. I know I do. I really doubt that it is allowing all that many heals. [Now I have no wizards or magicians click off COTB. and they are sure to remind me if I commit the grave in of letting it fade. And yes, the melee dps whine for my savagery, so I assume it is doing some good stuff for them.]

As far as paragon, maybe I don't use this ability very well. It seems to be more situational for when our target drains everyone's manna or for the encounters we are barely able to tackle and the healers are goign OOM. Even then we are talking about some manna for one group only. But I am willing for the senior beastlords to chastise me on that.

My invalid request is for Savagery to last longer. My jutification is that I am lazy and it is a hassle to cast it all the time. Sheesh, sometimes it feels it is lasting 30 seconds. Ikaa, I just want it. Ok, thanks. :)

I think making the pet more survivable in AE encounters is the best option at this point. Even with good healing focus it can be a real challenge to keep the pets alive. And you really need to fully raid buff the newly summoned pet. I am hoping the new pet can solve this for the most part. Tomes would also be a great idea to help pets survive.
 
Notpit said:
My invalid request is for Savagery to last longer. My jutification is that I am lazy and it is a hassle to cast it all the time. Sheesh, sometimes it feels it is lasting 30 seconds. Ikaa, I just want it. Ok, thanks. :)
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By that justification, every buff should be neverending unless you click it or die, because theyre all a pain in the ass to keep up.

Yes, a somewhat extreme example, but from what you propose to it is not a huge leap of faith based on your reasoning.
 
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