Best Job to Duo with Beastmaster?

[Sappho]

I've got a friend who just started FFXI for the first time about two weeks ago.

He is determined to play Beastmaster, so I wanted to get the BST community's advice on what would be the best job for me to team up with him.

Thanks in advance.

[Phogg]

As a completely biased BST, the best job to duo with one BST is another BST. I duo'd with my wife 1-92 with me BST/nin and her BST/whm or BST/rdm. Now lots of people sub DNC also on BST.

Outside of that bias, I still think BST is the best option for both jobs because of the nature of the job, especially if you plan to charm your way up, which I highly recommend as its the most rewarding way to level BST IMO. Anyway, when charming there is a fine balance one needs to strike to keep hate on your pet, and not on the master. This can be difficult if not impossible for other jobs to manage along with a BST because the BSTs will be operating at what I call a "Zero hate" scenario, meaning that they maintain a perfectly even balance of hate between them and their pet to push the dmg they deal as high as possible without pulling to much hate and taking DMG themselves. Any even mediocre DMG dealer will constantly need to turn away from the battle once they take hate.

Summoner is a decent option, but its slower because the SMN will regularly need to rest for MP, where an effective BST duo almost never needs to stop fighting. BSTs are also a bit more durable when dealing with tough situations, links etc.

This becomes entirely different if you plan to use jug pets the entire way due to "Snarl" making it easier to keep hate on the pet. In that case pretty much any job will work but I don't think its nearly as exciting as playing a charm based BST, especially if you plan to party and not just duo, in which case the BST basically fills a DD slot in party scenarios.

[Olor]

PUP would be fun. But mega expensive. Good thing about PUP though is you'd have a built in whm so you could probably ride the hate line a little closer.

[Xilk]

Pup and bst work great ofcourse, but Summoner duo's fantastically w/ a bst. They are a perfect complement and contrast to a bst's abilities. They can provide the kind of hate-sharing that bst can, plus great curing, support and magical damage that a bst cannot.

I think Smn is best duo partner for bst.

[Sappho]

Thanks for the fast replies. I was thinking a 2nd BST would be the best option, but I never considered PUP or SMN.

I don't know diddly about PUP or SMN, though.

Olor, you said PUP is expensive? What makes it expensive?

Xilk, would a SMN need Diabolos and Fenrir to be an effective BST duo partner? I quit FFXI before fenrir & diabolos were released so I don't have those.

[Granny]

unless ur planning on leeching the jobs up and do endgame content and have access to very good smn gear or abyssea atma smn is a bad choice to duo with bst. dnc, nin, blu and headbut spam, rdm, brd, pup, bst, possibly other dd jobs with dnc sub depending on lvl, would go great.

bst would be fastest and highest exp per hour as duo partner since u can fight higher lvl mobs and kill faster.

the other jobs u could fight slightly less stronger mobs that would require only one charmed pet and kill fast like with dnc or nin they shouldnt take hate from pet and can manage hate and only ws half way through mob is dead or to finish off mob, and can even tank it for a bit.

mage jobs can enfeeble and greatly help the pet and allow u both to melee depending if mob has AoE tp moves. and sleep/lullaby/bind/grav w/e if u have to grab another pet.

other dd jobs are already very strong on lower lvl mobs which now give a lot of exp, drg gets penta early and so forth could spam EM and stuff like that, so rng sam drg could be a option if u want to always fight weaker mobs and spam through.

or u could simply lvl bst to cap in abyssea, then sub it to rdm nin blu brd dnc and charm/dd/enfeeble along with ur friend which would be the ideal way to do it with a new player and allow u a very high upper hand in all the fighting situations.

another option is u go sch or blm, rdm if u think u got skill and lvl up the old blm way on nuking high lvl bst pets, which is quite high exp per hour and ur bst friend could pull the bst pets safely and melee them down alittle while u rest for mp between chains and so forth. sch can take on higher lvl bst pets than blm, and blm higher than rdm. I know this becase I solo'd/duo'd blm and sch up on bst pets. and used rdm with friends.

solo'd/duo'd bst up old way too.

there are many many options now, and I havnt even touched on doing Fields of Valor and so forth.
But as a word of wisdom, smn is NOT a good duoing up partner for bst if u plan on exping. It is in no way a practical idea, I have smn lvled since forever, love the job, have tried it with bst before 75 lvl cap and it sucks beyond all measure for what ur looking to do lol.

SMN is great job though I use it all the time and think everyone should have it lvl'd ^^

Good luck on your adventures with your friend!!!!

[Phogg]

If you plan to go the smn route, be constantly on the lookout for camps with Bombs as you progress through levels. Self-destruct is your friend. Goblins can also be similarly nice.

[Sappho]

If you plan to go the smn route, be constantly on the lookout for camps with Bombs as you progress through levels. Self-destruct is your friend. Goblins can also be similarly nice.

I do remember reading a few years back that you could force Djinn to explode somehow. Thanks for the tip.

[Phogg]

Yeah, the Djinn thing has to do with casting magic on them which matches the elemental day of the week. Sadly some bomb camps went away with GoV changes. The fastest levels we ever got duo was in the basement of Garliage Citadel against IT Hellmines ages ago :/

[Olor]

Olor, you said PUP is expensive? What makes it expensive?

The attachments - a few of the more useful attachments for your auto cost over 1 million. You can get by without buying them, but it will reduce your effectiveness. I'm not even level 30 on PUP and I spent over a million on it, and never bought any of the more expensive parts.

Examples:

Optic fibre: http://www.ffxiah.com/item/2353/optic-fiber
Tranquilizer: http://www.ffxiah.com/item/2348/tranquilizer

If you're interested in the job I highly suggest asking people here about it: http://www.zam.com/forum.html?forum=253

Or just browse the threads...

On the bright side, once you have them the job is actually cheaper than BST, which continually pisses gil away on jugs and food.