Alright, so, the envoys are working on another report, and as we did with Environment, we're looking to hear about your concerns or ideas for Beastmastery. Please, do note that things like the possibility of releasing new mounts are already being handled, and this report is looking to address the skills specifically. This is by no means a guarantee that each idea is to be accepted, though we do appreciate input. With that being said, fire away!

Let's see...

-Needs to be a beast climbing ability.
-Balancing is next to useless as the chance is so low it is negligible.

Delete web for being entirely unbalanced.

And heal.

Would be better to replace them with something useful for utility/PVE, right? Maybe reflections too.

Make the effective size for mount blocking double the beast's level, so you don't have to be a demigod warrior to block.

Even out the power level of the expensive beastmastery skills. Web is pretty strong. Bodyguard and reflections are pretty weak. Lots of options, but I would:
1) increase the beast mana cost of spellcasting (4000 sounds appropriate)
2) increase the number of reflections you get from casting reflections
3) double bodyguard's proc rate

By spellcasting, I assume you mean web. 1500 mana for reflections is already too high, imo.

1500 for reflections is a lot of mana. Maybe 1000?
4000 for web would be too much mana, I think. Maybe 2000?

Climbing is needed.

If there would be a way to make beasts usable in PvE aside from curing, I would be ecstatic.

Oh yeah. Trample needs to be put on beast balance.

I don't know if kicking people out of the room knocks them down too or not, but I'd like there to be a chance for knockdown, so that trampling can be used. People don't usually fall for the sleeplock with Wiccans, making it hard to get people knocked down and trampled in the first place.

have they fixed the falling out of the saddle problem with beasts? Cause that really needs a sollution if they havn't fixed it yet.

-Slightly increase the damage of Beastmastery battle and aggressive.
-Beastmaster Aggressive should be lowered to 80-100 train points. (Current is 120)
-Beastmaster Jumping should be lowered to 80-100 train points. (Current is 120)
-Increase the chance of Balancing to fire. Right now it's not worth teaching due to the extremely low proc rate.
-Beastmaster Majorbreath sleepcloud is too powerful. Please change sleepcloud to another effect. (Afflict all enemies with dizzy or dementia are some ideas)
-Trample is a little odd now. When testing on Ceren with a level 12 mount, the limb breaking looks completely random. I think because old trample was based on steed status (legendary steeds for instance), and it's still doing the same except steeds have levels now. A level 12 steed should be able to always break 4 limbs on one target, and then scale accordingly with more targets in the room.
-Beastmastery Bodyguard needs to be removed. There is too much dodging in Lusternia. I use bodyguard, I love bodyguard, but it's too much when combined with shrine protection and other abilities. Please remove and replace with a skill that offers 15 dmp to a certain damage type based on what you taught your beast.*
-Beastmaster Spellcast web is too powerful. Please replace this ability with a new spell. (Void - break an opponent's magical shield, or Strip - strip two non power defences from your opponent.)
-New ability: Inflict.**

*Change bodyguard to the following:
BEASTMASTERY - BODYGUARD
Damage Modifier: 15

If you have this skill, your beast will offer you some protection against attacks.

For Training:
Syntax: BEAST TRAIN BODYGUARD
Prerequisite: mount
Type: Body
Trains: 150 (each bodyguard type)

**BEASTMASTERY - INFLICT

If you have this skill, your beast will inflict various ailments to enemies.

Beast Mana: 500
For Training:
Syntax: BEAST TRAIN INFLICT
Prerequisite: minorbreath
Type: Mind
Trains: 100 (each affliction type)

Disease - Dysentery, epilepsy or scabies.
Neurosis - Anorexia, impatience or masochism.
Psychoses - Hallucinations, paranoia or stupidity.
Muscular - Rigormortis, weakness or paralysis.

All afflictions given from this ability would be unmasked and use the generic affliction message. (Like the generic epilepsy message is "Your nerves feel suddenly jangled." and "A prickly stinging overcomes your body, fading away into numbness." for paralysis.)

The old MOUNTS command needs to be available in some form, perhaps part of BEAST INFO, or just the old MOUNTS command returned.

