I know there is another thread but it looks like it got taken over by and ignorance. Beastlords a very bad DPS endgame I know this but I can't reproduce it. So I'm asking for some helpful hints from Beastlords that actually make the tops of their parses in raids. I know right now I'm limited most by my group weapons and mostly group gear with a few pieces of raid gear. But I have over 6.5k AAs and anything that looked like it could remotely help my DPS I bought (granted I have more to buy, I'm not maxed yet). My standard rotation involves: auto-attack/pet-attack, Kick, Feral Swipe, Pummel, Focused Clamor of Claws, Bite of the Asp, Feralgia, Bestial Evulsing. Then I got 3 nukes I use from spell bar (Nak's, Bite, & Lance) that I put in a weave (key-bind them all to Q and spam Q to nuke). So that's my DPS without any greater than 1min cool-down abilities. Is there something I'm missing? are the nukes adding to my DPS or are they detracting from my auto-attack DPS? Then I got the whole caboodle of discs/AAs/clickys. This is where I think the real min/max-ing comes in to play with Beastlords. I know Bloodlust and my breastplate clicky (adds a proc) seem to work well together and have a similar cool-down. and I was told Rubari's Fury (sp?) and Group Bestial Alignment are best used together. That leaves my spires (which one is best to actually use? idk I use 3rd in groups and 2nd or 1st when solo), Frenzy Spirit, Bestial Alignment, Frenzied Swipes, Bloodrage (? the 5min pet buff one), Savage Rage, Swarm pets...hmm I feel like I'm missing some here. I just hit them two or three at a time over longer fights or all at once if I'm saving for a really big burn. Anyways, to sum it up I feel like I've done all the obvious things to improve my DPS besides the gear gap I feel I'm way way short of where I should be on the parses, yet I just can't see where to improve it. I know Beastlords are parsing right behind monks and and wizzys in the top 3 DPS on raids. There has to be some secret I don't know! Thanks guys~
On gear the weapons matter greatly for dps, which is true for all the melee dps types. The difference between group and raid is likely larger than you think. The rest of the gear is helpful too, with the heroic stats and the focuses mattering the most. Group makeup matters for your dps. Shaman matters. Bard matters. Berserker matters. All of them together matter more than one of them alone. Also, just having them in the group doesn't help...they need to be doing the right things at the right time to improve your dps. Also remember that you matter to them as well...use fury at the right time. My guess is you are getting the leftover group assignments because others are more capable of dps than you at this time. Group bestial alignment overwrites bestial alignment, so order matters on that one. You could kill your own burn. If there's more than one beastlord in the group, don't use group BA at all...you can kill his burn too. As for parses, they mean NOTHING if you don't also quote the duration of the parse and the group makeup of those being compared. (Usually both of those get left out and it's just someone boasting about nothing.) Wizards and Berserkers will always do wonderful on a 60-second parse, but the 10-minute fight would be another story. Beastlords tend to do better on longer fights.
What's you attack and str/heroic strength at? Do you have an up to date magelo and we could take a look? Personally I use our 4 nukes plus feralgia at the start only casting feralgia again after all spells and spamming discs are on cool down. Zerkers and rogues are generally in front of us too. You don't have to say if you don't want to but what's your average dps burned and sustained?
You should normally have FIVE nukes loaded, and you should be capable of casting them in a non-stop weave, mana permitting...this is how we burn mana like the devil now: Frozen Carbonate Nak's Maelstrom Pontaars Bite Kromrif Lance Frostrif Lance (previous cold nuke is on a different timer....we really have TWO cold nukes lines, even if we only get one of them per expansion). You do have the type 3 augs for all of those, right?
@Rikantiz, No magelo atm, I should get one that might help others help me. But my stats with absolutely no buffs or tribute: attack: 2837 | Str: 564 (aka my cap) | HStr: 221 | Dex: 555 | HDex: 219... as for my parse on raids like 40k which could be way off idk. I don't usually have my own parse up lately, I've only been watching what others post and I never make the list. I'll have mine running tonight after I make the changes I learn today and have better numbers for ya. This one BST I hear about has been constantly a head of the zerkers and rogues, which is why I'm wondering if BST are truly 3rd best DPS class why I can't get a little closer to that. @Izcurly, Ty for the nuke list, I do have the type 3's for the ones I've been using I'll get the rest for sure. yes I know the shammy, bards, and zerkers help and when I was in that group I did do better for sure. I know their are tons of flaws with parses. But regardless I don't FEEL like I'm doing as much DPS as I should lol the numbers I see scrolling by be look pretty weak. Like I hit for 25k ball park and I think that's a good hit. Then a monk says they hit for over a million...lol. So anyways I think I can polish up my nuke rotation, I did know about the group bestial and bestial over-writing thing. I rarely have another BST in my group cuz they like to spread us out but that's a good point about not killing his burn. Do you guys know about a program that works like audio triggers but in an overlay. like 'such and such buff fades' and it flashes an image across my screen. I know that I'm wasting dps and mana if I cast feralgia to often. But the damn buff symbol looks like half a dozen other buffs during a raid.
http://gambosoft.com/ I use a UI that shows buffs by their text names all the time, not just when you hover your cursor over an icon, so buffs on myself aren't a problem. I do use a few normal audio alerts for stuff wearing off my pet, as well as things like slow landing, mobs being slow immune, invis wearing off (still needed for IVU potions), spells fizzling, and a some other things that can be hard to pick out of the spam by eye.
