Beastlord Stance/AA Changes

[darksabbath]

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.

For Ancients/relics, I recall asking for those quite awhile back, the idea was largely staff-ignored, and voted down by the player-base at the time. Glad to see others come around to my way of thinking on it finally. The best bet would be buffing the existing spells, lowered costs, better damage, lower cast times, etc. Fixing the buff durations would be nice too.
The biggest problem with the dot-boosting nuke is that it takes a buff slot, and everyone finds those in short supply already, and that goes double for a beastlord whom needs both caster and melee buffs. Add in the fact that the damage of the dots is meh, and casting them is a loss of melee dps, and it becomes overall a nifty mechanic with bad execution.

Besides a rework of their spells, their stances far & away need an overhaul. Generally, a bst spends his/her life in /s2, except for some "oh shit" moments of /s7 use. (Though I recall making effective use of /s4 while leveling, it mostly went by the wayside once hitting 65.) I cannot remember ever having a use for /s5 or /s6.

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.

While those sound nifty, some of them are off-base or just OP.
1. Ok, but we have a ton of mana-intensive spells we ignore already, why get another?
2. Group Savage sounds pretty nice (thought the dot cost on the spell should just go away, period), but it should have a recharge, just like the original, otherwise it will cause major balance issues for encounters.
3. I like this one, could just match it to the yaulp line (where recharge has it ready when the previous is wearing off). Otherwise, it would get ignored like so many others we have.
4. Another slow, on a different resist line, seems nice, though I would probably limit the slow to 35% to not infringe on shammy much. I see possible stacking issues though. (Making it stack with normal slow to not over-write our dot could be a tad OP)
5. yes, yes, so much YES!

ancients
1. I guess, sure.
2. Combine the two buffs that are clicked the most? Raid-wide cunning is another balance issue, much less adding a dd/dot crit boost to it (sort of a bard thing already). Also, there were many raids (and a few 6-mans) I recall where the hybrid tanks wanted bliss up, but would never want the cunning. Would be just plain annoying to use a "lesser" spell just for them.

But really, as I said, those were asked for, and shot down already. A re-balance of our existing spells, and a couple of additions (hello 65 pet) would work just as well. I would love a 65+ quest to gain a relic equivalent 65 pet, something to bridge the gap between the 63 pet and the r2.

 

[Pecannius]

Quick derail: What if cunning and fiery stacked? That would validate the existence of a bst in a raid imo. Also it seems inconsistent that that the spell version (cunning) doesn't stack with the bard version (fiery). If you look at haste there is a spell version and the bard version that stack. Why not make cunning stack.

 

[Dinadass]

Cunning and Fiery stacking would cause more balance issues than it would solve.

 

[cornelweezy]

For Ancients/relics, I recall asking for those quite awhile back, the idea was largely staff-ignored, and voted down by the player-base at the time. Glad to see others come around to my way of thinking on it finally. The best bet would be buffing the existing spells, lowered costs, better damage, lower cast times, etc. Fixing the buff durations would be nice too.

But really, as I said, those were asked for, and shot down already. A re-balance of our existing spells, and a couple of additions (hello 65 pet) would work just as well. I would love a 65+ quest to gain a relic equivalent 65 pet, something to bridge the gap between the 63 pet and the r2.

Yeah I was just throwing ideas out there to get the ball rolling on how BST relics/ancients could work. "Devs shut that down before" means absolutely nothing to me as I remember the years of rangers asking for autofire and being told no every time. Lots of players agreed with them. Considering creative spell additions like murk beads and (incidentally) BST pet collars and things like the sK Veil line that have now been around for years, if the devs see sense and vision in the suggestions they'll come up with something that fits the server identity and addresses the issues.

I disagree that buffing the existing spells is going to fix BST issues. Their class defining spells either lack punch (mana inefficiencies or prohibitive cast times) or are outdone by another caster. They need more. Venom of the Wild is cool as the BST equivalent of Caress of Shyvana. Their splurt is cool but doesn't seem to fit their theme (of which I'm not sure there is consensus among the staff or playerbase...what is a BST really?). Pet buffs are neat but the pets are miserable. I am loathe to go through these spells case by case but I will if this is disputed...when I look at my BSTs spellbar pre runics (because I don't have them) it's really underwhelming and and this is a class that is supposed to do their finest work through their spells.

