Why are bst pets getting shafted?

[dasva]

Seriously pup gets altenator which is waaaaaaaaay more powerful than lvling up jugs with axe and now smn is getting +120 mab on staff 25 or more on several peices of armor while bst gets like 20 pet att (when att does hardly anything on pets anyways). You can litterally get a good +250 pet mab on smn now basically double to tripling their magic dmg not even accounting the delve ammos effects. Where is the gear to up jugs dmg that much? I see both smn and pups litterally killing things with there pets faster then 3 bsts combined.

And this doesn't even begin to cover the fact we have to merit to get ours lvld up while other jobs don't. Or the lack of availability of ingredients for new jugs. Or that for delve jug is horribly unrealistically costed. 2k plasm to bring a pet out once is like making automatoms have a 5% chance to self destruct and destroy the alternator anytime it dies or you send it away or you zone or you die

[FaeQueenCory]

WHAT? SMN is getting.... GEAR!? Unacceptable.
We better nerf the hell out of smn so that it stays in its place of not being played.

It kinda sounds like you're just complaining about having to work for your bst pets... "Oh no! I have to put merits in stuff to be good!"
Yeah... cause smn doesn't dump merits in MAB to get those "cost efficient" BPs to deal dmg.
Or have to lose an item slot (and thus any benefits to the smn) just to have the avatars be brought to the level of anyone with a >99 weapon.
Your pet is powered by the level of your main hand gear. So get something with an iLv and quit your complaining.
Which will also make you more powerful... cause... you get buffed from it too. Unlike smns and pups.

The only legit thing you have to complain bout is the price of your jug pets. 2k plasm is a bit unreasonable.

[dasva]

I don't think nerfing is the answer just ya know give gear to everyone lol. Plus since when has bst every been used outside of soloing which due the the relative lack of upgrades it's been getting compared to other jobs isn't going to be happening on anything newish

As far as merits no you don't have to merit those. Physical ones aren't bad and it doesn't make the pet itself weaker not meriting it like it does for bst. Nor do you need to make and augment some af2+2 just to get your pet to the lvl of your ilvl ammo. Forget the fact that we actually have other merits that are useful. And I know how the ilvl system works thank you I have ilvl weapons at the same lvl as smn can get and there is still this discrepency. And you mean to deal more dmg not to make them useale.

And my complaint was that even with merits which no you don't have to do AND ilvl weapon they still aren't good. While I'm wathcing a smn deal AOE 2k dmg Thundersparks my jug can't even hit the mobs.

Also your item parrallel is fail. It makes you use that item instead of others. Putting it on the weapon limits you not makes you stronger. How would you like your pet to delvl everytime you put on perp staff? Or pdt etc. Putting it in an ammo slot is alot more useful than on weapon.

And you still haven't begin to address smns getting around 200 extra pet mab over the last couple of updates while bst got what 20 pet att lol.

You sound like someone who has never ever even seen a jug pet in action since they added ilvl and/or a smn who doesn't want any pet competetion at all and will just pull stuff out of his ass to justify the huge unbalanced amount of upgrades the pet jobs have been getting. Someone that thinks it's funny that one pet can 1-2 shot ITs like that while another will sit there and watch there pet wiff endlessly till it dies a little later and then lie so no one relizes how far apart they are

[Leonardus]

SE, please remember to add augments for Beastmaster pets on future augmentable armor sets.

For example, the Iuitl armor set from Skirmish II. I see no BST pet augments, yet that was the set we were placed on. Summoner on the other hand, can augment their Skirmish II armor to boost their avatars, so what's going on, here?

If "Recycle" and "Snapshot" can be a possible random augment, so could "Enhances Reward" or "Stout Servant +1." Currently, it feels like BST is added to melee armor as an afterthought- As a BST I get stuck with ranged attack and ranged accuracy augments...

[SpankWustler]

If the often arbitrary level caps on jug pets were drastically increased or even removed, and Beast Affinity made to function more like Fine-tuning or Optimization, that would make things a lot easier on Beastmaster.

