Does beastlord molo better than mage?

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Tinolien, Mar 28, 2019.

  1. Gio-Cefalu Augur

    For whatever it's worth, I have a 110 SK, 110 Mage, and 110 BL. Now, I'm only interested in the group game and never raid. I have never had raid gear or experience. I generally 3 box, but have tried each of these solo/molo in some capacity.

    DPS:
    -Mage will win here for single target DPS.
    -The BL will come in 2nd for single target DPS.
    -The SK has an advantage when tanking a lot of light blues because of all of the ripostes and return kicks. You can round up 5 light blue weak mobs, grab aggro, DoT each of them, and cycle between each of them doing a little dps along the way. It's not great DPS at all in my opinion though. It really works better when the SK has a wizzie, druid, or mage dropping AoE rain spells on that same group. That's when it works really well. If you switch to 2Hander, you can increase DPS at the expense of a sizable drop in AC and mitigation with weapon stance. I'd really only do this if someone else in group were tanking.

    Best Pet:
    -SK pet isn't half bad, but it would never tank, and there's no EM item for an SK. His pet really acts more like a DoT where you send him on a mob and let him slowly attack it.
    -The Mage pet has the best stats, especially the Earth pet, which can mitigate a lot of damage with higher AC and HPs. The Air pet is my favorite though. It tanks well via avoidance (instead of high AC), and it has a stun, so the stun can often reduce the amount of incoming damage anyway. There may be specific encounters where Earth is better than Air, and vice versa, depending on the encounter.
    -The BL pet probably has worse stats than the Mage pets, but they have either an offensive buff or a defensive buff, depending on whether you want DPS down weak mobs or tank a named mob. There's also the fact that the beastlord can slow mobs, and the BL has much better pet heals. I'll usually use a pet HoT and a pet big heal, but the big heal has a cooldown, but you can use the big pet heal from a lower level version so you can basically alternate those 2 big heals if the pet is really taking a beating. There are a plethora of other really cool buffs BL's can give their pets (Mage's get some of the same types of buffs). There's also haste for both yourself and the pet. The BL pet also gets Hobble of Spirits AA, which will proc snare on the mob, and this is really handy to prevent them from running. Only the Earth pet for the mage will get something like this by rooting the mob.

    Other points to consider:
    -Mage has some cool tricks like CotH, but that's not really useful if you're only looking for molo play.
    -BL has FD, which can help with pulling. There's a Feralgia or "Of the Moon" line of spells where you cast a bunch of little pets against a mob, but it doesn't put any aggro against you. If you have a pack of mobs, you can send in the little mobs to distract one of them. The mob will be busy wailing away on them, and the other mob will come running towards you. When there is good separation, you FD. The little mobs die off, and you have no aggro from that first mob now. Then, just stand up and sick the pet on the closer mob, and you've just split the mobs.
    -BL has the option of going with a DPS merc or a healer merc. If you feel like your heals are keeping the pet alive, you can switch to DPS merc for faster kills. I have found the mage really needs a healer merc. The mage heals alone probably won't keep the pet alive that well, and even if you do, you seriously sacrifice DPS to do that. Other mages don't even use a healer merc and just solo, so they may just be more skilled than me; your mileage may vary.

    Playstyle:
    Like others have said, it depends on how you want to play. The Mage is sit back and nuke. The BL is much, much, busier. You can still choose to sit back and nuke if you want, but you can also get in and melee for extra DPS, and you can take a hit or two more than the mage, but I wouldn't ever plan on "tanking" mobs.

    I know so many mages who tear things up, prefer the playstyle, and solo named mobs for breakfast. Personally, if I could only pick one, I'd go with the BL, but that's just me.

    That's my $0.02.
    Skewert, Spellfire, Damezza and 2 others like this.
  2. Yimin Augur

    I told you both can be a success , but they are different !

    YiMin
  3. Buds Augur

    I think. BL is much better, much better for mold/solo. FD alone is enough to make it no contest. You can pull properly and if it gets hairy, you can fd and just make another pet or use it to get aggro off of you. Pets are pretty much even after buffs and mage gear, heals are much better for beast and slow. Beasts can tank a lot better than mages, if they pull aggro and less downtime due to mana. I can solo with my BL and not even need a merc sometimes. I haven't played in about a year or so, but don't think it's changed that much. Beasts just have too many tools, the slightly lower dps doesn't hurt as much as the lack of utility for mages. Now boxing a mag with a BL is really really good, two,pets is the bomb!!
  4. BadPallyGuildLeader Augur

    My mage out perform a BST everyday and twice on Sunday. No offense to BST brosefs out there but...just gotta be real :D

    I have 4 110 mages and..well, I feel a little dirty rich at times :D
  5. Mazame Augur

    As it been said many times in this post Bst and Mages are not the same. One person will say bst is better other will say mage.

    As for pulling i seen bst pull and mages pull. Mage has Coth and bst have FD both are diffrent but can be used for pulling and make it effective.

    What it comes down to is play style. The more time you spend with one class and based on how your play style is will depend what class your able to do better at.

    I seen mages that I been impressed by and I seen mages that SUCK. The same can be said about bst.

    The only thing that everyone can agree on is that THEY ARE DIFFERENT. For every story that you post where X class is better for X reason I can post one that show other wise. you can not compare the two.

