#"+Bestial Bond Effectiveness" and Bestial Bonds in General

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fervent cedar
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With new parts of the Riftfall event bringing in more gear now that utilizes the "+% Bestial Bond Effectiveness" effect I think now is as good a time as ever to address how underwhelming the effect currently is at the moment.
(going to have split this up into a few messages so bare with me for a moment)

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What is / How Does "+Bestial Bond Effectiveness" actually Work?

"+Bestial Bond Effectiveness" is a multiplier that only effects BB % vales that are within brackets. Such as "Bonded Attack: (+4%)".

This in of itself is okay for the majority of things such as "Memory Hunting: +20%" and "Tower Shards: +5%" as if these were effected there'd be a problem where Beo's/the Valhalla line in general would be able to gain resources at an accelerated rate over other class lines.

It's how the effects with brackets are currently gaining their bonuses where the main issue is.

For example with Base Beo using Mammon Acolyte follower:
With base Bestial Bond 3 you have,

  • Bonded Mana (12% of your follower's Mana is added to your own Mana)
  • Bonded Magic (20% of your Magic stat is added to your follower's Magic stat)
  • T.mag+ (Player, 7%)
  • T.mag++ (Player, 2%)

Now if you where to equip full Fey Gerd gear (Head, Torso, and Legs), with each giving "Bestial Bond +9%" when God forged, you get a total of +29% Bestial Bond effectiveness.
(1.09)(1.09)(1.09) = 1.29x or 29%

This result's in:

  • Bonded Mana (15% of your follower's Mana is added to your own Mana)
  • Bonded Magic (25% of your Magic stat is added to your follower's Magic stat)
  • T.mag+ (Player, 8%)
  • T.mag++ (Player, 2%)

Currently these bonuses are nowhere near with it and it's almost basically negligible. Requiring every armor slot for a measley 5% increase in Bonded Magic, and not even being enough to increase the chance for T.mag++. Over all the % is just not worth it.

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Bestial Bonds in General

Will split them up into 5 main categories

1. The Good
This includes ones that are just always nice to have and don't have any downside (with the majority being BB1 effects) such as:

  • "Accuracy +7%"
  • "Crit +4% / Crit damage +7%"
  • "+15% Dmg at Max HP"
  • "+ Starting Ward Turns"
  • "Weakness Damage +15%"
  • All chances for Temp effects
  • and probably a few I'm forgetting
    These are solid for BB1 / 2, but can be a little boring when overused, though generally some of the better effects to see as of rn, though the temp effect chances could

2. The Neutral
The BB effects that include "% of your stat is added to your follower's".
These include:

  • "Bonded Attack (+%)"
  • "Bonded Magic (+%)"
  • "Bonded Crit (+%)"
  • "Bonded Dexterity (+%)"
  • and any I'm forgetting
    These overall could just overall benefit from a straight up % boost (though besides bonded Crit as it still doesn't even work to begin with lol)

3. The Negligible
The BB effects that include "% of your follower's stat is added to your own".
These include:

  • "Bonded Ward (+%)"
  • "Bonded HP (+%)"
  • "Bonded Mana (+%)"
  • "Bonded Resistance (+%)"
  • "Bonded Defense (+%)"
  • and any I'm forgetting
    There is inherently no downside to these BB's but in reality the stats you gain from these effects provide such a small bonus that if they were removed people wouldn't even notice.

4. The Bad
These are BBs that most of the time feel like a straight up hindrance and the pet would be better without them (the majority being BB3 effects).
These include:

  • "+Ability: Bolt Volley"
  • "+Ability: Bonded Strikes"
  • "+Ability: Stonefire"
  • "+Ability: Boulder Toss"
  • and nearly all that are "+Ability:" BB's
    Please just remove at least these first 4... They do more harm than good and have yet to see anyone state that they actually like these abilities/want to see their follower use them (will add a poll for this suggestion specifically).

5. Resource Bonuses
These are mainly fine as in imo, and are not really relevant to the issues I'm trying to address here.
These include:

  • "Tower Shards: +5%"
  • "+Arch-Alchemy"
  • "View Distance: +%"
  • etc
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Suggestions for Changes to BB Effectiveness

Not saying all of these should be implemented, just throwing some ideas out there to hear what people think

**1. A Straight up Percentage Increase **
Would scale with gear quality, kind of like what was done with flask power recently. The numbers don’t have to be huge like flask power, but the gain should at least feel impactful when dedicating multiple armor slots and building BBs.

2. Increase the Number of BBs that are Affected by It
Right now, only BBs with numbers within brackets are affected, which just limits the build variety and usefulness. Having it effect more BBs in “The Good” category (Accuracy, Crit, Weakness Dmg, etc.) would instantly make bonus much more viable.

and suggestions for just BBs in general
3. Remove the Worthless / Actively Harmful "+Ability" BB3s
The removal of actively harmful BBs such as the main four “+Ability” bonds would be a great start in helping make more pets usable.

