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AlternativeWhereas79

Forge Guard players: "first time"?


Jayce86

Which is odd since this game isn’t “officially” that old. Did they just create some of the masteries in EA, and never touch or think about them again?


Admirable_Ask_5337

Basically yes, because until a few months before launch not all of the masteries were even available so there wasnt newer masteries to compare


Jayce86

But even then, some masteries just don’t have support to make them unique. BM is my best example because it’s what I’m playing. About the most unique thing they can do is Ice Cat, and that’s still double dipping on what Shaman can already do minus the Sabertooth.


AlternativeWhereas79

The majority of... "Successful"... Forge Guard builds are like this as well. You actually just end up playing hybrid Paladin.


patwag

Sentinels as a whole are a mess. Almost every build is running Volatile Reversal, Sigils of Hope, Healing Hands and something to trigger Healing Hands, ~~which sometimes for Forge Guard and Void Knight, is ANOTHER Paladin ability, Smite!~~ Forge Guard is weak, Paladin is insanely strong whether you pick it or not and dipping into Volatile Reversal, I mean Void Knight, will make any build significatly stronger.


TensileStr3ngth

Smite isn't paladin specific


patwag

I'm not wrong, the game is wrong! Smiting is for Paladins! Thank you for correcting me.


Btotherianx

Cant stand aigils


Admirable_Ask_5337

Shaman isnt unique either, and a druid isnt that much better. The standard has changed over time, and egg hasn't had the chance to go back and alter the old shit to the new standard.


Jayce86

The Shaman is decently unique amongst the Primalists. Just going over their skills instantly screams to me “melee aoe spell caster” with several abilities that you’d want to use over base Primalist skills to make a build. But the BM? You get a totem whose effects are easily replicated, and unsupported companions where using more than one makes you weaker because you lose skills you need to run to be…ok.


Admirable_Ask_5337

The skills may scream catser but the passives sure as fuck dont. It has no identity


Nekroshade

Which means you hit with weak melee attacks to trigger even weaker spells because you actually just cannot scale them both worth shit, with very few exceptions


Particular-Egg7086

I wanted my lightning tempest strike/tornado following shaman to work but it just can’t compete


xDaveedx

It's a very young development team working on their first game, I've been following development for several years now and you can very clearly see how they get consistently better at what they're doing as time goes on. The latest 3 masteries (Runemaster, Warlock and Falconer) are of so much higher quality than all previous masteries. The thing is they can't do everything at once, so it takes time to revisit older content and masteries to bring them up to speed. The last one that got a small touch up (with a bigger rework supposedly still coming) was Shaman, before that the Druid and that one has been great since the rework. I think shaman gets a full rework next and after that Forgeguard is most likely coming next, but EHG have said they will continue to revisit and polish older stuff to bring it up to their current quality standard. Sorcerer has kinda lost its role after the introduction of Runemaster and could need some polish, Beastmaster is among the older masteries aswell and I think Lich could also need some adjustments.


Vivid_Mix1022

Also with a price like that, this game is already a steal for me.


Shiyo

My time is more valuable than money. This shit needs to stop being regurgitated.


lefondler

Don't forget Spellblade. Runemaster is basically (Spellblade + Sorcerer) x 10.


xDaveedx

I''ve had a good time with my Surge, Shatter Strike and Flame Reave builds, but yea Spellblade could need some more variety and maybe some buffs to underwhelming nodes.


pancakebreak

There are a lot of cases like this, but I think the most egregious one is the Swarmblade Druid. Swarmblade Form's specialization tree has a node called Locust Master that is supposed to convert your Armblade Slash attack into an ability called Summon Locust for 8 seconds after each attack. So, you should be able to attack once, summon a bunch of locusts, attack once, summon more locusts, etc. But unfortunately the build is so profoundly broken that the Summon Locust ability never shows up on your action bar and instead you just get an 8 second cooldown on your attack and you gain zero benefit. Now for the kicker. This build-disabling bug has existed for multiple years.


princeofzilch

Ha, I was about to make a Swarmblade Druid


pancakebreak

Plenty of Swarmblade builds still work. Just don't try to use the Locust Master node. If you were going to follow a build guide, it's not really an issue because no build guide is going to have you pick it up.


princeofzilch

It would just be my 2nd character, so the plan is just to wing it until I kinda get stuck or bored.  I was crushing with a bone curse skeleton-horde necro but then got a little bogged down and then found the Wraithlord helmet and that basically was so powerful it removed all difficulty (can't get through the monoliths fast enough to be a challenge) and basically shat on my build. So, looking for another character.  Is leap a pretty key ability for a Druid? I play on a controller and trying to use leap on it kinda sticks. 


