just precising some things about the BoT example.
What i was saying is the Beast lord was
Main tank
Main Slower
Main shaman type buff buffer
Only mana regen available ( but for items )
others were mage, necro, necro ( ok a little emergency mana there if trouble came )ranger and cleric.
And the group rocked through the competition, now replace him by any other class, it would never have worked.
I am just stating the fact, yes other class heal better etc, none solo as well in all king of situation. Sure the druid wizard can quad. but thats just one situation, dont ask yourself why there is 10 time as many beast lord as any other class soloing from 1 to 65 :)
In EQ2 any class can go solo, but a beastlord in eq unless you nerf him from what e was in eq1 would be overpowered.
Now if you just want a class named beastlord well whats the point. If it makes you happy calling your mage beast lord well do it. But a tanker, slower, buffer, nuker, doter, haster pet class wouldnt be well receive by all other pet class in eq2 i think :)
And you can claim all that you want that it was just a normal class, it wasnt it was meant to bring more people to the game and make it more accessible. And at that time it was what EQ needed, no one played on lower level zone anymroe so any new player needed an extra boost to pass through these levels alone. the zone were deserted.
So they made an all around class good at about everything, provided its starting location with a whole lot of quest, gave them the easiest zone to level in ( 1-27 in a couple hours without powerleveling involved ) and all sort of other zones with non aggressive thing to kill.
There is a reason its the only class from eq1 that hadnt survived. And i am pretty sure one day it will be added.