Beastmaster: Will I ever charm again?

[Panthera]

The very thing I liked about playing Beast was that it wasn't just a pet job; it could control monsters in field areas and make them fight one another, making for gameplay that was like no other job. EXPing this way was a nice break from leveling other jobs the tradition way. The way things are now, there actually isn't a fundamental difference between Beastmaster and every other Pet Job, what with the huge emphasis on Jug Pets. Perhaps camps in future updates can take this into account.

[Jile]

I agree, I miss the old school play on BST. While there are indeed some charmable mobs that have been added at higher levels - I'd be glad if any new expansions SE makes (like for 90->99), could be used without any jug pets.

Anyone that played BST outside aby, soloing to 75 has warm memories of the sapling-bird camp in the mire, or the leech camp vs birds in thickets, great exp camps for solo BST. Ultimately I think its that, the OP is really missing and while there are a few new camps available for a high lvl BST, its just not quite the same.

SE, I do love the new jugs - don't get me wrong... but I'd also like to get more use out of my +CHR set, when the next expansion/areas come out. (plz) lol.

[SNK]

I do miss having the abliity to Charm shit in Abyessa but it doesn't impact the gameplay that much in the zone for me. I just finished my first stage on Farsha and truthfully I'm having a lot of fun trying to make a solid DD build for the job again so anything that gives me more inventory space to load up on DD gear instead of overkilling it with Charm is a good thing imo.

[Superchicken]

BST was one of my favorite jobs. I spent alot of time and effort on building the superb charm setup, then came abyssea that imo ruined BST. With abyssea everyone became a BST cause all it requires now is to throw a jug pet out. Hardly my definition of BST. BST is about charming mobs and since the endgame material now is pretty much abyssea and we can't charm anything in there BST has become meh. I hope they plan to add some new content for 91+ that brings the true spirit back to BST with charming

[Xilk]

I love the finer level of control they've been adding for jug pets. BST is all about controlling the pet, and the finer control, the better, imo.

Charm was being taken away long before abyssea, abyssea just makes it the most blatent because most the mobs are normal stuff we used to charm. There are various mobs in dynamis and limbus that should be charmable. I think anything in the main animal ecosystems should be charmable.

shucks, if a bst MOB can charm me, why can't I charm it? If MOB bst's are immune to charm, then I should be also.

One way or the other, I think it shows a blatent castration of a beastmaster's power for MOB's to be immune to our charm while w are susceptible to theirs. :P

[Nattack]

After a lengthy post I made about how the old ways of bst were more fun, I auto-logged out and lost all that.

So I will give a skimmed down version,
way back when a FFXI Representative - sometime in 04/05, had posted on Alla asking for information on how to improve the game. Asking Alla for this information was clearly a bad Idea, as almost every post had said "Nerf beastmaster" in some shape or form - because we MIGHT be dangerous. This brought about the invention of Mob Depop, a virtuous by design, but ultimately gamechanging downgrade for beastmaster - I might add that it was poorly executed, as the way we played bst involving bringing some mobs from one side of a zone to the other, and using leave to make it quickly heal so we could get some decent solo/party exp. I had dropped my line in, and insisted that instead of the monster depopping, we could make the monster go docile until it reaches its leash zone.

This also killed MPK, which I may be alone on this, but I found it to be lots of fun (not that I am admitting to have done it. maybe. kinda, sorta) it was loads of fun at serket, cassie. etc, to drag a great deal of monsters to your opposing parties fight, in our case it was usually RMT who stole monsters (literally steal, as if I recall, there was a bug or exploit way back when in which you could claim an NM from people in an alliance. I recall this happening at Serket).

beyond that, our AF3 has all this CHR on it, but we have little opportunity to use it, by the time we actually can use it there is no reason to charm things - it may be slightly useful in a few past zones, im thinking the northlands. I'm hoping updates in the future will be more pet-job friendly, introducing new pets for us to charm, NM's for us to fight, perhaps in new or revamped areas. A pattern I've been seeing in the last few expansions (WoTG and on).

I know, or at least hypothesized that most areas weren't exactly designed for beastmaster, as usually mob level ranges are far too unreliable for solo in the FFXI/RoZ zones. It seems that, however, FFXI Team since CoP has been afraid of beastmaster and pet job potential, as beastmaster was ultimately useless in places like Sea, most of Sky, and especially Salvage. Salvage itself had gear for all jobs, but became far too elitest to allow any other jobs but a select few inside.

I don't exactly mind levelling other jobs, but I don't feel that any event should exclude any certain job by design. It's just too hard to take certain jobs inside salvage (old, i havent done salvage since 09) and still be effective. There was nothing charmable in Sea, Limbus, and only flamingos in Sky. When your only job was BST back then, it's kind of a bummer to be constantly overlooked.

now, that's a rant from 04-09, now we have abyssea, but It's still not quite right. Now we're dead simple WAR's with a pet. It's almost as straight forward as MNK party wise.
I enjoyed soloing on bst, it was challenging and tons of fun. And while I can still do it, sort of, I cant make use of all those old macros, and 5 years of gathering BST AF1+1 gear that I worked so hard for. Given how solo and duo friendly the game is these days for jobs that arent pet jobs, we all deserve our spoils. It's not like BST solo was ever easy, after all.