 

[Thade]

Bsts have two main problems: One, their base line spells are horrible. Cost too much mana, too long cast times, too low damage. Even with a 48% increase in dot damage on top of all his other tomes/gear, Kjiels Venom of the wild ticks for 455 Damage/tick. That's ~2k damage for 500 mana. So it takes 13 raid tiers to make the bsts best dot as good as the baseline nec/shaman level 62 poison dot.

The other is that for a long time beastlord and monks were propped up by higher ratio weapons than anyone else had access to. At high tiers this is no longer true, and they lose a portion of their efficacy because of that. Monks had part of this remedied with the current combo system (which was really only ever a band aid and I for one am glad it is leaving). Bsts never got help.

I am loathe to go through these spells case by case but I will if this is disputed...when I look at my BSTs spellbar pre runics (because I don't have them) it's really underwhelming and and this is a class that is supposed to do their finest work through their spells.

Everything i've ever heard or seen about beastlords is entirely contrary to what you are suggesting. Beastlords are supposed to be the melee class who a portion of their dps is their spells and pet. In sod's past the class that got most of their damage from spells and little from weapons was bards, but ikisith forward shifted away from that for some reason.

 

[cornelweezy]

Beastlords are supposed to be the melee class who a portion of their dps is their spells and pet.

I think BSTs are melee range spell casters who supplement casts with autos and procs from their own weapons and their pets.

We're saying the same thing here, right? BSTs should be autoing and casting spells and maybe doing things through their pets. Right now, BSTs are bad at autoing compared to the other dps classes that have pretty solid non-spell melee mechanics (rogues and rangers (and rangers have really nifty logical spell progression on top of that)), really bad at casting "their" spells, and their pets could be improved in the mid game. They are not melee ranged wizards and that is not what I am suggesting. Their dps through spells should be big number short duration DoTs and long recharge low cast time cold/magic DDs. By own your post in this thread it takes a ridiculous amount of effort for them to even register with spell dps and that's crazy indicative of bad spell design.

Adding relics and ancients I think would be the easiest and safest way to give BSTs a power boost. In my opinion it's confoundedly bad game design to build for the end and work backwards. The foundation of a class should be well established by the early raiding tiers and everything past that is cotton candy and rainbows. Tweak whatever else would make tier over 9000s happy but their spell bars for the onset of the raid game must be addressed to improve the class.

 

[Silosobi]

I'm fine with relics, but I really just dont see that happening. As soon as you get BST relics, you get RNG/SK/PAL saying where are our relics? It just doesn't make sense with lore.

And the issue certainly *can* be fixed through boosting their normal spells, along with h2h fixes, and maybe some stance/additional tweaks.

Some *very significant* boosts to the current BST DOTS, combined with a big reduction in the R1 mana cost would go a long way.

 

[Tevinter]

Lets finish the monk talk 1st. Split dev attention usually leads to to scenarios where nothing is happening, at ALL.

 

[darksabbath]

I agree, splitting dev attention is bad, but...
Having a discussion about the class, and gaining a consensus by the player-base on what the direction of the class should be is valid also. And will help when the devs do finally, hopefully, turn their attention to the class.Is the class a melee class with a pet and spells, or a pet class with spells that melees? Or, should it be more of a 50/50 split? The problem is, the beast does none of those things well. Most hybrids are melee with spell abilities, the exception being the bard. (I figured that was the logic for them being the only hybrid with ancient/relics.)
Part of the problem, is that the "shining skills" of the parent classes, monk and shaman, are mostly missing from the beastlord. That being feign death and major buffing/debuffing. Beast don't feign, not here at least, they do on live eventually, and their buffs/debuffs are mostly lesser versions of shammy lines. That leaves you with lackluster melee, a pet, and some worthless spell lines. The pet makes a nice difference early on, but lacks survivability as you go up raid tiers, until you can get pet tomes done. As has been discussed in other threads, balancing a class by tomes is bad, so something obviously needs repair there. Because if that pet is to be our saving grace, to keep our dps competitive, then it should be able to take more of a beating than it does. Yes, we have a pet heal, but the cooldown on it is too long to be able to maintain a pet taking damage, either from tanking/aoe, or even ramp, in my experience.
Add to that the poor joke that is our stances, and it totals a class that seems to lack direction or a clear vision. The bard is known for being the "jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none" class, but it seems the beastlord fits that better these days.