4. An Increase to Followers Hidden Stats
Increasing a followers base Ward, Def, Res, etc, would allow for the BBs in "The Negligible" category to actually be Impactful

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TL;DR

||BB Effectiveness is currently underwhelming, investing multiple gear slots in "Bestial Bond Effectiveness" gear gives basically negligible returns.

Overall many Bestial Bonds feel outdated: especially BBs 2/3

Some of these changes could make them much more relevant, adding additional build variety and making the new rift gear possibly useful, while we wait for NF to have more time to look into a much needed rework on Bestial Bonds 2 / 3 in general||

||But also please read, I put way to much time and effort into this write up mimic||

grand gull
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Full agree with everything said here... However, I'd say it would be a better for everyone if follower loadouts were fixed up or follower AI in certain places was adjusted first.

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Prime example: the event Panda follower from earthblight. Got some hype on reveal, and then it was found to be utterly useless and forgotten about.

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a follower with mage dance would be usable, but it was given ward of light (?) and bonded attack(?????) and so it was dead on arrival.

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AI-wise, followers with mixed damage types should be more responsive to gunnr/snotra/whatever. I LOVE seeing replica prometheus use cleave and sortie when I have snotra running.

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These are Beo-specific examples, but some follower kits could be reworked a bit to provide unique support potential for non-beos as well; we have so many followers that are completely unused, so there is a ton of space to make changes.

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And to clarify, I'm not saying every single follower should be usable... that would be a nightmare to balance.

fervent cedar
grand gull
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I used to think it would be too powerful to create that sort of dynamic (ex: gunnr with replica selene stopping her sigil), but my mind completely changed when the 2H update happened and 2H aoe started to blow follower aoe out of the water.

stray dome
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There is many intresting pets already but some bond choices make them awfull

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Prime exabmble of bad bond choices on a gold aura event pet

sullen zephyr
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but bonded ward, hp and mana might as well be non-existent

using a bonded ward follower, i get ~500 ward which increases (for example) my ward from 1.000.000 to 1.000.500
and this is actually me being generous towards the number

wide dune
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Just popping in to say that as a beo main, follower stats on gear are generally unappealing unless they come in huge amounts like with a celestial weapon . It's a very weak stat and I hope we can get a little more creative in the future with pet class gear, but I'm glad we're getting something at least

stray dome
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Pet stat is not bad bc anguished scaling, but like you said. Its bit too boring

grand gull
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In a separate discussion I noted that it would be nice to have some sort of skill that would allow us to select a follower ability for higher priority usage, but what if we had something more simple: a toggle for BB abilities?

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Yes it would eat a skill slot (unless it was made into a class button or something) but that would instantly fix a lot of followers hurt by point 3 in the original post.

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There are some instances where certain skills are kind of okay to keep, for example Boulder Throw on Big Cactus was insanely helpful when I was fresh in T10. However that skill is made completely redundant as you gain more gear and later game setups, so it eventually becomes actively harmful.

wide dune
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I would really love to see gear that unlocks additional levels of BB for valhallan classes, especially now that other classes can access some of our bonds via gear and amitys

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And an update to BB would be fantastic too

grand gull
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Eh, other classes only get BB1 at best... Though that is where most of the good stuff is.

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If I'm being honest, I am kind of terrified at the concept of BBs being reworked. Most follower based class power is from some manner of weaponized jank, I feel like we are going to either get something that is worse or it will be enough of a power gain that we'll need to be hit elsewhere.

wide dune
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Just think if beo got an apex meter that fills 1/3 as fast. Or got avidity at 1/3 effectiveness. Or any other passive unique to a certain class

fervent cedar
wide dune
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Good write up btw. Crossing my fingers Odie is listening

mystic turtle
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#patch-notes

@fervent cedar fantastic stuff. additive should make a great stat difference

a good next step is definitely refining ability removal/adjustment

fallow coral
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Damn that was fast as fugg

stray marlin
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The kind of writeups that Sirith has done here are immensly helpful.
Well considered, tested and data focused, but primarily digestible.

Huge props here, ORN time I think?

fervent cedar
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Thank you! Big fan of this change, and from the quick look I just did in the beta client the difference is definitely much more noticeable!

Screenshot_20250903-154358.png Screenshot_20250903-154427.png
proper marsh
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I agree with getting rid of the +abilities... although I actually like the random boulder toss my living arch armor does... or at least I did till I switched to bone mammoth.