I guess what I want is some new zones with FFXI's mechanics preserved from middle2004. with tough, unforgiving, but highly rewarding nm's. mobs that don't despawn that we can carry across the zone, aggro, being hit from AoE from out of party hecticness that I so crave from the old days.

[Superchicken]

After a lengthy post I made about how the old ways of bst were more fun, I auto-logged out and lost all that.

So I will give a skimmed down version,
way back when a FFXI Representative - sometime in 04/05, had posted on Alla asking for information on how to improve the game. Asking Alla for this information was clearly a bad Idea, as almost every post had said "Nerf beastmaster" in some shape or form - because we MIGHT be dangerous. This brought about the invention of Mob Depop, a virtuous by design, but ultimately gamechanging downgrade for beastmaster - I might add that it was poorly executed, as the way we played bst involving bringing some mobs from one side of a zone to the other, and using leave to make it quickly heal so we could get some decent solo/party exp. I had dropped my line in, and insisted that instead of the monster depopping, we could make the monster go docile until it reaches its leash zone.

This also killed MPK, which I may be alone on this, but I found it to be lots of fun (not that I am admitting to have done it. maybe. kinda, sorta) it was loads of fun at serket, cassie. etc, to drag a great deal of monsters to your opposing parties fight, in our case it was usually RMT who stole monsters (literally steal, as if I recall, there was a bug or exploit way back when in which you could claim an NM from people in an alliance. I recall this happening at Serket).

beyond that, our AF3 has all this CHR on it, but we have little opportunity to use it, by the time we actually can use it there is no reason to charm things - it may be slightly useful in a few past zones, im thinking the northlands. I'm hoping updates in the future will be more pet-job friendly, introducing new pets for us to charm, NM's for us to fight, perhaps in new or revamped areas. A pattern I've been seeing in the last few expansions (WoTG and on).

I know, or at least hypothesized that most areas weren't exactly designed for beastmaster, as usually mob level ranges are far too unreliable for solo in the FFXI/RoZ zones. It seems that, however, FFXI Team since CoP has been afraid of beastmaster and pet job potential, as beastmaster was ultimately useless in places like Sea, most of Sky, and especially Salvage. Salvage itself had gear for all jobs, but became far too elitest to allow any other jobs but a select few inside.

I don't exactly mind levelling other jobs, but I don't feel that any event should exclude any certain job by design. It's just too hard to take certain jobs inside salvage (old, i havent done salvage since 09) and still be effective. There was nothing charmable in Sea, Limbus, and only flamingos in Sky. When your only job was BST back then, it's kind of a bummer to be constantly overlooked.

now, that's a rant from 04-09, now we have abyssea, but It's still not quite right. Now we're dead simple WAR's with a pet. It's almost as straight forward as MNK party wise.
I enjoyed soloing on bst, it was challenging and tons of fun. And while I can still do it, sort of, I cant make use of all those old macros, and 5 years of gathering BST AF1+1 gear that I worked so hard for. Given how solo and duo friendly the game is these days for jobs that arent pet jobs, we all deserve our spoils. It's not like BST solo was ever easy, after all.

I guess what I want is some new zones with FFXI's mechanics preserved from middle2004. with tough, unforgiving, but highly rewarding nm's. mobs that don't despawn that we can carry across the zone, aggro, being hit from AoE from out of party hecticness that I so crave from the old days.

You make my point exactly. I spent all this time and effort making full af+1 and full relic+1 and acquiring the top charm set to use because when lvl 75 was the cap there was no jug pet that could compare to a charming a VT mob you could actually keep charmed for a good while without using 2hour. Post 75 killed BST imo. Like i've said before, abyssea brought on the want to be BST's. Everyone has 90 bst now cause hey you can take any job 30+ to 90 in no time inabyssea. And all bst does now is throw a jug pet out. that's hardly playing bst imo. BST is about charming those pets and scramblign around for your next pet while your current one is fighting and about to die. Trying to move about mobs that will aggro you while your looking for that next pet. Thats bst. I love watching BST's with weak charm gear struggle to charm mobs and then walk up right next to them and charm it first attempt. I took pride in doing stuff with other bst and saying "go charm that VT over there, don't worry i'll back you up if you mischarm"

[Luvbunny]

All SE has to do is to make any jug pets the same level as your level only in Abyssea, that should solve the problem. If I am not mistaken, all the hp+mp buffs also applied to your pets, and the same goes to atmas, similar to what summoner's avatar? If this is the case, then you have one very powerful pet that is summonable every 5 minutes.

[Superchicken]

All SE has to do is to make any jug pets the same level as your level only in Abyssea, that should solve the problem. If I am not mistaken, all the hp+mp buffs also applied to your pets, and the same goes to atmas, similar to what summoner's avatar? If this is the case, then you have one very powerful pet that is summonable every 5 minutes.

your pets dont get your cruor buffs just your atma

[Chocobits]

I think George Michael might have something to say about this:

I feel soo sore
As I dump this macro to the floor
As my charm set dies, it's really no surprise..
With TEARS in my EYES, I tell my light staff "GOOD BYYYYYE!"

Ohhh I'm never gonna CHARM again!
This gimped JA's worse than it's ever been.
Though it's easy to pretend
That it sometimes Binds..

I SHOULD'VE known better than to CHARM again
This BIND effect don't PROC on NMs
So I'm never gonna charm again
Because of Abyssea

A moment of silence for Charm.. and my really terrible compositions..