BST meritsFollow

It is widely accepted that uncapped Jugs are 0-2 levels under the Beastmaster. The only way to upgrade these pets is to wear Monster Gloves during the use of Call Beast, a good idea is to macro it on when using this ability. It will raise the level of your Jug Pet by 1 and it's the only way to increase it on uncapped jugs. When using Monster Gloves the highest possible level of your pet will still be level 75, but you will raise the minimum possible level of your pet by 1, that way instead of CC being 0-2 levels below you, she will be 0-1 level below you.




If you want to be a Damage Dealer I'd highly suggest Meriting Beast Affinity to the cap, because this will open up a world of possible Jug Pets at level 75. Including Funguars (Woot!), Saber Siravarde (Max level 74 with Monster Gloves, not bad at all), Shellbuster Orob and a few others.

Seeing you want to be mostly a soloist I'd rather not level up Beast Affinity at all, but instead focus on getting the Monster Gloves to turn CC into the tanking monster it should always be.

The list of desirable Merits for a soloing BST should probably be:

Call Beast Timer
Beast Healer
Reward Timer
Sic Timer

For a Damage Dealer focused BST these would probably be better:

Beast Affinity
Feral Howl
Call Beast Timer
Sic Timer

Also, remember to Merit:

Axe Skill
STR or DEX or (depending on you, CHR)
Critical hit Rate
hp or mp (again depending on your tastes)
Enmity -

Of course, the above are suggestions and every person has their own tastes in how to Merit their BST. Just take the above as a general guide of what to Merit.

If you aren't interested in meriting other categories, it could very well mean the difference between soloing a DC or a EM at higher levels. But, you are mostly right, Beast Healer is highly situational and useful particularly for Jug Pet soloing. Uncapped BCNM, KSNM, ENM and ZNM battles are other situations where it can be useful.

At least from my own experience, Axe, Beast Affinity, Call Beast, and Feral Howl seem to be the most important things to merit. Most of the others seem to have a fairly negligible impact considering the time required to merit them. Even Feral Howl isn't really necessary, but definitely has helped me avoid death more than a few times.

I solo a lot and I personally recommand this build.

5/5 Call Beast recast
5/5 Reward

5/5 Beast Healer
5/5 Beast Affinity


Boost your pet as much as you can for soloing. You will notice a HUGE difference and how easy it is to survive ZNM, WSNM, ENM, and regular NMs.

And don't listen to anyone telling you Beast Healer is bad. Sure it is +5 HP per tick, but did you know that's +300 HP total after 60+ ticks?

You can get 1000+ cure on your pet with gear/merit/+MND one pet food, now that's pretty awesome.

IMO beast affinity does affect all jugs,i regularly use C.C. and the homonoculus (have no idea if i spelled that right) and have seen the difference with each level of beast affinity i have which is currently at 4. I also notice that the other jugs i dont use as often were also affected such as nq crabs, funguars,etc. So if u find yourself using jugs alot yes this would b great to merit for you but you do what you want IMO with your merits its your BST and at the end of the day you only have to impress yourself as BST. I'm by no means an expert but thats what i've noticed. After that i like my killer effects, chr, crit and enmity down also feral howl is a lifesaver at times.






Manyarehaters of Fairy Bst75~

Beastmaster~everything else is just a job class

I'd agree with capped BA, but Sic Recast? To each their own, I suppose. Personally, I have Capped BA, Capped Axe, Capped +Crit %, Capped Call Beast and capped -Enmity ( the -Enmity Merits were for me WHM/BST)but never even considered Sic Recast. I also have Feral Howl. I just can't see any reason to cap Sic, but maybe others do. To each their own.