Not only does the "level cap by pet" system limit a Kerehcatl-wielding Beastmaster to two seemingly identical crabs or a grasshopper, it also makes it impossible to simultaneously choose the correct pet for Killer Instinct and use a worthwhile pet. Killer Instinct and damage are the only things a Beastmaster can contribute in a group environment, so even a small portion of Beastmaster's Damage being in direct conflict with Killer Instinct is a pretty big issue.

[Mokeil]

And you still haven't begin to address smns getting around 200 extra pet mab over the last couple of updates while bst got what 20 pet att lol.

You sound like someone who has never ever even seen a jug pet in action since they added ilvl and/or a smn who doesn't want any pet competetion at all...

As for specifically the imbalance of Pet:MAB to Pet:Attack? I can only guess that it is due to the fact that Pet:MAB only helps SMN for one hit every 45 seconds, whereas Pet:Attack helps BST with every auto-attack hit your pet makes.

Also, to be fair on the Summoner side of things, you are assuming not only the very best staff - obtained from the (theoretically) current hardest event - but also in getting extremely lucky with the Augment Roulette on the new skirmish gear. So, in other words: You are assuming the best possible everything for SMN. That is not a set the average player can pull off without a lot of effort. (I'd also argue that winning the Augment Roulette multiple times is far more of a pain than augmenting some AF+2, but I have a preference for static progression you can see versus just getting lucky. Anyone else's mileage may vary.)

Now, I will freely admit I haven't payed much attention to BST since iLevel came along, but I know before-hand SMN and BST sort of balanced out in the end - better spike damage versus better DoT, disposability versus survivability, etc... That said, having assumed the very best gear set possible for SMN I don't think it's too far outside the realm of reasonable to ask how BST performs with its very best gear set possible. So, again, assuming the very best for BST, how do they really stack up?

This is an honest and sincere question - no joking or bashing BST, no "haha SMN is better", no "oh, but SMN has it worse and here's why"... We've both got highly systemic problems with some most of our core job features, and Adoulin's iLevels have only made the problems more pronounced. I'm just trying to understand how my fellow pet job compatriots are doing.

I do know you guys have a horrible mess of a system on which jug pets level how and how high... That 2k plasm thing is a terrible joke... And even as a 96 Cook I find the ingredients for some of the jug recipes to be ridiculous... But pound for pound, and assuming Best vs Best, how does BST perform? Is an appropriately geared BST pet really so lame that it just "wiffs endlessly", unable to kill even random field mobs in a reasonable period of time?

[dasva]

Isn't the best staff for bps ahable? True it probably will be faster to augment but the augmenting all that does is put us at the lvl of the other pet jobs just equipping ilvl gear lol. And that's part of the problem we can't go farther like smn can or like pup doesn't really need to.

Well the problem right now is the amount of useful gear that has come out recently. Like the difference between the best smn and say one that was the best pre soa is rediculously huge. Which is kinda a good thing since it needed something. bst is basically has the same pet gear except ilvl axe now. Well and now not using pdt axes.

As far as job vs job a bst can probably do more dmg but I mean it's sorta a DD. But pet vs pet smn completely destroys it. Alot of it is the acc issues even with full merits and brethern axe my pet was around like 30-50% acc on most soa content. While I'm sure it will be a bit better if I had the megaboss axe and the harder to get expensive pets it will still be a bit of wiffing... enough to where it hurts our dps to actually use pet gear if we are meleeing. And if we aren't bring 10 stacks of pet food lol. But even just acc wont be enough. Due to how oddly pdif works with pets as I'm sure you've noticed your smn melee dmg we need either alot more pet att (though crit rate da etc would be nice too) and I'm talking like 50-100 per peice on peices that also have other useful stuff like haste or like smn and pup have decent damaging tp moves with att bonuses on them lol. I mean I can use my bests pet damage moves on current content maybe pull out 200-300 dmg. I go use it on einherjar and they do like 1.5k-2k. Sure not exactly competetive with avatars or autos but it's actually worth using. Because readying 200 dmg tp is probably a dps loss

In the end basically it comes down to smn getting most the relavent pet gear lately. Pup doesn't care as much cause of how OP alternator is (I mean I just solod all the fights for AF and limit break with a 0 skill auto and no meleeing with the master) but jugs are basically where they were before the last few updates. Just something to use on lower content or as something to shed your hate onto. Only difference now is instead of like 10% acc I now can hit almost half the time. Well that and DD gear for the master has improved so now we gear like silly gimp wars. Basically it's a call out to more pet gear that is actually useful for bsts