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Otherwise this is all greatness!

long steeple
woven plinth
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Rather than + abilities id like bestial bonds to upgrade existing abilities.

Eg :

living armor: divine bastion 1 -> divine bastion 2.

Fjalar : quadcut 2 -> 3

It can locked behind bond 2 / 3 to prevent other classes or beo hydrus gaining access when deemed to O.P. but be a nice way to boost followers that's beo only.

grand gull
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We just had bone mammoth nerfed because of DB2, let's avoid re-introducing it to followers in any way.

woven plinth
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If its gated behind BB3, It'll only be available to sub classes who arent pvp power houses. Not going to break the game if beoA/beoO go full turtle.

Ignoring that one example, upgrading an existing skill beats having Boulder toss / some other skill that doesn't actually compliment a followers play style.

grand gull
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BeoA going full turtle with 50% follower protect and DB2 spam was literally the thing that kicked that complaint into overdrive around here. I'll leave it at that since it was just an example for this discussion.

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The notion of upgrading skills is kind of interesting. Generally with followers less is better for the sake of consistency so it makes sense in a way that doesn't have much downside.

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Thing is most followers at the high end already have the highest versions of skills, or some skills don't have higher versions. Though that could probably be danced around easily with some manner of new BB bonus, for example: "20% increased power/effectiveness using X ability"

stray dome
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Now that we are on to do adjustments to pet bonds.

Summoner pets (eos replica, ophion of olympia, onryo and eistla)

Goods= ang 2.0 summon stat scaling is the strength of the pets. And they shine in raiding in 2.0.

Bads= on non ang 2.0 the pets suffer alot due very weak summons.( a slight boost to summon stat in bonds would solve this issue)
No dungeon usage due no guidelight mechanic. Could be easily fixed with bond locked "guidelight" that allows the pets to guide their own summons in dungeons.

stray dome
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And the problem with eos become bigger and bigger with new events bc they are very horde focused

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And comparing eos replica to other titans. Other titans do have tools for "non efficient" way to do other content.

Prom= cleave for hordes & towerfall for high dmg in raids
Oceanus = tf & aoe
Selene= aoe& titanseal
Themis= buffer cleanse& tf
Eos = summons and towerfall and only viable in raids

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Every horde event gives me 2 choices

  1. Ignore the whole event
  2. Store eos for a month so i can participate in the event
wide dune
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I'd be happy with a band aid fix of getting rid of the + abilities in exchange for some extra bond stats, and then getting more spice and depth later on.

Also I don't really like that summoner pets even exist. I think they blur the line too much between beo and summoner and I'd be in favor of them getting reworked to something completely different. Not to mention beo and summoner are probably the hardest classes to balance so making summoning pets good seems like a balance nightmare

stray dome
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I swear if summoner pets become something else i will leave the game. Ive used so much time doing my builds for them.

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  • i did not suggest big buffs for them. Something like 30% summon stat via bond is enough to help them.
grand gull
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If summon pets of all things get touched by the nerf bat at all in the current state of the game then something is very, very wrong.

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I just posted in the Beo guide channel that the endless section should be scrapped and replaced with a link to the Dara Endless guide because Dara is the equivalent of hundreds of ALs ahead of beo's best endless setup. Summon pets are nowhere near that level of performance over... Anything.

wide dune
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I'm just saying either change them or leave them alone, but please don't buff them

grand gull
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Are you saying that style of play should just be ignored?

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Because we have an event that just introduced gear that gives deity summons...

wide dune
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Yes. They were a mistake to begin with.

grand gull
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Eh, I don't think they are a mistake. I'll partially agree on the notion of finite design time given that there is only 1 Odie, but the foundation of literally everything in Beo is weaponized jank. Summoner pet is par for the course.

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I see no problem with giving Eos play style a buff because even with its strength in one specific niche (agony raiding) other classes like Deity will still utterly outclass it.

wide dune
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In that case I hope to see CD, apex, flasks, and Avidity on beo in the future 👍

grand gull
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There are arguments for some of that... For example, the monoceros follower that gives the pauldron buffs.

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But otherwise a bunch of that will stay locked in their main class.

wide dune
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Maybe my dream of cactus realmshifter can finally be realized

grand gull
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Fey Cactus BB3 bonus: class changes to realmshifter mimic

fervent cedar
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Okay I think this thread has gone a little off topic, so to try and bring things back I think it'd be great to think about what Odie said, "a good next step is definitely refining ability removal/adjustment".

In saying that, what pets do you feel have abilities/skills that should either be removed, replaced, or adjusted? To keep things organized/easy to read I'll post a format after this message that can be easily copied/pasted and you can replace the text with your thoughts/ideas.
If you wish as well you can add "✅" and "❌" reactions for people to vote on it!

