Beastmaster's MOST pressing matter

[Granny]

The very life and death of our job is at hand. No matter how many times its been mentioned, it needs to be once more, and kept in the spot light and top of our request priorities!

Beastmasters need up coming content to involve the acutal job itself, which is the ability to charm monsters. So lets remind SE again, and how many ever times it takes that beastmasters need new high level pets, not just pets but pets IN areas which there is a use for them, AND said use to actually be not worthless meaning we want to use charmed pets in most if not all the new content to come, and for things like voidwatch.

No matter how it is spun, twisted and turned, warped or altered, half decent jug pets are not a solid viable alternative or replacement for charmed pets and is nothing more than it has always been, a expensive, usualy quick to die, weak emergency replacment for a charmed pet.

If the beastmaster community's requests are not met on this issue, the "real" joy of playing the job itself will be lost forever.

Now is the time for bst's to band together full force on this issue when it counts the most, because now is the time window of posibility for the future of bst to be made right.

[Caketime]

Bro, not to sound negative or anything but you're really blowing this out of proportion. Charming stuff to level was awesome, but I'd rather not hinge success or failure on whether or not my Charm fizzles because it's Darksday and the Random Number God feels like being an extra large jerk. It gets old quickly. I also enjoy the fact that I have some more control over how pets behave, even with the derp Ready system. Back in the day leveling was a constant gamble even with a full charm set, since the charmed pets like to spam area attacks which turned Sic into the "We very well may die" button.

Not being forced to carry around Charm gear is great because it allows us to stack more Reward effect gear. Times are changing, let's do the unexpected and adapt rather than bitch about a flying heart that can and will indirectly murder you just because.

[Calamity]

Idk. I agree with parts of what both of you have said. In the end I think me real feelings on it are that I don't like that one of the big job functions we have has more or less been disabled. Not just made less useful like some other jobs have seen, but completely disabled. I don't think it's the end all must have ability to save the job, however, I do believe it's a very nice option to have available. Just my thoughts.

[Caketime]

I was just being Snarky, Charm's useful and all but with the way the devs have designed the content that we've been using for the last year+ it's just got no niche use like it did before. The devs will probably do something with it so we can make use of it, being one of our defining job abilities. Probably not in full capacity as a tool for Charming monsters to fight for us, but maybe a stronger Bind effect or an added effect that turns any monster we target with Charm into a Unicorn. Then again they could also do nothing and we'll deal with it or play something else.

[Fretion]

I've been disappointed with the lack of charmable monsters in new / high level areas forever. Sky, only flamingos ... nothing at all INSIDE the palace. Sea ... nothing at all. Abyssea, mobs that in the normal areas could be charmed, nope, can't do it. Even ToAU was really short on viable solo/duo pet camps @ 75. The Soulflayer camp really needed @ least 4 Beastmasters to work, as the crabs were pretty weak compared to the flayers.

Additionally, monsters that SHOULD be charmable, non-beastmen types, can't ... giant birds, bugards, wivres, etc.

I have been pleased that the developers DID give us charmable mobs in the Grounds of Valor areas for the most part.

I have always preferred wild pets over jugs. I will grant that the over 76 jugs are finally actually worthwhile, but I really, really don't like being dependent on jugs, and call beast timer. I prefer to keep jugs for emergencies, and would very much like to see more useful pets near battle camps.

[Olor]

Yeah, it would be nice if being a bst at cap didn't mean constantly bleeding gil.

[Areola]

I myself prefer jugs over charming mobs. It just fits my play style better. Plus mis-charming, charming, and re-charming isn't exactly what I would call fun <_<.
With only 60ish cooking skill you can make a good majority of the decent jugs and food, and the materials are very easy to farm. apart form Eta biscuits and razor brain broth there isn't much else a bst would need that lv60 cooking couldn't make(until the update at least)

[Calamity]

I just like having the option. Would be a nice panic button for when you unexpectedly get caught with CB timer down.

[SpankWustler]

I'm really happy that jug pets finally have the needed stats and mechanics to be useful. I actually don't feel that Beast Master has lost much in the move, particularly given what it's gained.

Still, I'd really like for Charm to be something other than a vestigial remnant of what the job did a year ago. If that means making Charm bind for 0.5-1 second more reliably, adding a sleep effect to Tame, and allowing both to be used to those effects while a jug pet is out; that's all right with me.

It just rubs me the wrong way that such a huge element of the job is now often used for nothing rather than being re-purposed.

[Sparthos]

Problem with Charm is it just isn't practical in areas where no native monsters are available and that winds up being huge parts of XI. The original concept of charm -> pethurling has shrunk when familiars are more than capable enough to handle a variety of monsters in solo combat.

Besides, wasn't the old complaint that "someone stole my NM while I was looking for another pet!". The golden days of Charm weren't as amazing as some would lead you to believe.

One suggestion could be to retool the Charm ability to call a random pet to your side. The deus ex Automata of BST as it were. Instead of having to find monsters to charm, the new charm would simply pick from a pool of monsters and allow you to have a pet without dipping into your Call Beast jugpets.

There you have it, Charm would be back and actually viable in every zone. Toss in a standard SE chance of failure based on a CHR check and the ability would still be stronger than it was before.

Call Beast would still have a purpose in giving you the exact pet you need for the situation and those "charmed" pets wouldn't get the boons of Ready or Snarl meaning jugpets would still have their place.

This could also help a partying/alliance BST by having a throwaway pet to use in the event that your main monster has been killed off by an NM or something.