@cornelweezy : I would love to know what you consider the "class-defining spells" are.
Here is what I consider defining for the class: the pet lines, the bliss line, the vigor line, wrath/cunning, the nuke/dot enhancer, and savagery. Sadly, the dots the nuke enhances are so weak, I wouldn't consider them class defining. It isn't like we need to look at every spell the beast has (though that would be great), we can start by modifying the ones that really make the class, and work outward from there.
Bliss/vigor/cunning spell lines are fine as is. The only thing I would change on Savagery is to drop the dot requirement. The biggest problem with the pet is that we use the level 63 pet for far too long. The dots and the enhancer nukes are generally too slow to cast, use too much mana, or both.
The rest of our spells are situational at best, to worthless, which is most.
Though I do like the idea of a "yaulp" style spell series for the beastlord that you suggested. Can build it off the Fleeting Fury spell, that I am sure nobody ever uses anyways., just make it self (and pet) only, instead of targetted. Or even several series like that, some buff haste/overhaste on bst and pet, while some do stats and regen, etc. Too bad buff slots are so sparse, it would make the class real unique.

 

[donfolstar3]

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.

This is the best idea for a pet class that I have seen since ever. Beastlords should have two or three existing meh spell lines reworked around this idea stat. Maybe select a few individual turd spells along the way to have interesting utility effects too. If you are going to make a class dependent on their pet why wouldn't this be a thing? Seriously just a wonderful idea mechkl. Though then I notice all responses since you posted this gem get bogged down in the minutiae of a few end game spells. SoD, hooray.

 

[darksabbath]

This is the best idea for a pet class that I have seen since ever. Beastlords should have two or three existing meh spell lines reworked around this idea stat. Maybe select a few individual turd spells along the way to have interesting utility effects too. If you are going to make a class dependent on their pet why wouldn't this be a thing? Seriously just a wonderful idea mechkl. Though then I notice all responses since you posted this gem get bogged down in the minutiae of a few end game spells. SoD, hooray.

It is a solid idea, actually. I must have missed it. I just don't know how feasible it is. I know the client can be very limiting, and downright difficult, to work with. And as much as I dislike comparing "end-game" things, the points were made to show how weak the beastlord spells are compared to much lesser variants for other classes. The mana cost and cast times issues exist though all the levels of the beastlord though, really.

 

[mechkl]

their is spells like this in game already, think how soothing works, its a proc your pet does that makes the beastlord cast the heal. the pet doesnt cast anything. the beastlord part of the spells already exists, i was really jealous when rangers got galcial strike... its doesnt fit them at all as a ranged physical dps geting a melee ranged cold nuke, but that screams beastlord to me. Beastlords dont need a new shitty line of dots, they are savage melee ranged fighter with a natural attunement for mana that allows them to infuse their attacks with elements in coordination with their companion. I would love to see all if not most of the beastlords dots reworked into melee range utility attacks. Beastlords should be up in a foes face savagely mauling their opponents in combination with their warder, issuing and executing attacks in an almost telepathic synchronicity with each other. I do think that the strikes unique to the beastlords tho should carry more utility then dps and beastlords should get a survivaility boost between him and his pet.

I think that if done right the spells that a beastlords get at 65 can scale up with them into later tiers without the need for relics and ancients, buts its going to require a rework of all beastlord spells. No more bandaids or gap filling things. And while a relic pets would be nice perahps another quest somewhere around tier 6 for beastlords to get a new pet would be more fitting.... and fixing the scaling of the pets.... because not only is the runic 2 not a 20% increase in dps over the 63 pet its not even 20 dps increase...

 

[Thade]

This is the best idea for a pet class that I have seen since ever. Beastlords should have two or three existing meh spell lines reworked around this idea stat. Maybe select a few individual turd spells along the way to have interesting utility effects too. If you are going to make a class dependent on their pet why wouldn't this be a thing? Seriously just a wonderful idea mechkl. Though then I notice all responses since you posted this gem get bogged down in the minutiae of a few end game spells. SoD, hooray.

