General question about Beastlords on EQUMU's

[sunbeam]

Okay, why do they suck so bad?

Look I will readily admit that many, many people know this game better than I do. But I have played it off and on for many years.

Something is not right with these guys on every emu I have played.

Stuff I think I know about them, at least circa PoP or so:

1) They were on the same melee damage tables as warriors, rangers, and maybe rogues and berserkers. I'm pretty sure monks were on one of their very own, much like warriors and mitigation.

2) I can't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure their weapon skills capped lower than monks. I'd really like to know if they had the same dual wield formula as monks, which was better than all the other dual wield classes.

3) Obviously the block/riposte caps for them were not as high as monks. But there wasn't, as far as I know any difference in how they mitigated damage that made it past dodge/block/riposte. And the fact that Beastlords had no worries about weight limits opened up a lot of gear for them, so they might have mitigated better. Although I'm also pretty sure that monks got a higher displayed AC from gear than any other class.

I'm pretty sure that any era I played a Beastlord in was after the monk mitigation nerf. But I can tell you from personal experience, at least if my memory isn't playing tricks on me, that they took hits as well as a Ranger with comparable AC.

So what's up? Am I wrong? Or does the EMU code have these guys implemented improperly as far as their defensive abilities?

Offensively and spellwise it is pretty much what you see on the tin. But they take hits like cloth casters here.

I'd also wager a guess that shamans for one mitigate better than Beastlords for comparable AC. Kind of hard to set up, with same displayed AC, and you'd have to parse, with all that entails. I can also tell you that any cleric I've played has lasted a lot longer in situations where a gaggle of greenies are pounding on him, even with selling out for wisdom gear.

So what exactly is up with these guys? If you google some old pages from the various Beastlord sites you often see accounts of how they tanked this and that in groups, or solo. I'm not talking about raid mobs and tricks like skins and tap tanking. I'm talking about being able to tank in a pinch, or even being the tank for an xp group.

[provocating]

Parsing is not hard, plenty of programs to do that. Just do some parsing with the exact same enemy, same level, AC. Find some spawn that is always a certain level with no variance and do multiple parses to get a baseline.

[kjempff99]

I haven't played a BL on any emu yet, but in pop/ldon era I played a top(ish) geared beastlord.
I recall tanking well in xp groups in some areas and poorly in others, for example Solro Tower worked well while BoT didn't. Overall I would say I tanked better than monks and about as good as a ranja with similar ac/hp.

I can think of several reasons why this might be:
1. I was Iksar and as I recall I compared with a naked kitty beastlord that meant 80 more ac.
2. Early 65% slow, mostly before a mob has even reached you, means alot less damage.
3. Beastlord defensive ability (3 min cooldown) used at the smartest times.
4. Pet procs interrupts, and also I usually had a mage summoned pack of weapon/haste/etc on the pet.. and always from the back.
5. Smart playing.. you can avoid a few hits by timing and staying at max range, backing off a few pct before it runs still having aggro but it beeing snared so others don't take hits.
6. Max defensive, evasive aa.
7. Real people (not boxed) with geared characters playing well.
8. Self buffs when no shammy in group.

All these things combined will make a huge difference, and I remember slightly worse geared beastlords (kitties) were not able to tank at all. I can't really remember my ac/hp, but it were close to similar geared monks .. dps wise monks still owned.