Discussion has been moved here: https://discord.com/channels/448527960056791051/1413392327963312168

(Let's not include the "Bonded" abilities from BB3 for now as I'll make a completely separate poll for those in a moment)

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Pet Name

  • Ability in Question (1 or multiple)
  • Remove, Replace, or Adjuste?
  • If "replace" than with what?
  • Quick note for why
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Here is one for example:

Giant Panda

  • Ward of Light II
  • Remove
  • It is completely counter synergistic to Beo redlining/the pet itself with Mage Dance
grand gull
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Arisen Bloodwarg

  • Bleed
  • Remove
  • follower already has Cleave, which is superior in every way. Bleed dilutes ability pool unnecessarily.
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As an example. I'll have to go through stuff later.

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Tbh even with the suggested change this follower is unlikely to gain any new use cases because of the change.

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Most followers need some form of buff to be feasible in raiding, or cold consistency to be feasible in horde dungeons.

stray dome
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Yup

grand gull
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It's also very difficult to suggest changes for the Titans... Everything seems to come down to "allow me to Towerfall as much as possible" or "allow me to spam runes and titan strike/seal as much as possible".

stray dome
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I dont feel like their movesets need any adjustments

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Unless we are asking from gaheite which wants to remove summons from eos, but lets ignore thatmimic

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Fenrir

  • osmostrike
  • Remove/replace with non healing attack
  • it makes redlining harder
grand gull
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I eyed that one as well, but osmostrike does bring some value to very early Beos in towers. You sit around and survive while Fenrir buffs, kills things and sometimes heals you.

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Sadly I don't see a use case outside of that, though losing the healing probably would not change too much.

stray dome
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I was thinking that fenrir could have bit more moves that utilize the crit bond

grand gull
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Oh right, it has that. Crit bond still doesn't work right?

stray dome
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Idk i can test tho

fervent cedar
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I'm like 90% sure it still doesn't

fervent cedar
fervent cedar
grand gull
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Hilariously, as I go through follower kits it always seem to be "get rid of bonded strikes"

stray dome
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^

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All of the bb3 skills dilute the move pool too much

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Glasthyn could be intresting to build around if it did not have boltvolley...

fervent cedar
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Funny you say that, I tried to build around him not that long ago and he would just spam bolt volley 99% of the time

stray dome
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I know. I did try to build around the aoe thing some time ago

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Also rebuild ahould be removed imo

grand gull
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Here's an idea based on the skill upgrade concept: how would it sound to add something like "+10% buff action rate" to BB1-2?

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Number is obviously a placeholder, but could be an interesting thing to consider. If it was at BB1, then BB1 amities may become a stronger pick for other classes as well.

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It intrudes on the ground of AI follower bonus a bit, but we could probably live with it.

sullen zephyr
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i dont think we should buff bb1, its already the strongest/most useful bb now

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and its.. "free" for everyone

hollow shale
grand gull
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Imo a lot of what's added should just make more stuff viable or attempt to fill in gaps, for example surviving anguish raids.

grand gull
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However there is one thing that follower AI does well, and that is make pets spam buffs and ward upkeep more often. That... Would be a freakishly large buff to spiked shield gameplay given the presence of followers like mammoth.

eager fable
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iirc Fenrir got the crit bond because it had Animal bond before. Since it was kinda useless it got changed into Crit Bond which is even worse. Times changed and Fenrir is not even used anymore. I think he is a great safety for healing self and buffing and bonds should reflect that and not change him to crit which he never was.

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What could be added to bonds? passives? like Life Siphon?

stray dome
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I mean osmosistrikes is kinda against the beo bc we want to redline

stray dome
eager fable
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ugh it was why it was good before, for safety, not every thing has to be optimized for the perfect play style all the time

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some differences would be cool and Fenrir purpose before was cool in that

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specially for towers

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times change but I remember that

grand gull
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Fenrir is in a weird spot because it's one use case is completely early game. Big cactus getting boulder toss is another example of that, it's amazingly useful when you just hit t10 and then just completely drops off when you can survive without it.

eager fable
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Also healing can be great for PvP defense

sullen zephyr
eager fable
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Fenrir got crit bond and it went downhill, and when it was getting the Animal bond I still think it was bad because it had nothing to do with Dex.

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Fenrir core should be just Bloodlust and Osmostrikes

grand gull
eager fable
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Succubus for Bloodlust and Dex buff. etc

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now I don't know if one bond per follower is possible or just add a generic Buffer bond

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and while at that I think some stuff should go into BB2 for Hydrus too

grand gull
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BeoH is currently competing for highest turn 1 damage in the game, if it gets anything extra from BB2 it can only be defensive options.

eager fable
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Fenrir Life Siphon
Phoenix Hybrid Damage

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Starting Ward move to T2

grand gull
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It already heals from recharge, hybrid damage would be too much.

