Bestial Bonds: Refinement post Balance Patch

[raven hearth]

So that shouldn't be taken as a plus point

[faint solstice]

What is the percentage of the bestial bond bonus given by just 1 piece of Gerd equipment? Also how does the bonus stack? Linear or exponentially?

Also I was wondering if there would be a vise for beastial bonds from a titan or something 🤔

[azure flax]

T9 Was fun with Crimson Gazer so it wasnt all bad, Fey Chimera has its place too. ASG definitely felt like the T10 CG(complete with the debuffs on yourself). I wish they'd keep the PVE damage and nerf the PVP.

Warframe (I know completely different game) does this pretty well. It's like PVE and PVP are two totally different games and that's really not a bad thing.

[fading narwhal]

We can. Celelute for example gave more stats than my 199 afey crow. Beo charms give more than arisen rings. Its just a matter of finding the right places to put magic and stats

[sand lichen]

100% agree with that, unfortunatly

[ripe marsh]

In BeoA goes from 44% to 47%

With just 1 piece

Something like this should work

[keen hedge]

Those Fallen Sky Shoes

680 mag

You should at least get 25-50% more dmg than pre-nerf

Full offense, no def

[ripe marsh]

Need better pinions

[ripe marsh]

Yeah, i was using full ward before

Without a single magic item

That setup has almost 10k mag

And about 45k ward without adorns in chest and hood

[keen hedge]

Ultima brrr

[ripe marsh]

(in pet stats)

[keen hedge]

Ah ok

[ripe marsh]

Not my magic, i didn't check that

[keen hedge]

Well with magic stacking, attacking with your follower could be interesting

[sand lichen]

And if you switch your briny pendant with a Beo charm ?

[ripe marsh]

I don't like that, because of poisoned and blight immunity

[keen hedge]

Just for the funny numbers

[ripe marsh]

I will see

[sand lichen]

It' just to gather some test on how the pet stats now work with BB and all that

[keen hedge]

More data is better for theorycrafting

[surreal meteor]

Beo Charm vs Arisen Ring would be interesting to see

[keen hedge]

Inarin said it was better

[surreal meteor]

Which one is It?

[fading narwhal]

beo charm

[surreal meteor]

Wow, even with hybrid stuff

Nice.

[fading narwhal]

hybrid doesn't do anything for bonds

[surreal meteor]

Oooh okay

[keen hedge]

Unfortunately

[ripe marsh]

That's probably my max

[surreal meteor]

That's my misunderstanding

[ripe marsh]

About 4,5k mag for player

I used a 10% follower stat amity too

Still have 30k ward with that

If i want to go full power

But survivability decreases a lot

Can probably hit 13k mag with mag adorns

[sand lichen]

Really a shame that Hybrid don't help us in stats transfer

[keen hedge]

You need a balance between damage, survivability

[ripe marsh]

Yeah that's why I don't use beo charms

I will be raiding with less 120k ward

Normally i raid with 160k

@keen hedge what will you use?

[keen hedge]

I don't like Beo charm, plus status immunities are important

[keen hedge]

Azur Pinion diminishes mana, maybe focusing Offensive stat first, adorn Pinion and if you lack mana adorns Jewel of End

[fading narwhal]

creation > end

[keen hedge]

Ah I didn't knew that, good to know

[faint solstice]

it seems that auriga has the benefit of getting 3% from 1 gerd piece but hydrus only gets 1% in certain abilities with just 1 piece of gerd equipment.

[sand lichen]

Well Hydrus have only BB lvl 2 does he ?

[faint solstice]

yep

[fading narwhal]

Hydrus has lv2, Auriga has 3+

base has 3

[lost plover]

Plz gibe onryo a Summon protection chance bonus in her bb

[spark flicker]

now that I have a fresh mirror on the beta, I did some more comparisons:

mixed stats and mag, raiding    17323    16509    -4.70%
some stats, defensive        14287    11377    -20.37%
fully defensive              11925    9535    -20.04%
max stats                   19019    13914    -26.84%
high mag (stats weapon)     17979    19427    8.05%
true max mag (mag weapon)    15787    18028    14.20%```

so max to max, beta is slightly higher than live with totally different gearing.
(on live, it's all the +stats gear with incidental +mag, on beta it's all the +mag gear with incidental +stats)

oh and one more fun test -- swapping out all pet stats augments for +mag augments on beta left me with 18842 garm mag stat, compared to 19427 in the high mag + stats weapon setup. So if anyone was wondering, you don't have to swap out all your legs of selene for steady hands of eos.

Also did manage this on beta, but that seems only good for screenshots. 😅
Double beocharm and -tons of mana and only a +stats amity is kinda overkill/not really practical for raiding or anywhere else. But it is possible.

Given the way bondmagic appears to work with ALs (👀), raw magic is really important to gear. Actually yeah, this is even stronger:

Can someone with low/zero ALs do a similar test? Or with less +mag gear?

My big takeaway is that... I think pve garm is still too strong with these changes.

Being able to match or exceed live's garm strength is probably going too soft on the dog.
I'm willing to accept that maybe it's because I have too many ALs or the gear is too good or something, but even in that case it seems kinda wrong.

[raven hearth]

Ask that guy to show his ward and you'll see

[raven hearth]

This build must be what? Less than 40 k ward?

Unlike most glass canon build spiritgram probably won't one shot instead get the raid boss to half hp by the time you're done buffing

And then the raid will kill you as their damage increase as they get damaged

Which sequencer glass canon builds don't have to face as they buff up when the raid is at full hp and then take them down in a turn or two

If anything spiritgram is getting a nerf instead of rebalance as of now

[raven hearth]

Probably lower and the biggest problem is that redlining will be very hard

As beoa doesn't have anything going for it like high dex dodge or second chance, and then their is the pet debuffs

So recovering ward will be a pain too

[raven hearth]

Ah sorry the same guy 😂

[spark flicker]

In the extreme case, yeah it's super low ward (like 15k). Like I said when I wrote above -- not practical for raiding, just showing what's possible.

But I have over 70k ward and 20.7k mag stat in a more balanced setup. Which is ~about the same as where it's at on live right now.
The point being -- it's not really much of a pve nerf at all. And that's the thing I'm objecting to. I'm in favor of a pve garm nerf at all levels because it's just way too strong (limits follower choice, cheapens the challenges in the game, etc.).

[raven hearth]

Can I see the 20k mag and 70k ward build?

And is it the same al? 74?

[spark flicker]

that's 70k ward and 20k mag.
dropping beo charms for briny+ymir vritra (defensive), drops mag to 18.2k.

[raven hearth]

And 70 al?

[raven hearth]

About the later statement, so does ultima tbh

But it isn't getting nerfed anytime soon

Or "rebalanced"

[spark flicker]

before you start comparing to other setups, let me ask you this:

what other follower than spiritgarm would you use for raiding, and how does it compare in raid speed?
||runner up is lindworm and it's like 50% slower, third best maybe fjalar and it's even worse, and all the rest basically don't even compare||

[raven hearth]

Other pets need a buff for sure but are mostly ignored

While the one pet does perform decently gets nerfed or "rebalanced"

[raven hearth]

There are so many pets but only a couple at best are used for raiding and that is a problem

[spark flicker]

Yeah I'm not doing this again. 😅 Spiritgarm is an outlier, it can survive a pve nerf, I don't feel like discussing ultima or buffing the world or any other nonsense. Anyway, it's up to NF and I've said what I need to say.

[raven hearth]

I don't like to do that either but those topics need to be looked over too if this spiritgram rebalance is being done because it's an "outlier" or "too strong"

As an end note I'll say this
If we are gonna entertain the idea of a "glass canon spiritgarm" then hopefully it should be at least just as strong as other glass canon builds

[keen hedge]

First the main problem of Spiritgarm was to overperform in PvP Live with no investments
Second Spiritgarm overperforming in PvE is only true in Raid WITH investments AND the unavoidable status infliction
Third your PoV is from 74 ascensions of Beowulf, it's kinda normal / even good it scales well with Bonded Stats, kinda like how Gilgamesh scales with ward

That said thank you very much for your data and opinions ❤️

[spark flicker]

"only true in raids", well then it's true. The unavoidable status infliction is a thing -- perhaps it could be more of a thing?

