First, I retract those two suggestions I made. I agree, not good ideas.
vistachiri said:
So since the general consensus with bst's seems to be the dots and such lower dps, what about changing the dots at least to be much longer lasting, much less damage (basically keep the ratio the same). This way you could toss on a few dots, do your thing, and they're ticking away, as I'm guessing the problem with them is kind of the cast time/length they last combined with the damage they do. Maybe an upgrade in dps by a bit for them too, but if one doesn't have to cast them every few ticks and they just keep pegging away I would think they might be more popular?
After thinking about this, I feel this is the way to go about reconstructing both our DoT lines. Sure it doesn't increase the actual damage, but it does cut the casting time investment enormously which would possibly make our DoTs profitable enough to warrant casting regularly. The alternative of a hard hitting but short(er) duration spell (like our poison-based line on steroids, basically) would still have the problem of sacrificing our melee dps for our casting dps. The end result will be either an overpowered DoT when you just hit 65, or an underpowered one as you get better gear. Long term investment ftw.
!! EDIT: After reading Glamrin's response, I'm moved to agree with him. I like the idea of extending our DoTs, but if it's at the cost of damage/tick... it's not worth it. If they are extended, damage should be kept pretty much as is.
And now I'm going to completely contradict myself. =)
I still like the flavor of a cold based incredibly-short-duration DoT. Perhaps you could start a new trend by having it work the OPPOSITE way that Rage does. I.E. Damage counts down. So you cast it, it does 500 damage, then 200, then 100, then 50 then 25. This would make sense from a RP perspective as the target is "warming up". This would have the added benefit of allowing the beastlord to either spam the initial, higher damage tick at the cost of much higher mana investment, or let it do it's thing and get less dps for lower mana. Choice is good.
For added utility and motivation perhaps add a small (like 5 - 10%) stackable slow effect.
Cold is supposed to be a DD. So overall higher mana costs and lower efficiency are expected. I expect this would chew through mana like crazy.
I'd like to see our debuffs tied into our disease DoTs personally. No real reason for this except that it seems to fit. Also, if this were kept managably low, it could be made to stack with shammy debuffs and not risk stealing someone else's job, while simultaneously making beasts more valuable to a raid and party.
Poison should be the middle road, just like now. More damage than disease, less damage than cold. On par with disease mana cost but no debuffs (if that's accepted).
Another view for consideration... I don't want any more buffs. It takes me forever to buff myself and my pet as it is. Taking up more buff slots for group based spells seems like a not-so-good idea imo because you would probably annoy the hell out of a raid. Not to mention further muddying the waters as far as choosing what buffs you want to keep on you as a member of this raid.
I like the warder illusion idea, this has been argued for DECADES, and I believe Live eventually caved in and let beasts have it, but I quit before that happened so I have no idea how it worked. However, I already have two of my own illusions going at all times from my clickies. One is an AC boost, the other is a lifetap proc. I realize that not everyone has these though.
It seems the group consensus is that a better pet is wanted and warranted.