The problem is the vast majority of bst spells are shared with other classes. They have very few unique spells to them. You can't just ruin other classes spells to give bsts what you want. Also, pet scaling is in general quite bad. Giving your pet poorly scaling spells doesn't help very much in the grand scheme of things.

You don't have to reinvent the wheel just to fix something that's broken. In sod's past, reinventing the wheel has often lead to either horrifically broken things, or time wasted on things that ultimately weren't useful.

 

[Dinadass]

Well they get 11 pet proc spells prior to Soothing/Tearing, you could maybe spread them out a bit more and repurpose several of them into a new line.

You could also add pet effects to their cold nukes, including their earlier ones that don't give the dot recourse. Same with Rage of the Wild.

 

[darksabbath]

their is spells like this in game already, think how soothing works, its a proc your pet does that makes the beastlord cast the heal. the pet doesnt cast anything. the beastlord part of the spells already exists, i was really jealous when rangers got galcial strike... its doesnt fit them at all as a ranged physical dps geting a melee ranged cold nuke, but that screams beastlord to me. Beastlords dont need a new shitty line of dots, they are savage melee ranged fighter with a natural attunement for mana that allows them to infuse their attacks with elements in coordination with their companion. I would love to see all if not most of the beastlords dots reworked into melee range utility attacks. Beastlords should be up in a foes face savagely mauling their opponents in combination with their warder, issuing and executing attacks in an almost telepathic synchronicity with each other. I do think that the strikes unique to the beastlords tho should carry more utility then dps and beastlords should get a survivaility boost between him and his pet.

I think that if done right the spells that a beastlords get at 65 can scale up with them into later tiers without the need for relics and ancients, buts its going to require a rework of all beastlord spells. No more bandaids or gap filling things. And while a relic pets would be nice perahps another quest somewhere around tier 6 for beastlords to get a new pet would be more fitting.... and fixing the scaling of the pets.... because not only is the runic 2 not a 20% increase in dps over the 63 pet its not even 20 dps increase...

Now see, this is the kind of conversation and ideas I was hoping to spark by bumping this. I would totally trade harsh winter/bitter cold tot he rangers for the melee range nukes. Then dump our dot spells for your new spell line. Let the rangers cast dots while bowing or some such, I don't care. (Except soloing, or raid bosses, the dots wouldn't be worth using anyways, stuff dies too quick usually.) Then fix our stances, and the pet scaling thing.

 

[darksabbath]

Well they get 11 pet proc spells prior to Soothing/Tearing, you could maybe spread them out a bit more and repurpose several of them into a new line.

You could also add pet effects to their cold nukes, including their earlier ones that don't give the dot recourse. Same with Rage of the Wild.

Our existing pet buff spell line has the hate proc for the pet, and at lower levels, that proc really helps make a difference when soloing. Our non-recourse cold nukes are ones shared with shammies, so they couldn't really be changed. They are grossly slow and inefficient, though, so losing them completely for the new buff line would be fine.

 

[Dinadass]

Our existing pet buff spell line has the hate proc for the pet, and at lower levels, that proc really helps make a difference when soloing. Our non-recourse cold nukes are ones shared with shammies, so they couldn't really be changed. They are grossly slow and inefficient, though, so losing them completely for the new buff line would be fine.

There are bst-only cold nukes without the recourse. Some (2 I think) are shammy spells but 2-3 are not.

And I know the low/mid level pet buffs are useful, but I think having a progression of like 8 of them rather than 11 wouldn't change much, and would free up some spells that could be changed to something new.

Then again I don't think the staff are as concerned about running out of spell IDs as they used to be so maybe new stuff could be added without removing existing ones.

 

[donfolstar3]

Also you don't have to reinvent the wheel just to fix something that's broken. In sod's past, reinventing the wheel has often lead to either horrifically broken things, or time wasted on things that ultimately weren't useful.

Sometimes the new wheel is the combo system, but sometimes it is Warriors.