I'm willing to accept that maybe it's because I have too many ALs or the gear is too good or something, but even in that case it seems kinda wrong.
And sure.

||as a side-topic, the whole "gilga scales with ward" thing is not unique to gilga.

it's spiked shield that scales quadratically with ascension. it and blood pact and apparently bonds also, which is why I'm asking less-ascended players to report their numbers where possible to see what it looks like without that effect.

anyone with high ascensions can use SS with a big boost.||

[raven hearth]

But the damaged is reduced by 50% on a non gilga class

Nonetheless gilga talk doesn't belong here

While stat debuffs from pet are a thing

[spark flicker]

||"division by 2" isn't a whole lot in the face of a quadratic.||

[raven hearth]

Ss damage is subpar on other classes not worth using in raids other than in towers or short battle

[fading narwhal]

I can still raid the exact same way I did before

[spark flicker]

3 turns, geez so slow

[raven hearth]

Try fighting a tough boss with that build

[fading narwhal]

I can just swap back to fey surtr cuirass and fallen sky shoes instead of hererobe gerd legs if I truly need more ward/defense

or fey menja robe fss

[sand lichen]

I have 10 AL and no over strong stuff, I'll ask for a miror

[keen hedge]

True, Abyss could have done it in one

[lost plover]

Rip abyss

[sand lichen]

I quite agree with what's Forgeus said. Starting with the AL : this pet gain huge bonus from AL (and it's not a problem) since so much stats go from player to pet, AND it has the AL too thanks to Ascend Synergy
But on that topic I'm willing to do some tests and share the results, because what you are doing, testing and share your data, is very useful

I'm not a big fan talking about Spiritgarm as an issue in PvP. More precisely, I think nothing can be labeled as an issue in PvP as long as we had no correct defense against Lacunus, and as long as I can double amity 75% damage reduction + Ymir coiled shield. Because if the dude against me can't do shit and my pet can, well, my pet just had to do more damage than the dude's ward/pdv regen. Other pets than Spiritgarm can do that too, it just do it faster.

I'm not saying that Spiritgarm didn't need a nerf, I'm just saying it was tested on a very particular meta and maybe he is just the most visible tip of the iceberg

[fading narwhal]

Ymirwall isn't directly adressed yet but already acknowledged by odie

Even without it garm was an outlier in pvp and pve both

[sand lichen]

About Spiritgarm in PvE, yes it was overperforming for the stuff you could have. Nothing surprising here : his BB was very low from the start. I was one of those who spoke in favor of stat transfer with BB, just for saying I'm a fan of it.

I think the nerf of Spiritgarm in PvE is seen a bit harsh for 2 reasons. :

1. No other fun alternative : At my level / with my AL, It was the only pet letting player have constant gameplay around the raid. With it, I was constantly managing my health, my status, making me choose like "I'm frozen, I have 2 ward turns left but I really need that boost, what should I do ?". Was fun. I still can do that, but it would be really slow. Or I go more magic-side, and I'll rely on more turtle spam for surviving.
   Fux was pointing the real problem with PvE : we don't have many other options, and they are not fun. Lindworm ? I'll shield up, go to 1 hp, and passively wait for my pet to melt the raid because the raid will never do more than 85% of my ward in 3 turns.
2. Not as strong as other with max gear : Shorter one, the title is enough. I don't know that myself, but many are saying the Garm with best gear is not as strong as other classes with their best gear. Again, don't know if it's true or not, but that what is being said

And I'm not in favor of revert the nerf : just fix the two above issues, if they are indeed issues

[sand lichen]

Yeah, maybe. But it's useless to change it now if the meta will heavely change, and if many other pets will have comparable issues '^^

I mean, maybe it's a structural issue, not a Spiritgarm one

And we can't see that if the meta is not healed of other plagues before

[raven hearth]

The second part is what I'm really worried about

If I can't get similar damage with the bis gear then what's the point, if I'm forced to become a glass canon

I expect to have similar damage as other glasscanon classes

[spark flicker]

It's really not about class balance. If all you want is to chase the meta, I can point you toward Gilga which has superior DPS while also having far superior defenses. Also at some point it doesn't particularly matter because every raid is dead ~instantly even with pre-bonds Lindworm -- the only class that can't reach this high water mark is summoner-damage GS and that's it; ultima/bp GS certainly can.

The problem with spiritgarm is that it is way too strong. It gets used too much, it does too much without enough investment, it represents another ratcheting up of player power ||and then spawns a new generation of players who can't imagine how we ever made do without that power, and who want everything to be buffed yet again turning the ratchet up for the next loop up the power creep trail||.

It has immediate bursty damage in pvp without enough counteroptions (really just Nocturna, or a max res build and starting fights with res^^ and pet DC/t.res^^) which lowering its base mag stat helps with or at least forces the player to build true glass cannon with only +mag gear, and it's insane amounts of pve burst to the point where the raid is dead before any downsides matter starting from mid-T10 and low ascensions.

The pet was buffed in the last week of an event in a hurried balance patch which included a lot of other changes and this is the first time it's getting looked at again with clear eyes.

Is nerfing dog the end of the world? No. Is not nerfing dog the end of the world? Also no. If it's gonna give NF heartache because people will freak out about it, then that's probably more nuisance than anything. But I do contend that it could use a nerf because it's too strong.

[raven hearth]

People were using spiritgram because there aren't any other good options

[spark flicker]

Oh my god I'm going to puke

[spark flicker]

Disagree.

[raven hearth]

Other than lindworm and fjalar

[spark flicker]

I've been playing the game for four years, and every single time we've had a pushed/busted addition everyone new has claimed that it is the only good option and there are no other options. 😆 It used to take 20 minutes for beo to solo an arisen morrigan with insane gear and that was a great time and a marked increase in beo's power.

And then that became 10 minutes.
And then that became 5 minutes.
And then that became 2 minutes.

The only thing that ultimately matters are things like "do players feel like they have choice?" and "are players engaging with the game's challenges?".

So: does the current state of spiritgarm help or hurt player choice when it comes to which follower to use? Does spiritgarm mean the player is overcoming more challenges, or is the game just easier and now there are less challenges to overcome? Do players in pvp feel like they have more or less choices, and more or less challenges constructing a pvp build?

[fading narwhal]

Spiritgarm remains a good option, simply having a pet stat celelute, aengus og lute and fss keeps you at similar power without really sacrificing much if any defenses

🤷‍♂️

[spark flicker]

Also there's this, from Odie himself:

[keen hedge]

😂🤣

[raven hearth]

Devalued choices because there aren't many to begin with 🤷‍♂️

[keen hedge]

Balancing content in a flawed game design is not an easy task

I only use Spiritgarm because it does like the damage of Lindworm Mark-Exec but in one turn.
The major downfall of using Spiritgarm is the setup, which is super annoying.

I prefer Lindworm when the raid is not resistant to basic elements or very long / with a lot of HP

[lost plover]

With double act it can do double dmg of a lindy^

[keen hedge]

Same goes for any followers :x

[lost plover]

Ye

[sand lichen]

x) "simply"

A pet stat celelute is/was the third celestial weapon Beo would take, because often you want a crit lute for towers, then an axe for raiding. Now maybe it will be second.
Aengus og lute was a pain in the ass to have, I know that damn well and, for now, this event items are quite rare because of the shape of the event + non returning yet
FSS is still an event item. Accessible, yeah, but an event item nontheless.

Having a second/third celestial weapon + one of the rarest off-hand + event shoes is not as simply as that. For many players, they'll equip heretic robe, maybe Beo charms, Kerberos head. Two magic weapons maybe.

Again, not saying it's a problem to do all of that stuff to gain power AND defenses, just saying it is not simply ^^

[spark flicker]

Very much looking forward to comparison numbers with lower ALs and lower gear-power.

If it's the case that garm is overly penalized there and not penalized enough (or at all) at the very high end, then that's proof positive that the implementation needs more tweaking.

[sand lichen]

I requested a miror, I'll do the test as soon I have it

[fading narwhal]

Axe for raiding has always been a bad choice at least in my opinion. I will give you that some items aren't easily accessible, but is that a problem? Ask heretics how simple it is to do good raid damage. Ask gilgas how simple it is do good spiked shield damage. Ask gs how fast they can raid without gearing like a budget heretic

And I don't mean this from a solely high ascension perspective either, when I was an ascension 0-10 beo I swapped my gilgaxe to an ymir world eater to slot in a few more doom symbols cause I didn't actually need that much ward

[sand lichen]

Don't know about Heretics, but as far as I know about Gilga, yes it's a problem and NF try to fix it.
Generaly speaking, all class should be able to do "good raid damage" (and not overpowered damage) without items available once in the year if you farm it 60+ hours, or a second/third celestial weapon '^^

[fading narwhal]

That's fair, but I think there are different options for that than trying to change spiritgarm from his current state

[raven hearth]

Like introduction to beastial bond boosting celestial augments 👀

[fading narwhal]

Shout out to @keen hedge for his suggestions on many different followers and his bonds, while I may not agree with all of them at least he puts in effort to try and change many currently underwhelming followers

New bond spiritgarm is fine as a glass cannon option (in my opinion and with my tests, feel free to test it yourself and share some results if you disagree), so maybe we should look at other followers instead

[raven hearth]

Agreed, I'm fine as long as some other pets get more love too

[spark flicker]

Pop poll.

The current changes to spiritgarm in pvp...:
1️⃣ Don't go far enough
2️⃣ Are good as-is
3️⃣ Are too much of a nerf

The current changes to spiritgarm in pve...:
4️⃣ Don't go far enough
5️⃣ Are good as-is
6️⃣ Are too much of a nerf

Please vote in one of {1,2,3} and one of {4,5,6}. 🙏
||My vote is 2️⃣ and 4️⃣; can update once there's more votes.||

[sand lichen]

Can you pin it ? Because we don't have low-T10 data yet 🤔 would be a shame to vote without all the data ?