[FaeQueenCory]

In the end basically it comes down to smn getting most the relavent pet gear lately.
As I said before: "What!? SMN actually getting useful gear after 11 years of getting nothing!? Unthinkable!"
I don't play BST as a main or anything... but I've dabbled enough to have a feel for it.
And I have plenty of friends who main it... and they tell me that you're crazy to think the new BST axes aren't insane. From their mouths, the new BST axes are the same level of buff as the 117 crafted-only staff you seem to be convinced that just falls from the sky.
Oh no! You have to use a piece of AF to have your pet be higher leveled? Smn is still stuck with the full empy set... because there's NOTHING ELSE THAT IS AS GOOD.
That's a whole set of 90ish gear that is pretty much the best a smn can do. (with a couple of exceptions due to personal taste... but mainly just the pants. but even then it's still none of it's iLv gear.) All this great new iLv gear that every other job is enjoying? Not a single piece of it is relevant to a smn outside of a macro-swap.

The encumbrance thread is filled with tales about how in Adoulin a person is getting hit for 100 a pop then encumbered and then suddenly they're getting popped for 4-800.
That's what smn is like 100% of the time.

Yes, smn is getting a large influx of MAB gear... and it's a glorious thing... because for the past 11 years of the game... smn has gotten nothing.
Nothing but AF sets and other JSE.
In other words: the same things every other job has gotten.

And dear GOD... the amount of work a smn has to put up with to get some of this gear... it's millions of gil worth of effort!
It's like Mokeil said, only the best of the best are going to have the time, energy, funds, and luck to be the best.
And complaining that everyone isn't the best is just wasting your energy where you could be going out there and getting the stuff you need to be good.
So go out and get these new axes, wear your AF that you need to... do what you need to do to be good.

But don't try and say that smn is getting too much good gear. Because it's not. It really isn't...
For once in smn's long existence... it's actually getting relevant gear that makes it playable.
In reality, your BST has FAR more numerous and better gear choices than smn ever does. Even now.

[dasva]

As I said before: "What!? SMN actually getting useful gear after 11 years of getting nothing!? Unthinkable!"
I don't play BST as a main or anything... but I've dabbled enough to have a feel for it.
And I have plenty of friends who main it... and they tell me that you're crazy to think the new BST axes aren't insane. From their mouths, the new BST axes are the same level of buff as the 117 crafted-only staff you seem to be convinced that just falls from the sky.
Again I'm talking about them getting stuff while bst is getting nothing. And cry me a river. If smn has gotten "nothing" for 11 years then bst has never gotten anything. Yes it's great to melee in and makes your pet great on 75 content. On soa stuff no your pets still suck balls. I've recently done stuff like skirmish and delve and wkr with pets and they wiff about half the time. And do bad dmg when they do hit. Even if you went with the FALSE assumption that the axe buffs pets as much as that staff... that still brings the problem of THAT'S ALL WE GET. While you also have the ammo doing which does as much as the axes ON TOP of that and all the new skirmish gear. Once again you are missing the entire point. bst just gets axe which needs to be combined with af2+2 and merits to do JUST what the new ammo is doing for smn. Then we get nothing else while smn is getting alot. Not sure how many times I'm going to have to repeat that until you stop acting like we both get 1 thing. Oh and that staff costs like 3.5mil on your server and 3-4 sell a day... so yeah pretty much falling from the sky.


Oh no! You have to use a piece of AF to have your pet be higher leveled? Smn is still stuck with the full empy set... because there's NOTHING ELSE THAT IS AS GOOD.
That's a whole set of 90ish gear that is pretty much the best a smn can do. (with a couple of exceptions due to personal taste... but mainly just the pants. but even then it's still none of it's iLv gear.) All this great new iLv gear that every other job is enjoying? Not a single piece of it is relevant to a smn outside of a macro-swap.

