Beastlord Stance/AA Changes
- Thread starter Waldoff
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Vitali
Dalayan Master
I'll be honest, I really like beastlords as a class. I look forward to a day when I can take them to exp and they are a genuine good addition to the group instead of "better than nothing".
That said, I am opposed to a stamina system for beasts as a primary thing. They already have a resource, and it's mana. I like pure melee getting a stamina rework because it adds a resource for them to base things on. Mana and stamina system sounds like a mess, and a case of double dipping.
I would much rather see spells tightened up and made better then just pick up an additional resource to manage.
That said, I am opposed to a stamina system for beasts as a primary thing. They already have a resource, and it's mana. I like pure melee getting a stamina rework because it adds a resource for them to base things on. Mana and stamina system sounds like a mess, and a case of double dipping.
I would much rather see spells tightened up and made better then just pick up an additional resource to manage.
Thade
DINOSAUR THADE
Since the dawn of sod the fact that the vast majority of beastlord spells are near useless has been the bane of the class. Their pre runic spells either do too little damage or are too mana inefficient to be useful, it's quite sad really
Since the dawn of sod the fact that the vast majority of beastlord spells are near useless has been the bane of the class. Their pre runic spells either do too little damage or are too mana inefficient to be useful, it's quite sad really
True. Even if beastlord spells were doubled in damage output, they would not be that good. I think it would be nice if BST heals had a little more on them too.
Thade
DINOSAUR THADE
Yeah. Venom of the wild is a dps increase but is a huge mana hog. Plague is fine on mana but the cast time is far too long and it becomes a dps loss past a certain point. Rage of the wild im pretty sure was made just to troll beastlords.
cornelweezy
Dalayan Elder
BST relics would be a good start:
1. magic/cold double nuke like necro's cyrotoxin. 450dmg/450dmg base with a 1 second cast time and a 3 tick recharge. mana intensive.
2. group savagery with a 30 min base duration. no recharge but requires 2 peridots to cast.
3. self only massive attack and overhaste that buffs self and pet. Functions like the yaulp line. 3 tick duration, medium mana cost. 1 minute recharge.
4. mana efficient, hard hitting poison based dot. I like Fuwok's idea that it has a slow component...maybe 5 or 6 tick duration. Should stack with Venom of the Wild.
5. a relic pet with a ~20% dps upgrade over the 63 pet and a tad more hp.
ancients while we're at it:
1. upgrade to pet only long duration buff: more haste, more attack, more AC and resists
2. 1 buff that combines cunning and bliss: more spell damage, negative agro mod, hp regen, mana regen, and add a little DD/DOT crit on top. Raid wide.
Vitali
Dalayan Master
Would take someone with a through knowledge of the class, but starting from level 9 and up looking at what a beastlord should do, and rework spells all the way up.
Would be a good deal of work, but would be the ideal situation. In my mind a Beastlord is/ should be primarily magic, poison, and maybe ice or fire based hybrid melee casters with 1/3 of their DPS coming from a companion(s).
My reasoning is that a poison is short duration and should be high dmg. So strong dot translated into SoD. Magic being a slightly longer dot tied in with a snare typically (all necro so snares, druid snares, etc.) Or big single target nuke. So, some big damage short cast time nukes. I say cold or fire because being too broad seems to water down things that could otherwise be good. I think barbarians in everfrost and want to say cold based spells, since ogres and trolls are in swampy (poisonous) environment a already.
Utility has been a big part of the class, and I feel the beastlord players like that aspect, but it gets trumpeted so much it makes it almost impossible to make anything better for them (whether it's justifiable or not).
However, I think a some of it is over exaggerated, also making it hard to remedy.
I don't know I'd they already are, but making swarm pets a dot, and making the actual graphical representation not impact the spell would be nice in theory. Send out runic swarm and not be devesated when an aoe kills all of them immediately. Dot would still be ticking.
Would be a good deal of work, but would be the ideal situation. In my mind a Beastlord is/ should be primarily magic, poison, and maybe ice or fire based hybrid melee casters with 1/3 of their DPS coming from a companion(s).
My reasoning is that a poison is short duration and should be high dmg. So strong dot translated into SoD. Magic being a slightly longer dot tied in with a snare typically (all necro so snares, druid snares, etc.) Or big single target nuke. So, some big damage short cast time nukes. I say cold or fire because being too broad seems to water down things that could otherwise be good. I think barbarians in everfrost and want to say cold based spells, since ogres and trolls are in swampy (poisonous) environment a already.
Utility has been a big part of the class, and I feel the beastlord players like that aspect, but it gets trumpeted so much it makes it almost impossible to make anything better for them (whether it's justifiable or not).
However, I think a some of it is over exaggerated, also making it hard to remedy.
