Beastlord's need rampage mitigation

Discussion in 'Hybrid' started by Fian, Nov 2, 2020.

  1. Fian Augur

    Tried out Velk's raid with my beastlord and he was "one-shotted" by the main boss's wild rampage. Wild rampage consists of 4 hits that can be over 150k for a bst, and the minor hits are for 50k+. So two 150k hitters and two 50k equals 400k damage, and my just under 350k bst is automatically dead.

    It isn't like bst is the only class that has a problem with this velk raid, as other melee were dying beside me, however bst probably do have the lowest AC of any of the melee class, as we wear leather. The only other leather melee are monks, and they are actually part tanks, so they are probably the most durable of all the melee classes.

    Let me clear. I am not asking for an overall boost of beastlord defenses. Their pet does most of the work, and it is balanced by a weaker self defense. However, in a raid situation, the pet isn't tanking, and it puts the bst class at a disadvantage when it comes to rampage. I am looking for some new ability that gives bst partial protection against rampage damage. To be honest, most of the time we aren't running disc, so a long running disc would be one way of lessening the damage.
  2. Thoxsel Djess' Pet Warrior

    Max melee range is your guardian angel and begging for a friendly cleric to di you.

    I agree that the wild rampage damage has gotten a bit silly but I guess also entirely without it, it would simply be too easy and the devs want a death here or there.

    Most melee would love some type of extra mitigation for ramp. Haven't checked all the new raids yet to see what we have in store in the new expansion...
  3. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Wild Rampage that is really high usually means you shouldn't be meleeing a boss at all, and most Wild Rampage has a "sweet spot" if it is intended to be meleed and if you miss it it will hurt rather than kill you flat out dead which is usually right where the pets are meleeing at.

    Personally I always felt that wild rampage was a bit of a lazy way to increase healing demands and plenty of times the "sweet spot" is such a fine thin line between death & being able to melee it is almost not worth it anyway & so you end up jousting in & out & hoping not to catch a full round of wild ramp in the face more than looking for that tiny region you can hang out in.

    Most melee have some way to mitigate melee damage that isn't on a mainline disc timer so some events are meant to force the use of those, items such as blood drinker's coating can help take some of the sting out, but full-damage wild rampage is a nasty thing to navigate well even for skilled players & any class that isn't a tank is going to suffer plenty of deaths contending with it, Beastlords may well have lower ac than Rogues & Berserkers, while Monks have higher avoidance but all of them will splat in one round just as fast in the kind of rampage you're talking about here so that slight edge in AC is all but negligible & will be nowhere near enough to save them.

    I don't think the answer is wild rampage mitigation, it's having a sweet-spot which requires reasonable skill but not Russian-Gymnast levels of skill to hit, the rampage being painful but not one-round instagib or there clearly not being a sweet spot at all because melee is not what the design is set up for.
    Periodic wild rampage with some small advance warning so you have to pay attention but aren't merely playing Russian-roulette with the game of "find the 1 inch of space that avoids the spinning chainsaw of death" is something I would far prefer.
  4. Zunar Augur

    I agree on the AE ramp on velks is too much.
    In the past we had raids where healing through AE ramp was a thing.
    This one is entirely avoidable by staying in max melee.
    Issue is when the boss gets moved even the slightest it can mean insta death to some.
    And staying at max melee is annoying to me, personally, not challenging.
  5. Lifeshriek Augur

    Other than max melee, unless you are doing this already, I would recommend that when you are fighting the Velks boss, lead with Protective Spirit and when that is about to fade hit Armor of Experience (pretty sure everyone has that now at this point) and then once this is done hit your Protective Spirit again and then hit your Blood Drinker's Coating and your other defensive stuff and then pretty much hit Protective Spirit on refresh. The defensive glyph can be nice there after the 2nd Protective Spirit if you have the extra AA for it if you think you need it as well. It's definitely not a perfect method, but using your defensive stuff spread out like this may help you live longer on this one. Hope that helps, don't forget pet defense stuff either.
    Xyroff-cazic. likes this.
  6. Monkman Augur

    Dragon Glyph on Bledrek, you won’t feel a thing.
  7. Fian Augur

    I was playing with max melee, and it is so razor thin, if it exists at all. If that is the solution that they want, they need to make that a little easier for melee to find. I don't know if it varies between classes. Maybe the sweet spot is easier for a 2h weapon to find and less for h2h? Some comments on solutions proposed in this thread:
    • Protective Spirit - This would definitely work, but it is a short duration disc (with something like a 3 min refresh). It would allow some melee of boss, but most of the time it would not be up.
    • Blood Drinker's Coating - This wouldn't help at all, as I am getting one rounded. If I can survive a round, then there are options to get healed before the next rampage.
    • Armor of Experience - This really isn't a viable option for a boss fight that is going to last at least 20 minutes. For one thing, it has like a 24 hour refresh.
    • Dragon Glyph - sure it would work, although can't keep it up all the time. IMO, Dragon Glyph is a viable strategy for a set point in a raid, not something that you need to keep popping multiple times in a raid.
    Skuz likes this.
  8. Monkman Augur

    You only need dragon glyph during bledrek, I guess if your guild kills the tentacles each time they spawn it may not last the whole fight but we just burn him to 35% then take out the tentacles so mine lasts long enough to kill bledrek
  9. Iribabh Augur

    There is a "perfect" sweet spot you can stand but it's so small it might as well not exist. As others have said sometimes you have to joust a bit in and out (meaning you're losing attack rounds because Beastlords have insanely low delay).