The encumbrance thread is filled with tales about how in Adoulin a person is getting hit for 100 a pop then encumbered and then suddenly they're getting popped for 4-800.
That's what smn is like 100% of the time.Again I'm talking pets stop bringing up masters like that is even part of this conversation. I'd try to debate this part of gearing more except you are making absolutely no sense. Somehow comparing still having af3 that is good to bsts requirement to have to use and augment af2+2 and use merits on top of having ilvl weapon just to do what your ilvl ammo does. There is litterally no comparison between the 2 so I'm going to attribute this to you just being asleep when you wrote this part since it litterally makes no logical sense in this debate. Also wtf are you talking about af3? Head is only there for refresh. Body should only be used for bps. hands should only be used for manacede and maybe on same day weather and physical bps. Legs bp only. feet magical bp and siphon only. I'm begining to think you don't know your own job. It isn't the ilvl gear that is only good for maccro swapping but the old gear you are still foolishly using. Get skirmish 2 gear get perp on one set and pet mab on the other and pdt on both. That solves your fake ilvl getting hit for more dmg problem (why you are getting hit in the first place is another discussion), it also completely destroys your gearing arguments. Seriously you can now gear yourself to have +4 refresh with just gear with avatar out without avatars favor. And alot of that comes from using new gear. None of the af3+2 except head is ideal to idle in. And it only is if you are taking advantage of the new -perp gear from skirmish. On top of being the top idle peices they also have huge defensive stats to protect you and haste if you want to melee... Seriously have you been asleep since the last update?


Yes, smn is getting a large influx of MAB gear... and it's a glorious thing... because for the past 11 years of the game... smn has gotten nothing.
Nothing but AF sets and other JSE.
In other words: the same things every other job has gotten.
First off that's not completely true and same thing with bst. Why are you perfectly fine with your job getting a bunch of stuff after so long but hate another one getting stuff? Sure pettiness? Don't want any other pets to compete with? My entire point isn't that smn shouldn't get this stufff but that bst shouldn't be left out so no idea why you going so overboard with smns deserve gear. I'm not disagreeing I'm just saying there needs to be some balance.


And dear GOD... the amount of work a smn has to put up with to get some of this gear... it's millions of gil worth of effort!
It's like Mokeil said, only the best of the best are going to have the time, energy, funds, and luck to be the best.
And complaining that everyone isn't the best is just wasting your energy where you could be going out there and getting the stuff you need to be good.
That's not the complaint. The complaint is that you actually have that gear to get while bst doesn't. And really millions of gil is nothing now nor is the effort to get it.


So go out and get these new axes, wear your AF that you need to... do what you need to do to be good.
And that's the problem even if we go all out for our pets there is nothing we can do to make them good on soa content.


But don't try and say that smn is getting too much good gear. Because it's not. It really isn't...
For once in smn's long existence... it's actually getting relevant gear that makes it playable.Never said that just saying it's gettting waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more. Also don't give me that bst has never been in endgame while smn almost always has been.


In reality, your BST has FAR more numerous and better gear choices than smn ever does. Even now.As a gimp dual axe war sure but for pets which is the whole poitn of this thread again no smn gets waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more. The only things really worth using if meleeing are tojil belt skadi+1 hands and ilvl axe. I again ask you why you are balantly misrepresenting the difference in the 2 jobs pets and the 2 jobs pet gear? Why are you trying to imply or flat out say we are getting equal pertinent gearing options when that's a flat out lie or that our pets are even comparable right now when that is also a flat out lie? And why the heck do you keep on bringing up master gear in a thread about pet gear? You think if someone at SE releases just how imbalanced the pet jobs are right now they will take away your goodies instead of boost bst up or do you just hate bsts that much?

Oh and totally missed the point someone else made about how we can only actually get 2 pets to max lvl possible right now and one of them is the 2k plasm crab. I mean what if smns ammo just said garuda goes up in lvl lol?

[Umichi]

Now, I will freely admit I haven't payed much attention to BST since iLevel came along, but I know before-hand SMN and BST sort of balanced out in the end - better spike damage versus better DoT, disposability versus survivability, etc... That said, having assumed the very best gear set possible for SMN I don't think it's too far outside the realm of reasonable to ask how BST performs with its very best gear set possible. So, again, assuming the very best for BST, how do they really stack up?