I don't know I'd they already are, but making swarm pets a dot, and making the actual graphical representation not impact the spell would be nice in theory. Send out runic swarm and not be devesated when an aoe kills all of them immediately. Dot would still be ticking.
mechkl
Dalayan Elder
I like how slaar put it with beastlords being a wisdom puncher with a pet.
I think making beastlord dps dependent on thier pet also being alive and around and scaling it 50/50 up the tiers. I think the best way to do tht would be to make beastlord spells 2 sided. they make the beastlord cast a spell and at teh same time make thier warder perform a complimenting action. like when the beastlord cast venom of the wild, the beastlords pet instant casts poisonous assault, a poison based dd, and when the beastlord casts bitter cold or harsh winter the pet instant casts a cold based dd on its target weather its the same as the beastlords or not. meaning the beastlord can essentially split his dps between 2 targets, or hold the attention of two targets. Also better pet scaling is something that i think is missing in sod, especially for beastlords, who have pets that should be a bestial shadow of themselves. Perhaps scaling the pets based melee ratio and ac maybe even hp bonuses its master gets from gear times a multiplier would yield better scaling results.... or even have pet attack based off the mana pools of the pets casters.
I think making beastlord dps dependent on thier pet also being alive and around and scaling it 50/50 up the tiers. I think the best way to do tht would be to make beastlord spells 2 sided. they make the beastlord cast a spell and at teh same time make thier warder perform a complimenting action. like when the beastlord cast venom of the wild, the beastlords pet instant casts poisonous assault, a poison based dd, and when the beastlord casts bitter cold or harsh winter the pet instant casts a cold based dd on its target weather its the same as the beastlords or not. meaning the beastlord can essentially split his dps between 2 targets, or hold the attention of two targets. Also better pet scaling is something that i think is missing in sod, especially for beastlords, who have pets that should be a bestial shadow of themselves. Perhaps scaling the pets based melee ratio and ac maybe even hp bonuses its master gets from gear times a multiplier would yield better scaling results.... or even have pet attack based off the mana pools of the pets casters.
Silosobi
Dalayan Pious Diety
Relics/Ancients seem really unlikely, although they could largely solve the problem. Just buffing the spells BST already use could work too. Spells are cool because they scale well, gradually increasing in power through gear/tomes/etc.
The problem now is they are just weak to begin with. Also its been a while but I remember BST offensive spells having long cast time, eating into meele dps. Just making their dps spells lower cast would seem like a pretty big help. I thought that nuke that increased their DOT damage was really cool, but I guess DOTS just are so meh to begin with that its not significant. Seems like there are already cool ideas in place, just boosting some damage numbers, and lowering cast time could make a huge difference IMO.
The problem now is they are just weak to begin with. Also its been a while but I remember BST offensive spells having long cast time, eating into meele dps. Just making their dps spells lower cast would seem like a pretty big help. I thought that nuke that increased their DOT damage was really cool, but I guess DOTS just are so meh to begin with that its not significant. Seems like there are already cool ideas in place, just boosting some damage numbers, and lowering cast time could make a huge difference IMO.
Dinadass
Dalayan Pious Diety
Plague would be a lot nicer with a shorter cast time, but that would also impact Shamans. Although if you look at Shaman disease spells:
Scourge 4.6 seconds
Plague 6.1 seconds
Pox of Grad 5 seconds
Maybe dropping Plague down to 4.8 would be appropriate for both classes.
Venom of the Wild isn't too bad but is pretty inefficient.
Rage of the Wild could have it's cast time cut in half and damage doubled and still wouldn't be OP.
I agree that the cold nuke with +dot recourse is a cool mechanic, their dots just suck hard enough that it ends up not being that great.
Scourge 4.6 seconds
Plague 6.1 seconds
Pox of Grad 5 seconds
Maybe dropping Plague down to 4.8 would be appropriate for both classes.
Venom of the Wild isn't too bad but is pretty inefficient.
Rage of the Wild could have it's cast time cut in half and damage doubled and still wouldn't be OP.
I agree that the cold nuke with +dot recourse is a cool mechanic, their dots just suck hard enough that it ends up not being that great.
Thade
DINOSAUR THADE
Its a very cool mechanic. The problem is the only dot worth casting is venom of the wild, and the mana cost is prohibitive enough that once you get the swarm pet it's usually just correct to spend all your mana on your swarm pet.
Silosobi
Dalayan Pious Diety
Maybe we need to leave plague alone since its shared with nec/shm? I think it could be reduced to 4-5s without much impact, but regardless,
Rage of the Wild:
215mana >>> 315mana
3sec >>> 1sec
10+18splurt >>> 50+50splurt
Venom of the Wild
1.5sec >>> .5sec
102dd+212tic >>> 132dd+302tic
I think just those two changes would be massive. Its about 220 more base damage per tic, or ~300 with bitter cold. On a higher tier BST that can translate to about 100 dps. Do that, fix h2h, maybe add in some better tanking utility, and the class would be good IMO.
