AC and HP will come with gear. Base stats and ATK will come with base gear. The real question is : How do you Aug your gear? I've heard from one BL friend a while back that he was going for Spell Dmg, to take advantage of the number and firing rate of BL procs. I think that's a bit strange, but its what he was doing (haven't seen him in a year or so, so no idea if he'd still go that route today). I do not generally follow the BL class as a whole, so I do not know which of these two BL's tend to go for or which parses better for a BL, but I'd imagine that you would aug for either Heroic Strength, or Heroic Dexterity. HDex tends to be the better stat, as it boosts both offense and defense capabilities. I just do not know which parses better for BL's.
I say go with what YOU want to go with. Take it like D&D and play your toon the way YOU want to play it. The most important thing is to have FUN doing it. Now, that being said, there have been recent changes, and I'm sure someone has run the parses with all +DEX and all +STR to see the difference, and I'd wager there isn't more than 2% difference between the playstyles to warrent flipping a full toons gear over unless that 2% makes or breaks your ability to get into a group or not sit a raid out. EQ used to have this thing when I started out called RISK VS. REWARD. If you wanted something noteworthy you had to put in some time and effort, or place some risk on the table to try for the bigger prize. Lately it's been anything but that. So before you had to get 2 weapons, kill 2 named from 2 places to loot them. Then you needed weapon augs, so you needed 2 more kills to get those. Now, most people are using 2-handed weapons, so now you need 1 loot, and 1 weapon aug. RISK VS. REWARD? 1 weapon + 1 aug = 2 loots = more Damage than 2 weapons + 2 weapon aug. Twice the work, and now with less reward. Oh and the 2-handed weapons, they have higher stats than the signle handed weapons totaled together and typically an extra aug slot, you know, to boost them even more over using two single-handed weapons. In the same vain, go out and look for +8 heroic augs slot 7/8. Look at +DEX and look at +STR. There might be 30 +STR ones, but there are 45 +DEX ones. So if nothing else it's easier to pick and choose which ones you want to go after if you head down the DEX path. I'm sticking with the +STR but then I also stick with the two H2H weapon model also. Maybe I do a bit less damage, but as long as I'm having fun, we all stay alive and the mobs end up dead...no one's heard complaining about it and THAT to me is FUN!
Depends on playstyle. Would need to know alot more to answer this one. Do you raid? Do you use the bst to tank things? Do you spam nukes to keep em on constant cooldown? Which area are you mainly looking to gear up for? Dps or survivability?
[QUOTE Now, most people are using 2-handed weapons, so now you need 1 loot, and 1 weapon aug. RISK VS. REWARD? 1 weapon + 1 aug = 2 loots = more Damage than 2 weapons + 2 weapon aug. Twice the work, and now with less reward. Oh and the 2-handed weapons, they have higher stats than the signle handed weapons totaled together and typically an extra aug slot, you know, to boost them even more over using two single-handed weapons. ][/QUOTE] I was told Beastlords don't use 2HB. Stick with the one handers. Is this still true? [QUOTEDepends on playstyle. Would need to know alot more to answer this one. Do you raid? Do you use the bst to tank things? Do you spam nukes to keep em on constant cooldown? Which area are you mainly looking to gear up for? Dps or survivability? ][/QUOTE] No. I don't raid. The Pet tanks. I can tank in a pinch. DPS. And than you all for the feed back so far.
Heroic Dexterity will give you the added benefit of bonus defensive checks with no real downsides. I have no idea if Hstr will out parse Hdex for a Beastlord in a raid situation, but since you're group focused Hdex would seem to make the most sense.
I'd go with heroic dex then. AC and some extra atk wouldn't hurt as a close second. Get those type 5 augs with +40 Hstr but mainly focus on Hdex ones. Spell damage helps our dps some too and there are few augs that offer alot of it in EoK. Gearing too agressively for SD items though generally gets you a set of caster gear where you begin to lose Hdex and AC.
hdex around 2200 at 105 if you are casual. 2600 or so if you are a raider with hero aa's from progression. hstr is ok too. 2000 or there abouts for hstr is good. possibly a bit more with top gear.
H-dex and spell damage for sure. I wouldn't use serverwide as a benchmark in any way shape or form to find out what folks have for heroics, or what weapons to use, or anything for that matter. You'll get your most valuable information from these forums at this point of the game. The returns on H-Str where laughable at best back when I parsed it, however as I was exiting the game, I went heavy SD and I immediately noticed a difference. It most definitely wasn't a game changer though, although my thoughts were that every little bit helped.