[fading narwhal]

I'm not sure about the pvp nerf as I quite frankly haven't pvped with spiritgarm at all

[spark flicker]

(I'm not a mod/can't pin. @surreal meteor around?) (thank you ❤️)

[sand lichen]

(John the Flash)

[surreal meteor]

Pings are good.
I highly recommend pings.

[raven hearth]

Hopefully we can keep this chat a bit clean in the meantime so that people can see the poll

[fading narwhal]

It's already pinned

John does his job when asked

👍

[spark flicker]

and sure, the poll can stay up for a while. certainly until people get more experience testing the changes in the beta, pvp and pve.

disclaimer: this poll does not promise a change in NF's current implementation or approach; this poll is not a referendum on beo as a whole in comparison to the other classes nor pvp as a feature nor NF's secret plans to buff Shade of Achlys nor any other topics past present or future.

[sand lichen]

It's a shame. I gave a shot to buff Shade of Achlys

[fading narwhal]

secret plans to buff Shade of Achlys

You weren't supposed to tell them fux

[spark flicker]

||I've said too much 🕵️||

[stable ledge]

Wasn't the problem with SG in BoF was the defend Amity being paired with it?

I never really thought the follower was the problem.

[fading narwhal]

Although the moves are low pen, it dealt too much damage at too little investment so it could wipe non tanky builds in the first two turns easily without actually having to give up any defensive stats yourself

[sand lichen]

About that. Even with Eir ? Personaly Eir totaly blocked all SP I crossed in BoF

[fading narwhal]

I think beo will remain a problem in live pvp until bastion gets touched on, and even then they'll move to counterattack instead

[fading narwhal]

Dog had/has more counterplay than some other followers yes cause its moves are low pen, but going by odie's comment, it was considered strong enough that people often stopped queueing for live pvp after matching into spiritgarms

You can just tell a bunch of people "Skill issue, should have built better" and while technically you might be right it still won't be appreciated

[shadow pine]

Add stasis to that

[raven hearth]

It will be fixed in the next patch

Already stated in this patch note

Statis immunity items

[raven hearth]

Why do some people have double votes 😂

[sand viper]

I'd love to see those garms in bestiary once again for a week after the patch :p please

[spark flicker]

it's technically two polls.

first about pvp (select one of (1,2,3))
then about pve (select one of (4,5,6))

unless you mean people are voting multiple times for pvp/pve in which idk user error

[raven hearth]

Ik

Some people had votes in 5 and 6

Seems like they removed it

[hoary river]

This is going to be my final plea for the bond to scale harder.

The build I'm planning to test the changes with only has 35k ward(dual wield set up, I don't have the off hand lute) and if that's what I have to do just to bring the damage back to what I had previously then I will most likely do something different for raiding. Quickcast for kingdom/trash raids and lindworm for bigger stuff. I'm not really seeing a place for the dog

[zenith cypress]

Might want to check #game-announcements

But even then, the bond was plenty strong (for late t10/t11)

[hoary river]

Just halve it's stats in pvp and maybe 15-20% everywhere else. Easy 😉

[zenith cypress]

Having one out of >100 followers behaving differently in PvP feels a little off to me

[ripe marsh]

Understandable

[hoary river]

But having only a handful of them actually be useful doesn't? Besides you did it for ultima. I'm not trying to be argumentative but I don't follow the thought process

[raven hearth]

Yeah one skill so ahead of other skills

[zenith cypress]

i'm not sure i can make that relation. one point is utility, one point is a strange inconsistency

[random dew]

As an avid user of the ghost dog as every pet master build currently is, it's time for the good boy to rest in peace.
It was nice doing big boy numbers whilst building full tank the likes of which no other pet can come near on turn 1, but I'd like to start seeing some love for other followers now.
If you want to wield a dog cannon, throw a big magical stick for him to fetch.

[faint solstice]

Heck yeah, the rise of Cernunnos has begun.

[hoary river]

I'd like to see fjalar get some love. I think it's pretty well established it's ass compared to lindworm, like we all said it would be.

Two things I'd love to see: stop making it spam evasive strikes when you have temp crit up already, and improve the crit bonds by a lot or give it higher attack bonds

[tough arch]

The 3rd level bestial bond "Build Tower" for Replica tower followers is exceedingly underwhelming. Follower AI causes it to be spammed, and it only heals a few hundred HP over a few turns at lv240. It also makes redlining on Beowulf frustrating, as you just keep healing away DPS potential lol.

On Replica Selene, perhaps Stonefire or Arrowstorm II would be a more viable 3rd level bond option?

[random dew]

I like build tower. There are builds which appreciate the health regeneration.
What would be neat is if towerfall used the physical damage calculation for followers which are physical. It would make it not a dead slot on followers like selene when using gait of gunnr.

[tough arch]

It's not useless, it's just underwhelming as a 3rd tier bond ability.

[faint solstice]

I think that's an interesting revision to the skill to make it more significant to Beowulf since it's the only class that can use it but the effect isn't very noteworthy.

Forgot that redlining is really important to that class so it's not so ideal in many scenarios.

[hoary river]

Just had an idea to make spiritgarm less oppressive in pvp: split up it's great meditation buff into multiple buffs. This way the one shots are a lot more random and less reliable. You'd probably have to come up with two unique buffs that add up to great meditations power but that wouldn't be hard.

To be clear: I'm saying remove great meditation and add two unique buffs that give 50% increase. They could be called spiritgarms determination and spiritgarms guidance or something I dunno

[zenith surge]

I think just reducing its damage in PvP combat would be fine similar to how other abilities already function. I think a larger PvP rework is already in the works and I'm sure this particular pet is already part of that conversation.

[hoary river]

I don't disagree but if you scroll up a bit you can see I already suggested that and Odie wasn't a fan. It would be the simplest and easiest way for sure

[lost plover]

This would probably destroy spiritgarm. Bc it would just focuse on upkeeping both of the buffs. If they are temp buffs. So if you wanted To use garm effectively it needs 50% positive buff duration aminity

[hoary river]

How often does it actually cast great meditation in a raid? If you have the 50% status amity it's very rarely more than once

[ripe marsh]

With BeoA always

[hoary river]

How? Most raids are done in less than 7 turns

[sand lichen]

We really don't do the same 7 turns

[ripe marsh]

Yeah that's true, he only needs to use 1 or 2 times if im with redline already

[silk hare]

I really REALLY most want all followers, when used by any level valhallan class, to use their AOE ability when there are more than 1 targets. Maybe even more likely when more than 2 targets?

I feel like everyone still uses fey cactus in horde dungeons for this reason. And all these interesting followers with random AOE abilities don't get used because I don't want them using the AOE on single targets and I also don't want them using their single target abilites during AOE. So it's either fey cactus or something else.

I feel like this should be a base improvement to follower AI and not require a bunch of AI improving gear to have work?

[tough arch]

Again for the boys in back!! Hallelujah 🙌

[keen hedge]

-- Spellsword: Replaced passive "Mana Step" with "Collateral Damage"
-- Adept: Replaced passive "EXP Step" with "Collateral Damage"```
Odie learning the hard way from the Warrior mains that Steps might be a cool concept, but is in reality irrelevant.
Hoping to see improvements for Wolpertinger Bestial Bond !

[silk hare]

I like the view distance increase. But what would you replace the exp step on the Wolpertinger with?

[keen hedge]

something in relation with Traveling guild, like more frequent Traveling Intuition

Increase all Interaction range

etc ...

[silk hare]

Oh, with the way it already has a bonus for memories, what if it increased the range to get memories? I'd love that!

[drifting briar]

I actually like this

Something along those lines

[keen hedge]

Spooky, scary skeletons~

**Spooky Summoner BBs **

BB1
+8% Status Protection ❌

Status Protection is not really relevant when you have summons and not a significant amount

🛠️ (Moved from BB3) -> Bonded Ability : Summon Dead

BB1 is usable at t7, having fragile bony bodyguards is helpful for survival
And anyone can have access to with Beastmaster spec !

🛠️ -> Bonded Passive : Guidelight

Exactly like Elysian Guidelight, now you can also keep your spooky friends to help in dungeons

BB2
+8% Bonded Resistance (Resistance to Owner) ❌

You already have meatshields, you don't need more tankyness

🛠️ -> +10% Bonded Magic (Magic to Follower)

Some early damage boost for the follower

🛠️ -> +5% chance to deflect an incoming attack to your summons

Increase survivability in PvP, even more in PvE

🛠️ (Moved from BB3) -> Bonded Ability : Nekrosis II

You summon the dead, you attack by the dead !

BB3
+20% -> +15% Bonded Magic (Magic to Follower) 🛠️

Tweaking numbers because of the early damage boost improvement

+12% Bonded Resistance (Resistance to Owner) ❌
Same as BB2

🛠️ -> +5% chance to deflect an incoming attack to your summons

Same as BB2

Bonded abilities :

• Summon Dead 🛠️ -> Moved in BB1

Basic Skeletons are good only to tank a hit, it's underwhelming to gain this ability at t10

• Nekrosis II 🛠️ -> Moved in BB2

It's a good thematic attack, but I have a better idea for BB3 !