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Though more followers with 3 starting ward turns could be interesting.

stray dome
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And phoenix with starting ward would be too much

eager fable
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I didn't say that but ok

stray dome
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Maybe i understood it wrong then when you said it after phoenix

grand gull
stray dome
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Mhm

grand gull
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One thing I did play around with during dragon towers was which follower with starting ward turns to take. I liked steward golem due to prism wall, but only 2 turns felt very dangerous... So I went back to great amarok, and eventually put 3 ward turns on my boots instead.

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Adding 1 extra ward turn at BB2 would be a nice tiny thing, but I don't know how much we would really even care about that.

stray dome
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Steward pegasus and beaver also have ward turns

eager fable
grand gull
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That is true, but we are already getting stink eyes from everyone because we can hit so hard with SS3.

stray dome
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No need to make ss even more broken wtf

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Wait he blocked me

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Lol

grand gull
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I just don't see how we can add much in this way without giving BeoH's degenerate aspects extra power.

stray dome
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Yea i dont want to buff hydrus

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Already one of the strongest classess

eager fable
grand gull
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BB2 should probably be focused on a defensive effect (that isn't at the level of extra follower protect or something) to keep that from getting out of hand.

stray dome
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One of the best base stats in the game

fervent cedar
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Honestly Hydrus needs something along the lines of a rework imo, the class has 0 identity/anything of it's own

eager fable
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that is true

grand gull
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Yeah. But that level of rework effort is a lot larger than fixing bestial bonds.

stray dome
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And bbs are moslty focused on scaling pets instead of the player imo

eager fable
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I am just saying not everything should be BB3 or BB1 but also cool BB2.

grand gull
eager fable
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and maybe lower tiers should be also considered (imagine a lower tier getting suddenly busted because of BB)

grand gull
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Oh scrap what I said Ryu, I thought you meant class tiers.

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And yeah, adding misc defensive effects to BB2 seems okay... Our classline only really needs survival options.

eager fable
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Also I still think BB alone won't solve anything some Followers need some skill spells deleted there is too much bloat. It's not 1 fix all.

stray dome
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Most pets will be fixed with bonds tho

eager fable
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Maybe we could get a follower UI which allows to enable and disable skills/spells. Then the focus could be just BB.

grand gull
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I would kind of prefer if we got access to more active defensive options but beggars can't be choosers.

fervent cedar
eager fable
grand gull
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Like it would be cool if we got a BB2 that gives you a button to order your pet to take an attack for you... But it gets stunned for a turn if it takes damage.

stray dome
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I mean if pandas bond is fixed into magic. We def have another option.

tribal storm
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As an exception, i like +Ability: ... when it adds a non element attack for a pet with only elemental attacks like T10 Apollyon's Apprentice. This makes it (somewhat) viable for thingls like endless, the only problem being dex (and penetration vs faction element immune enemies)

eager fable
fervent cedar
stray dome
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At that point you dont need to redline

grand gull
fervent cedar
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we're looking for simple atm

stray dome
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Yea this is bestial bonds fixing time

eager fable
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If it is too simple we get generic improved bonds that will feel out of place in some Followers like Fenrir was

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it will be just better for the most used followers and that's it

stray dome
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Oh god

grand gull
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Honestly looking at the event, I'm surprised beo doesn't have any sort of "call for help" skill. It would be so thematic for us to get a bunch of wolves to come take hits for us, we are cowards that hide behind a pet already so it fits mimic

fervent cedar
stray dome
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Oh yea so we target ward of light and bond 3 spells mightiest_mimic

eager fable
stray dome
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Lets stay on topic

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Its not about rework

eager fable
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ok I give up have fun

stray dome
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No need to get mad if you are talking about things that are offtopic

tribal storm
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But some pets have a useless skill to make it weaker like envy from mammon acolyte (Or something like Ward of light for panda). Without it - pet would be S Tier in pvp (and much better in rading too)

Soo.., only address underperforming pets or the ones where it makes no sense?

grand gull
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Sorry, I am definitely pulling things way off topic. One last idea that is closer to rework though: what if followers had a locked skill at bb3, which they could only use when ordered to?

stray dome
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I feel like we have some pets hiding that are limited by bonds alot

fervent cedar
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Fafnir

  • Darkstrike II, Pray II
  • Remove
  • Already has Darkstrike III and Pray II is just horrible
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Stuff like this, where just Darkstrike II, just doesn't really make sense since it already has Darkstike III

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and honestly Pray II should just be fully removed from all followers as it does basically nothing

stray dome
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I feel like pray needs a rework before it has any use

tribal storm
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T10 Sphinx Kit

  • Cleanse
  • Rework to dispel
  • Reason: casts too often while redlining because of high heal rate and skill giving t.def+ and t.res+
tribal storm
stray dome
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I like cleanse more than dispell

tribal storm
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Have you used sphinx kit?

stray dome
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In some cases

tribal storm
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try redlining with skadi in endless

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It has potential, but cleanse spam ruins it, making you stay at >25% hp for AI to not constantly trigger it

stray dome
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Oh so you use it for offence?

