I'm considering returning and leveling up something new. I have a 95 druid that would be in the pocket. I was considering a Beastlord, but I was curious how strong they are these days? I'm also hearing that Enchanters are awesome right now, but I have to keep in mind that I only have a couple hours a night and it's hit or miss so I wont be reaching any end game content for a while probably.
If you're well enough versed on dealing with adds on the druid, I would say to use a beastlord (but really if it's with a druid I might recommend a magician as when you get higher level druids can help spell casters a lot - beastlords benefit from this but mages probably benefit more). I view enchanters as more capable of starting something with other people, but if you already have a solid group that has all the bases covered, a beastlord will allow you to do more dps in that group while still providing some support to the group. Other thoughts - a beastlord is hard to play to full potential while boxing. Mage/enc may be better in that area. If you were just playing one toon, I would recommend an enchanter if you end up soloing more (beastlord pulling abilities are just not that good.. it's a fun challenge but not fun if you want to exp quickly.. in groups if you try it you'll fail 70-80% of the time if you're attempting to split and when you succeed you're still fd so loss of dps.. also enchanters can tank better), but if you're already grouped with a solid puller and tank, beastlords can be a lot of fun.
I would agree that beastlords aren't the best box crew characters. There are a lot of buttons to mash, and a lot of different hybrid oriented options. If you are playing as a main, it's just easier to get max potential out of a beastlord. That said, we are in a pretty good spot overall. We lost a little dps since cotf, but we make up for it with adps and providing mana/endurance. The pet changes were pretty nice for a beastlord. Once they get the agro in order, we will be able to fight up close with our pet tanking. Once you meet the threshold of good enough gear/aa/augs to tank yourself, than you are in a great spot to molo content/named. There aren't a lot of beastlords out there but our numbers have been growing over the last few years, so there are a lot of secrets and little tricks that the oldschool beastlords know and use well. We are a unique class and that is part of what attracted me to the beastlord class so long ago.
Well my plan would be to primarily play the Beastlord (or whatever class) and make it my main later on down the road. I would honestly just use the Druid in the background for emergency heals and maybe a dot & snare.
It really comes down to the group makeup that you're levelling with as to which would be better. I think beastlords are a bit more specialized, and enchanters work very well in a more broad range of situations. But when in the right situation, a beastlord can add more to many groups than an enchanter could in the same situation. The best thing you could do is see if you can figure out a group of people that want to level up with you (this is revolutionary stuff here...) and then if you find a few guys that will do it, you can all decide on classes then. That can be fun.
BL/Druid is very easy to box. Everything on the druid can be macroed and sequenced so you spend 98% of the time controlling the BL. I actually run BL/Druid/Bard as one of my 3 boxes, great team and very easy to box.
I just reactivated my level 100 BL after about 1 1/2 years. I absolutely LOVE the fact I can melee now and have my pet tank. Had zero problems with aggro, even with my wizzy merc on burn. SOOOO much fun now!! Always hated not being able to melee a mob with my pet when so/moloing. Very very cool change!! I have like 8 other level 100 toons on different accounts, but I think I'll just play my BL for awhile casually. Maybe box in my mage, wizzy or bard now and then. Best change in years for pet classes!!
Oh and you can cast pet spells like heal etc,and they auto target the pet now, no need to switch off the mob!! Good time to be a BL if you ask me!!
