Whats done: Max level & AA, Gear/Augs, Progression COTF, TDS, TBM, & EOK this includes the challenger achievements, Epic 2.0, Artisans Prize, Eyes of Decay & Life Whats missing(that I am aware of): Prayer Shawl of the Duke(current project), Tears of Alaris(50% complete), & EOK Hunter(for last 3 Heroic AA) Are there any other key items missing that I did not list? I see several Beastlords using a Proc on cast aug in the ranged item. Does this aug stack with the Emblazoned belt? Is it worth adding to the list of things to do? Also for personal Tribute I am not 100% sure what I should be using. If anyone has done the testing and can give any advice in this area would be appreciated. Currently I am running, Flurry, Dex, Casting Speed, Casting Efficiency, & Nuke Dmg.
Aug in range slot does indeed add damage. It will proc on your spell casts, like your Hedgewizard potions. Those procs will be boosted by Boon of the Seeress, like any other proc. Your cast speed, cast efficiency, and nuke dmg tributes are doing nothing. Tributes are "worn" effects, so best-works on focuses. Your actual items are better. Flurry is good. You should run Accuracy also. Dex sounds like a waste - in the remaining three spots I'd do +AC, +HP, and Second Chance.
When you look at what the prayer shawl of the duke actually does, it's a non focusable buff that gives 35 damage a hit for 8 hits? Less? So that's 280 damage a proc, as long as you don't waste counters by doing it again before the next 8 hits (I'm pretty sure it's 8). If you crit, the crit still ends up only being 30 damage higher essentially. I enjoy the prospect of trying to do well, but you'd honestly be better off sitting for a bit in the hall and exploring the abilities that your class has than doing the shawl. If you find a better way to burn, or research better ways to work with other classes, that can yield 5k, 10k dps improvements. The shawl for now will only give maybe 100 dps. Dex is king for now, so if the 8 dex on the shawl could be replaced by a higher dex aug, then you'd be likely to be better off just replacing it with that one soon enough.I give it another expansion till end of life at best, unless heroic stats become less important. Maybe the caster one would be nice? But losing heroic dex for that on top of range slot seems a bit much, and the caster one only procs (from the buff to where you get mana etc..) off of your non-multi-nuke nukes. For example, if you proc the buff, and cast maelstrom, it won't apply to that nuke. Both of your weapon augs are lifetap augs, so if you group with a wizard often, those will not trigger mana burn. If you have a ton of wizards on raids and they mana burn a lot, consider using a non life tap proc aug. I get the advantages. Lifetap does add to survivability. I'm just stating the facts though, if you don't tend to need that, the other option may be the right choice. Or maybe even switching augs in and out a bit may be the right choice if you're a true min maxxer.
Spell damage? And Aug wise maybe look into Siren's Demise and Venomous Tear. Keep a bandolier set with lifetap ones for survivability.
I 100% assumed he would get the caster shawl aug. It would be … pretty silly … to do otherwise. If by a quirk of timing his next three spells don't use the +600 damage, the proc instead returns double mana, which is hella nice. Here's links to Venomous Tear and Siren's Demise. They're both +8 instead of Sigil of Thokk's +10, so there's that trade off to evaluate.
If you end up using dots a lot, ala ai`ele's indication, it doesn't do anything then. that can be 3 minutes of every 7.5 minutes or so. So you're only getting that mana bonus for a bit over half the time. So the caster shawl is losing value too as time goes on beyond just due to increasing mana pools. Instead, spend the time thinking about what you are doing when you burn. Research your abilities and learn how to do it better. The beastlord class has so many variables that even if you are the best beastlord in the game, there are at least 15 things that you could be doing better.
Not sure what it is for melee or if it's different but with bow +1 weapon dmg was equal to 117 dmg per hit not burn when I tested. Siren's demise as a ranger base critical is 4700 and can be increased to 6900. Throw in force proc AA and it's a nice straight burn increase. Beastlords I would imagine can get the same critical if not higher due to AAs. Plus cold/poison damage which fit nicely with a beast.