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Intresting

tribal storm
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You would want to use it for delay strike only?

stray dome
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I have been using it for cleansing bc other pets have more healing things ao not quaranteed

tribal storm
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I feel like every balance change on pets need its own discussion mimic

stray dome
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You are right

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Too many opinions

fervent cedar
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I think that's the main issue with majority of pets, they are trying to do to much at once when 99% of the time you want to use a pet for one reason and one reason only

stray dome
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Hmmh. Now that i think of it. Maybe dispel is okay

tribal storm
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Alternatively: an ai adjustment to not cast cleanse when low hp and no debuffs

fervent cedar
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Pet's in general either need to have a direct purpose or goal like Fey Cactus/Spiritgarm for example, or a way for us to push them to only use abilities/skills of a category (which I feel is the goal of "calls" but they never seem to do enough)
So for at least right now we're better off looking at pets and seeing where we can add, remove or change skills to push them in a direction to be useful

tribal storm
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Yeah, i like the idea of pets being somewhat versatile and Beos being able to focus pets in certain direction

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If each pet was made for one purpose - it would be a bit boring IMHO

fervent cedar
# tribal storm If each pet was made for one purpose - it would be a bit boring IMHO

Yeah I hear that, Fey Cactus is a prime example of gets boring after a while imo. I really like the idea of Sphinx Kit there with having attacks to be a PvP pet but also dispel if you could push it to be a supporter variant. Changes like that are great and simple for things we can do right now and will still be able to be built around even more when a rework is able to be on the table.

grand gull
#

Steward Gwyllgi

  • Multiple
  • Remove
  • SG has a niche as a buffer/debuffer with a solid BB1, but it's abilities are all over the place. One ability from blind/quick attack should be removed and 1 ability from arcanus/arcane strikes 2. If we got rid of too many skills then it would be an odd follower out who can spam onslaught and I don't know if we want to create that... But this follower is also a completely worse penguin on the other hand.
fervent cedar
#

Shade of Achlys, The Red Dagger

  • Perfect Shot, Casted Shadows
  • Remove
  • Perfect shot is a T1 skill on a T10 pet, and casted shadows is a spell when this follower should be attack focused by design.
tribal storm
#

How about creating a new discussion with only suggestions on pet changes and only reacts to them?

I am afraid all these polls will be lost in this thread.

grand gull
#

Yeah, a sub-thread for that would be best.

fervent cedar
#

I have been keeping track of them but that probably is a good idea

#

Sadly we can't put a thread in a thread though dread

tribal storm
#

Just create another Discussion and inform "no discussion" in topic

#

You are a ORN member now, after all 😉
-# congrats btw

long steeple
#

Or simply pin all suggestions?

tribal storm
#

Then a Moderator has to check this thread regularly and pin. Also all msgs will still be all over the place. I see this as a possible solution, but i would prefer clean and in one separate place for voting.

fervent cedar
tribal storm
lyric spade
#

I mentioned somewhere before that skills from Bestial Bonds should be useable by the player rather than the follower, the same way we can use Gods/Walls of Aaru from Dynasty gear and so forth.

This prevents additional skill bloat on the follower while giving Beo, and only Beo, unique access to certain skills & spells (such as Wyvern Speed 3). This also provides some kind of use to skills & spells provided by BB3 that the follower already has in their repertoire (Onryo + Summon Dead, among others). Currently existing bond attacks need something more for this to be helpful, though.

Alternatively, maybe the bond can give access to a predetermined and generally inaccessible skill from the follower to the player, where applicable. Prismablight from Ymir, Bloodlust from Fenrir, Berserk from Chimera, etc. Program it to be whatever the last listed skill is and then rearrange them accordingly, for simplicity's sake. Possibly restrict this to exotic followers.

