Pretty much as the title says. I've been either not playing (took a long break) or playing on progression servers (during classic era) for quite awhile now. I haven't really actually played much in the current era expansions since doing endgame SoD raids with my berserker. I stopped playing current expansions when Underfoot came out. I recently came back to the game and dug up my old characters. The game is so much different than I remember, and for the life of me I can't remember the hotkeys and best spell lineup to use. Can someone do me a favor and link a "must have" hotkey setup? This again is for a 82 beastlord who will be solo-ing or occasionally grouping (depending on luck finding groups). I prefer to have as much of my screen open as possible, so I'd like to limit it to two 10box hotkeys. Also, any recommended zones for leveling up 82-90, 90-95, 95-100, 100+ ?
I can't help you as a beast, but I do want to say that you shouldn't be embarrassed. It's okay to ask for help, even if you didn't take a break. The people who should be embarrassed are the ones who don't try to be better. Everyone can be better. With the disclaimer that I have never played a BST, I will try to help until someone who is more knowledgeable of the class than I am (which is not at all). Instead of just clicking pet attack, I use a hotkey /pet back /pet attack. This makes my pet back off and change targets, which is very useful when you are fighting more than one mob and need you pet to get aggro on both. For spells, your last used set should have been saved server side and still be there. If it is, just right click the little book at the bottom and save the spell set. Give it some name like old or something so you can reference back to it at a later time. You can right click on empty gems in your spell bar and see them sorted by type. I am sure you are going to want to have your slow up, some heals from the pet category and the non-pet category (I think pet heals are better but you need one loaded for yourself too), see if you have anything under debuffs, and some DoTs or nukes you like. Then switch out a few gems to see what you like. On your AA window, you can click on the bottom left drop down where it says can activate or passive. Select can activate and read the descriptions to see which ones you want to use and plan on when. You will definitely want a key for your FD and your pet FD. I believe by your level you have those. At 82 you will probably be in the HoT expansion, maybe feerot or the grounds, although if moloing Im not sure if that is too high. Remember the expansions are listed by order of their release if you look at the achievement window. You are also going to want to buy some cloudy potions in the PoK and some philter of unlife awerness in the bazaar as needed so you can get around easier.
No reason to be embarrassed this game can be very overwhelming to return to. I can't speak to Beastlords specifically, but when it comes to disciplines they are grouped into numbers. What you typically want to do is grab all of the max level abilities for each number. Next you will want to split out any discipline or activatable AA that has a low cooldown (usually like 2 minutes or less by may vary) and put all those onto one hot bar and make that hotbar all have a keybind for the same key. Usually people refer to this as a 'multibind' and you are generally going to want to be pressing that key repeatedly throughout combat. You may also want to google search for Heroic Beastlord guides as those will be centered around level 85 beastlords.
QFT. I do this regularly, when setting up a new (heroic) char. Open up all your hot bars, just make and place a hotkey for every activatable AA, and then once those are all out there, you can spend some time arranging them and getting them in the most useful hotbar spots. Another tip I'd share, not so much for your situation specifically, but for everyone leveling up, and who have auto-grant turned on. When you ding, you will see a bunch of lines in your log/chat window: [Sat Mar 15 15:17:12 2014] You have gained the ability "Innate Strength" at a cost of 0 ability points. [Sat Mar 15 15:17:12 2014] You have improved Innate Strength 2 at a cost of 0 ability points. The lines with "have improved" are for additional ranks of the AA after the first, and can be ignored. But for the lines with "have gained the ability", those are for new AAs for which your char has just unlocked rank 1. So, look through your log, and for every line with "have gained the ability", see if it's a "can activate" ability, and if it is, then make a new hotkey and drag it to your hotbars. I find this very useful, since for my first couple heroic chars, I missed several new abilities, and then had to go through ALL the activatable AAs (as described above), and see which ones I was missing. Very tedious. With this process, I avoid that.
I’m just returning after a long break as well, also to a bst. I found this in hybrid forums. https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/beastlord-raiding-guide.246364/ You will obviously have to use the appropriate skills and spells to your level but I used it to at least set up my hotkeys. Yet to test them out besides in pok though. Good luck
