[dev1135] Beastmaster 2-Hour Ability Comments After Testing.

[Calamity]

Hello Okipuit,

Would it be possible for the devs or community reps to present to us a scenario where this 2 hour would be useful? I think that is where we are struggling. It seems that if an enemy is strong enough to kill one of our formidable jug pets, it will slice through a stoneskin effect in 1 or 2 hits.

Careful what you wish for. Remember when the bst community asked for a buff on Cloudsplitter and they responded with a test they ran while on war with optimal gear, restraint,, temp items, top atmas and basically everything else you could stack on and said "After our tests we found it sufficiently powerful"

[Babekeke]

Hopefully its like 10,000 HP.

Then it would basically be like Invincible... but that it would nullify magic damage as well. And PLDs get enough shit as it is.

[FrankReynolds]

Even if it gave twice that, the 2hr would still be useless.

I agree, but I think we all know that it's going to be like 1,000. /sigh SE

Then it would basically be like Invincible...

Even if it was 50,000, I doubt it would make people bring beastmaster to anything that they bring paladin for now.

[Logandor]

You know I actually like a suggestion one person had asked for was for a stronger pet to be able to be called as the 2hr that lasts for about 5 minutes. That seems more useful then eating your pet for stats and now stoneskin. Sorry Devs but give us good reason to why and where this new one would be used because if your in a bad spot where you have to eat a pet in order to live then your in a bad spot period at least that is what I was taught. Now if for say this new expansion has mobs that are able to foresay charm our pets (unlikely but a thought) and we could not recharm them back, I would probably be more willing to take the pet loss for hp regain. In fact that kinda scares me to think of what a charmed automaton would do to it's master/partner. And please before anyone goes off about it I know our pets as of right now can not be charmed by mobs.

[Cabalabob]

The thing I find funny about this lvl 99 ability that won't work on charmed pets. Is that I can only picture it being used by a lvl 1-10 using a charmed pet. I remember when I levelled bst from 1-10 I'd do the kiting strat of charm, attack, run and find another pet. I can see this being used if you were fighting something too strong and from the occasional hit between charms it had got you down to red, before your pet dies you could use the new 2hr to full heal and continue. Sadly it's not for charmed pets and by 99 you'll probably be experienced enough not to be in a situation like that

[fernando]

i think i bought my last jug pet,this new 2-hour is worthless and SE knows it.. Time to hang up my axe's i guess.

[Caketime]

Excuse me Waiter, there is hot garbage in my new 2Hr.

I knew SE hated our job, but not to what extent. This "fix" gives some insight.

[Economizer]

Hopefully its like 10,000 HP.

Mostly I would hope it lasts 2hours and is undispelable. However much it does from there would be subject other factors, but having your 2hour Stoneskin wear after a few minutes or just having it dispelled would suck.

[Kari]

Hello Beastmasters,

Thank you for all of your feedback. As you have heard, we updated the new BST 2 hour ability

Your update made it more of a garbage ability than before, sorry.
Anything that KILLS YOUR PET is already a no-go for BST.
One of the worst parts about BST is any time where you have no pet and your Call Beast is on cooldown.
Why would we want to force this upon ourselves for a crappy heal/stoneskin that will not even allow us to tank half of what our pet could have?

USELESS 2 hour.
Remake it along with DNC and THF.

[Vandheer]

We received a bit more information regarding the details of this update:
The potency varies depending on the pet but the amount of damage the Stoneskin can absorb will be more than the actual spell.

Thank you Okipuit for lending us more insight to this 2-hour. I'm sure most of us would also like to know when these changes will be made on the test server so that we can reply accurately with test results of the specifics of the Stoneskin effect (its duration, how much Stoneskin is given from a majority of our pets, what stats of the pet modifies stoneskin, ect...). Or if we could bypass that and you could share some numbers with us? Probably won't happen but was worth a try.

I am curious as to why SE didn't give us this Stoneskin ability right off the bat especially if this 2-hour is intended to raise the Masters defensive capabilities. It just seems odd that to raise the Masters defensive capabilities they choose to give us Reraise first then after we speak our 2 cents they give this 2-hour Stoneskin instead then say its meant to raise the Master's defensive capabilities.

As for why this ability cannot be used on charmed pets is directly related to its mechanics. Since the effect variation is dependent on the pet, it is limited to only jug pets.

As many of my fellow Beastmasters have said, if the stoneskin effect is dependent on the pet it would seem logical to let us use this on Charmed pets as they are pets as well. The only difference between the two is they they are not Jug Pets which makes me think its more that the coding is being tied to Jug Pets some how... but now I'm getting carried away. The point is we would appreciate it if we could use this ability on Charmed pets as-well since Charm was the initial ability of Beastmaster.

We're still collecting all your feedback regarding all these new abilities so please let us know your thoughts.

A few of my fellow Beastmasters, including myself, have also asked when SE would see this 2-hour as useful. It has many limitations such as killing off our pet and the ability itself implies that we would have been taking damage prior to using the ability, enough so to want Reraise at first but now enough so to want a "potent" Stoneskin. Sure a "Potent" Stoneskin would enhance our defensive capabilities but our Pet is our biggest defense. Do they intend for Beastmasters to use this then "Call Beast" right away? If that is the case can we tack on resetting the "Call Beast" timer to this new 2-hour? Additionally it is limited to being attached to Familiar. :S

Personally, as I'm sure everyone knows, I am still not a fan of this 2-hour. Its effects are lackluster and against all flavor within the Beastmaster job (unless there is a pet calling kabob making craze amongst the NPC Beastmasters I'm unaware of). On the other hand familiar as a 2-hour was incredibly flavorful, it involved Beastmaster communicating with their pets and the pets kicking ass alongside the Beastmaster. Not to mention Charmed pets sticking around for 30 minutes while under the influence of familiar.

In my opinion, there are a few key parts to Beastmaster and flavor, communicating with the wilderness (charm and our abilities that work with pets), calling forth and utilizing pets that are always loyal to Beastmasters (Call Beast), and possessing knowledge of the wilderness and its creatures (widescan and killer traits). I see Familiar as representing the first part of communicating with our pets on a high level but what about the other two parts of Beastmaster? Perhaps if we were to change this ability we could go off of either of those. I'd love to have a pet called via 2-hour that is a total badass. Ideally I'd like for the pet to stick around for 30 minutes just as Familiar makes charmed pets stick around for 30 minutes. The pet itself would have high stats to make it 2-hour worthy and not just an average pet perhaps with more then 1 killer trait.