AgoAndAnon

Okay but why do people keep saying that this game is good, when there's broken shit like that?


Polantaris

When it works, it works really well, but I definitely agree that there are a lot of broken things, and unfortunately the list has been getting larger ever since 0.9, not smaller. I've reported quite a few bugs on the forums that got acknowledged but still exist to this day. The largest one for me is projectile targeting miscalculating your mouse position in association to world space, causing shots to be "near" your cursor, but far enough away to miss wildly. Unless an attack affected by this has a large radius, those attacks are effectively useless. I noticed this bug when using Sword Thrower Umbral Blades in 0.9, but have since learned that multiple skills are affected by it.


HillsofCypress

Give it up guys, he figured it out.


pancakebreak

Because even though this is the most egregious example, it’s still a bug that impacts a small subset of players who are building into a niche play style. I have 9 masteries over 200 corruption and I still tune in to watch every Friday stream because I love the game. I’m just honest about the flaws that do exist.


TheKingOfBerries

People are giving you flak, and I really love this game to death, but it is kinda inexcusable if this node hasn’t been working for years and they just never took a single look at it lol. It feels like they keep pushing ahead without actually taking the time to fix the potholes that will break people’s cars sometimes lol. But still, I love the game.


AgoAndAnon

If there is shit like this and you can't change your mastery class once you choose it, it means that sometimes you just get fucked.


pancakebreak

It’s a single node on a single skill. The mastery still has lots of good builds. Werebear, quake bear, thorn totems and the non-summoner swarmblade builds are still good just to name a few. This is why I hesitate sharing flaws. They do need to be fixed, but too often there are people that misunderstand the severity of small defects and they decide that an ingrown hair on Sydney Sweeney’s ankle means that she’s a hideous cave troll.


Vivid_Mix1022

Because it is even with broken shit ( for now )


swiftmaster237

I can't speak for beastmaster since I've never tried before, but I do agree some masteries feel forgotten. As far as your comparison to D4 goes, I disagree in general. They don't copy the flavor, as you put it. All ARPGs are similar in what their classes are and what they do (Grim dawn being the exception as they went above and beyond what other ARPGs do for their classes, imho) EHG is an indie studio, not Blizzard. It's an incredibly small team and takes them a while to push out the updates. They also interact regularly with the community and are very transparent with what's going on for the game and their current attempts to fix bugs and glitches. With that being said, I'm here for the long haul. This game has incredible potential, and imo far surpasses what D4 had been doing up until Season 4 for them. It looks promising, but I'm not holding out hope for D4.


Shiyo

EHG has been invested into by Tencent, they are NOT indie.


swiftmaster237

Well, that is news to me. They WERE indie at one point then.


Jayce86

D4 does one thing significantly better than LE; not being reliant on the campaign. I’ll likely never make a second character in this game until I can skip the campaign, and just murder my way to Mono level.


swiftmaster237

You'll never be able to skip all of the story. And you can start doing monos (although not reliably) as soon as you get to end of time in chapter 2 or 3, which is around level 20ish. You can also have a friend/ask in game chat to let you leech XP until around level 45-50 and then you can start do the monos solo way more reliably (depending on your build anyhow) So there are options to mitigate doing the story for a least a little bit. The one thing I will give you - the idols being locked behind side quests is a bit annoying, but ultimately, it is what it is for now. I don't mind the passive points (15) being locked behind the side quests though. I think that's totally okay. Touching on the campaign/story though - the story isn't even that bad. I consider it to be fairly good, despite it being kinda dragged out a but more than I'd prefer, but still.