-# Sorry if any of this has been mentioned already, I only read from the poll concerning bond skills.

waxen trout
#

I agree, Follower Tweaking should be in a thread of their own, because this thread is on Bestial Bond only

stray dome
fervent cedar
stray dome
#

I personally dont like the bb1 on gwylgi

#

But thats auriga perspective

waxen trout
waxen trout
fervent cedar
stray dome
#

I was thinking if we could rework the "gategory" of a spell/skill/buff/debuff so its easier to control with calls

#

For examble rune of "titan" is a attack that procs runes to titanseal. Imo it should be affected by brynhild instead of skadi

grand gull
#

Also since you are the only person who runs aoe builds on BeoA you can access that berserk for really beefy enemy packs.

stray dome
#

Bb1

#

Is full hp dmg boost

#

Zerk is good on gwylgi

fervent cedar
#

Gwily just feels like it has an identity crisis, it's BB1 and 3 are just completely counteractive

stray dome
#

Yea that is what i dont like on it

fervent cedar
#

Yeah I love "+15% dmg at max HP" as a BB effect, just not on a pet that also gains zerk at a version niche level (meaning if it was BB2 at least it would be usable by Hydrus)

stray dome
#

Yea bb1 and 3 on gwylgi does not make sense

wide dune
wide dune
fervent cedar
#

I'm more so referring to how the main class where the zerk would be most useful is BeoH but it's locked behind BB3.
The "+15% Dmg at Max HP" effect feels also built for BeoH, the king of T1 dmg, but the rest of the pet feels like it's anti-synergistic to it

grand gull
#

Yeah. Like I said above, it only really works with base beo against really tanky stuff that you know you aren't killing in one turn.

#

And even then, it was more of an abusive application for dragon towers against Bashe packs where base beo could simply ignore most of the incoming damage from Bashe.

fervent cedar
# fervent cedar
poll_question_text

What should be done with the 4 Main BB3 Abilities? (Bonded Strikes, Bolt Volley, etc...)

victor_answer_votes

18

total_votes

25

victor_answer_id

3

victor_answer_text

Remove Them All

victor_answer_emoji_name

❌

#

Honestly expected no less, not a single vote for "good as they are" 💀

grand gull
#

Kind of surprising that players of other classes didn't even wander in and pick that to sabotage the poll mimic

floral roost
#

As long as Bonded Strikes skill on T4 Wolper (Non-BB) was kept, I was good

grand gull
#

Wait, is that a default ability?

#

I just had to mentally wrangle with the thought of you having BB3 on a T4 follower.

#

Oh yeah it actually just has bonded strikes by default, that is hilarious.

#

You are safe on that, the poll was about added skills from BB3.

floral roost
#

Its the strongest damaging skill it has by far, lol.

#

Dunno about the higher tier Wolpers

grand gull
#

Now is the time to request getting rid of its weakest abilities mimic

floral roost
#

Meh, it doesnt need a buff

#

Its already one of the best T4 followers

grand gull
#

Tbh lower tier followers are already not a huge deal either, not enough class passives to abuse anything.

stray dome
#

Wait untill i start expless beomonner journey

floral roost
#

Summon Animal is a 2-turn, T5 spell in the Arcanist. But I have no need for that whatsoever, so uhh... Pass.

stray dome
#

Also you need to switch into druid to even use it

woven plinth
#

Might be Off topic, currently I swear Pet AI is next to useless.

Pet AI should be replaced with "Warg" which is our % chance to manually control the follower on any given turn.

grand gull
#

It's somewhat kinda maybe an arcane art yeah.

#

It was definitely fixed up and made noticeably useful with elemental immunity avoidance, but otherwise all it really does is make your pet aggressively try to spam ward skills most of the time.

#

That would be very desirable on any other class, but for BeoA it's a pain in the butt.

stray dome
#

Only iff pet ai and calls worked together

proper marsh
#

I also started putting a single AI boost in my celestial turtle defense build when I noticed Living Arch Armor would, often enough to be noticed, do something other than divine bastion turn 1. That single adornment along with BeoA meant that it NEVER did the wrong thing turn 1. And it would only attack if ward was full.

grand gull
#

Follower AI bonus makes your follower much more aggressively upkeep buffs. ASG isn't using GM in your example because it thinks it can't 1-shot, it just has a way higher chance of using GM (when not active) as BeoA.

grand gull
#

Hey NF, I've got a question on buffs affecting follower ability selection.

In another discussion, it was noted that one of Odie's previous posts described buffs as affecting the follower ability selection multiplicatively in proportion to the buffs/debuffs; for example, snotra should make magic abilities 1.5x as likely and skills 0.1x as likely.

This explanation does not adequately describe situations such as how often Prometheus uses cleave/sortie, as when you are running Prom you are loading yourself up with magic buffs and running snotra yet it still uses cleave and sortie fairly often.