🛠️ -> Summon Scary Skeletons

Stronger skeletons, can help by debuffing the enemy

Mindset :

Spooky monsters are tricksters, unfortunately the ability "Treat" is a "Rebirth" under steroïds and "Trick" is a powerful AoE debuff.
But spooky season is also rich in summons and the base Bestial Bond is focused on that, BUT it doesn't use any of the new summoning spells and the summons are too weak to deal damage.
I focused the reworked BB on creating meatshield, instead of powerful summons or HP fueling Blood Pact.```

[lost plover]

This is looking good! Im all down for this<3

[lost plover]

I actually like that guidelight is bb1 passive and usable for all classes if they want To.

[silk hare]

Part of me likes this. Part of me worries that poking beo into summoner waters could cause issues and more weird backlash?

[keen hedge]

Skeletons are very weak, only Very Scary Skeletons can put some work, but I didn't gave them Summon Stats

[raven hearth]

You might be right about the backlash

[marsh crystal]

elysian guidelight on followers opens up possibilities for a lot of cheese. You could summon a bunch of summons as GS, then switch to beo with such a pet and keep the summons while having much better stats than a summoner

[raven hearth]

Beo is already getting so much hate because of spiritgarm

[raven hearth]

Exactly what I was thinking

High anguish dungeon will become easy cheese

With all those summon meatshield

Sure they'll get one shot but even still

[marsh crystal]

not just anguish, you could also use it for endless

[keen hedge]

mmh, I see what you are saying, but is that incredibly busted ?

Any t10 can use this with Tamer Spec

You are sacrificing a Spec for more survivability and you need luck to avoid killing blow in High Anguish / Endless

[fading narwhal]

yeah, it means any class can take high hp buffed gazers into an endless dungeon

[keen hedge]

not even mentionning that summons slows

[marsh crystal]

it means that every other class can pretty much be gs but with non shit stats and passives

[keen hedge]

Summons doesn't dispawn if you switch outside of GS ?

[marsh crystal]

no

[keen hedge]

Well, bad idea

my bad

Summoning Followers are a mistake and will never be viable

[marsh crystal]

well it works like this: if you progress to the next floor without having elysian guidelight, then they despawn. But if you have elysian guidelight then they will not

[keen hedge]

Or extremely niche

Unless, we say Elysian Guidelight =/= Guidelight

Guidelight = keeps Follower's summons

You can't keep other summons from other Classes or your own spells / off-hand abilities

[lost plover]

What if summoned summons are affected by summon stat changes? Basicly if you are auriga with full summon stat boost and the you switch To beo with 0% summon stat, the summoned summons hp Will go all The way To the 0% stats. @keen hedge @marsh crystal

Idk if I worded it Well.

Or just " summons that were summoned by your followers, Will follow you To the next floors

[marsh crystal]

sure that would work, but it would also be a huge nerf for gs

[lost plover]

True, maybe only solution is To make quidelight affect only the summons that the follower has summoned 🤔

[raven hearth]

That still is a huge buff for other classes

[lost plover]

We already have followers that are summoners, and We Will get New one once the beta patch comes live

So A bb for summon playstyle is needed imo

Idk its Hard To argue with so differend opinions

[raven hearth]

We understand your feelings

You want to play as beo and Summoner at the same time

But if somehow that was implemented no-one would play as Summoner

[lost plover]

Nah I want To use onryo effecrively for other content too

[raven hearth]

Guidlight is a very op buff

It will allow endless cheesing very easy

Same for high anguish

[keen hedge]

Well, you will never rivalize with the amount of Summons Stats bonus from GS

[lost plover]

Did you check my suggestion that I made about summoner BB

[raven hearth]

I did

It's not feasible unfortunately

5 summons on the field means 5 dummies to take hits for you

Imagine how easy that would make endless

[lost plover]

Which could be used for the summoner followers and it wouldnt be cheesable bc you cannot get that much summonstat with beo or any other class To be A problem

[raven hearth]

Summon stat doesn't matter

Even 1 hp will do

[lost plover]

That would be the only good thing tho

[raven hearth]

The summons just existing to take a hit

Is enough

For broken stuff to start happening

[lost plover]

Would it be that broken tho

[raven hearth]

It would be especially broken just ask any gs player

[hollow osprey]

I don't mind having followers that summon but guidelight is a pretty powerful passive which is problematic for content like endless. If were to give guidelight to followers, I think the summon limit should be up to 2 instead of 5.

[spark flicker]

That might be a good way to go about it. A limited form of guidelight, so it's not that beo is summoning and buffing gazers like a summoner then swapping into beoh with full guidelight and just doing summoner-endless-but-with-player-damage-too.

Mini-guidelight could be on bonds, or more realistically, could be on Benefactor spec. It has the space for it in its passives and would be wider than just beo by a little bit.

[raven hearth]

That seems fair

Tamer spec has bond 1

[raven hearth]

@lost plover you should instead pursue for this

Also Summon skills should be removed from bonds and be added to the spells

Of the pet

[lost plover]

That or just ignore the guidelight and reblace it with something usefull for "summoning playstyle" but im not sure what Else would be good.

Base summonstat% for the follower? Which gets affected by players gear? Summonstat%+followerstat%= followers summonstat%?

[raven hearth]

Again you're going to the "broken" stuff territory

Beo class isn't supposed to play as summoner

Summoner exists for that

[lost plover]

Yea I know. Do we have that good gear To actually make it broken

I think only ophions gear and the nocturna gear has both summon% and follower%

And how the summonstat% affects the summons base stat. Theres no way we are going To make beo broken with 30% +30%

[stable ledge]

Can Dog get some love ? Maybe at 250 he can Bork and scare monsters

Bestial Bork

[gray pike]

What about... BB3: dog will allow to be petted

[stable ledge]

That's gold

https://tenor.com/view/dog-happy-miss-you-tail-gif-24314518

[silk hare]

I was looking at the crit bond monsters and I kinda wish they had skills that actually crit. Like most of them have 3 to 5 skills but only 1 crits when most of those skills have crit versions. Like swap out quadcut 2 on fjalar for realmstrikes or something? That way it does more with it's crit bonds.

And maybe pull the arisen bloodwarg into the crit bond group? That's kinda what got me going down this rabbit hole. Replace it's quadcut 2 and horizontal slash III with omnistrike and osmostrike like regular Chimera has. OR pull Chimera into the crit bonds.

Back before bonds, I used regular chimera more than fey chimera for this reason since I was casting crit buffs myself.

[fading narwhal]

Horizontal 3 can crit so there's no point taking it out. In fact taking it out would only make it worse than before as it's one of the strongest critting attacks in the game

[mild pier]

@keen hedge Hey Forgeus, when you have time, what do you think about the current state of the Traveler's and now Seer's Guild pets? There's been some renewed discussion about the Memory Hunt bonuses and why they are locked to Bonds instead of available to any class.

https://discord.com/channels/448527960056791051/1171833212687892490

[keen hedge]

Yes that's a big issue because while you are doing your Memory Hunting you are vulnerable for Territory defense (unless you are Beo main)
Plus this activity is often done during World Farming and not everyone as the capacity or the will to farm as Beowulf

There are two solutions to this :

1. Rework the follower to be a passive non-reliant to Bestial Bond OR every Memory Hunt bonus are BB1 (you only need the Pet specs)
2. Add new equipments that gives those bonuses OR gives +1 Bestial Bond level with no/negative stats

[raven hearth]

People will still be annoyed even if you're point 1 was implemented

21% with tamer spec or oracle and 2 100% amity

I think the current system is fine

No need to introduce new gears or change anything

[surreal meteor]

Unless you play beo hydrus, isn't having a wisp as your pet going to be awful for territory defense either way?

Even if you do main beo

[raven hearth]

That's will always be a problem

The only way to combat that is to have an update that makes your war set locked

[surreal meteor]

Yeah but, that means it's a reward booster with a cost attached to it

Beo player on non beoplayer, being on a beo with a wisp is not going to do you any good for wars / territory. Doesn't really matter which class you main

[raven hearth]

Totally

That's why I disagree with people asking for bb access on every other class as it won't help either way

[keen hedge]

Then the best option should be to replace the pet by equipments, since you can decide what you equip for any class in any loadout

[mild pier]

My thoughts were similar, and I want to bring a 3rd suggestion to the table since I've had some more time to think about it:

3. Create a Passive Follower slot for world farming (OR All PvE activities).
   All the Bonus bonds (Memories, Orns, VD, Exp, etc) are moved to its own category and will only be active if a follower is in this new slot.

This new follower slot could be added to Bestiaries (Stable?), the Keep, a new Tab (Companion?) on the Follower screen.

These could be adjusted per Tier for progression, some would need buffs, and the Bonds would need to be reworked for those specific Followers as those bonuses are being moved, but these are the current examples in the Codex and the obvious ones I can recall:

Wolpertingers:
+15% Memory Rewards, 6% VD, 300 Exp walk

Seer Wisps:
+21% Memory Rewards

Mimics:
Gold Bonus: +14%, Orn Bonus: +4%

Humans / Fairies:
EXP Bonus: +3%, Orn Bonus: +3%

Gazers:
View Distance +10%

[lost plover]

that would nerf dungeon farming tho. mimics are used in dungeons for that extra loot/rewards

[mild pier]

Well what if it affected all PvE activities like Anguish?