Rage of the Wild:
215mana >>> 315mana
3sec >>> 1sec
10+18splurt >>> 50+50splurt
Venom of the Wild
1.5sec >>> .5sec
102dd+212tic >>> 132dd+302tic
I think just those two changes would be massive. Its about 220 more base damage per tic, or ~300 with bitter cold. On a higher tier BST that can translate to about 100 dps. Do that, fix h2h, maybe add in some better tanking utility, and the class would be good IMO.
Silosobi
Dalayan Pious Diety
Thats a good point. Improved DOTS would also add in a viable way to spend mana on dps when swarm pets are getting blown up by AEs.
I always thought of BST as a shamanistic warrior, that poisons their target with magic, does DOT, with a good pet, and some moderate meele. They have all that, but between inefficiency, cast times, and just plan terrible damage numbers, the whole DOT thing just doesn't seem to happen.
I also never realized how mana intensive swarm pets are. It makes sense because they add a lot of dps, but it is sort of limiting because unless DOTS are actually more mana efficent than pets, the swarm pet will get used (and if DOTS became MORE efficent, then the swarm pets wouldnt get used at all)
Spells shouldn't just be free, and you should have to pick and choose what you are going to do, but this is a pretty limiting mechanic to me.
If it were up to me, I would reduce swarm pet mana to like 300, and reduce the number of pets from 9 to 6 (33% less damage with less lag/space).
Pets are still very nice, but this would leave mana for the BST to do DOT damage.
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Thade
DINOSAUR THADE
I feel like you should be casting your dots on top of you swarm pets, and not your swarm pets just replacing them on 70% of fights as soon as you get them.
My thoughts:
Reduce the cost of runic 1 by 33%.
Increase venom of the wild's damage by 50% and reduces its mana cost by 25% reduce cast time by .5 seconds. New Stats:
1 Sec Cast
Mana Cost 380
163 initial damage
318 damage per tick
Remove plague and sicken from the beastlord. Remove Rage of the wild because splurts dont really belong on a beastlord. Replace with a new disease dot line that starts at level 15, and goes up to 65, all vendor sold.
Final rank being something along the lines of:
Rabies
Mana Cost 500
9 Ticks, 1 second cast time.
100 Initial Damage
200 Damage/tick.
and bitter cold could probably use a decrease in cast time from 2.0 to 1.0 as well.
cornelweezy
Dalayan Elder
A couple spell cast time reductions simply will not get it done, but a comprehensive overhaul of every BST spell would be overkill. Are BSTs a spell damage based class who supplement nuke/pet dps with some autoattack function? OR are they a melee class who supplement their independent melee mechanic (that some of their damage comes via pet) with some spell based utility (additional damage and shaman hand me down stuff)? As of this moment, until later in the raid game when they've acquired runic spells that flesh them out a bit better, or so it seems, BSTs are kinda not good at either.
If they're the former, creative relic and ancient spell additions are what the class needs to join mainstream 2014/2015 SoD where pressing buttons intelligently equals profit. If the latter, there needs to be a huge itemization overhaul and oodles and oodles of spell tweaks so BSTs aren't losing melee rounds to long cast times and weird duration DoTs that don't fit the fighter mold. I haven't played a BST to tier over 9000 (and who has, really?) but I have played one clear through trying to scum up my hundredth AA and maybe /oocing for pick ups raids and the class is overall unsatisfying because their spell bars at 65 pre ikisith spells don't seem to have a clear direction.
I think BSTs are melee range spell casters who supplement casts with autos and procs from their own weapons and their pets. Spells scale really well through focuses and AAs. Relics and ancients are best solution imo to the BST's sense of overall lacklusterness.
If they're the former, creative relic and ancient spell additions are what the class needs to join mainstream 2014/2015 SoD where pressing buttons intelligently equals profit. If the latter, there needs to be a huge itemization overhaul and oodles and oodles of spell tweaks so BSTs aren't losing melee rounds to long cast times and weird duration DoTs that don't fit the fighter mold. I haven't played a BST to tier over 9000 (and who has, really?) but I have played one clear through trying to scum up my hundredth AA and maybe /oocing for pick ups raids and the class is overall unsatisfying because their spell bars at 65 pre ikisith spells don't seem to have a clear direction.
I think BSTs are melee range spell casters who supplement casts with autos and procs from their own weapons and their pets. Spells scale really well through focuses and AAs. Relics and ancients are best solution imo to the BST's sense of overall lacklusterness.