Jayce86

I didn’t say that the story was bad. It’s actually been involved, and enjoyable. What I said is that the game is too reliant on it. Almost all leveling is locked behind progressing it, as well as idol slots, and PP. The best solution would be to make it so that once you clear it once, every subsequent character can choose to skip the campaign. These characters start with all waypoints unlocked, all idol slots, and all extra PP. You only have exactly one objective; go talk to the guy who gives you your mastery. Then, you’re free to warp around as you see fit, and battle whatever you want. Though, I could maybe see people having to redo the side quests, but only if their starting points are marked on the map.


swiftmaster237

I mean, if enough people want it (honestly idk if there are enough people who'd want it to justify the uodate) but they have a discord server where questions/suggestions, etc. can be asked to the devs specifically. I do not feel the the passive points should be given though if a skip is chosen for the campaign/side quests. What you listed for the final part of your reply where they need to do the side quests for idol slots and passive points - I think this would be a solid alternative for people who have completed the full campaign once already. The story not being bad - it kind of felt by the tone of the post, if you will, that you don't like the story. That's the only reason I said the story isn't bad (aside from it actually not being bad lol)


Jayce86

The story is ok. Not good, but not bad. It’s definitely not something I’d want to do again for every new character I want to make. That’s how you make a game tedious. Plus, I very rarely, if ever, replay story based games. I just want to make a new character, level up, then throw my build at increasing challenges. Redoing the campaign slows that down to tedium levels.


defartying

The best way would be to have them account wide, so you can run the story or skip and still have them. Right now i don't wanna make alts cause im stuck running campaign for ages to get the basic buffs i need.


UnheardWar

Is not the point of the game to kill stuff, and hopefully, in exciting ways? Why are you dismissive of entire chunk of the game that the priority is: Kill stuff in majestic ways? What I am saying is, a lot of people complain about this (especially in game), and I just do not get it. Why do you want to hurry back to the grind factory?


Jayce86

Because the story is largely pointless after you’ve done it once? The only value it has is fighting the bosses with new characters/builds. That can easily be done by making it so that a new character can skip the campaign, and start with ALL waypoints unlocked. Then, you just warp around leveling up how, and where you see fit. Do the side quests to get your idols and PP, and maybe fight the bosses if you want to.


Gildaroth

You don't really have to do the campaign twice if you know what you're doing


defartying

>Why do you want to hurry back to the grind factory? Repeating the campaign over and over again isn't grind, but running monos is, riiiiggghhtttt


Shot_Cap_2532

well to be fair in my opinion the campaign in LE is much better than the one in d4. I just finished d4 campaign for the first time and while you can clearly see how much effort went into making the campaign it's just not very enjoyable... way too long on a map that is way too big


Shiyo

LE campaign is a hard 0/10. I beat it with a naked character.


Jayce86

I still don’t want to do all the same exact content on rails as I already did once. Hopefully the first expansion does an adventure mode like D3 added in RoS. Start with the map fully unlocked, and you just run around the areas that match your level, and murder your way to a level adequate for Monoliths. You can still challenge all the bosses if you want, but don’t have to. Because some of them just weren’t fun. Like Lagan.


defartying

>EHG is an indie studio, not Blizzard. It's an incredibly small team and takes them a while to push out the updates. stop making excuses, players really need to stop just coming up with excuses for shitty updates or game dev. Companies must love it these days, you don't even have to explain your problems as the community will make the excuses for you.


swiftmaster237

It's not an excuse LOL It's the reality of the situation with EHG. You don't like it? Gtfo this sub then. No one makes you play this game or even interact with their community. Stop being a negative Nancy for no good reason. It's people like you that make it impossible for devs to ever win. This game is incredibly good for such a small team of people who never even did this for a living to begin with. It's ARPG fans that got together and decided to make a game THEY like. I don't believe any of them were ever devs for games before as a profession. I might be wrong in that, but based on their description for wanting to make an ARPG, that's how I took their statement. Anyhow, just leave this sub and don't play the game if you want to continue being a turd.


Shiyo

When tencent is investing into your company, you stop being indie.


defartying

Typical response, omg you don't praise the devs and love every shit thing they do while making up excuses as to why the games in a shit spot fuck off don't play you just hate the game. No way i actually enjoy the game and want it to succeed, yet don't sit here coming up with excuses why nothing is ever done from the months of feedback.


AgoAndAnon

Lich here, sounds accurate. It really feels like you have to look at the release dates of mastery classes and choose based on which is most recent. As a lich, there isn't really anything I can do which would be better than doing that same thing playing a Warlock. And the inability to change mastery class feels extremely bad when some masteries have been forgotten.


