Soloing as COR/BSTFollow

In light of the general consensus that COR is the worst soloer in the game, I thought I would post my experiences soloing with COR/BST.

First of all, speculation aside, if you're interested in this combo, I strongly recommend you read up on the BST job in general on their forum, and specifically using BST as a subjob. You can get started here.

Now, the first thing that you need to know is that the BST community tends to agree that the effectiveness of Charm from /BST is relatedly to the ACTUAL level of the BST main job. For example, a COR75/BST37 who has BST levelled to 75 will have more success than a COR75/BST37 who has BST levelled only to 37. Regardless of whether or not this hypothesis is true, you should have at least some experience playing BST, and so I'm not going to give you a course in how to use charmed pets against prey.

What I will describe are some of the tools available to a COR/BST that gives this job combo considerable soloing capability, unique to the job.

Stats:
COR has relatively high CHR for a DD. This will help Charm success tremendously.

Gear:
CHR gear tends to be "All Jobs", so you shouldn't have much difficulty in decking yourself out in much the same Charming set as a BST main would use. Light Staff is a necessity. The major drawback is that BST main has access to a lot of "Charm+" gear, which helps with duration. I found that my Charm success was very high with COR/BST compared to other DD jobs with BST sub. However, Charm duration is very low for EM+ mobs, so be careful.

In terms of weaponry, the ability to deal ranged damage is very useful for mobs with dangerous AOEs. On the downside, firing bullets can draw hate easily, and this can become expensive. A good sword will allow you to melee along your pet safely.

Job Abilities:
The COR job has many tools available to enhance its soloing potential, particularly with BST sub.

-Beast Roll- This roll grants your pet an ATT buff.
-Puppet Roll- This roll grants your pet an ACC buff.
These effects are actually quite noticeable as a veteran BST. Applying both rolls boosts pet performance quite a bit. In Caedarva Mire I was able to use a single buffed EM sapling to take down a VT bird, with 30% health to spare. That's relatively unheard of. P.S. each of those birds take about 1.5min to kill and grants a 61COR/BST 300+ XP without ring or chain bonuses. This screenshot shows what COR/BST is capable of at level 62... it was my second attempt COR/BST.

-Corsair's Roll- Fights solo take longer than in a party. Use this to your advantage, and apply your XP roll shortly before your prey dies. Your pet won't complain about not having buffs while you line up your next fight.

-Quick Draw- Sleep and Dispel. 'Nough said. If you need to hot swap to a new pet in the middle of a fight, sleeping your prey while you find a new pet will help eliminate downtime. Dispel can be useful for things like Ice Spikes. or DEF buffs. Also, a damaging Quick Draw can be a reliable non-missable finishing blow if you choose to get rid of your pet before collecting your XP.

Strats/Tips:
-Use Tuna Sushi. This food grants R.ACC as well as a decent amount of CHR. It's worth knowing you won't be missing your Slug Shots, and that mischarms will be rare (it's worth the XP you save from avoidable deaths).
-BST sub does not grant the JA Leave until level 70 COR. This means that you have two options until then: 1. Finish fights as quickly as possible, accepting the 30%xp penalty for having a pet at the time of mob death, or 2. "Ghetto-Leave" your pet by using the Heel and Stay commands once the mob is near death, allowing the mob to kill off your pet and grant full xp. Which style you choose is up to you.
-Choose camps with pets which will spawn only DC-EM. This will usually mean that as a COR/BST you will begin to use a camp a couple levels later than a BST main would. T pets are unreliable to keep Charmed, and without Leave you cannot maintain your pets at a particular level (they will either despawn or die depending on if you use Ghetto-Leave or not).
-Take /anon off and put your camp in your /seacom. Don't argue... do it. If you don't respect other soloers enough to save them a trip only to see you're in a particular camp, don't expect them to respect you enough to move on and not camp on top of you.
-Ask BSTs for help/advice. Most BSTs are very knowledgeable and friendly, and are usually very happy to help those who need it.

On that note, if you have any questions/concerns/corrections/compliments/donations you can PM me here or find me on Valefor. Happy hunting. ^^;

Edited, Feb 28th 2007 2:10am by nekio

Cor/bst is great!

But just having to have it the same level as cor will keep it from being something lots of people use.

If i had to level it over again I would have probably solo'd and used a cor/bst instead of playing in Satans Sandbox.

In before Careleil

Surprised he hasn't posted here yet XD

Anyways my BST is only 11 so i cant test this out, but it looks fun ^ ^

Especially when u get a crappy PT and you want to get back your exp that u lost instead of dealing with more frustration putting up the flag again O-o

I'm extremely interested in this. I saw you messing around with this combo just outside of Nashmau and thought, "Damn, that's not a bad idea!"

The only thing I was trying to figure out was how HP management was accomplished. If there's some way to recover HP either by regen, drains, heals, additional effects I think this would be a great combo for XP recaps when needed.

Aside from resting, is there a way this can be done?

Aye, there is nothing in the way of you and the mob if things turn sour. Usually, I would save QD for sleeps, or for emergencies like a Slug Shot miss after Leaving my pet. Suprisingly, pulling hate on COR is much easier than on BST, so you really need to watch yourself and make sure pet buffs are up to help them hold hate. Meleeing with a dagger instead of taking pop shots also helps keep you below the radar hate-wise.

Sanction Regen with resting between chains is how I managed, but to be honest it's a risky endeavor. It's worth it to keep RR2 on, or have a WHM handy, lol. CORs take hits about as well as a wet paper bag, and RD and WC seem less reliable than usual when there's nothing standing between you and an angry mob.

It's not the fastest xp ever, and is certainly dangerous, but that is somewhat mitigated by Corsair's Roll and the fact that you can work on small amounts of xp at your leisure.

Oh, and you can charm a Colibri and take screenshots of you with your parrot. :)

Despite the drawbacks, I completely soloed level 69 on my COR using the Anniversary Ring, in several hours. Corsair's Roll really makes a huge difference when you're starting with gigantic base XP values.

Edited, Jun 11th 2007 3:40pm by nekio

Yes you can. But it'll stay slept.

As for healing hp, there are these you could use. They're only active during daytime, but it's not too bad.

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?fitem=3132

Yes to that, as well RVW.

I only used Light Shot to hold a pet as a last resort pre-70 (Leave). If a fight drags on too long with an EM pet you'll risk an uncharm and have a tough situation to deal with.

Just to clarify: COR/BST is a highly specialized combo... it's not meant to make COR a solo xp machine or anything. It simply gives a means of survivability in the wild. Most jobs do very well with BST sub... I just wanted to point out that COR fits into that mold as well.

As for a COR + BST duo... I would be willing to bet it would do better than BST + BST by a long shot. That is, assuming that the BST is very good at keeping track of the COR's potential pets and whatnot. COR handles buffs, pulling and crowd control, BST keeps pets DC-EM and is in charge of finishing off the fights. I will try it when I hit 75COR with one of my BST buddies.

Edited, Jun 13th 2007 2:05pm by nekio