    Both will let you get stuff done if you learn how to play them but you need to ask your self what play style are you looking for.
  6. BadPallyGuildLeader Augur

    But my swarm pet is capable of stuff that is amazing. But I can't tell you what because I don't want to see mages nerfed.
  7. Desean-Xeg New Member

    You aren’t getting mages nerfed. Swarm pets (like everyone else) are supremely OP in past content. The reason for this is because they have to be able to tank current content which has dramatically higher DPS than older content. In current content you are supposed to be able to effectively hold a single mob with swarm pets or less effectively hold 2 (sometimes one will die before recast). In current content you can’t effectively hold a namer with swarm pets but you can do it for a short duration to get a pet back up. You can use 2 mages to effectively swarm pet a namer. In past content you’re going to be able to hold multiples of trash with each swarm pet & be able to effectively tank a namer by chaining swarm pets.
  8. Damezza Augur

    Even without slow?
  9. BadPallyGuildLeader Augur

    Look at the target's target window for a mage and you see a wonderful happening....you see aggro bouncing around between swarm pets and occasionally to the pets themselves. Slow doesn't matter when the damage is being distributed so widely and is so unfocused from the mob's perspective.
  10. BadPallyGuildLeader Augur

    Exactly, with 2+ mages the swarm pets do some stuff this is pretty cool :D
  11. smash Augur

    I would not mind if the dps for beastlords and their warders being upped a bit, however it should not be something easy given, but when a person really play the char to the max.

    Also, if you look at the 2 type of classes, the magician is the easy class to play, compared to the beastlord, I have both a beastlords and a magician, but top equipped, and well the magician is the boring class to play, and also the easy of those to reach the top dps of the class, it requires a lot more of the beastlord.

    I enjoy the beastlords a lot more than the magician.
  12. Sancus Augur

    If that were true, these forums would've erupted about Elemental Union much earlier and to a much greater degree than they did. I could count on one hand the number of Mages who are close to the top dps of the class.

    To be good DPS? For sure, Beastlords require more. Top of any class is a significant effort, though.
    Brohg and Tolzol like this.
  13. BadPallyGuildLeader Augur

    Actually thanks to Sancus and others who freely give advice regarding the mage class, it's quite exciting, tremendous dps, incredible exp gain potential... etc. If it's "boring" per se its because mastered well versus content it seems like the E in the PvE doesn't stand a chance against well played mage(s). There's alot of class where at the end of the day no matter how good you are, you are still low of mana, limited to what you can tank, etc, etc....
  14. Cicelee Augur

    All a magician had to do to be best DPS is hit their /pet attack hotkey and cast Dicho/Diss every minute. C'mon Sancus even you know that is easy peasy!
    IblisTheMage likes this.
  15. IblisTheMage Augur

    And modrods. And click epic 2.0.
  16. Drogba Augur

    totally agree with the overall point of not say, building a box group around having an sk pet tank (or shaman pet for that matter), because they are weak.

    Though i find when i have a static camp in TBL, and am needing to play puller, that using the pet as the tank means faster killing, because i am free to chainpull. Need to disc on him for named, and have sufficient dps, and ideally a real healer (he is technically usable as a tank on current content in other words, i use him like that when it seems most practical. or toggle his taunt on for the last mob or two, before running off to pull)

    There's a niche there depending on the group. (Was using him as the MT half the time in Mearatas the other day)
    Brohg, Skewert and Yendar like this.
  17. Yendar Augur

    Drogbone tanked the ampitheatre trial bosses no problem we didn’t have a 2nd tank for the kill them within a minute.
    Brohg and Drogba like this.
  18. Redwinger_Xev Lorekeeper

    I box a Bst . Mag, Bard, War. I find it so much easier to use the bst pet as main tank and let others dps. The reason is not because the bst is a better tanker, its because I can control the healer so much easier. If you do not have a real healer in the group and must rely on Mercs. Then having a Bst is very helpful as he can be a cleric to his pet basically.

    I leave the bst pet on defensive most of the time and let the others dps. It is amazing how good the warrior is now dpsing and he is only about 16k aa. He can off tank well but again i cant keep him healed like i can my pet. Same with Mage pet, I send him in to dps and leave his taunt off.

    If i get multiple mobs i send in bst pet in and attack one after another till he gets all agro first while healing it. Then send in the dps ! can also use the bard to cc if it gets bad
  19. Fian Augur

    I have a 110 bst, and only a 55 mage, so my experience is basically bst only. Let's talk about the bane of molo play - adds. As a bst, I have the ability to send in a separate swarm pet against a second target, but I am normally sweating bullets while I have 2 in camp. I don't know about mage's ability to handle adds, but for MOLO play that is definitely something you want to consider.

    Playing a bst, I am always worried about my pet dying, as I have to find more pet gear to equip it. Mages wouldn't have that concern - easy enough to summon more gear and equip another pet.

    Bst do have great burst dps, so if I get adds, I can usually burn one down quickly. But then it is another 15 min before I can do another full burn.
    Skewert likes this.
  20. Bumkus Elder

    I play a 110 BST main and I have an undergeared Mage alt that I PL'd with the BST to summon pet armor. This makes me uniquely qualified to say that BST is better than mage in all ways. Well, all ways except armor ornamentation. Seriously, will they ever make leather ornamentation that looks good on an Ogre?