It does proc the buff off of dots (but will not trigger the end result on dots, so you have to wait for it to fade for 500 mana while chain casting dots), so you have that. If you use that version I don't think ill of it, but I'm going to make the strongest case I can against it, just so that the case is made. 1) beastlord mana economy is terrible. It's just unbelievable. The velocity that I go through mana makes 500 mana less than a drop in the bucket. If I use my weakest dot that would trigger vindication, it's usually about 3000 mana without glyph of lost secrets, and it's about 7k for the bigger dots as far as actual costs when you pay it. Because of this, I use glyph of lost secrets almost constantly, and generally between that, paragon, and bst cannibalize.. and sometimes mod rods.. I end up ok on mana. But at that point, I never hit a point on raids where I think "man if only I had the 4000 extra mana the shawl proc would have given me during this fight.". I would rather have the dex in cases like this. This may be the right choice for a grinding all day sort of aug. I end up oom when exp'ing for very long periods. But usually I'm doing that with other people, and their characters need a break too for whatever reason anyways. 2) because you can never use the buff, you have to hope that you don't get another one with instant cast dots while it is fading, or else it was a nothing proc. You could proc it every spell, and unless you wait 10 seconds between dots, or cast a weaker spell during vindication to get a lesser effect, it will do nothing while vindication is active. 3) you may end up trying to change your playstyle due to this gimmick. The issue here is that if you're really trying to get the most out of the class, you're probably already doing that to such an extent that it's unreasonable or even dangerous to do it more. It would be better to be watching for other things. There are several more valuable uses of your time than watching for this, and reacting to it in whatever way is appropriate at the time. Think about this. If Dichotomic is about to repop, and you get a 105 gift of mana, you can just not cast a spell until Dicho pops, use the gift of mana on dicho, and that's 4k mana. If you just set this and forget it I guess it's ok. But the moment you find yourself thinking "I'll wait 2 seconds so that I can guarantee that this fades before casting", you're falling into the trap. Focus on what's important, because there are so many things to focus on with bsts, it's insane.
Thank you for the advice and responses. The Prayer Shawl was one of the last items on my list because I knew it was a very very small increase. Fixed my Tribute this morning as well nice little increase in stats. I was just posting to make sure I have not overlooked any important items or upgrades. I gave up on EQ years ago because of the overwhelming amount of work that would be required to really get the most out of a character, I told myself this time I was going to finish.
You're welcome Chaosflux. Regazozo. Do yourself the ultimate favor, and realize that what makes the most powerful players is maybe 35% gear, and 65% effort and knowledge and execution of the player. I tried playing in group gear with previous expansion raid weapons for a while, and the difference between that and raid gear back in TBM was 30k dps. I went from between 90 and 110k dps in groups to being between 120 and 140k dps due to raid gear, and an expansion better weapons. I raided with this too, and no one in the raid force even noticed the difference. I guess they figured maybe I was just having an off day at worst. Sure keeping the augs is cheating a little I guess, but the point is still very valid. When you find people that really try as hard as they can to be the best at their class, what I'm saying will become so apparent to you. You'll see similarly geared people that almost seem like they're standing still in comparison. That's where the improvement lies. That's where arguably the heart of the game lies. Getting items means next to nothing. Getting motivation and ideas means everything.
I think you are assuming that I have not already put the effort into understand the class and its potential. I am pulling 140-180k overall parses in raids. My burns are upwards of 600-700k depending on group make up. I really am just looking to fine tune my character and finish up the last bits of power creep that I can. I understand what you are saying but I am already practicing it. At the end of a raid night my fingers hurts lmao.
Well, I mean to be fair, it is kind of silly, isn't it? A guy doing 140k minimum per night spending THAT LONG on probably less than 0.2% more dps. Also, I've found that you can always find something new. So while I'll say those are great numbers, I'll stand by what I've said. Never think you're "done" in that area. That's all. If you look, no matter how good you are, I promise you you can find something new mechanically in the game that will improve your dps.