Edit: I went ahead and added that to the original post.

[faint solstice]

This is a very interesting way to untangle the foundational overlap that followers and bonds have. If they're going to start focusing on imparticular aspects of the game I'd say this would be a great boon for all classes and beowulf will always have additional follower functionality. Everyone could enjoy an improved follower layout and other classes would enjoy pve follower bonuses.

[zenith cypress]

I'm not a huge fan of another passive on top/parallel to bestial bond passives.

imo, if needed, this would be addressed by moving these bonuses into the BB1 slot only and giving more accessibility to BB1 (acc slot, amity, etc)

[indigo apex]

That honestly would be the best case scenario imo. Something that's accessible to everyone and still keeps the respective costs behind using said bonus

[faint solstice]

I can see it being a non-primary trait in an amity, or added to the hunter and ranger specs. I must acknowledge it is a more reasonable and grounded perspective.

[lavish shale]

allowing bb1 through amities wouldn't work to address the issue unless one manages to obtain "100% extra memory rewards + access to bb1"

[keen hedge]

Having a follower loadout specific to territory defense would be a nice update in the upcoming Conquerer Guild
Right Odie ? Right ?

[marsh crystal]

accessible to everyone except summoners damn it

[keen hedge]

Summoner Hydrus can't equip follower ?

[indigo apex]

Well I did say best case scenario

[faint solstice]

Amities are a grind but with the possibility of bb1 as a non-primary effect there are still many different synergies you can find besides pve ones. Like elemental weakness bonus +15% for the bb 1 with exploiting elemental weakness +15% amity.

[lavish shale]

bb1 through amities would be great, but it wouldn't be enough for the purpose of making beo not required for maximizing memory hunt rewards imo.

[mild pier]

The BB1 idea is based on if the bonuses are condensed into BB1

[sudden ravine]

Amity: your BB gain 1 lvl?

[mild pier]

Just in case anyone involved in this thread didn't catch wind of the news yet; with the availability of the new Amity, the reward type bonuses (possibly others, clarification pending) are planned to move to BB1.
#1179250470338961498 message

[sand lichen]

Can't access to your link unfortunatly

[mild pier]

My apologies, I didn't think about the beta channel access:

[sand lichen]

Thanks ! Curious, I thought having access to it

[keen hedge]

Maybe I should do the refined BBs of Titans and Giants

[sand lichen]

I think we should hear about NF disponibility to work with us on new BBs

[mild pier]

Confirmation on non-combat bonuses being condensed to lv1

It's a great Wednesday lol ❤️

[ripe marsh]

That's nice!

[mild pier]

And the Orna update is coming too, yaaaaaggh

[lavish shale]

this will only solve the issue with a legendary+ amity with both 100% additional memory rewards + access to bb1 as it's positives, since oracle and both it's amity slots are unquestionningly mandatory to maximize gains.

That said, access to bb1 through amity is clearly a welcome and desirable bonus in an ocean of irrelevant rolls.

[silk hare]

I'm curious if having 2 BB1 amities will give the BB1 bonus twice?

[keen hedge]

Multiple BB bonus doesn't stack

else Valhallan is again advantaged

[lost plover]

Summoner follower bb update idea

Bb1= summon stat reduction does not affect your followers(accessible for all classes if using the New aminity)
Bb2= 8%summon protection chance
Bb3 mag&attack Bond 15% each

Yes or no? What would you change? Share a comment ty! 😗

[silk hare]

With all the anti summoner and then anti spirit doggo thing I don't see NF pushing this. It'd be fun but I think too many would flip out. Otherwise that would pan out well between B1 for everyone, B2 for Hydrus, and B3 for Auriga

[lost plover]

Yea I thought that it would be cool for hydrus aswell

[sand lichen]

How community feel about BB right now ? I would like to see if we are many to not understand why the actual state of Bestial Bond and pet didn't move enough past few months. We had a window for Titans rework sure, but no news on it despite some tweaks still needed. And the rest of it seems to be so not on the table that NF nerfed common spells instead of Spiritgarm

[fading narwhal]

Most BB's are in a good place, some could use minor adjustments, maybe one or two are kinda bad

Golem bond is 10/10 exactly what you'd expect from a defensive bond and it does its job well. Animal attack/accuracy bond also does exactly what you want it too

Mimic bond is a solid mix of everything that doesn't really need any changes

Mag bond isn't as good as the attack/dex bond but still decent overall, bolt volley has respectable damage though it could be buffed a bit more

Dragon bond is okay, wyrmseal is a bit out of place in most dragons movesets though, despite actually being a fairly strong move

I'm a bit miffed that wyrmhunt dragons didn't get their own bond, something like assassin/nagg belt passive for the blight sticking, or maybe mag bonds elemental weakness multiplier bonus

The three dog bonds are also good

Replica titan bond is excellent, it's simple but effective

Standard titan bond is mostly fine other than build tower being somewhat annoying on beo who wants to be low hp

Crit bond I feel like either the bond attack or the bond crit is too low, it doesn't feel very impressive. Bonded strikes also feels weak for a BB3 ability

Balor forces bond does something with stonefire, I haven't used it cause why would I over cactus but the potential for aoe is there

I don't know how to feel about undead bond. Summon dead does something, and I know there's enjoyers of that out there, so I guess it could be left as is. Nekro 2 is also solid

Human bond needs work, though I don't know what.

[spark flicker]

Human bonds (minor exp/orn, hp/mana bond) are very lackluster. Could stay the same just with bigger (hp/mana) numbers, or change.
Spawn of Anguish/Pollux/Castor bond (hybrid) could stand to be much better -- neither follower is particularly good right now (10% HM at BB3 isn't enough, less than one selenehands).

VSS having animal bond is strategically good but thematically not good.
Untamed Cerus should be magic bond, not animal bond.
Wolpertiger could use something new now that Elysian Memories exist (from Seer's guild).

Revivers (Pegasus, Great Pegasus, Fafnir) should be focused more on that than ~anything else. Meaning Fafnir should stop being a dragon and the pegs should start being something other than animal.

[austere turtle]

Can i bring this to attention: https://playorna.com/codex/followers/anubis/

wth is that BB3 lol

[fading narwhal]

Art

[spark flicker]

It's hard to discuss without getting into the current state of AoE. 😅
I guess in short it's "at BB3, Anubis becomes an AoE version of his normal kit".

except bonds don't replace skills, at least not yet.

[fading narwhal]

On a more serious note, that could probably use AoE element III's instead of II's

Still wouldn't fix much of anything with current AoE state though

[spark flicker]

it's splitting aoe anyway so... yeah.

[fading narwhal]

Speaking of some followers having the wrong bond, Rhada should get giant/golem or something like stonewargs, Achlys should get attack/accuracy maybe

[keen hedge]

A custom BB for each follower would be better, but Odie said it from the start : he won't because he can't. NF is a small studio and creating custom BBs for hundreds of followers is not possible.

However, custom BBs are a possibility with some followers, (like the dog trio from Pokemon Ragnarok)

I wished this would apply to guild followers like Replicas, Anguish, Memory Wisp, etc ...

Because rn, it's just X% bonded att, X% bonded mag with some extra bonuses and TADA here your new unique Bestial Bond !

To the point, they don't even look the follower's skillset :

Again, I understand that NF doesn't have time, but let the community refine the devs ideas

ORN will decide what is the best BBs, NF will judge, and we will test

[silk hare]

The magical amount of skills it does before it does the one you want knows no bounds!

I feel like I want follower AI using AOE moves with multiple opponents before I want any other follower tweaks. 😦

[fading narwhal]

A custom BB for each follower is 1: unnecessary (Followers that fill the same utility can totally share a bond just fine and unique bonds don't necessarily actually make people use that follower either) and 2: won't fly well with other classes

Even if they had a larger studio they wouldn't

Unless they made bonds more accessible outside of beo

Else they'll put a lot of time in only a fraction of the playerbase

[keen hedge]

yes, it was kinda exagerated, especially in the perfect world where every follower has a unique and optimal skillset.

[fading narwhal]

In that perfect world half the followers would just be removed cause there's only so many unique niches to fill

Probably more than half

[keen hedge]

Let's just rid of all the class and just keep one, after all their only goal is to deal damage and survive

[candid lily]

Same argument for summoners, nobody else can really use any new toys they get.

[sand lichen]

I agree with what was said. Rework on Human and Hybrid BB, some tweaks around other but a good core.
But I also see that some BB isn't powerful enough to make a real difference. The Golem you talked about, Inarin, make me go from ~130K ward to 135k. ~17% Res/Def more is good, but not a determining factor making me say "Hey, this pet is good for this situation".
Alongside some BB without enough power in them, I see some of them lacking. Magic crit, for example, the Hybrid one (exists but really not good enough despite the % of players using hybrid), Healer one...

Furthermore, I wonder about BB and their interaction with AL. Before throwing a theory and look ridiculous : is BB stats transfer calculated after, or before AL modifier on player's stats ?

[lost plover]

This could be fixed easily, but People are way too scared of Summons

[candid lily]

I am also an advocate of give summons to the people, comrade

[lost plover]

i dont mind the summoning fail chance. but the summon stat penalty is bit too much

[spark flicker]

Re:golem bonds, autoward is the big winner. The small ward/defense bonuses are cherry on top.