    Other things to not forget because they'll definitely help:
    -Companion's Shielding
    -Protection of the Warder

    Protective Spirit has 18sec uptime, 2min reuse so it's not always avail for sure. The other two I listed above are 10 and 14min reuse so they're useful basically once also.

    Generally the way I run that fight is once we're in on Bled, I start with PSD, then once it's down pop Shielding + PotW (watch your pet here it can die fast). Be ready with Warder's Gift also. 2.5min reuse and it's a pretty huge heal on you, just make sure you won't kill your pet doing it. If I take a particularly nasty round I'll step back until the splash hits and then step back in. Once Bled Enraged pops I hit my dragon glyph, let the burns fly. I generally forget about Armor of Exp, but I'd prolly use it on the first version of Bled since I'm generally holding my glyph for the end.

    All of that said - I agree wild ramp is pretty nasty and could use adjustment or Beasts could use a bit more ramp mitigation. Even with 414k hp I can get rounded by Velks wild ramp as a beast if none of the stuff above is running. Blood Drinkers / Gift can be helpful but only if you somehow manage to sneak in just enough in the middle of his ramp round that it purples you instead of outright splatting.

    I would also be all for an overall boost in beastlord defensive skills. Sure our pets can do most of the heavy lifting most of the time, but there are plenty of times when mobs have the anti-pet tank mechanic built in and I'm the tank. Monkey Spirit feels pretty useless at this point, maybe a bump to that and a redux in cooldown?
  10. minimind The Village Idiot

    This is my preference as well.

    Relying on "the sweet spot" inevitably means managing lag (computer and network) in addition to the push/pull of a battle. That's an issue for more than a few fellow raiders in my casual raid org.

    I find it a much more enjoyable experience winning because we took appropriate deliberate actions (AE Ramp incoming ! !) than having raiders die taking a jump to the left instead of a step to the right.
    Skuz likes this.
  11. Gaarbage Journeyman

    Along with the other recommendations, a few other items to implement to prevent getting one rounded:

    Runes: If you can't get anything from an enchanter, Diplomatic Papers and Mom's Love clickies.
    Stat Food: Get the latest and greatest expansion food to boost HP and AC a little. Velious Surf and Turf Stew & Blood of Velious
    Powersource: Utilize the Velium Protector Source
    Augs: Could swap in the type 5 Defense Augs (if they work on Rampage?)
    Monkey Discipline for dodge as well as Stone of Judgement for 10% dodge
    Alaris Tear: Maxing out tear gives 10 points to defense.
    Pet Defensive/Fortify Companion/Pet Runes: to aid with Companions Shielding AA, plus helps keep pet alive.
    Tribute: Along with AC/HP trophies, Second Chance will act as DI.
    Shield: Can always toss a shield in offhand, better off alive with low dps than dead with no dps. (same for range fighting)

    Maxxed out gear and AA you can be near 450k and negative 15000 hp buffer with delay death AA.
    Iribabh likes this.
  12. Moege Augur

    All of this advice is good and well for a server that does not lag. even the slightest bit of lag nullifies all of the advice as the boss is not where you see him on your screen.
  13. Szilent Augur

    Wiggly bosses are the raid's fault, not a fact of life. Check your logs for enc Polynukes, PoTime Pestilence Shock procs, and the wrong bard Insults.
    Jennre, Cadira and Maedhros like this.
  14. Maedhros High King

    Wild rampage on this raid has killed my paladin, who has considerably higher ac and hp than you do.
    Find the sweet spot to melee if possible.
    Pro-tip, once you die, you are going to have to hang back out of rampage and ask for rebuffs and maybe let rez effects run its course or you're just going to spend most of the event dead.

    All that being said, I actually started to play my necro and ranger alts again on open raids partially because I was so tired of being dead on my melee alts on this raid and to a lesser degree Derakor because of rampage. Rampage roulette sucks for all classes, beastlord is by no means the only one.
    Skuz likes this.
  15. Cadira Augur

    And Call of sky!
    Skuz and Szilent like this.
  16. Tenken Augur

    Curious, if the next upgrade of [Pact of the wurine] AA (going to assume the expansion after CoV) if it would be possible to add an effect to the [Pact of the wurine form(illusion buff)] to add an effect that turns [Gelid Claws] to something like [Blood Claws] which would be a lifedraw proc with the 71.5% return? Would be more in line with more survivability over just more defense to the beastlord class for things such as rampage.
  17. Moak The Most High

    Easiest thing to do is to send pet in and then move to where the pet is while meleeing in the velk's raid. You may get hit when the mob moves but if you pay attention and keep adjusting you actually can survive it. If you still die consistently maybe its a gear issue? depending on which power source i put in , i tend to have 430-470k hps when raid buffed. If you are low 300kish hps on that raid, you might want to work on heroic aas and gear.
  18. Cuuthbert Augur

    Doesn't everyone, it is not just a beastlord thing