Every job has their moments when they feel that they're being told what to do, or being completely misunderstood. As BST, however, we sometimes get it worse because few people party with BST - no-one interacts with us. Also, we're not a job that people tend to play around with all that much to learn about, as BST requires a pretty serious commitment of time to get anywhere with. As such, after a mildly bad experience or two (and reading about many others!) I thought that I might knock together a reference for anyone who wants to know a little more about BST. Just my way of trying to give something back for all the useful information I've gotten out of here.
What you might want to know about BST 101
I. Who are we?
II. How do we work?
III. Partying with us.
IV. Partying around us.
V. Misc.
I. Who are we?
We are Beastmasters, or BST for short. We are many and varied, but for the most part we are not losers or rejects who simply couldn’t hack it in the world of the almighty party. We choose to be BST because we like it, because we want a break, because we don’t have the time to commit to parties.
As BST we are resilient, because we die. A LOT. We are determined, because you have to be to survive in this job. We (usually) know what we’re doing, because we can’t depend upon the skills of others to shore up our weaknesses – when we bugger something up, we die. Even then, we experience the vagaries of luck - sometimes we put that Tough goblin away like it was made of soft cheese, and at others an Easy Prey lizard wipes us out without even blinking.
BSTs, like a fine wine, get better with age. The first 15 levels of our job are among the toughest that any job will experience, as we not only learn to work with pets but watch them turn on us time and again. If you see a level 40 or 50 BST, you can pretty much assume that they know their job, because they have no choice. We know how to deal with emergencies – low health, links, and so on. We know when to run, and we can get ourselves out of a jam. We usually carry at least up-to-date gear, as a poorly equipped BST is a dead BST.
Due to the fact that we explore and fight in so many different areas, often off the beaten path, BSTs tend to know a fair amount about the world for their level. We will often know more about the monsters in a given area than anyone else, because we’ve fought against/alongside most of them. We also tend to have an awareness of our surroundings that parallels or sometimes even exceeds that of a RNG - Widescan, radar, even just line of sight - because we need to know what's going on around us.
II. How do we work?
As a BST, we are a one-person party. We pull, we buff/debuff, we heal, we deal damage – and as for a tank, we bring our own, our pet. A BST uses his ability to charm a pet, usually a monster in the area that checks from DC to T. We then use our ability to command our pet in order to set our pet on another monster, with the enemy usually being of the same strength or stronger than our pet. This leads to two main soloing strategies for a BST:
1. A BST will allow the pet and the enemy to fight alone, with no more than perhaps the occasional Dia as intervention, until the pet dies. This will hopefully be after the pet has knocked the enemy down to the point where it has only a sliver of health left, at which point the BST will pull his/her weapon and charge in to finish the monster off for full XP. If not, charming another pet might be necessary.
2. The BST will charge in alongside the pet, swinging away and killing the enemy faster so as to take on multiple enemies with the same pet. Each monster killed in this fashion will give up 30% less xp for the BST, but chaining is easier to accomplish this way.
Yes, it’s true – a BST can chain monsters, himself, for excellent XP. I have personally done it to chain 2, and I’ve heard tales from others about chain 4 or 5 by themselves.
To understand BST, there are a few abilities that you might wish to know about:
Charm:
Reuse: 15 seconds.
Level: 1.
Description:This is the basic function of a BST. It is affected by CHR, which is one of the reasons that Monster Signa is priced so highly (+8 CHR). Charm is essentially an attack: if it works, the targeted creature comes under the BSTs control. If it doesn’t, the targeted creature turns on the BST and starts biting. Some creatures cannot be charmed, such as sentient monsters including all beastmen (Yags, gobs, quads, etc) and a few others. On these uncharmable mobs, Charm acts like ‘Bind’, and lasts a few seconds at most.
Reward
Reuse: 3 minutes.
Level: 12.
Description: Reward allows the BST to use pet food to heal the pet. Pet food are those biscuits that you might see in the AH or a cooking guide: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon. Each restores an increasing amount of HP to a pet. These are often used to give a pet a little more oomph to finish off the fight.
Call Beast
Reuse: 5 minutes.
Level: 23.
Description: This is where ‘jugs’ come in. Jugs are equipped in a BSTs ammo slot, like pet food, and consumed to summon a familiar. These familiars act as a normal BST pet, except that they stay for 15 minutes and disappear when killed. The strength of a jug pet is variable depending on the type summoned (for example, HareFamiliar, CrabFamiliar, etc) and the level of the BST, but will almost always be weaker than something a BST would charm in the wild. They are brilliant for a variety of situations, though (see III).
Sic
Reuse: 2 minutes.
Level: 25.
Description: This command allows the pet to use stored TP in a special attack. Ever faced a Foot Kick from a rarab? That’s a special attack. A BST has to know what the specials of his pet are, because if they are AoE the pet’s actions will draw in nearby monsters just like an AoE spell from a BLM would.
Leave
Reuse: Unknown.
Level: 35.
Description: This is the Holy Grail for BSTs, and will often change their fighting strategy. With Leave, a BST can release his/her pet at any time and charm another. While that is happening, the pet will heal at the freakishly fast rate that pets do, which means that a BST can often use two or more pets to take on even tougher monsters (up to IT). Note: see section V, Misc, for an explanation of what Leave means to you.
These are the most important abilities of a BST for you, a non-BST to know about. There are more, but they are not important to anyone but that poor Taru hanging his butt out to the wind.
With all that aside, we move on.
III. Partying with us.
First, let me clear up a misconception, foisted on an unsuspecting public by the good folks at Brady Games and their wonderful strategy guide:
BSTs do NOT reduce a party’s XP!