[fading narwhal]

I wouldn't call those defense bonuses small

My beoA tamer gets 4k def+res just from having a golem

[sand lichen]

By autoward, you mean that Golem actions will prevent your ward to go to 0 turn ?

[fading narwhal]

Starting with ward turns and 50% absorption immediately

You can still run out of turns

[sand lichen]

Yeah, but usually the pet (without calls) prevent it 🤔 i wanted to be sure.

But yeah, the bond is cool. There are inside good ideas, good mechanics. Imo it could be a little more powerful but Golem BB is not the point here. The point is that all BB are relatively more weak than maybe some of us imagined back then. They are a very nice, solid bonus, but many of them feel unfinished and , for it's stats transference part, not high enough.

Usually, as a Beo, you can grab... don't know, maybe 2000 - 2500 att or magic from your stuff ? Before Hybrid Monster, I mean. Maybe more with full pinions.
I gladly take those 200 to 500 points of att/mag to my pet, but I fail to understand how this could make such a difference on the ~7k of my pet

[fading narwhal]

Going from my view distance setup to my raid one is like 50% more stats on spiritgarm. Getting those att/mag and follower stats definitely matters

For a follower like lindworm with his t6 base stats it's even more important

There's a reason the change to spiritgarms base stats and bonds didn't go through

[sand lichen]

And I wonder if it's not an issue AL related. I think we had 2 issues ? Too low stats on players without big stuff and AL, and too high on top players ? 🤔

[fading narwhal]

It's not AL related

I had similarly low stats without big stuff (which was the point of the change)

but more than live stats with big stuff (which was a buff it didn't need)

[sand lichen]

Sure ? because if players stats are taken after AL application to the pet, then each AL come twice to the pet

[fading narwhal]

Yeah and I compared chars with different AL's and same gear (my live char and beta mirror) and concluded it didn't affect twice

[sand lichen]

Ok ok. Good to know, thanks for the work

[spark flicker]

I was also worried at first that bonds scaled twice with AL, but Inarin set me straight. 😄

[fading narwhal]

Tried to find where I mathed but couldn't find it here, might have been in ornalegends

me and fux were trying to work out some of the math

[sand lichen]

It's cool that you did researched for that n_n

[fading narwhal]

The exact numbers weren't completely correct but based on my findings it seems to be (pet base stats + bonded stats) * follower stats * ascension stats, with the bonded stats scaling from your unascended base and equipment stats

[sand lichen]

Maybe my skepticism about BB is my lack of trying with follower stats bonuses then

the stats transfer part of BB*

[dire spindle]

2 ward turns and 25% absorption no?

[twilit plinth]

Starting with ward gives 50% absorption as default

[dire spindle]

hmm, not sure why my steward golem only gives 25%

edit: nvm im tripping 🤡

but ward amity, yeah its 50% for me

[lost plover]

Wyrm hunt dragons BB

Bb1= extra dmg on weakness hits(5-15%?)

Bb2= attack Bond (10%?)& mag bond(10%?) (same as they have now)

Bb3= wyrmrage(or something) deals dragon dmg wich scales from each differend dragon blight

[stable glade]

Needs to be a different bond per dragon at this point

[ripe marsh]

I wish Gorynych dragon had elemental weakness

[keen hedge]

People forgetting my propositions 💀

That's why I discontinued my work here

[ripe marsh]

I don't even remember them 😅

Sorry

[stable glade]

I do remember, they should be sticky but mods don't come here or read I think.

[surreal meteor]

🤨

I'd like to remind people that we're not omnipresent nor omniscient

if yall want things pinned, ask for it lol

no harm done on pinning things in a thread

[sand lichen]

I often found John being quite active, and I'm sure other can be too

But yeah your proposals Forg' should be pinned

[stable glade]

Pretty sure it was asked

Either way I guess it's clear now

[surreal meteor]

Tell me what to pin and I pin

[keen hedge]

And Odie's rare interactions are trolls, it doesn't help ...

[surreal meteor]

Trolls? That's an entirely reasonable thing to pin. Because people keep forgetting

[sand lichen]

@surreal meteor Can you pin it please ?

[sand lichen]

Thanks

So we can all discuss around Forg' proposal now. What do you all think ? Aside that one BB per Dragon would be amazing. Unfortunately they are a small team, so let's try to keep our change requests focused and doable

Imo I find the affliction chances bonus really needed for them to be used as primary source of damage, as the change of the final ability given by BB3

Damage bonus to use of elemental weakness is great, it allow us to build around different spells, skills and stuff in order to match the Dragon we are using

Plus, the BB1 being Elemental weakness bonus could open a way of using Tamer spec and its BB1 to other classes, why not

[surreal meteor]

My main concern with that suggestion is the power of the half-assassin-spec that BB2 and BB3 offer.
At least from my experience, beo assassin is pretty strong in pvp

with that BB added ontop of it, that'd make it pretty terrifying to play against

[stable glade]

for what is worth I had good time reading your suggestions

[silk hare]

Maybe a quarter for each level instead of half then? I mean not being able to blight steadfast classes really nullifies the fun of the dragons.

[fading narwhal]

Blights ignore steadfast

[sand lichen]

Could you explain why to me please ?

Because when I was doing Finesse, I saw many PvP players being vulnerables to almost all of the status I could inflict. They where here to hit big and fast, win or die fast, and farm proofs fast.
I don't mind their playstyle but I felt like it's not me being strong with the status I inflict, but them who are weak to status, bringing near 0 immunities

(you or anyone able to help me understand)

[fading narwhal]

If the pet offers it on top of the already good base power it has then you dont even need to invest anything to get good statuses. Freeing up spec and/or some gear. Statuses are already incredibly strong as it is.

[surreal meteor]

Basically what Inarin said. It'd just be good free power, since statuses are strong. And then people can either put in more power with swapping to stronger specs/gear, or they can doubledown on the assassin for even higher chances at devastating status effects. Stuff like petrify, cursed, doom, is hard to apply due to how punishing they are. Even stasis is hard to apply outside of Chronomancer spec.
But a beo with fomorian thief gear, assassin, medusa's head, amadan's staff and that new bestial bond, and suddenly you petrify and/or stasis everything in your path, especially if they lack steadfast.

You can already basically do that without that bestial bond, which is what I do.
50% more on top of that is ridiculous

[keen hedge]

Mmh, in that case, follower only bonus should do the trick

The player won't abuse it

I updated the pinned proposition

[surreal meteor]

Aye, that's alright

[sand lichen]

Thanks for the answers

[sand lichen]

So, is that bonus (+ proc chance on blight) possible in the game ? Is the proposal good enough to go on beta for test ? Anyone having other feedbacks on it ?

[surreal meteor]

I feel like you're skipping a few steps here. Everyone in here is welcome to propose whatever they want, but in the end, the decision is not up to us on if it gets implemented, or even considered at all

[sand lichen]

Oh yeah, I know that. Maybe I phrase it wrong, I meant to say something like : "is this proposal the best we can picture for Dragons and then share it as our final work before studio's feedback ?"

Like, taking that out the work in progress state in our side

[lost plover]

Summoner Pet bond

Bb1= returns the - 90% summon stat

Bb2 =attack and mag scaling
Buff duration or debuff succes chance? Or non of these?

Bb3= same as Bb2?

These are some ideas and i would like To open A discussion of how we could help Eos replica, ophion of olympia and eistla
They are very unique followers but i feel like forcing A player To use benefactor so the followers are not compeletly useless is not the right thing.

[static dragon]

Add 50% summon success rate, -90% follower stats -20% act. To benefactor.

[lost plover]

That would be kinda rough

Then there would be no use for benefactor bc the additional summon stat would not compensate the - 90% follower stat and -20% act

[keen hedge]

Forcing you to build Summon Stat

somehow I like the idea, because the less native Summon (or Follower) Stat you have, the more effective is the bonus from gear

[lost plover]

Imo summon stat should be reworked so it would be easier To handle.

[sour helm]

how about we wait till event stuff is finalized before discussing it

[lost plover]

Lol i was just hyped

[lost plover]

Can we discuss now?

[keen hedge]

You can try

[lost plover]

We need more unique beastial bonds.

The event dragons= something that plays around blights or their identity
Summoner pets= a bond that does not make them useless in 99% of the games content.
The cerus pets= their bonds needs fixing.
Actually 90% of the bonds need fixing

Problem with bonds are the scalings.
Its not efficient to build around any bond stat atm.

99% of the time full pet stats is better= kills variety

Actually the current direction the game is going...kills variety.

Why do i think like this? If we compare the "huge" beowulf rework (bestial bonds...) into any of the other reworks... it feels so unfinished.... and poorly done...

Deity =apex
Gilga= collateral dmg
Realm=avidity
And now heretic with the elemental penetration thing.

And beowulf... a fkn 5% more exp and 3% gold on bb1👍

Oh and lets not forget the 3k extra ward if your pet has good ward stat

Tho i do have some positive feedback aswell...
I do like the avalon pets bonds(horses and gwylgi)

That is good direction! They have something to play around( the holy dmg bond is very cool!)
And berzerk on gwylgi gives it some identity.