Ok, work on your planar str and if possible swap out augs for hstr ones even if it means giving up ac augs. This was advice given to me when I started out at 100 and honestly, doing all that almost doubled my sustained.
>This was advice given to me when I started out at 100 and honestly, doing all that almost doubled my sustained. You must have changed a lot of other things as well, since hSTR has a very minor impact. Regular STR cap increases have even less of an impact (they are identical to small boosts in attack).
Not particularly Khauruk, since the upgrades I made in Str and HStr through planar and augs I've only had 2 major gear changes (cloak and belt) my rotation hasn't changed much apart from taking dots out my lineup. Perhaps both coupled together it's made the big jump. If I had my parses from before I'd happily post them to show the proof but enough upgrades to str and hstr has definately made a marked improvement. Edit: just to help, I had like 6 points in planar strength and 0 hstr augs before I started. I have 37 in it and a few augs to boot now.
So, if my recollection doesn't fail me, each 5 points of STR cap raise are about 4ATK. This is an unparseably low increase years ago, and even less so now when players are routinely hitting 5k+ attack. Even multiplied by 37, this will be a very tiny portion of bst melee increase, and obviously won't affect pet or spell dps. Each 10 points of heroic Str adds 1 point of damage on every melee hit iirc (maybe it's 15 points to STR to 1 point of damage bonus). If you use cultural armor, you can stack cultural raid augs w/ a cleave focus that adds 25 points of damage per hit (i.e. each one is effectively 250 hSTR). When monks stack 5 of these augs on their gear, adding an effective 1250 heroic strength, they still only get a few % boost to their non-burn dps (and less when burning). Monks are of course a melee-heavy very fast hitting class, and should get the most benefit from this setup. Any gains that a beastlord would see would be less than a monk. When hDex was nerfed, players cried big crocodile tears, and then a zerker parsed the actual impact and it was still only a couple hundred dps. Keep in mind that hSTR was significantly less of a dps boost than hDex. None of these are direct parse numbers for beastlords, but they do make an effective test of the idea. Effective enough to make me deny any possibility to your claim that your sustained almost doubled. They would have had to approx. triple your melee dps to double your overall sustained. On the contrary, I doubt you gained more than 400 to 500 dps sustained from these changes. The dps figures beastlords have seen for the past several expansions combined w/ the low dps boosts from hSTR makes me recommend hDex even post-nerf for the defensive gains it gives. Congratulations on the dps gains, and whatever you did to get them, but that's not why.
Hm, I stand corrected Khauruk, guess there must be something else in the mix that I've missed. Thanks for the clarification actually it's really insightful.
Don't forget the chameleon strike . Frozen Carbonate is quite expensive, I try to cast it only when I have a free cast via mana gift. Having 1 dot is reasonable for when you are on your way up to melee you can cast it on the way for free and for when you need to pull with an instant cast spell, it can be handy.
Here's a good mockup on what to do: https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/beastlord-dps-rotation.205148/#post-3014079
This. The truth is DoTs have stagnated for many classes. I find it utterly hilarious when I find Enchanters at the top end that still use our DOTs. And when I pointed out the flaws of this I was told: "I'll forgive you on the basis that your an enchanter and we don't know how to DPS" This is laughable. When it comes to DPS. It isn't difficult to determine DPS. X = spells base damage X / (cast time) = base spell DPS And when you factor in Crits the choice becomes painfully obvious. Factor in Twincast and disciplines that increase Crit % and Crit damage.. And you get the answer. But don't take my word for it. I can sustain 22.3k DPS and burn for 65k DPS. And my gear is a little dated.. And I'm an enchanter... Same principle applies, however
The math is simple, 3 beastlord dots fully ramped and doing good critical damage=1800 dps. That's total for all three. Casting 5 nukes in a rotation =9-12k dps. (even with group gear focuses you be getting upwards of 7-9k) Yet people tell me I'm wrong about dots and I have a thing against them. Numbers don't lie and dots are absolute garbage. Recnarp will tell you that I spend far to much time in front of a combat dummie trying to squeeze out as much dps possible. Up to this point I have squeezed out a 190k burn and sustain between 50-60 k depending on deaths and a few other variables. As far as it being a good pull tool? It has it merits I gues, however I find it can put to MoB into summon mode (not always). I found pulling with incapacitate much more useful. It costs nothing and I don't have to slow the MoB as lose out on the repost dps. Bottom line...dots are undeniably terrible.
It would be nice if they could do something about how bad hybrid and other non necro dots are. With how many spells there are now and how limited the debuff cap is as well as the limitations on spell gem availability it is rather sad how badly these dots perform. Dots don't play well with the group game in general so you can't really even make a case for them there. They had the right idea with the ranger line swarm of bees but failed to deliver meaningful upgrades. They should really look into slightly more mana intense spells that have the big boom of the nuke and autocast the dot. This would give the benefit of front loaded dps while also applying the overtime damage you could still have the spells available to cast separately etc. otherwise they are just continuing spell and aa lines for no reason outside of soloing and even then the spell gem restrictions usually rule out the use of dots.
From a raid viewpoint, I would rather not see dots upgraded, at least for beastlords. There are plenty of spell lines already that almost monopolize the full range of spell timers, so there's little to no need. There's no debuff space on the mobs so there's reason not to have them. There aren't the AA lines available to make them excel. SK's would be another matter, as dots are a bit more fundamental to their dps. I'd like to see it a really solid 3-4 tick dot on rangers or two, something more mana-efficient than Summer's to use when mobs like a bit longer. Etcetera.