There are still things a bst can solo smn can't even come close to.. however recently with the introduction of Ilvl after lvl 99, smn has been able to seemlessly do endgame content while bst is still trailing behind unable to solo because his stats just aren't up to scratch. Is it unfair that a bst who prefers to solo is being forced into meriting into merits he does not want just so he can get gear that still doesn't help him out much outside of being more capable of doing party and alliance oriented events?

I find the problem lies in the fact that there are not alot of gear paths for bst to choose from in order to work hard at gaining soloing gear. how it looks now all he's doing is grabbing party and alliance gear while pet is added damage like drg's wyvern is.... problem is wyvern levels with owner and shares stats of weapon to a point so my qiqiru is adding on damage and not missing... On normal mobs I can hit combined for about 1k+ in audolin. Going into deeper territories I average 600-700+ per combined hit

so I agree there are problems with bst. I know my friend is now stepping into audolin and he is an avid bst fan.. I just hope he is severely skilled (has lvld bst on 2 chars and worked hard on all gear forthem both) and can manage better because he's had more experience perhaps...

2k jugs are expensive.. but perhaps powerful? in the span of things they are getting 30 mins inbetween and any skilled bst can DD in lowman groups to get upgraded weapons and gear) and farming for plasm isn't to much of a hassle if you do 1-5 runs

[Mokeil]

dasva and Umichi, thank you both for the input. I think I've got a better idea of where you guys are coming from now.

Whereas the new stuff SMN has gotten is still kinda limited in its own way (in that magical attacks is only one aspect of what we do, and is still only something we can do every 45 seconds) it at least offers a dramatically measurable boost in performance. On the other hand, with the measly Pet:Attack options BST has been getting, you'll be lucky if you even notice the extra damage you're doing.



Due to how oddly pdif works with pets as I'm sure you've noticed your smn melee dmg we need either alot more pet att (though crit rate da etc would be nice too) and I'm talking like 50-100 per peice on peices that also have other useful stuff like haste or like smn and pup have decent damaging tp moves with att bonuses on them lol.

You know, I think this right here is the crux of the problem. I've definitely noticed a marked decrease in my avatar's melee power in Adoulin to the point where, even without all the new +MAB stuff, I'd likely find myself sticking with magic pacts anyways. And yet outside Adoulin the physical moves still trump the magical ones on most things.

Traditionally, an avatar has always had incredible kill power on mobs that are lower level than it (often capping damage to the point where even crits didn't add any extra)... But now that level correction has been removed from Adoulin mobs, I'm wondering how much of that kill power has been due to it, as opposed to the stats of the avatars. I bet BST pets are suffering from the same thing.

This strikes me as a problem with some very core systems of the game. New gear won't actually solve this. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying BST doesn't deserve new gear - you totally do! It's not cool when everyone else gets new toys and you don't. All the same, new gear is just getting the same sorts of boost everyone else is getting. It does nothing to address the real problems facing our two jobs.

[dasva]

It is kinda a system problem... though because of how jugs are (almost all melee dmg and a few meh physical moves) it hits them a bit harder. While smn has usuallly been about the bps (heck often not even being allowed to melee) so can just switch to magical which got a rediculous boost over last few updates... also it's not just the pet mab though. The entire skirmish armor set and for that matter the staff gets up to -5 perp basically making free avatars with refresh afterwards a

While the main problem is the pet or really the mob pdif system it can be mitigated with gear. Like releasing that 25 pet att does waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay less for every pet than 25 pet mab for the ones that use magic dmg. If they started doing more like +100 att peices and/or more like some kind of percent boost it would sorta compensate for the way pet pdif works. Well and of course fixing the acc issues. Hard to say without parses but I seriously doubt the ilvl weapons raise up jugs acc as much as it does the master. I mean very little acc gear with delve axe and I'm capping acc against mobs my jug is having a wiff fest on.

Another issue is bst is a meleeish job so jugs never were (and argueably shouldn't be) hugely great as far as dmg goes on anything hard since you got the master deal dmg. Only now they basically do hardly any dmg harder stuff while master continues to be an ok DD so even using what little gear there is for pets will usually lower your dmg because they don't seem to like to put good pet stats on equipment that is also good for the master. 5 haste on my pet vs more for me or some other stats? Decision is easy in any situation but especially when buffed in soa areas.