I would love to see similar treatment for most of the unique pets atleast. (Ophion,glasthyn, eos and the wyrmhunt dragons)

@keen hedge anything to add?

[keen hedge]

We should define a clear design about how Bestial Bonds works

Initially it was Amity bonus but for followers

But with the quest of giving more identity to classes, BBs are light / negligible

Valhallan identity is its bond with their follower

However we can't privatize Follower Act to Valhallan classline alone

[lost plover]

And we cant say that bonds are unique to valhallan bc it is accessible for non valhallans

[keen hedge]

BB1 is accessible, but not BB2 nor BB3

[lost plover]

Most of the time bb1 is the most usefull

Ehm 20%holy dmg

[keen hedge]

Ultima shenanigans

[lost plover]

And well all the vd/orn/gold boosts

[keen hedge]

+2 ward turn with Golems/Giants

[lost plover]

Yep

Territory def bonus

[keen hedge]

I mean, I'm not against giving partial Class identity to others ... but make it for EVERY classes

[lost plover]

Most of the times bb3 is harmfull( not gwylg)

And parting remark is not avidity

Those are totally differend

(Before any rs joins the chat)

[keen hedge]

one procs on kill, the other per enemy and per turn

[lost plover]

Yea

Cant realy say its avidity

(Monoceros with collateral dmg when)

[keen hedge]

actually, you know what ? Maybe we should ask the Valhallan ORN to define what's the classline identity and confront other classes'

Who's the Valhallan ORN ?

[lost plover]

Inari?

Not 100% sure

[keen hedge]

He doesn't have ORN role

[ripe marsh]

I don't think there's a ORN for valhallan

[keen hedge]

Plus its last message was 6 month 😅

[ripe marsh]

Time to HoC into beo again and ask for ORN member

[lost plover]

Idk if its good or bad thing when theres no valhallan orn

No wonder the rework felt so unfinished if there was no valhallan players to give opinions...

[ripe marsh]

How do we see all members of orn in discord?

[keen hedge]

#community-announcements message

[ripe marsh]

I still need to actually do the valhalhan spreedshet

Barely started

With tosik help

Since there isn't one like RS/deity for beo

[lost plover]

Isnt kaine beo main?

[keen hedge]

I see him active in Summoner posts

He might have been before Summoner's heresy era

Behold! The Creator is typing !

[zenith cypress]

Here are the patch notes from the mechanic patch that introduced bestial bonds:

[PvE/PvP] Beowulf: Valhallan Dissonance now affects both the player and follower
[PvE/PvP] All Valhallan classes now have minor built-in follower AI bonuses, allowing followers to avoid using skills that may hit elemental immunities, etc
[PvE/PvP] When under an AI bonus, followers will now be considerate of offensive buffs when choosing a skill to use
[PvE/PvP] When under an AI bonus, followers will now prioritize dealing damage when opponent HP is low
[PvE/PvP] Valhallan classes: new passive, Bestial Bonds. The monster type of a follower now gives a variety of additional stats and passive effects```

(full notes here: https://playorna.com/releases/97/)

The was undoubtedly the most effective change Beo received, and put it from one of the bottom performers to tied for the top spot. I wouldn't reduce it to just 5% exp/3% gold

[ripe marsh]

I thought he was gs

Idk

[zenith cypress]

the ORN didn't exist at that time, fyi

[keen hedge]

To contrast, it's not only Bestial Bonds that were introduced, but also Follower AI and mini Resurgence passive for the player

Follower AI alone makes a huge difference when a certain doggo doesn't blindly spam an immunized spell on a raid 😅

[ripe marsh]

Thanks

[lost plover]

In my opinion. The buff that made beo grow in strength was the redline buff. Ai helps but it can also make pets even worse. This is a BUFF for beo. NOT a rework. Bc it does not change anything we still have the same problems ( lack of variety in pets that actually are usefull) if bonds were better. They would add variety and more intresting playstyles.

For examble the fomorian pet "glasthyn" it could be so intresting pet if its spell wasnt immuned by 80% of the games content

[keen hedge]

The more we debate, the more I realise that more than Balancing, games need a Variety update

[lost plover]

Mhm

Current beowulf is (asg,prometheus,cactus and the living armor)

[keen hedge]

Prometheus for Towerfall build ?

[lost plover]

Yea

[keen hedge]

I use Replica Selene for Tower/PvP

[ripe marsh]

You know what would be a good buff for beo? Steadfast

[keen hedge]

Without joking ? Yes.

[lost plover]

Nah

[ripe marsh]

No steadfast is like slowly dying inside every day playing that

[lost plover]

Would not add variety

[ripe marsh]

Ok give it a different name but has chance to not have status

[lost plover]

Just makes another class closer to deity

[keen hedge]

We have Assassin build to counter that

[lost plover]

We have immunity to counter all

[zenith cypress]

"not enough follower choice" is a complaint every class has - i would not say it is a unique Beo problem

[lost plover]

But imo the pets are beos identity

[dire spindle]

beo is currently strong because of its stats/follower stats alone, not because of its bond/uniqueness

[lost plover]

Thank you

[keen hedge]

Do you have an idea why it is the case ?
You have more data than us
Could you explain us how you create new followers ?

[keen hedge]

We just have to stack Ward and immunities, and we can roll on any content

[zenith cypress]

minmaxing is imo the biggest problem in any scenario in content design. I could give you 10 unique followers today, but if they are not going to out-DPS a player's current follower, they won't see much use

and if they were to outdamage current offerings, then we're in a power creep loop

[lost plover]

I would take reduced stats anyday if beo got bonds that were actually usefull and give a reason to build around the stats% that the bonds have

I did some testing yesterday with fully trying to build around spesific bond. Every time pure pet stats was stronger

( only pure dex was stronger than pet stats)

And in my opinion. I dont look out for more pets to out dps asg or prom...

I want unique playstyles.
Ehm i was playing with a fkn eos replica for 4 months? In all content that the game had in offer

Problem with that experience is not dmg. But turn efficiency. I mean spending 10 minutes per horde dungeon on non anguish is just horrible and a 300k follower should not be that bad.

• limiting you out of partyplay bc the ai bug? (I hope its a bug)

For examble a glashtyn again( has spells that increase dmg from negative statuses)
That is unique but unusable bc dark dmg and everything is stacked with status immunities.
Yes ofc we dont use that bc it cannot be used for anything.

I dont want a pet that hits dmg cap in 1 turn but a pet that works for the playstyle that it was meant to be used

1 main thing that limits most of the creative builds is immunities.

[keen hedge]

I do not agree with this idea of minmaxing being a problem

Because it's just scratching the surface

of course, in any game, there is a META (Most Effective Tactic Available)

Meaning one or few build / combinaison are above in the game

[lost plover]

Currenty the meta is the only way to play

[keen hedge]

The real and deep problem is ... there is no true other way to play Valhallan than taking the best follower you can get and build Ward + as much immunities you can

[lost plover]

When i played around eos/ophion there was 2 things that i wasnt half disabled on = raids and fishing

[keen hedge]

The game has a restrictive gameplay

[lost plover]

Yes it has

And that is one big problem that kills variety

No wonders why most beos hocced into deity. Bc deity does not get hard restricted

[zenith cypress]

it is undeniably a hurdle in all game design.

whether it is indeed the biggest problem here is debatable, but we cannot say a universal limiter in game design is not a factor here

[keen hedge]

Let's take a step back to take Orna gameplay as a whole, and not just Valhallan and their followers.
We could resume the main gameplay as dealing as much damage in the shortest amount of turns.
You can deal damage with skills, spells, statuses (I don't include pets here for now because they use those previous ones)

With skills, you have flat damage, pierce damage, critical chance, status chance, elemental power, etc...
And you can invest into some aspects with specific gears

Same with spells, but with one major advantage : they have non-elemental attacks ... where skills will always at least be Physical

Statuses is more tricky, because you can deal damage with those but once you reach t9/t10, almost every monster you encounter is immune to 80-90% of status which render useless any Assassin build. The only fun I can have with this kind of build is in PvP or against Titan Superbosses !

To summarize, you have to take the best damage skill/spell with critical chance, if possible with elemental advantage on your enemy.
HOWEVER it's only true to Mage, Thief or Warrior (Gilgamesh [Hercules] excluded because the class is stuck with Spiked Shield)

[lost plover]

What if immunities were 100% resistance instead

[keen hedge]

Let's take back our pet classes.
Based on what I said previously, the best build for Valhallan doesn't really change, it's only the follower.
So the best follower should be the one with the best ability ? Not really, each follower has a unique combinaison of Skills, spells, buffs, debuffs, etc...
The best follower is the one that gets the best combinaison possible excluding abilities that the player itself can cast !
Meaning that Mightiest Mimic is not the best despite having Mimic's Mischief and Ultima UNLESS the enemy has an elemental weakness !

For summoners, things gets a little more complex : you can have at most 5 summons on the field.
Meaning you can have 4 dps summons and 1 buffing summon for everyone.
It opens a new variety of options ... imagine if Valhallan could switch between 2 pets during a battle ? Well at least, summons respect multi-turn abilities !

