Nerf Beastmaster

[Marada]

I'm a PUP and horribly geared at the moment. I've been laughed out of parties for not being able to perform as well as other jobs and they've all told me if I want to play a real pet job, to go either BST or SMN. I stay with PUP though because I like it and it meshes well with me. Still even though I'm jealous of how easy, yet expensive, BSTs can have it sometimes I don't think this recent nerf was fair to BSTs. I think a 5 to 10 yalm range is more than fair for Ready! commands. Also if the game wants to boast the "Peak of Experience gained" I would say add a job trait then that extends that range as you go up in levels. It would give the feel of you growing with your pets so that you can use the command from different ranges as you get up in levels. But if I can deploy my pet from within the Spell casting range and have them go after a mob, Bst should at least need half that distance to use the Ready Command.

[Jile]

It's a shame so many paying customers, who play BST are leaving the game over this mistaken decision on SE's part. The nerf needs undone, asap.

[zax]

It's a shame so many paying customers, who play BST are leaving the game over this mistaken decision on SE's part. The nerf needs undone, asap.

Yes please.... Don't need a job cause other people can't figure out the basics of any job

[Gwydion]

It seems SE has locked the other thread and perhaps because the thread was a little abrasive or negative towards SE.

I want to calmly and collectively state some issues with the 7-yalm range and I hope SE replies:

The 7-yalm distance is still a usability issue from the perspective of BST-players.

The proposed fix only makes the 7-yalm distance visible by a cursor, using <stnpc>. SE has also preserved <me> with /pet commands to make sure our macros still work.

Using <stnpc>, we are forced to physically look at our pets and make them visible on screen. This is a shallow fix for the problem mentioned previously: Pets within 7-yalms, but not visible on screen will occasionally not execute their ready moves! This still result in "out of range"!

All this "fix" does is artificially notify us that we're out of the 7-yalm range to perform /pet commands and force us to look at our pets on screen. These are not fixes for the side effects introduced by forcing a 7-yalm range.

My opinion is that BST and SMN should be swapped from previous levels to say: 16 yalms for BST and 22 yalms for SMN. (SMN was updated to 22 with this 'fix').

I hope this explains why the proposed fix is a terrible solution, to the problems introduced with a 7-yalm /pet command range.

I hope you find this feedback constructive, as all we really want is to enjoy Beastmaster as so many of us have, for the past 12-13 years.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

[Nyarlko]

I agree with what Gydion said. The current range for the majority of BST pet commands makes it much more difficult to utilize the job effectively than it should be. It seems rather absurd to me that if my pet is on the opposite side of the same monster I'm fighting, then it can be entirely out of range of any of my abilities. At the bare minimum, please raise the range to 12yalms.. That should be enough distance to stand behind my pet's target and still be able to interact with it for the vast majority of non-boss targets I would think.

I understand that SE wants us to be fighting alongside our pets, but simply looking at what's available to the job tells me that there is nothing for ME to do except: Auto-attack > Weapon Skill. :-/ If you want to force a particular playstyle, please give us some reason/benefit to doing so. As it stands currently, I can not come up with a single positive to meleeing as BST that is not outweighed by the negatives incurred by doing so. There are many ways that I can think of offhand that might tip the scale at least closer to parity, such as converting our attacks/TP into healing/damage for the pet, or some form of combat bonus from skillchaining with our pets, or even simple self-buffs on short-ish timers to give us something to do while auto-attacking, but sadly, I rather doubt that SE is going to want to bother adding any actually new job abilities or traits at this point in the game's lifetime.

I will ask that I at least be able to play the job effectively when done according to SE's stated playstyle.

[Ketaru]

As a returning player, I never thought I would see the day where people were calling for BST to be nerfed. But here it is, the situation is reversed where BST is highly desirable while jobs like WAR and SAM, to quote others, have "aged poorly." I would be more incensed to argue that this is just job favoritism all over again and that it is not good for the game...

...but for 3/4s of this game's life, BST was routinely ignored and rejected from group play by the community. Even if I agree to the sentiment that it did not really fit in with traditional endgame, it did not deserve the disparagement it got back in the day (seriously, being told by Nyzul pickups that they need "real DDs"?). Since I just returned, I'm working on one job at a time, so BST is just going to have to wait. But I'm not inclined to join the crowds talking about how unfair this situation is. Because "lolBST" will forever be burned into my core.

[Gwydion]

As a returning player, I never thought I would see the day where people were calling for BST to be nerfed. But here it is, the situation is reversed where BST is highly desirable while jobs like WAR and SAM, to quote others, have "aged poorly." I would be more incensed to argue that this is just job favoritism all over again and that it is not good for the game...

...but for 3/4s of this game's life, BST was routinely ignored and rejected from group play by the community. Even if I agree to the sentiment that it did not really fit in with traditional endgame, it did not deserve the disparagement it got back in the day (seriously, being told by Nyzul pickups that they need "real DDs"?). Since I just returned, I'm working on one job at a time, so BST is just going to have to wait. But I'm not inclined to join the crowds talking about how unfair this situation is. Because "lolBST" will forever be burned into my core.

Indeed Ketaru. Beastmaster is powerful and popular today, which is a far-cry from the original Beastmaster introduced in 2003. (It was very common for Beastmaster to be perceived as a 'solo job' or a 'waste of party slot' in many group activities). Today, however, you'll find that Beastmaster's are forced to stay within 7 yalms of their pet in order to execute ready moves. You'll find that Pet abilities execute randomly, as your pet must be visible on-screen and within 7-yalms. You'll have to use <stnpc> to be certain, but that is poor indicator for pet distance. (Also the sizes of monsters and pets makes getting within 7-yalms incredibly difficult.

Today, we hope that SE considers a more holistic and permanent solution to this problem.

[dasva]

So as far as I can tell ready is still horribly broken? Like I just tested out standing between the target and my pet... not other side between the 2 ie I was closer to my pet than it was to the mob which was around 5.8' and ready moves still wouldn't work.... so yeah that was fun. Tell me again SE how this update was about getting us to the front line because my "I believe" button is broken

[Vae]

You've been playing long enough to know that nothing they do has a legit reason. The only reason is "too many people used it" It's only a matter of time before another magic nerf too.

[Jile]

Your correct Dasva. BST JA's are so random and broken that I avoid loading it. SE has told us several times that they think everything is going great and they have no interest in adjusting anything so even though JA's are random and very very frustrating, they don't plan to make it work again.