My 2cp on a few changes, mostly quick and easy, that would aid this beleaguered class:

-Trickling down the Bitter Cold recourse (reduced, of course) to other BST only cold DDs
-Amping up the poison DoTs (and BST slows?) with something like mechkl described
-Group acumen
-Is there any reason the duration on Spirit Speed is so short other than it nearly matches the recast? That is just annoying. Add a zero (or two) to the duration.
-Repurposing some of the pet buffs into one shot mana-to-damage-and-pet-damage or mana-to-damage-and-utitliy
-Fixing pet scaling (step 1 of many: combine the two pet focuses into one)

...would all be the same wheel just without as many broken spokes and gaps in the tread.

 

[Ezie3205]

Personally, I can't wait to see how this all plays out.

When leveling my beast one of the things I really like was that on a big pull, say a 3 pull while soloing, I could get my pet on the 3 mobs while I slowly peel them off the pet. I used most of my mana to keep the pet alive (slow really helps with that) and occasionally drop a DoT. Obviously, that wasn't every pull but it was nice to know that I could break a group. I know that it would be unreasonable for your pet to say, tank 3 things from Cita but would it be that unreasonable for them to tank 1 or 2 bulwarks from SG?

My pet went from feeling like an able and necessary part of my character and allowed me have a range of versatility as well as sexy dps (though at the cost of mana) to a DoT that doesn't cost mana but doesn't do very much else other than contribute to my DPS.

The original intent for this post seems like it is to get a general consensus of what a beastlord is exactly. I have seen mention of "quick dots" which is something I always associate with pure casters. I like the idea of the Warder getting those quick dots as an innate proc or something, like they have poisonous claws or bites. I always pegged beastlords for the long term damage casting. Hit them with a long disease that weakens them and makes your strikes more effective, which seems to go along with the debuffing they get. Break both the body and soul with your assault, leave the enemy off guard as they don't know which target to focus on.

That is at least how I felt when I was leveling my BST, I also did not twink myself only leveled with quest items or drops I could get on my BST at the time.

 

[darksabbath]

There are bst-only cold nukes without the recourse. Some (2 I think) are shammy spells but 2-3 are not.

And I know the low/mid level pet buffs are useful, but I think having a progression of like 8 of them rather than 11 wouldn't change much, and would free up some spells that could be changed to something new.

Then again I don't think the staff are as concerned about running out of spell IDs as they used to be so maybe new stuff could be added without removing existing ones.

It has been so long, I had to check the wiki to see when we got nukes, lol. And yeah, 2 are shammy also, there is 4 non-recourse bst cold nukes. Three of which are decent mana/damage (1:3) ratio, but have a 30second recast on them.
The only place to drop would really be the duplication of proc buffs in the 50's, though that was done to give better choice of proc for the pet based on element. But I don't think the spell id's are the issue the once were, either.

Sometimes the new wheel is the combo system, but sometimes it is Warriors.

My 2cp on a few changes, mostly quick and easy, that would aid this beleaguered class:

-Trickling down the Bitter Cold recourse (reduced, of course) to other BST only cold DDs
-Amping up the poison DoTs (and BST slows?) with something like mechkl described
-Group acumen
-Is there any reason the duration on Spirit Speed is so short other than it nearly matches the recast? That is just annoying. Add a zero (or two) to the duration.
-Repurposing some of the pet buffs into one shot mana-to-damage-and-pet-damage or mana-to-damage-and-utitliy
-Fixing pet scaling (step 1 of many: combine the two pet focuses into one)

...would all be the same wheel just without as many broken spokes and gaps in the tread.

My thoughts on that:
1) Instead of spreading our dot-boosting nukes across all our levels, I would rather go with a modified version of what Tierilo describes. Make the nukes quick-cast elemental damage, that leave a debuff recourse on the target. (Or they cause the warder to proc a debuff when cast, if possible.) Can remove the dots entirely, and revamp our existing nukes to this new spell series (cold, poison, disease resist types).
2) Group acumen is long past due.
3) I don't think they can change it, I just make a habit of hitting the button the moment it comes back.
4) Fixing pet scaling would help all pet classes, especially the bst. As i mentioned before, adding a 65+ quest for a new pet would sure help too.