[lost plover]

Like i mentioned earlier^ the immunities are problem.

Currently best pets are the ones that gets rarely immuned

[keen hedge]

Assassin build would become really interesting

That and maybe creating a new Elemental gear, decreasing Elemental resistance

[lost plover]

Yea ! And glasthyn would have its own spot in the game

[keen hedge]

We already have Elemental damage boost with Finesse Epee and Apollyon's weapons

[lost plover]

Yeap

And with a blink of an eye we get more variety for builds

[keen hedge]

With this base gameplay variety, we could simplify the bonus in many Bestial Bonds

[keen hedge]

Ah yes I forgot to talk about Bestial Bonds in this paragraph !
Basically, Bonded stats are an interesting concept, but the base bonus is not enough interesting and the gear supposed boosting it is ... good for its base stats not for BBs boost ...
I heard Odie tried to improve Bonded stats on some followers, but the results were too strong, so none of those changes came to live version.
I don't know if Odie tried to balance between base Follower Stat boost and Bonded Stat bonus, but if not, it seems the best shot at balancing AND giving more variety to Valhallans

[hoary river]

If you wanna talk about pet variety you gotta mention that most pets are bad because they're trying to do too many things at once. All good pets are good in part because they're tailored for a specific role.

Also the extra skills at 3rd bb are cute in theory but terrible in practice. They ruined fjalar and don't help lindy. The one good one we got (stonefire) was nerfed for being too good.

One thing I'd like to see is gear that adds additional bb levels for beo, like 4th and 5th level

[lost plover]

Cool in theory but useless bc immunities

[keen hedge]

Yep, I put that aspect aside because I wanted to talk about BBs and Orna gameplay
If we took Lindworm as an example, you wouldn't have Spells with the skill Lyon's Execution, often many followers are ruined because they have skills AND spells meaning you can't use Gait efficiently because even if they theoratically less chance to use an opposite ability with the appropriate Gait, the AI will still calculate the debuff/heal/AoE value and use it anyway 💀

Replica Selene is a prime example of this

Try to use Snotra and Gunnr to defeat Cerus

This is an experience I recommend to no one.

[lost plover]

Attack scaling based bond with a follower that mostly uses magic is very well done bond.

Do we even need to wonder why no one uses other unique pets if 90% of the bonds have no synergy with the pet

I wonder why no one uses this

[keen hedge]

:,)
You didn't see the Elysian Wisps :

[lost plover]

Atleast it has magic scalings

But imo healer pets should have synergy with heals aswell.

Or healing spells should have synergy with magic to keep it simple

[keen hedge]

or both

Static healing is insane when you can get the spell early, but exhaust real quickly

to the point that Draining abilities are the best healing option

[lost plover]

Thats bc they scale with mag

[keen hedge]

and you heal for half

[lost plover]

Yea

[stable glade]

I remember when bonds came out, they made me stop using many Followers, for example I used Fenrir, but the bonds killed it for me, but not just the bonds the skills also changed, which made it worse.

I think it also killed Fjalar, which was used before.

I remember one, coral varmint, that was going to be decent on beta and got canceled, it never got used.

It felt rushed.

But the biggest issue is not the bonds, its the bloat of useless skills.

[lost plover]

^ many of the decent skills they had got nerfed hard and left to mess with the viable skills

Also odie said that pets ai got buffed aswell

How much more ai do i need odie?

Oh sry i did not notice this one

[dire spindle]

imagine if beoA actually unlocked the ability to specifically choose / prioritze (in order / 1 specific move) your followers move

[lost plover]

That would be wet dream

[lost plover]

Yea just imagine if ai bonuses affected anything

[zenith cypress]

Smart AI does quite a bit. It might be helpful to share what you are expecting to happen alongside the screenshots

[dire spindle]

i wont go as far as it does not affect anything, it still does affect stuffs
sometimes, it just doesnt do what we expected/want it to do, especially for followers like the one you use, and people wanting Atlas to spam towerfall

[lost plover]

With all mag ups and even attack- and hordes off enemies. i expect the pet to hit with aoe magic attack. am i wrong in here?

[keen hedge]

In that case, it will be wise to create a new post for this

[lost plover]

also smart ai + SKADI 2 should make hard priority for the pet to ATTACK

[keen hedge]

I will gladly show what I expect from Follower AI

[lost plover]

same

[zenith cypress]

The bigger the difference in your magic/attack, the more it will prioritize one or the other. Perhaps you don’t have enough buffs? Note that is isn’t guaranteed, but it will be heavily influenced

[lost plover]

so are you telling me that snotra is not enough to make the gab big enough...

yea i definitelly noticed that it will not be quaranteed when medusa was spamming arrowstorm with snotra,att-, mag+,mag++...

[hoary river]

Just did a raid with replica prom where it spent 13 turns not casting a spell and using attacks instead of towerfall. With Snotra and at down. The smart ai could definitely be better

[fierce kite]

Prometheus is a physical follower in essence.
It's already not bad at all when rng makes him do towerfall often via snotra.

Having it spam towerfall with 2 finesse epee filled with achlys would be absurd. Add a 30% dragon amity with arcane/dark/holy as bonus and you looking at an easy nuke then...

But yes many followers could get some fresh bonds updates - namely bb2 and bb3 so other classes don't get easy access to it

[hoary river]

We're just discussing the consistency of pet ai, lets leave the balance debate for another time

[fierce kite]

From someone I know

Rng

Sometimes quick Sometimes not

Since we talking prometheus AI

[hoary river]

Yep we're aware how it works

[fierce kite]

Imagine if you could make it work turn 2 every single.time for him. Broken

Still many pets definitely need better AI

Not Prom+towerfall tho

[hoary river]

If you want to stop dereailing the convo that'd be great

[fierce kite]

Don't try to hide op mechanism.
Will stop here

[zenith cypress]

Balance is a pretty important consideration here

[lost plover]

Well this balance limits our meta followers into fey cactus, chimera and asg. (Honorable mentions selene,prometheus, ashen phoenix, mammonA, lindworm and gwylgi)

[zenith cypress]

In the context of this convo, Prom is the subject and not an honourable mention. It it is quite used despite not having 100% Towerfall usage (which would be very OP, as mentioned)

[lost plover]

I dont think prom needs buffs. I just want options in general

Just mentioning medusa that gets destroyed by its high movepool with the help of ai

[hoary river]

Any kind of bestial bond update is likely a long ways off. It might be more productive to ask for better, more interesting beo gear. A few ideas off the top of my head:

-Gear that buffs specific followers or specific families of followers
-Gear that adds new levels of bestial bond
-Gear that changes follower ai, like making the pet buff more or making it more likely to use ice moves ect
-Gear that removes a level of bestial bond but massively buffs the others
-Gear that improves pet accuracy and/or defense penetration
-Gear that makes beoA doublecast more likely
-Gear for beoH that either makes its pet stronger or buffs you at the expense of the pet

I'm also curious what ideas other people have

[keen hedge]

#1319191782604410943 message

[stable glade]

I still think skill bloat in follower is more problematic and is the root of all issues or spreads into them, AI, bonds, gear, families, etc

I also think the pet usage / pet changing / pet variety is worse due the fact there are no follower loadouts in gear

a button with follower per loadout and on click their skills with a toggle would probably solve all that, and then maybe a rebalance and all other issues could be solved from there

[ripe marsh]

Also was insanely nerfed because of reduced m1 of the AoE it had from bonds (it would be the best AoE in game 😔)

[sudden maple]

I really like the idea of armor pieces that buff specific follower families, that would be so sweet

Not like a stat buff, but some sort of functionality improvement of some kind. Maybe something like "with this armor piece, animal followers are more likely to use AoE spells"

Call it "rabies inducing helmet" lol

[keen hedge]

Little idea I came up from the night :
What if instead of Bestial Bond being linked to Followers, it is linked to the player.
You can chose the bonus at each Bestial Bond level, and some bonus are specific to some families or event followers

It would solve the problem of "giving a specific bestial bond for each follower" and gives more flexibility and creativity for players to ... play ?

Plus it will save some time and pain for Odie to design new Followers

[lost plover]

That could fix most bad bonds

[mild pier]

Got any examples?

[lost plover]

Of what?

[mild pier]

Sorry that was directed at Forgeus

I like the idea, but I'm assuming the selection choices would be limited for non-valhallan classes?

Or would it just be limited to having a follower unlocked?

So say you have a BB1 Amity on a Deity, and you swap out your [insert ward pet here] level 1 bond for +15% elemental weakness damage because you're farming a specific raid that has an weakness to exploit

[lost plover]

Bb should be beo only imo

[silk hare]

I feel like to make that fair, Beo should then not be able to wear gear tailored for other classes. :/

Sometimes I feel like that's Beo's biggest advantage. So I'm ok with amities for BB1 so that the bond love can spread to everyone. Otherwise you get the summoner hate.

[lost plover]

Bb was supposed to be beos new identity and other classes just took it

• thats basicly same thing if every class just takes apex from deity bc deity can wear everything

[surreal meteor]

Stop summoning things then, then we can call it even