When are we getting beastlords?

[pink grapefruit]

Luclin sucked because it introduced pvp safe zones, the bazaar, new models, horses, and fast travel. You know what didn't suck about it?

Beastlords, and shortie hybrids. Also the raids were pretty cool. Didn't clerics finally get bash?

Anyway. Now that they're in the final stages of testing the new green pvp teams server, isn't it about time we got some custom content? I'd love to play a beastlord, and a gnome SK! Beastlord class was super well thought out idk.

what ur thoughts

[Nuggie]

... I think maybe you should take a shot at TAKP. That's their goal. Nilbog said he would never.

[fastboy21]

Luclin sucked because it introduced pvp safe zones, the bazaar, new models, horses, and fast travel. You know what didn't suck about it?

Beastlords, and shortie hybrids. Also the raids were pretty cool. Didn't clerics finally get bash?

Anyway. Now that they're in the final stages of testing the new green pvp teams server, isn't it about time we got some custom content? I'd love to play a beastlord, and a gnome SK! Beastlord class was super well thought out idk.

what ur thoughts

I don't know if they got better, but BST used to suck on live imo. It was a fun idea (and kinda fun class to play I guess), but as a hybrid of monk/shaman they were left as neither as good dps (or utility) of the monk nor as good utility of the shaman. they had no niche.

The mass group buff paragon is the only thing I can remember them contributing eventually to raids, but I don't think they had in luclin (unsure of this).

[Plowyabeastlord]

I don't know if they got better, but BST used to suck on live imo. It was a fun idea (and kinda fun class to play I guess), but as a hybrid of monk/shaman they were left as neither as good dps (or utility) of the monk nor as good utility of the shaman. they had no niche.

The mass group buff paragon is the only thing I can remember them contributing eventually to raids, but I don't think they had in luclin (unsure of this).

I disagree. As a top 10 beastlord on live. I was always near the top 5 for dps. I could solo damn near anything that could be slowed. And tanked multiple times on raids but to each their own

[Cen]

In luclin era though? Beasts sucked in their initial era. They are better after they can feign and get the cold punches and stuff.

Also clerics don't bash till many expansions after luclin.

Shortie hybrids were good tho. Rangers became tremendously powerful. SKs as well.

[fastboy21]

I disagree. As a top 10 beastlord on live. I was always near the top 5 for dps. I could solo damn near anything that could be slowed. And tanked multiple times on raids but to each their own

Not disagreeing that they are a fun class, as you said to each their own.

But also as you say, even as one of the top ones on your server you weren't the best dps...you weren't the best tank...you weren't the best slower...you weren't the best stats buffer. what was the special niche of the class?

It just always struck me, for that reason, that they didn't fit well into the existing classes dynamic. Same thing when berserker came out. From what I understand they eventually fixed berserker and made them pretty much a straight dps class (which wasn't something the game really needed, but it at least gave them an on-par niche with other classes).

[Jimjam]

I'd love to see berserker. I am entertained how SoE backfilled the vanilla planes, kunark and velious with berserker only armours; by this time GOD and OOW were out and far better tradable armours were available that were more easily attained. I wonder if anyone ever actually wore the 'vanilla' planar berserker armour.

I'd love to see a progression server where these classes are in from day 1!

[Quizlop]

Also clerics don't bash till many expansions after luclin.


Wrong.

Cleric bash was towards the end of Luclin, about 1.5 months before PoP launch.

[jolanar]

Remove horses, spire travel, and /trader at the bazaar (it can still be the trader hub), and new models and I would personally love Luclin. It has so much more to do for non raiders than Velious.

[pink grapefruit]

Let the clerics bash, I always say :)

[Thermite]

Can't lie it be like sick as hell to have a beast on p99 but we will never travel to the moon to find cats....:(

Even though it was some of the best raid content ever!

[therealmd]

Paragon and their mana/hp regen line of spells was worth having them around.

[Zuranthium]

Beastlord as a concept is something that Rangers should have been able to do. The implementation of the class was dumb. They summoned a pet instead of going out into the wilds and taming one, and then they magically buffed up the animal such that it would do random magic attacks. Like, what? It makes no sense. A beastlord is not supposed to be He-Man or She-Ra, as fun and pretty as those characters and their animated cartoon transformations are.