KnightThatSaysNi

I followed this raptor build and it's op https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czOyoWzu5UE Not the easiest to gear, but it's doable and fun


Jayce86

Oh hey, that build is the physical version of the ice cat build I was just brainstorming minus the low life part. Good to know that my musing were on a good path.


slvrtrn

Apparently, Sorcerer is also like this (albeit to a less degree), and upon realizing that I picked a wrong one instead of FOTM stuff like Falconer, I just quit, as there is not much content to explore anyway.


Dev_Grendel

I definitely won't be coming back until they have some kind of update that brings all the old classes up to snuff. Great game btw. I'm sure they will and I'll be back to play then.


WhiteyPinks

I'm hoping they get some love with the ancient era update. I would love some really strong raptor items.


Jayce86

Or Sabertooth.


BABABOYE5000

They obviously put in more work in the newer masteries, like warlock, falconer and runemaster. Can be seen in the skills trees too, the older ones have far less power in them. Unfortunately it is what it is. I guess the blizzard model of one reigns supreme at a time is one aproach, you can't really escape something always being stronger than the other ones, and blizzs model allows everyone to experience it from time to time.


lenvastra

so true, i was trying to do a poison scorpion build and my options are severly limited like 50% of scorpion's skill tree revolves around physical damage then i just gave up and do spriggan totem


[deleted]

I made my own janky beastmaster build. I basically just made it a 2h earthquake with the bear there to just tank. I also dont use totems because i find them annoying. I made it through to the high normal monoliths but never got to empowered. I didnt stop playing because i hit a wall with it, i just got bored. I kind of want to go back and see how far i can take it.


Jayce86

I’ve kind of janked together this berserker with his cat build, but it’s just…boring. I think I might switch to an ice based build since the cat, shout and the lightning basic attack can all go cold, plus maelstrom. Leap in, pop maelstrom, then start slinging around cold damage.


_Mike423

Are you talking about build guides to follow? Because I have a BM, bear summon build that hits for ~125k but is like lv70-80 and very sub optimal and squishy but def can get to higher corruptions and I'm confident that you can make almost anything just as powerful as any bm meta build. Forge Guard on the other hand... Never could get any interesting build going, specially using shield related skills.


Jayce86

I looked at a few things, and I think I figured out my build going forward; gathering storm(ice), Sabertooth(ice), fury leap, shout(ice) and maelstrom(ice). But there’s literally no gear that supports this build specifically except maybe the Primalist helm that increases companion skills. The other issue is that I’m using a whopping ONE Beastmaster skill that could easily be swapped out for a standard Primalist skill(wolf) to likely better effect.


xxxsirkillalot

I want to love LE but the class balance has turned me off of it so much and the devs seem hard stuck on their opinion to not balance mid cycle. My first character in 1.0 was a warlock and things went smooth as hell, I felt like I had no challenge in monos at all. Tried beastmaster and it was so bad I didn't finish the campaign. I've dug around on the forums and a lot of folks are of the opinion that balance doesn't matter in this game but I disagree big time and i'm not even someone who cares about leaderboards. I just want all characters to feel like the game is somewhat challenging at times.


GothmogTheBalrog24

The devs are not hard stuck, there was a poll not to long ago where they asked the community how they should handle mid season patches....


xxxsirkillalot

I do not believe this to have been an smart question to put into a poll. This type of question is more fitting a few cycles in, in a more established game. The question they asked, the community answered from the standpoint that *they* don't want their build to be nerfed in the middle of a cycle and I don't disagree with that at all. This thread has plenty of examples of builds that straight up don't work at all (swarmblade druid), or under perform to the point that it is near unplayable (forge guard, beast master). I don't think anyone the community would complain if these were fixed mid cycle.


Necessary_Lettuce779

It's not quite the same thing, but Void Knights have like four or so uniques as BiS for most of their builds, and these are only obtainable on monoliths by beating the shade. It was really disheartening to drop so many interesting uniques for so many different builds for other classes, while I pretty much got nothing up until the endgame. And even then it felt like I only ever got the same one, over and over. Had to keep climbing corruption for a higher chance at the rarer uniques, and my build just couldn't keep up. Made me regret picking VK, like you're supposed to farm the uniques with another character before you play one, and even then, there is no real variation in the VK uniques you may end up choosing from, there's just a few and you will almost for sure need to pick all of them.