If they can have different mana costs, awesome, do that. It's the same skill. I've been working off the assumption that you can't split the two. Boosting the number of reflections you get seems to be the only way to make up for giving crappy reflections the mana cost that web needs to have.

As for the web mana cost, I was way serious. It's overpowered. It's a cool ability, but you shouldn't get it more than twice a fight, three times if you're lucky or desperate (and set your beast up for empathy).

Guild mounts need to be re trainable, perhaps once a year to maintain the uniqueness of custom pets.

While the guild mounts are very cool, what happens to people with custom pets? The beastmastery system now forces us to choose between a skillset ability that costs lessons via credits or a customized pet that cost a hefty sum of credits as well. I've personally been wanting a custom pet for awhile and have been saving up as well as waiting for beastmastery to be finalized for the most part. The guild pet was a change I was not expecting and now I'm not sure I'm going to get one. I want one still, but the practicality of having one along with a very unique guild pet doesn't work out. It would end up coming down to which one do I keep with me and which one do I leave to grow old in the stables. I mean I realize this really only affects four guilds, and even then narrows down to only people with custom pets so that's not that many people in actuality. Just a slight bummer and I can't really think of changes that would deal with it in a balanced manner.

On a side note, I was wondering if the collar artifact for beasts could have the added perk of retrainable once per month/weave? While it is a perk for custom beasts, the biggest benefit of a custom beast is that it can have an unlimited amount of inherent abilities. I'm also under the assumption that inherent abilities may be added on to a custom beast after it has already been purchased just as previously, any extra perks/abilities of the prior custom pets could be paid for to be added on after the pet had already been purchased/created, with the only exceptions being that you would not be able to get the initial purchase package deal offered. With this assumption in mind, the full potential of a custom beast completely negates the need for retraining custom beasts. I feel the retraining of a beast benefit is suitable to have for the collared artifact.

Alternatively, a new artifact to reset your beast to zero trains of anything (making it a one time retrainable) would be nice. Perhaps 3 credits like the zimoru reagent?

Bodyguard is fine, leave it as is.

You could implement a power system for beasts, this could limit the OP'ness of some abilities and prevent them being whored. I'd personally like to see some stuff stay. I personally like how Beastmastery is right now, though "passive" web could probably use some nerfing. Sleepcloud is fine, it's defeatable by Metawake. Bodyguard is fine, dodging in general is the problem.

I can't really say that I have a problem with Beastmastery as a whole, and.. to be truthful, I don't see the need for a report on it. There are more pressing things that should be fixed first. Like affliction classes such as Wiccan/Guardian, and balancing classes on a whole.

Wiccans are one of the strongest classes out there for 1v1 combat. I would argue that they are indeed the strongest for 1v1.

Wiccans might get love in a report, Guardians had their failures we call reports. You can argue Guardians are fine, you can say they arent, but I still see them trying to fix things to work. On the other hand I see issues all over, and even though Influence was said it would be looked at Estarra then stated it didnt need a report. What happened to influence changes?

Heh anyway I will leave this topic alone but I have thoughts for beastmastery first....

Beastmastery:
- Afflict would be usable but should be limited too
- Damage is a fair joke but we dont need insane damage either, this should just be removed
- Reflection is all fine and such since you can do it but then you cant attack
- Web needs replacement
- Sleepbreathe needs replacement (amnesia has alot of combo uses but nothing so powerful as sleep)
- I agree with the DMP idea for bodyguard but it might be better as a really low flat dmp
- More beasts and plz can we have a demon beast? (Not archdemon but something like it )

..I argued that Wiccans and Guardians needed love, I always have. I don't know what you're spouting off about.

I said Bodyguard should remain the way it is. I'm quite aware that stacking dodge is the issue, which is what I implied in my post.

I'm not so fond of removing web entirely. The rare occurrence of a semi-passive web is not really any scarier than shackles, which we've dealt with forever. I do agree that its use needs to be highly limited. Given how slowly beasts recover their vitals, even with regeneration, a higher mana cost would do wonders.

And no, Malarious, you do not get another afflicting ent to run around with.