To explain: a BST in a party who charms a monster that checks even match or lower (to the BST) does not affect the party’s xp. If the pet lives, the BST will take the customary 30% cut in XP, and if the pet dies, the BST gets full XP.
The only way in which a BST can affect the party’s XP is to charm a monster that checks T or above to the BST, a which point the pet is acting like another member of the party. In this case, the pet would be the highest level member of the party (unless, presumably, the BST were a couple levels lower than the highest member of the party – but I’m unaware of this having been tested) and would affect party XP accordingly. However, this will rarely happen, because
1. BSTs know this, and wouldn’t charm anything T or up in a party situation, and
2. Charms on Toughs are notoriously unreliable and short in duration in any case, and not something that a BST normally does.
That having been said, a BST can bring a lot to a party. How?
1. With a pet (wild or jug), a BST adds what amounts to a seventh member to a party – and an expendable one at that. Though not often a full-fledged melee character on his/her own, due to a lack of special abilities like a WAR, DRK, or RNG might have, a BST with a pet becomes a powerful fighting force.
2. Have an emergency? A BST can crack open a jug, summon a familiar, and draw off that link that appeared out of nowhere until you have time to deal with it, damaging it in the process. Or, the pet that is already charmed can turn to deal with this new threat. In a real pinch, the BST's pet can buy enough time for you and your party to zone with little danger.
3. A BST can be a good puller – his pet can grab a mob and with another of his pet commands, he can bring it back to the party with no danger to the puller. If anything links along the way, the original monster will go after the BST once the pet is dead, but the linked monsters will lose interest and go away.
4. Depending on the subjob a BST chooses (and most will choose WAR or WHM for reasons that don’t interest us here), the BST can throw out a Provoke or Cure to help save the day – though this will be emergency only, please, as we are neither tanks nor healers.
5. Widescan - though RNG gets higher levels of Widescan faster than us (we improve at 20, 40, 60, while they improve at 15, 30, 45, etc), it's still useful in a party. In addition, as mentioned above, we've had to rely on it to save our skins, so you can be sure we know how to use it effectively.
These are just a few of the things that a BST can bring to a party. We won’t always say yes to an invite – after all, we are a solo job for the most part. But if you can’t find that elusive sixth member for the uber-XP, why not invite that BST with his flag up? You might be pleasantly surprised.
IV. Partying around us.
Ah. Now, onto more controversial territory.
Even I, in my partying days, remember the occasional burst of frustration as another party rolled into a spot that we had been enjoying all to ourselves, killing the XP in the process. Worse was when you trekked halfway across a zone only to find that another group was already in your super-secret leveling spot. How much more frustrated do you feel, as a party, when you’ve found a great spot for your party only to find that a BST beat you there?
Now, BSTs will tend to stay out of the more populated zones because they don’t like competing for pets or prey, and because frankly, we can. We can level anywhere with appropriate monsters, but there are times when we will cross paths with you and your party. For example, Qufim happens to be a good spot to level for BSTS in the range of 25 or 26 up to the early 30s. When that happens, please remember the following.
BSTs have just as much right to be there as you do.
It doesn’t matter where you are – you have as little right to try and force out a BST as you do to force out another party. Even if it’s the Dunes/Qufim/Kazham, a BST has a right to be there as much as anyone else does. Please respect our right to be there, and we will respect your right as well. A BST is not a second-class citizen. Of course, the reverse is true as well. Any BST that disrespects you is a jerk, plain and simple – but that doesn’t mean that all BSTs are.
A BST goes through a lot of mobs as s/he XPs, so if there’s not many mobs in your favourite spot, consider being polite and moving on if the BST was there first. More importantly, post-35, a BST will be releasing pets and charming new ones, and some of these pets may aggro. Trying to force your way into a BSTs camp could get you killed, and not by any action of the BST (more on this later).
But most importantly, talk to us. Some of us are jerks, just like some of any job are, but more often than not we will be willing to work out something. Just don’t expect us to ‘get out of your way’ if you come barging in.
V. Misc.
Some final notes.
MPKing: MPKing (Monster Player-Killing) is what happens when a BST drops an aggroing mob into the middle of a party or near an individual and uses Leave. The mob will emerge from its charmed haze and latch onto the first poor slob in its way – i.e. the targeted party/individual. Let me be as clear about this as I was above:
THIS IS NOT RIGHT, EVER.
We have the power to do this, though I wish we didn’t. If any BST ever does this to you, call a GM immediately, whether you get killed or not. That is not to say that if you stumble into a BSTs camp as he’s Leaving a pet and he doesn’t see you, resulting in your death, that he was out to get you. I’m speaking of deliberate murder, attempted or otherwise. This is a reprehensible action, and should be punished severely. There is no excuse.
Leave, and what it means to you: If you see a BST dismissing pets at half strength, and wonder what he's doing, than this is for you:
A dismissed pet will heal fast. If the BST leaves, or doesn't appear to be using it (safer to ask first, to avoid misunderstanding), wait until the mob is fully healed before you attack it! If you wait until it has full health, you will get full XP. Otherwise, you'll take a cut.
Credits: Some of the information here came from Shinoda’s Beastmaster 101 as well as Divida’s earlier guide and the good folks in the [link=ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/jobs.html?fjob=8]Beastmaster Job Forum[/link]. Thanks to ArtsFalcon (Widescan, situational awareness, and luck), and Dahrken (What Leave means to others)
Suggestions or comments are welcome! Feel free to add anything you might be useful for other players to know, especially in the Misc. section. (FAQs?)
Cheers!
Edited, Wed Aug 11 16:51:24 2004 by Winawer
Edited, Wed Aug 11 17:04:02 2004 by Winawer