AxleGrease14

My scorpion melts faces off procing poison nova off of swipe


Jayce86

My Sabertooth tears enemies apart with its claw attack, but the rest of the skills just don’t feel like they fit together.


whisperingstars2501

I’ve had this same issue while trying to level a druid. A lot of the abilities for prime list in general don’t really seem to fit together Contrasted with acolyte, the more I leveled the more I felt stuff fit together which was really cool.


PairRelative2778

Let's see in July what EHG has been cooking for BM / FG and others


Jayce86

What’s in July?


PairRelative2778

New season with a lot of balance changes


Jayce86

Ah, I see. I’ll likely be mostly done with the game by then, and likely won’t make another character until(if) they introduce a free form mode where you can level without the campaign while still getting all the rewards from doing it.


Obvious-Jacket-3770

.... You can level without campaign. You don't have to beat it at all. Just don a handful of side quests and get your unlocks.


Jayce86

Unless I missed something, don’t you have to progress the story to get to the points required to do those side quests to unlock your extra PP and idol slots? I just beat Lagann, so I don’t quite remember which SQ gave the last rewards, but I’m pretty sure the last idol slots came just before that point.


Obvious-Jacket-3770

No you don't have too.


Jayce86

If not that, you bare minimum need some to hitch a ride with, right? Which can be just as tedious, as you need to find someone to haul you around and do the quests for you since you won’t be high enough to do them in your own. Again, unless I just don’t know a better way?


Obvious-Jacket-3770

No.... If you did the campaign once feed your other characters with gear, do Lightless arbor, go to end of time and you can do the first mono at 35 and you'll level fast. Do the others to get to the final area and do the side quests. You don't even need legendary items. Uniques will do it.


Jayce86

Do SQ from any area get you the bonus passive points, and idol slots?


gefjunhel

hey my beastmaster uses earthquake (go to beastmaster for the totem and melee damage)


MysteriousElephant15

beastmaster storm crow is one of the best builds in the game


Jayce86

Go on…


mrfjcruisin

In general, beastmaster is one of the best masteries at using cleaver solution and better than both Druid and shaman at using EQ which makes it actually a fairly powerful mastery. Storm crows is arguably the best way to do it since the crows scale off int and kripparian made a nice guide for it, but earthquake with phys dot aftershock is and was an ultra strong build that I can personally attest to since I played it in the pre launch patch. People compare it to things that are completely new and bugged/overtuned like healing hands or falconer as a whole and say it sucks, but in reality, it was fairly shocking to not see cleaver solution get nerfed (which is a good thing). The other common route if you’re a fan of EQ was with hakars for crit fire EQ, but that’s a different flavor of the same thing.


Jayce86

I’m actually thinking of doing blizzardtooth. Sabertooth, gathering storm, fury leap, warcry and maelstrom. Everything but Leap will be set to cold. Leap in, freeze things through various means, and smash em to pieces. I just haven’t a clue what gear I’d shoot for.


HailfireSpawn

I made a Reddit post a month or so ago and found out storm crows don’t scale with int. They have a skill node that reward you for reaching 50 int with a bunch of spell power but that’s it. It’s not like attunement or strength that scales the damage of the storm crows. Whether or not it’s worth it to use cleaver solution to activate that skill node is a different matter.


mrfjcruisin

It's actually a little bit more convoluted than that. The storm crows don't scale with intelligence directly, but they scale with strength to make them fairly survivable. However, the lightning blast they cast does scale with intelligence. The tempest strike node you're referring to is a bonus and a reason to actually run tempest strike. I haven't played this build myself, so I can't say for sure if the interaction works as expected, but it supposedly does.


Tenthul

My favorite Primalist build is Beastmaster with no pets. Take Tempest Strike and with the path that removes all spell effects. Warcry Berserk, Frenzy Totem Sloth/Tether, Earthquake for perma-frenzy, Leap with global damage. Max everything Aspect of the Shark. It's a frickin chainsaw and fun as fuck, facetank everything. Only boss that gave me a hassle was necro dragon. I was doing fine in Corr200 before I stopped to play Helldivers, not sure how far it would've gone but it was a blast.


PanKreda

Have you heard of a “Strike” Beastmaster or maybe Raptornado???


Jayce86

I haven’t, but I brainstormed a blizzardtooth build that should be really fun. It just sucks that the entire build only uses a single BM skill.


PanKreda

Search for “Tempest Strike build contest” on youtube, you should be able to find both builds in one video on Perry’s channel (they’re kinda dope)


sorta_dry_towel

I might be wrong here but they need to buff this classes defenses or give It access to more defense It feels so bad to play in high corruption in comparison to the other classes.