#

Is there something causing buffs/debuffs to not affect behavior as expected? For example, only affecting base act rate, or individual abilities having a floor for how low of a chance they can be reduced for selection?

mystic turtle
#

Cleave and Sortie have debuffs and ward upkeep, so they will additionally be hit by the apply-debuff and ward-upkeep AI branches

grand gull
#

Dang that was a fast response. So other factors (like the increased follower AI tendency to prioritize ward related abilities) are providing some manner of multiplier that is offsetting lowered skill rate.

fervent cedar
#

That being said though, if these other AI branches are possibly the culprit behind followers not doing what we want them to do I think a nice change to see could be to make it so when a call is active it would drastically reduce the value at which these other branches are considered.
This is also assuming they already don't. If they do, it should be increased as currently it really doesn't feel like it does.

For example: Having Skadii+++ reduces the chance for the "apply-debuff" and "ward-upkeep" branches to even be considered and how much can scale based on your follower AI bonus

mystic turtle
#

they currently do, but perhaps the effect needs to be increased

for example (ward upkeep):

  • if a skill grants ward recovery:
    -> if ward is low, double the chance
    -> if smart ai, add the value to the chance
    -> (we're likely at a score of 50 here)
    -> subtract Skadi's protect chance value (-10)
    -> left with action score of 40

admittedly, the protect rate is an odd choice here, but the others have historically made it too ward heavy

fervent cedar
#

Yeah I think there defiantly needs to be a bit of a boost to the decreased value, as it seems increasing the followers chance to do something only goes so far when we only have a few limited options of decreasing the other choices. Like how I assume the "All +50%" stat boost from redlining adds use chance to both skills and spells since it increases both. Which in my testing last night caused my follower to use a skill significantly more with snotra and -atk than vs. when I was max HP.

#

Though even with that I feel there still needs to be more of a way to direct your pet toward using what you'd actually want them to do. As with having +20% follower AI a fixed ability on BeoA and it just having the chance to boost things you really don't want as BeoA, such as using a healing skill/spell or a ward upkeep ability, has caused so many lost runs

grand gull
#

Got busy for a minute, but after looking at Odie's flowchart, what if we considered something like this: smart AI adds a chance to ward recovery, then smart AI also adds the same chance to the Skadi effect?

#

This sounds like a simple suggestion but I feel like I have to be careful with this, we have so many unintentional effects when anything follower related changes.

fervent cedar
#

I would also love to suggest the addition of when you have "Bloodshift" active it would heavily reduce the chance for a follower to use a healing spell

#

And I'm also assuming there is the an effect similar to ward where if your under half HP then it doubles the chance of healing skills/spells which in turn is also then increased by +follower AI, which basically makes all followers with healing spells nearly impossible to use as redlining is currently a must on BeoA

sour dock
#

I did a test with gorynch for this exact scenario today; at full hp he was pretty consistently running blight then attack but around 25% I only saw divine bastion cast

grand gull
#

Btw, I appreciate you popping in to explain stuff Odie.

waxen trout
waxen trout
last sedge
waxen trout
fervent cedar
waxen trout
#

The problem is also Rune of [Insert Titan's name] being a spell not a skill, it dilutes the Magical aspect of Prometeus and makes irresistible for the AI to use Titan's Strike when there are Runes applied

#

IMO, Odie should have continued the separation between skill and spell by adding Skill equivalent of Towerfall and Runes.
Or just make it an Adaptative ability, choosing between Skill and Spell depending on the highest offensive stat.

grand gull
#

It makes no sense to me that followers with the attack-based titanstrike are relying on a magic-based rune to set it up; it's a huge plus for Selene, Oceanus and Eos that their rune is magic and they have titanseal afterall. In comparison, Prom's only use case is towerfall (for which titanstrike is a negative) and themis who also has titanstrike is sitting in the dumpster alone since Eos climbed out due to agony raiding.

#

It would be optimal if we could push rune applications out on Prom, sure. But if he had titanseal then it could be mildly acceptable as an ability.

proper marsh
#

Replace the Walking XP bond on Wolpertinger into arch alchemy instead?

#

Maybe the same concept for the Elysian Memories? Leave the memory hunt boost bond, but replace the bonded attack and magic with arch alchemy and the gold/orn bonus?

#

So then one memory follower boosts your view distance while the other boosts orns/gold? I'm wanting some followers to be give more general world farming boost as opposed to boosting any specific builds.

celest vine
#

Tbh the walking XP bond makes sense in wolpertinger, given it's the travelers guild follower

proper marsh
stray dome
#

It could boost the world reward thingy. The spawns^

grand gull
#

You mean the item discovery bonus? Yeah that would be more useful than the XP passive and thematic.

stray dome
#

Yup that one

stray dome
#

I hope that build tower also goes. It has no synergy with beos

waxen trout
#

The idea of a "buff that gives Health regeneration" is nice, however, with Valhallan Dissonance that invite us to redline, it is not coherent

#

Would be nice if it was Ward regeneration tho

stray dome
#

The issue with that is. Its attack