You've entirely left out how much damage the spells do. That's "kinda" relevant as a potential counterbalance against high cost & agro, hm? 10/11(group/raid) ticks of Chill & Blood, 15/17 of disease? I don't know the crit rate or multiplier off hand for bst, but that's a heck of a lot of 8.8+11.1+12.7k base dot ticks. Speaking of how many ticks, even the two "fast" ones last over a minute; they're not chain cast. Clearly you don't want to be using them on short fights, but the previous versions were for that, too.
If you cast all 3 spells at the top end, with 1 raid focus and 2 group focuses it'll do about 750k (higher end maybe 850k?) assuming the mob doesn't die before they wear off. I think the way these were implemented is great for exactly the reasons people are complaining. Because there are risks and benefits to them, now you have to understand them, think about what you're doing, and use them intelligently. It adds complexity to the class.
Decided to play my 97 beast last night for a little xp since the bonus is on and what a POS the change in the dot's are now. I don't mind that they stopped stacking but the cost is way way out of proportion. I had to stop about every 8 kills to med up, even with full buffs, full aa mana regen, using focus'd paragon and paragon. Yet again toying with the game they screw it up. My poison spell now costs almost 10% of my total mana pool to cast, and lets hope it isn't resisted which it is about 25% of the time anyway. My disease dot is resisted over 50% of the time now anyway. Together my poison and disease dot's now use up 1/7th-1/8th of my total mana pool, the 2 dots together cost over 10k to cast! That is pure BS. I do not have a mage but looking at the spell data, their level 97 spell rain of blistersteel II does 14k and with focus, aa's, items, etc it can do far more massive damage at a cost of 1.7k mana. Tell me where there is any equivalency? I know nukes are supposed to do higher damage fast but the cost was always at a cost of mana and now they have screwed that up and reversed it. I am so glad I quit buying expansions. Only one person in my guild bought the last expansion and he got it on one of his 2 accounts because he is a guide. Yet another reason to start the exodus. Cancelled new games, cancelling the app, the spiral is gaining momentum. Watch for a server merge, the populations are dwindling and that is the only way they will make it look like the game is populated.
My bst is only 97 and not anyway near max aa, so I cannot really test myself. Question is, over a long period of parsing, does the dot surpass DD's damage for mana over a long run? You certainly would not want to use these dots for quick kill groups, but they look to be very nice for the long term dps. Has anyone parsed the dot vs best DD over time to see if they would be good when solo'ing or on raids? I also don't think that they took into consideration the mana preservation abilities of hybrids vs pure casters, and certainly did not take into consideration the agro that is generated by dots.
Beastlord Nukes are more mana efficient, but less dps. Beastlord Dots are more dps but less mana efficient. But the dots really are something that you "add on top" in this case, whereas nukes are an essential part of bst dps all the time. In reality, it's good to just have a bit of both. I like the new dot abilities because: -The class is already very stable. You could never even use the dots if you don't want to and still play a quite respectable beastlord. The dots seem to average around 250k damage if they go all the way through, which beats out the best nuke by a lot for damage, but they're the riskier option. If you do parses, all 3 dots running on a mob is around 12k dps, and closer to 15k dps at the start due to the initial nuke (tested on bst with only 1 raid focus and 2 group focuses). So it's averaging 4k dps a dot with some discrepancies (poison dot will do the most, then cold, then disease). Is that worth the mana cost? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. -The dots have a healthy enough benefit, and give some risk. If you play really well with them, you'll do more dps. If you play badly with them, you'll do less dps than you would if you didn't dot at all. I enjoy that playing really well with them involves thinking instead of just spamming them, or always dotting every mob at the start of a fight. The penalty isn't too harsh, you either run oom, or have to fd, and maybe it fails, but you're probably going to be alright if you use some defensive abilities unless you're just chain agroing the mobs. But it's risk vs reward. That's a great concept that should be utilized more in design choices for this game. -While this example is more at the high end, now other classes have a greater effect on the beastlord. Are you grouped with a cleric? Even if you've mastered bst mana conservation and use paragon well for yourself, now miracle is going to be more useful. What about a bard? What about an enchanter? Another beastlord? You're gaining synergy here that you didn't used to have because now, to do the best dps you could possibly do, you have new weaknesses. I'm happy with this change in every possible way. I advocate for more changes that add challenge to any class, and create this sort of risk vs reward scenario where the path to victory isn't just "use every dps ability all the time". If you think that isn't the key to playing most dps classes well, you're probably incorrect. I expect with the way people are, in a month or 2 all beastlords will just be chain casting dots at the start of every fight, but I really like them in this current state.
Welcome to what necromancers have to decide on all content. Reval is spot on in his analysis. Unless you have a method for getting mana back in groups quickly, ie bard, you will probably not want to spam these new DoTs. You should most definitly be using these DoTs in raids because you will get the full efficiency out of them. Think of these spells as situational dps. The longer the fight, the more useful these become. Of course you will have to estimate how long you think the fight will be before you engage. Also, when calculating DoT DPS, if you know the encounter will be longer than the DoTs duration, think of the DoTs DPS as the total damage that it does and think of it as a DD. Don't think of the DPS per tick. You will still be casting DD's while the ticks are ticking away.
I don't understand how you see this as a reason to quit. Until now, bst dots were pretty much totally useless and no bst in their right mind wasted spell slots on them. Yes, there are drawbacks to the new dots, but now, they are situationally useful, which is better than totally useless, not worse.
People seem to not remember that they can cast the DOTs for free if they put an audiotrigger on Gift of Mana procs. This upgrade is quite awesome.