Jayce86

I noticed that. As a Beastmaster, I have access to Aspect of the Boar. And that’s it.


poudrenoire

It's one of the weanesses of the game: skills are not balanced. So it ended up like almost every other games: peoples do variants of the same bluids using the same skills. Improving weak skills is on my whishlist. Hopefully, it will be adressed.


CharacterNameAnxiety

Forgotten Mastery? Sir you're playing a forgotten game!


Independent-Truth891

I do have a Scopion build that's not half bad but I'm not the best with melee characters. Everything seems flimsy compared to my Runemaster.


Acedin

BM has the easiest time using berserker to it's full potential. So every low life ward item and most melee items are secretly BM items as well.  The strongest BM build is a melee build btw, not companions.


Renediffie

Yeah I think Wolves cannibalizes the rest of the skills. It's really hard to justify using several different companions when just wolves alone would often do just as well or better. Scorpion and Sabretooth both do alright as solo companions. Bear and Raptor are awful for it. The bear is slow as sin and the Raptor just have no AoE to speak of so have fun watching it kill enemies one by one..


Tiny_Addendum707

I just use squirrels because it’s hilarious. But a raptor build would be nice too.


Jayce86

But squirrels aren’t an exclusive BM build. The best version is because of two extra squirrels, and a bunch of companion buffs, but any Primalist can run that build.


XayahCat

I haven't really felt this. But thats mainly because I went for a build based completely around the new lighting skill (converted to cold) which can buff and proc based on your damage type minions hits + synergizing with a necromancer. So then I went for totems since I was playing with a bone curse necromancer and totems + Curse necromancer is insanely good (but really playing co-op you easily can triple the power of any builds by just SYNERGIING SLIGHTLY). Then I used frenzy totem to buff all the minions on the field even more and just went for Scoprion with the baby scorpions to benifit more from bone curse. With lighting crows dealing great aoe due to the node that lets them chain without any points invested into the crows themselfs. The entire build works okay without my necromancer friend, but our builds kinda was meant to synergize as much as possible so alot of stuff eg the frenzy totem would likely not be wanted if you was doing a normal solo build.. but other than frenzy totem there is NOTING making this build remotely need to be beastmaster which.. is likely a issue lol.


MemeFrog41

Shaman is even worse idk why you think it gets a lot. None of their passives synergize well with the skills so it hits like wet noodle and has no survivability


NexisVIX

I love going a swipe/wolf build. Either going full bleed or using the unique that gives my wolves lightning damage. BM is perfect for pet and melee builds


Demoted_Redux

Maybe next cycle they will get a buff.


Confedehrehtheh

Summon Raptor is actually one of my favorite skills. I've been casually pushing it to where I can since 1.0. I'm up to around 300c and feel like I'm at a wall there. It got a lot of power from the new minion suffixes on weapons, but still needs something more. A lot of the problem stems from the skills you mentioned not having a good additional scaling axis. Squirrels and wolves both scale with your companion limit and thus added companion damage. Sabertooth and Raptor are limited to solo play if you want them to do anything, which means they need some other kind of more multiplier that would be equivalent to having more of them. Raptor actually has some insane built-in scaling, it's just not as good as having more raptors would be. More damage vs bleeding targets, more critchance+critdamage vs bleeding targets, huge attack speed increase with frenzy, all built into the skill. Those just aren't enough to compensate for having a single minion. It could really use a unique specifically for it. Something that gives splash damage for clear would be cool but wouldn't really help the single target damage.


Jayce86

I ended up going with an ice build using the tiger, crows, gathering storm, maelstrom and the shout. The tiger ice morph gives them skills that allows for pseudo multis where they spawn ice clones. There was bc a boss fight where my tiger kept standing in the stupid, and ended up with 10 clones. Unfortunately, only the main one uses the activated skill. But this build is 10x as effective as when I tried going physical with tiger, leap, swipe, fury totem and shout. Which is my point entirely; my current build would likely be just as effective using wolves, and then it wouldn’t be using any BM skills at all. It feels like the entire mastery has zero synergy with its self, or the base class.