[dasva]

2k jugs are expensive.. but perhaps powerful? in the span of things they are getting 30 mins inbetween and any skilled bst can DD in lowman groups to get upgraded weapons and gear) and farming for plasm isn't to much of a hassle if you do 1-5 runs

I haven't personally played with it but last I saw tested put it around similar strength of crabs in the past and current new one. Main difference is is that this one caps at like 113+ before beast affinity (though still need ilvl weapon). So right now it and the grasshopper are the only jugs that can get to ilvl 119 with grasshopper just barely getting there and the plasm one can do it without af2. So it is kinda nice. However I probably wouldn't spend 2k on it unless it gave me a full stack of jugs. Though I think one of the bigger downfalls is it dieing. Now that we basically have to merit beast affinity that means either demeriting killer instinct which is a huge dmg loss to the master and pt members or beast healer which lowers your pets survivability and/or increases the cost healing pets. And as soon as it dies bam out 2k plasm. So like if you actually used the plasm pet in a farming run it's conceivable that you might actually just break even lol. In the scheme of things you are doing alot of farming just for minor upgrades that die lol. It would be like if altenator litterally blew up ever 20th time you brought out auto lol (well other than the fact auto is alot stronger)

[Goldfish]

@FaeQueenCory - Now while I understand the reference to SMN and other pet jobs were made (implying they are better than BST) but there's no need to put down our pet buffs.

I mean if everyone kept doing that to each other's jobs, then no job would be buffed (in the scenario that SE listens) because everyone would have the mindset of <insert job here is entitled to this buff and not that job>.

I don't mind (and would like too as I play also play SMN) if SMN also gets buffed too but there's no need to put down BST buff suggestions just because SMN is also not in a great place.

For example, I always thought Avatar's Favor (when introduced and still now) was always silly due to the fact that it made your pets weak, the range was (and still is) really small at 10 range (compared to 15 range of most AoE stuff) and how it was rarely used or relevant to any endgame stuff (most people wouldn't waste a DD slot in the DD party for SMN buffs when they could rotate BRD/COR buffs and let SMN be in the mage party or something). Overall Avatar's Favor (for example) was (and still is) almost completely useless in any relevant content.

I understand SMN's problems too and I hope anyone else coming to these forums can understand BST problems or annoyances that could be bettered. BST is definitely the king of pre adoulin content and still somewhat relevant in certain solo content too. Still, even if BST was the best job, it wouldn't be great or fun if certain things were left untouched or kept the way they are (beast affinity and jug pets being level capped for example). And FFXI is a game where fun should be had and every job should have many ways to have fun and/or have a variety of builds or ways to play (RDM tanking before they nerfed the enmity from sleep, dispel, etc for example).

I think everyone should unite as a community and be okay with one or another's job buff suggestions (no need for nerfs for anything either). Besides, the game's kind of broken already with Adoulin. I wouldn't mind if most jobs got buffed.

Edit - Also the variety of ways a job can play should also be increased. Back then, we had things like RDM tanking being viable (but died due to enmity values on things like sleep and dispel being changed) and other stuff too. I think each job should have multiple play styles (not that this is relevant to BST since I am fine with how BST plays) but the point is that buffing jobs or adding way for more jobs to do things increase fun which means players still keep playing. Please buff jobs and also add more gear or weapons that multiple jobs can use (I like T1-5 Delve weapons being usable by multiple jobs... it's neat to have Samurai being able to use bow somewhat proficiently too or ninja being able to use the dagger and sword for example). Again this isn't exactly relevant to BST but the point is that buffs and increasing what jobs can do (whether for BST or SMN or any job) increases build variety and fun (and that keeps players interested in the game). Things can be grindy but only if there are things to look forward at the end of the grind (being able to work towards a RDM tanking build for example, etc). This should apply for every job.

[Camate]

Greetings,

I have some information to share from Akihiko Matsui about adjustments to take place in the fall version update as well as future plans for beastmaster.



Matsui here.