The other random "unique" buffs the class got (in order to make them relevant for Raids) also made no sense. EQ designers had already even tried to do that with Rangers in Velious to make them relevant - a stackable attack buff to justify "needing" at least 1 of the class to be present for min/max purposes at a raid. Pay no mind that someone could just cast these buffs and then switch over to a different character...an inherent design flaw in having long-duration buffs with no downside in a game.

The class was basically a big hand-out for the casual player base, and took away from some of the uniqueness of the Mage class. Want a super powerful pet, with very efficient pet heals, some other general healing capability, and some slows, and some buffs, and SoW, and melee capability too? Okay, now you've got it! Pretty much every easy-to-use mechanic in the game, rolled into one class.

[Videri]

The class was basically a big hand-out for the casual player base, and took away from some of the uniqueness of the Mage class. Want a super powerful pet, with very efficient pet heals, some other general healing capability, and some slows, and some buffs, and SoW, and melee capability too? Okay, now you've got it! Pretty much every easy-to-use mechanic in the game, rolled into one class.

Hm!! Insightful points, as usual, Zuranthium. Perhaps the above reasons were why 14-year-old Tala was able to get a beastlord to level 23 (my highest level char back in the day). Beastlords have all the fundamental ingredients for making progress. I recently played a beastlord to 60 on TAKP and enjoyed it.

[Worry]

The devs of P99 HATE Luclin with a passion.

You'll never see any of the moon content on here.

A shame too, a lot better than Kunark.

[Insomnia]

Blue should progress to PoP and Green should stay at velious

[Halfcell]

Luclin was a really easy expansion to hate on back in the day when it dropped. I remember strongly disliking it.

Then I played on Agnarr, and I couldn't believe how much fun I had in Luclin. It was so much better than I remembered it being.

I would bet the devs here have not played Luclin since it was new. I wish they would go try it out again and see how it hits them now. You could remove horses and the /trader function and Luclin would be a great addition to P99. People would take to it fast imo, and it would improve server health.

[Orionsaight]

I have accepted beastlords. When luclin and especially pop came out, I became very against any change to EQ. But I think its possible.

[Swish2]

Not classic, not classic, not classic <3

[White_knight]

The class was basically a big hand-out for the casual player base, and took away from some of the uniqueness of the Mage class. Want a super powerful pet, with very efficient pet heals, some other general healing capability, and some slows, and some buffs, and SoW, and melee capability too? Okay, now you've got it! Pretty much every easy-to-use mechanic in the game, rolled into one class.

Beastlords and Mages shared two main aspects:

1. a strong pet with associated buffs etc.
2. no CC capacity

Where they deviated is their 'play styles' aka they were two different type of pet classes.

Beastlord's were the quintessential "grouping pet class" with all the perks you mentioned in your post...in addition with a bit of gear and a few AAs they could also tank general PoP Era group content okay.

Mages on the other hand we're the "utility/ burst damage pet class", more burst dps, nukes, coth, resist debuff and item summoning, would get smoked in melee range.


It's just a matter of perspective.

One of the funnest duo's I did for general kunark exploring was a beastlord + druid combo.....BY GOD YOU COULD DESTROY KUNARK CONTENT FOR AAs, it had everything.

Chardok was one of my favorite locations with the Druid DCing a doggie...the Beatlord Pet...the beastlords slow...the beastlord tanking...the beastlord pet dpsing...the druid DC pet dpsing...the druid healing and general CC works...

[Cen]

Wrong.

Cleric bash was towards the end of Luclin, about 1.5 months before PoP launch.

I was so sure it was gates of discord, and upon further research, what i confused was that Clerics got bash as a baseline skill in Gates of Discord that they learn at level 25, as opposed to the Luclin AA ability

[mcoy]

I thought it was Luclin that gave clerics the summoned hammers and bash, but a quick look through my logs seems to show it as PoP era:

[Sun Feb 02 06:52:19 2003] [56 Templar] Mccoy (Human) <Menacing Visage>
[Sun Feb 02 06:52:19 2003] There are 11 players in Dawnshroud Peaks.
[Sun Feb 02 06:53:05 2003] You no longer have a target.
[Sun Feb 02 06:53:05 2003] A wolf springs from a nearby bush...hungry for blood.
[Sun Feb 02 06:53:05 2003] A fungus covered shroom tries to hit YOU, but misses!
[Sun Feb 02 06:53:05 2003] A fungus covered shroom kicks YOU for 4 points of damage.
[Sun Feb 02 06:53:06 2003] Auto attack is on.
[Sun Feb 02 06:53:06 2003] You crush a fungus covered shroom for 25 points of damage.
[Sun Feb 02 06:53:07 2003] You bash a fungus covered shroom for 8 points of damage.
[Sun Feb 02 06:53:08 2003] You begin casting Yaulp V.
[Sun Feb 02 06:53:08 2003] You feel a surge of strength as you let forth a mighty yaulp.

I'll keep looking and see if I see anything from earlier on.

-Mcoy

[mcoy]

Looks like it was September 2002 according to the patch notes:

------------------------------
September 4, 2002 3:00 am
------------------------------

...

** Priest Changes **

- Clerics gain the Bash skill beginning at level 25. They will have a
maximum skill of 125 at level 50, 165 at level 60.
- Clerics gain Hammer of Judgement - a level 56 summoned hammer with a
powerful and frequent proc effect
- Clerics gain Yaulp V - a level 56 self-only melee and mana regen buff
that adds haste, dexterity, mana regeneration and stamina regeneration.
- Clerics gain Ethereal Elixir - a level 60 group version of Celestial
Elixir, the heal-over-time spell.
- Clerics gain Ethereal Light - a level 58 upgrade of Divine Light, the
single target heal spell.
- Clerics gain Ethereal Remedy - a level 59 upgrade of Remedy, the
single target heal spell.

-Mcoy

[garfo]

Can we have a subforum where all these Luclin-lusting posts can get filtered to? Perhaps even straight to RNF?

[Zuranthium]

Beastlord's were the quintessential "grouping pet class" with all the perks you mentioned in your post...in addition with a bit of gear and a few AAs they could also tank general PoP Era group content okay.

Mages on the other hand we're the "utility/ burst damage pet class", more burst dps, nukes, coth, resist debuff and item summoning, would get smoked in melee range.

Mages being "Burst" DPS was not really a thing as they got into the 50's, and wasn't very relevant during the earlier levels either, with how easy it was gear a melee character by Luclin era. Nor was the Beastlord some kind of quintessential grouping class (and if they were, exactly how would that be fair to Mages?). All of the Beastlord abilities, except for a couple of generic buffs at the high levels, were redundant if a Shaman was in the party. Both classes were just centered on doing DPS as a group role, with the Beastlord using melee instead of spells to supplement the Pet's DPS.

The tankiness and extra utility of the Beastlord in comparison to the Mage is what made the class feel quite unfair and overreaching on already existing territory. They were performing the same jobs for the usual group composition, but Beastlords didn't have to worry about being squishy and could provide damage mitigation (slow) and downtime healing, not to mention SoW, if it was needed for a more ragtag kind of party. Call of the Hero was more of a Raid thing for Mages; wasn't usually a relevant general group ability.

[Scribin]

Not disagreeing that they are a fun class, as you said to each their own.

But also as you say, even as one of the top ones on your server you weren't the best dps...you weren't the best tank...you weren't the best slower...you weren't the best stats buffer. what was the special niche of the class?

It just always struck me, for that reason, that they didn't fit well into the existing classes dynamic. Same thing when berserker came out. From what I understand they eventually fixed berserker and made them pretty much a straight dps class (which wasn't something the game really needed, but it at least gave them an on-par niche with other classes).

I quit playing shortly after Luclin came out and never played a beastlord or went on any raids post kunark... that said. My little brother played a beastlord and enjoyed it very much. Which brings me to the point of my post, Maybe the fun part about EQ to people isn't filling a niche in a raid but having fun playing the game.

[Videri]

Maybe the fun part about EQ to people isn't filling a niche in a raid but having fun playing the game.

Indeed. I just noticed that I tend to lose interest and quit once I get to the point where I only log in for raids. For instance, when I have one or more max level characters, finish an epic quest or two, and finish gathering the "low-hanging fruit" when it comes to gear (or GEARS, GUISE). I guess the journey of leveling and questing is the main thing that holds my attention in Everquest. Food for thought. I hope this doesn't mean I'm doomed to reroll over and over.

See you on Green...