In Spiritual Stance, there are a set of combat arts that heal: Advantages slots 1 and 4, and Primal slots 1, 4, and 5 (and the rest if Primal Assault is active). Since all of them (except slot 5 primal) are combat arts, they can miss. If they miss, you do not heal. For all you healers out there, imagine if your heals sometimes just healed for 0, and that they all had 30 second recast times (after 100% reuse). In most zones it's not much of a problem unless I'm tanking (yes I do sometimes tank for groups if we can't find a normal tank), in which case the mob is facing me so there are additional chances to miss based on the mob's defensive stuff. In some zones, such as Fabled Sanctum of the Scaleborn, it seems to happen a lot even from behind the mob. It makes trying to heal a group rather frustrating, as I can't rely on my heals to reliably heal. I could be saving a big primal heal or two for the next big attack that I know is coming, then both miss and people die a few seconds later, as I watch helplessly. Is there any chance of seeing some sort of changes here, as I've heard beastlords are specifically being looked into soon? There are a lot of options that would help alleviate the problem: Make primals/advantages with healing components not avoidable. Make the healing portion go off even if the damage portion misses. Give a reduced re-cast time on primals if they do miss (similar to what happens if a spell is resisted).
Wait for the expac sadly. BL Changes inc for that, which Im hoping, deal with the hit rates on primals/advantages.
I'm pretty sure, that as an Inquisitor, if I miss my melee swing, then my heals that proc off of melee & CA hits don't happen. So what I'm hearing is that you can tank, do tier 1 dps, and heal a litle bit and you are complaining that your heals aren't as reliable as "other" healers. I bet your "taunts" aren't as reliable as "other" tanks either. How about we "fix" the beastlord by giving it taunts, reliable heals, rezzes, and death saves - oh and increase the DPS by a lot - you may be getting out DPSed by some classes. I forgot cures, you need those too. You could invite an actual healer to your group (or grab a healing merc) and your problem would be solved.
Does your 2 single tgt heals, single tgt reactive, group heal, or group reactive depend on your melee swing hitting or missing? An inquisitor or other melee healer can still perform their role as a healer with auto attack. A channeler's healing arrow can miss but they still have other tools to cover that miss. A beastlord trying to heal for a group doesn't have other options to heal if theirs miss. In order to heal they have to sacrifice dps, as it should be. Probably why you don't see a lot of beastlord running around, let alone many running a spiritual stance spec.
I guess I'm just confused. I didn't realize the Beastlord was meant to be the main healer for a group.
Well if they want to remove the heals completely and give more dps and cool 'game breaking' features you mentioned above that would great, but since that's unlikely the heals should be effective with current stat-inflation that the game has under-gone.
I think that IF Beastlords are to keep there healing, it needs to let then be a "Real 2nd healer" for a group. But i do not think for the health of the BL class and the health of the game this is a good idea. I think there healing should be a miner fetcher and the Power regen and group Buffing should be the main fetchers for Spiritual Stance.
I kind of think of spiritual stance as pinch hitting.You arent always going to need or play your pinch hitter. But, when you do you want them to be able to do their job. Currently, beastlords cant pinch hit effectively and this needs to be resolved.
It's hard for me to imagine a beastlord being taken seriously as a healer. At least with any of mine at high level. Assuming you're 95, I'd love to know how you get the heals up enough to be worth bringing into a group as a second healer. I saw someone complaining that beastlords can DPS, tank, and heal. Actually of those three, they can only really dps and if there's AoEs flying around which kill warders not even that. They can kinda sorta do other things just like other classes can kinda sorta do other things. But that's not what they're good at. If I had a choice between a beastlord tank and a real tank for my group, I'd take the real tank unless the real tank was in treasured and the beastlord in fabled.. A brigand tank would make as much sense. I'm inclined to agree with Sitzin. They just added another true healer class to the game. They don't need more. First, beastlords should always be good at dps. Then, utility should run along the lines mana gen and group/raid buffs. Things they already do. Just make them good enough that people will bring in a beastlord for their package of abilities. If my piddly heal fails to go off if I miss I wouldn't be too put out over it. If I'm unable to get into a group because people think I bring nothing other classes don't do better -- despite working hard to be as good as I can -- I will be greatly put out over it.
Nicely stated, Gil. I wasn't complaining that a BL can fill roles of DPS, tank, and healer; I was referring to the OPs request that his heals be beefed up so that he could be a healer. The OP said "It makes trying to heal a group rather frustrating, as I can't rely on my heals to reliably heal. I could be saving a big primal heal or two for the next big attack that I know is coming, then both miss and people die a few seconds later, as I watch helplessly." The situation he describes isn't a problem with the BL's heals, it is a failure of the group's healer (or perhaps of the level of gear/skill of the group, as a whole). I took his bragging about being able to tank as a misunderstanding that the REAL hero in that situation was the awesome healer he must have had in the group to keep him alive (not to mention DPS that knew to back off to not pull the aggro). I understand that finding tanks for groups is difficult. That is a problem of adding utility to fighters who are not in tanking stance so groups/raids have reasons to bring extra fighters - this would increase the number of people willing to play fighters even though they are not one of the guild's "go to" tanks. You are absolutely right that if your DPS and utility are such that people pass you over for other toons, then that is what needs to be addressed. Begging for improved heals (unless that is the utility you bring - I somehow doubt that is your defining ability) just increases the noise level and makes it harder for serious BLs to get the message across to SOE to make the balance changes that you really need. I've never seen a BL passed over for another class in a raid (we were happy to get any decent player who wanted to go regardless of toon - though we did encourage surplus tanks to create a DPS alt, Reckless isn't where it needs to be - except maybe for Guardians in single mob fights). I did have a friend who was doing quite well as a BL switch to a Wizzy to move up the DPS parse.
So much exaggeration in this thread it's sad. BL will never be a main healer. Asking that what little healing they do have not be a gamble, and it actually work when it's needed is a reasonable request. Hopefully all primal hit rates will be fixed when they take a pass at BLs, and this issue will sort itself.
LOL I see. I bet trying to heal a group as a beastlord would be VERY frustrating. I have no problem with non-priest classes with heals having severe limitations on those heals. From other posts it sounded like beastlords weren't the only non-priests with limitations on their heals. It's only fair to the priest classes. As for tanking. .When I was in a raid on my channeler I managed to keep a ranger up for tanking because we'd only brought one tank and needed two. We ,managed because it wasn't super difficult content. We made a lot of jokes about tanking rangers afterwards, but we also made sure to have enough real tanks on later raids.