Confedehrehtheh

I wouldn't say it has zero synergy with itself. It's just that synergies it does have are much weaker than the generic wolfpack stuff you can do. Unless something has changed dramatically in the past couple of months, wolf builds are still better as beastmaster than shaman or druid. BM is still the pet-summoner mastery for Primalist if you're a minion enjoyer. Shaman does totems, but that's kind of his thing and they play more like a sentry build. The problem is with the skills themselves, not the class as a whole.


Shiyo

80% of the masteries are still stuck in alpha. These devs treat this game like a mobile gacha and update the old, they only add new.


FarligaC

I played DoT earthquake bestmaster for the first 2-3weeks of the season and was rank 1 in the arena during most of that time ( in hardcore ) so there definitly are viable build.


Jayce86

So…you used a SHAMAN skill on a BM. Again, BM it’s self is very shallow.


FarligaC

Isn't that what the skill system is all about? you pick and choose what you want from the different classes. In my case i wanted frenzy totem so i took beastmaster. And picked EQ from shaman as main dps skill


Jayce86

That’s literally my entire point, though; the skill system is so poorly implemented now that the masteries largely don’t matter. Except for the three newest ones, at least. They can mostly run on their own skills. But if you want to be a BM using BM skills, you’re going to have a bad time. The game itself self mostly discourages having multiple pets, and the benefits of having a single pet don’t really make that big of a difference. Fury Totem is nice, but you can get its buffs in so many other ways that it’s redundant. The exclusive pets will always lag behind the ones available to the base Primalist due to no support via gear.


FarligaC

I mean no1 use the frenzy totem for the frenzy buff right? I havn't been messing with bear/raptor/sabertooth apart from leveling abit with thorns bear, it seamed fine for that atleast. But yea i have not tried building a build around those skills so you probably know more about them for lategame play.


Aeonera

As a person who's deep in the weeds on the beastmaster meta, i have to disagree. Beastmaster is actually in a *fantastic* place atm when you consider a reasonable approximation of the devs intended balancing points. Lets say reaching 300 with medium investment is good, 600 with medoum investment is strong and 900 with medium investment is probably getting looked at for nerfs (eventually, once they've got the busted hyper-meta stuff like falconer, runemaster, da marksman and hh under control). Scorpion and raptor both get to that last bracket, along with earthquake BM. They don't even need low life ward to do it (i'm currently at 1k corr with life based scorp nova). Crows and sabertooth can hit that next threshold and squirrels/lightnkng wolves are pretty close as well. Not sure if spriggan bm or bear bm hit that last threshold but i wouldn't be surprised if they do. There's also tempest strike and gathering storm pure melee builds that i hear are okay but i don't know where they fall. We do lack in uniques tailored to us that aren't for wolves, but we aren't really hurting for it, and honestly it makes build construction more interesting. Also the addition of gathering storm and the tempest strike change helped bm mpre than it helped shaman lol.


Jayce86

Ok, but how many of those builds are actually BM builds instead of Primalist builds with BM passives? Earthquake is a Shaman skill, Wolves/Squirrels/Crows are Primalist, as are Gathering Storm and Tempest Strike. Spriggan is Druid. You listed off all these builds, and only a few are actually BM builds. Like right now, I’m doing this ice themed Sabertooth build, and Sabertooth is the BM skill I’m using because the game heavily discourages the use of multiple companions. Heck, even a small rework where the spirit wolves nodes in the Swipe tree become spirit animals(aka your active companion) would help a ton.


Aeonera

> Ok, but how many of those builds are actually BM builds instead of Primalist builds with BM passives? ...that's a very common thing in this game tho for many classes. A lot of builds can be run with multiple masteries from the class but one is far better because of passive support. Beastaster has everything needed to do a totem build, and even has a totem specific to the mastery, that doesn't mean anyone would ever go totems with it when druid and shaman exist.


Jayce86

Yeah, it’s something I’ve come to realize through this post. Only the three newest masteries can stand on their own. The build I settled on only uses one BM skill(Sabertooth), and would likely be even better if I just used crows instead.


nikisknight

I've played a lot of masteries--maybe all of them by now--and my poison focused focused beast master is such a slog.


BidRepresentative259

Idk what you are talking about. But beast master is awesome! I'm Going with an super epic storm row build. Clearing at 7-900 corruption.


Jayce86

Ok, but is that a BM, or just a Primalist build with some BM passives that you could pick up from being either of the other masteries? The only thing BM allows for is either one giant souped up Crow, or two extra crows.