I have decided to retire my SK to play a Beastlord in the hopes to one day raid again with some old friends. I pose the question of this thread to the ambiguous reactions I've received, as I don't currently have an opinion of my own and not experiencing one at max level - yet. First I get, "Why the **** would you play a BST? They are beyond awful! Crap dps, subpar pet, etc." And a minute later I'm told "Nice decision! They are T2 EoK named slaying machines." Well, which is it? Are they bad, okay, or good/great? I'm too old now to have an ego about only playing flavor of the month classes to top dps charts so I don't care if BSTs are not there, but I certainly wouldn't mind being able to efficiently solo at max level if grouping is not available. Any insight is greatly appreciated. My BST is 87 and I've been having a blast.
My guess would be raid vs group being the difference in opinions. I dont play bst and tbh i never see/group with them lately.
I'm honestly not sure. If a Beastlord was subpar dps with a crap pet, wouldn't it be difficult soloing t2 nameds?
They aren't in a fantastic place DPS wise but they aren't as screwed as monks. To be fair most classes can molo or even solo T2 named, so that's a poor metric to judge overall balance around.
Thanks, I'm good with that assessment. I have fun with the class, so that's primarily a win for me. As long as they aren't gimped to the point of being not viable for soloing, groups, and raids, I'm ok with that.
Naw, as long as you like the class and don't mind being slightly behind other classes as far as dps goes they are ok. Takes alot of work, but they can get by.
Whole lot of parts to manage, but fabulous when it all comes together. High personal damage, highly in-demand group boosting Dicho, and in-demand raid boosting Paragons. But you have to manage melee, pet, dots, nukes, skill attacks, discs and AA to get there.
I'm not a min/max parsing machine or anything, but my beast does really good dps, some decent buffs and a slow. Pet is pretty sturdy and it's a fun class to play. I don't know about soloing t2 named, I've not tried it. I'm not in agreement that most classes could solo or molo them, but again I haven't tried,and I wouldn't believe that BL's are that far behind on dps.
Thank you for the input, I don't mind having to manage all of that stuff. I've been working on macros and GINA timers to create a little ease for all of the micro-managing.
Depends what classes you are comparing to, my boxed beast lord can't compete with ranger/zerker/mage/wizard in effort for return. Usually I trail anywhere from 25 to 50% behind those classes. Sometimes even less if the zerker is on his game. I routinely beat the rogue/monk I group with though. But I have no idea if they are hitting all the buttons in the right order or any of that sort of stuff so IDK. Figuring an end of night combined parse.
My beast is usually just a half step behind my Ranger, but to be fair I know and have played the Ranger much longer. Edit: It is a lot more button mashing tho.
I feel like beasts are fairly balanced. Yes we can molo tier 2 named, and a few other classes can I would guess. We aren't top tier dps but when we hit our burns we get by. There is a lot to know about the class, and I like that about it. Please no flavor of the month beastlord changes in the future, thanks! If you want to check out my UI or any other info from past videos feel free m8.
Whoops, I thought twitch would show up with that link. Here is a video of me moloing one of the goblin named down in Kor Sha Labs caves. Glart Fink is his name, he isn't really tough but he has a lot of HP. let me know if you have any questions about anything going on in this fight.
Thank you Duhbeast, I greatly appreciate it, and I'll check out the vids for sure. The one thing I'm working on is binding everything to hotkeys and macros so that there is zero clicking involved. I get paranoid about moving around while trying to click on hotbars. With all the advice given, I'm sure this will be an enjoyable switch for me.
You don't have to watch any other vids, I don't actually save a lot of vids, and they only hang around for a few weeks. Watch that one fight and let me know what you think or if you have any questions.
The beastlord class is all about button mashing, and with all the new stuff that has been added since I retired; I'm sure it's even worse. So, If button mashing isn't your thing, you should invest in a cheaper Naga or similar type of mouse/keyboard. You can have multiple set ups based on the situation. Once you're set up (ish) I'd hit the Arena or GH to tweak the settings. Once you get your synergies set, you'll be a monster (size of monster varies on gear). Even in group gear you'll be surprised at your capabilities. Beastlords are fun and are surprisingly efficient at almost everything they take on (player skill contributes to this as well, So I'd ask someone else besides Duhbeast for help ).
And here we have the specimen Stubar, the greatest beastlord of all time! On Klak level beastmode for sure.
After watching the video, my current playstyle seems to be pretty similar, my spell bar is very close to the same (despite not being 105 and having the same spells available). My question is it worth keeping DoTs up or just keep rotating nukes? Currently, I keep 3 nukes rolling with both the poison and disease DoTs, along with the swarm pets. The other spells on my bar are the heal, pet heal, slow, and savage ferocity. The major difference that I can see is that your pet keeps aggro like a boss. I have to use my de-aggro AA's on cooldown, and even then I'm still on top of the hate list getting mashed. I put summoned hate proc weapons on the pet too. I know that EM plays a big factor, but the best earring I could find for my level (87) is: http://items.eqresource.com/items.php?id=146996 Thank you for the responses.
Think about building in a possum hotkey followed with a /stand up to any combat line up you currently have. That particular hotkey should be set up at all times anyway if you plan on doing any raiding. It saved my big old ogre but many a time. On a side note, I promise not to troll you as it was suggested. I generally save those post for the bsts that rode in on the short bus.