I can't begin to tell you how many times I asked , begged and pleaded for this and how much I pushed for it. Perhaps now that things have changed in the dev staffing area, maybe someone could push for it again next AA chat.
This is yet another cater to raiders. I don't raid, barely did it back in 99 and still don't do it. Only raiding I used to do was for peoples epics when you actually had to make a raid to go to sky or fear or etc for those. I did not like doing it then and I do not like doing it now. What should I expect from the dev's that only cater to the raiding crowd. I got to level 97 for the most part soloing him as he was a secondary toon played when I was bored with my main. But I may as well delete him now since I can no longer enjoy burning brain cells with him. May as well just delete them all. I do not expect the dev's to cater to group players or solo'ers on everything but going the opposite direction doesn't get it done either. I seem to notice that just about all the good responses on this subject are the people who quote raid focus's helping. Well if ya don't raid that does no good. I am not a power player, I enjoy burning a few brain cells at night after work and dinner. Getting a group with people I have known in game for better than 15+ years and making some xp. But the way the game has gone, we cannot do over half of the content which is why we quit buying the expansions.
Excuse me? You said that you solo. This spell is worth using if you solo. Also, the Devs intent was probably to make DoTs worth using again. Not to cater to raiders. Dumb devs just don't know that DoTs are next to useless in groups. If this is your attitude towards a change that doesn't effect your group game play at all and probably improves your solo game play, then I don't want to imagine you playing a necro. Just keep using your DDs that you probably have always done. You only have 3 DoTs that you have to choose or not to for your DPS. The major majority of my necro's DPS is with DoTs. Right now, I'd say beastlord are very powerful. Just be happy that these so called DoT changes don't really effect your game play at all.
I used 3 dots always on every mob, even on the rare times I grouped, my top 2 poisons, and my disease; and I rarely nuked. Dots were more mana efficient and allowed me to keep pulling near continuously when I lost my crack. Usually I reserved nukes for a named or if I needed a little boost to regain agro. The dots were my secondary source of damage second only to melee and my pet. The dots lasted for the most part the full length of a fight when I solo, so they were much more mana efficient than tossing a nuke as fast as I can. Yeah I did not kill the mob in 20 seconds, but I got the job done and was able to continue pulling the whole night without having to stop to med every 6-8 mobs. So saying dots were not used before this change was incorrect. My main (a chanter) used the top 3 dots that he had, with nukes thrown in often. My sk uses 4 dots every mob, 5 if you want to count my life tap dot. My shammy used 3 dots always on top of nukes...... The sk and chanter are the 2 that I usually play in groups and they use dots CONTINUOUSLY. The only reason dots "went out of fashion" in groups is because the devs started catering to raiders almost totally and the raiders were taking down group mobs in half the time. So to try to balance that out they started making the group trash mobs equivalent in hp's to raid trash mobs. But since they made the new raid gear that much more better, that plan backfired and the only ones who got hurt were the group players who casual play about 3 hours a night. And as a solo'er this truly messed me up being able to even keep a chain of kills going now.
Wouldn't casting 1 DoT now be about the same mana efficiency and DPS as casting 3 DoTs before the patch? I don't have the exact numbers with me but that seems to be the case based on the patch notes. I think the new Beast DoTs do even more Dmg now per mana used than before.
not if I have to sit for half the time to med up. when there is power players pulling half the mobs in an area I am working (which I saw happen again tonight in a camp I was in with my baby cleric) and you are sitting there with your thumb up your behind because you have to med back up, you don't get many mobs. and if you happen to pop a named kiss it goodbye while you sit to med and they pull it from under you. so no, the mana cost is not worth the damage. I would rather have the old damage and not being able to stack than the pile of refuse being dumped in game again.
and as stated earlier beasts dots are resisted far too often. they get no form of disease/poison/cold resist debuff to help ensure the spells land. the way I noticed the mana cost was because my disease dot was resisted 3 times in a row on a mob and I saw my mana had spiraled down to 70% when it had been at full mana when I zoned in. at least before I could recast and recast until I got it to land, but now..... good luck when it doesn't land.
Focus of the Frozen North AA and Focus of Animus AA both have a resist debuff component. Also you can pick up a Staff of Viral Flux for further poison/disease resist debuff. With that said, I like these changes. They have added another interesting element to raiding on a beastlord. I wouldn't say I have figured out the best way to utilize them quite yet but they are promising.
and even with those specific aa's, that I do have, the dots are still resisted far too often. as stated earlier, 3 times in a row, 1.. 2... 3 times, 3X, 3 casts of my disease dot were resisted on 1, just 1, 1 mob. the same mob resisted it all 3 times, not once, not twice, but 3 times in a row. and it was not just that 1 mob either. later on I noticed, and not the first time I noticed this, roughly 50% of the time my disease dot was being resisted on first casts. as I do not parse that number has some play in it, but I am confident I am within 5% +/- of that 50%. other than hurting casual players, this change only truly benefits raiders.
I also recommend getting the Staff of Viral Flux. You would probably stick to just your Poison and Disease DoTs though. I checked the numbers on the old vs new versions of the DoTs. It looks like the DoT damage and mana cost was increased by 6 times. However, the DD portion was about 18 times what it used to be. That is definitely more efficient. But, If you were casting 3 DoTs prior to the patch, the mana consumption would be equivalent to casting 1 DoT out of every 2 mobs now. Your mana is dropping twice as fast if you use 1 DoT on every pull. Have you tried switching to a lower level DoT? You could try using Falrazim's Gnashing (lvl 76) and Fever Surge (lvl 77) if you want spells with similar damage and mana usage as before the patch. Or you could use just 1 of your VoA DoTs which will be similar damage and mana usage to your 3 TDS DoTs before the patch. The point is you still have options.