In the fall version update we will be making adjustments so that not only Lucky Lulush, but all rabbit familiars can use Wild Carrot.

Additionally, I checked with the lead about other adjustments that are currently being working on, so I’d like to share with you what I can.


Addition of axes with item levels
In the fall version update we will be adding new Bayld equipment, which include a new axe. The item levels for these new items will be between the current Bayld items (item level 106) and the equipment you can obtain from Yorcia Weald’s skirmish (item level 113).


Pet enhancements
We plan on making adjustments to increase the attack, defense, accuracy, evasion, magic accuracy, magic evasion, and magic attack of familiars called upon with Call Beast.

[Kriegsgott]

Addition of axes with item levels
In the fall version update we will be adding new Bayld equipment, which include a new axe. The item levels for these new items will be between the current Bayld items (item level 106) and the equipment you can obtain from Yorcia Weald’s skirmish (item level 113).

NEW AXE ? i dont think the ITEM LVL was the problem the problem is geting your PET on a high lvl !

serously if you cant get the axe from Hurkan try it with all Nakuals seals there shouldn be a problem gaining a decent axe but capping your BST pet lvl is a problem or did i miss something ?

[Mavrick]

Greetings,

I have some information to share from Akihiko Matsui about adjustments to take place in the fall version update as well as future plans for beastmaster.



My biggest problem with BST right now, is we went from having 20+ level appropriate pets with...

- High evasion
- Movement Speed Bonus
- Multiple Elemental resistance
- High Magic Defense
- Berserk
- Potent Aoe Paralyze
- Aoe Sleep
- Treasure Hunter II
- Max HP Down-10% ability
- Att/Def -33% ability
- Potent Evasion Down
- Killer Instinct Bonus for a wide range of monster families.

To this..

Crabs x2
Rabbit....
Grasshopper

The moment I found out that the 76-99 jugs were all capping out at level 114 and lower, I gave up on BST... there really is no point to the job right now... there is nothing fun about loosing 20 pets and all the versatility they offer to level caps and absurd "level up" requirements that no other jobs is faced with.

[Leonardus]

New axes between 106 and 113?

Faizeer +1 (Item Level 113) is easy to obtain lowman, so that makes any axe below 113 either a tactical offhand, or useless.

...That second part is really vague and could mean almost anything.

[dasva]

Wild carrot is nice I suppose. The axe thing is meh. There is already enough lateral gearing that is higher as is. The raising the stats however drives directly to the point of me making this thread. Even with the higher ilvl the jugs fell behind other pets in soa... so assuming (holds breath) they actually raise them enough this time it could more or less solve the problem... at least until higher content lvl comes out. Especially if they grant the older pets that are capping at 114 to actually have a good hit rate and land debuffs and such. Could effectively make this thread a lie lol.

Of course there is still the issue of the pets capping much lower than the content lvl so either needing to raise that or make more jugs. And ones that are more readily available

[Estafio]

Greetings,

I have some information to share from Akihiko Matsui about adjustments to take place in the fall version update as well as future plans for beastmaster.

/shame on you guys....

[Kraggy]

because everyone would have the mindset of <insert job here is entitled to this buff and not that job>.
ER, it has always been thus since I started in early '05, players whose 'main' was one job fought tooth and nail to make themselves irreplaceable in group content so they had a guaranteed place: RDM and BRD being two of the worst examples at different times, often while doing so dissing others like SMN .. and I'm sure we all remember the 'loldrg' period not in a small way caused by this attitude.

[Glamdring]

thanks all to hell for the additional axe, but you DID notice (I hope) that while players can reach like iLevel 119 our pets are apparently stuck with 113? or is Beast Affinity supposed to cover the difference? and if it is supposed to be beast affinity then my friends and I would all like to give a big swirly (in a non-preflushed toilet) to the devs on behalf of our autos, avatars and wyverns.

Pet jobs are largely soloing jobs, if our pets can't keep up with us anymore it looks like we're all gonna be subbing reraise jobs again.

[dasva]

thanks all to hell for the additional axe, but you DID notice (I hope) that while players can reach like iLevel 119 our pets are apparently stuck with 113? or is Beast Affinity supposed to cover the difference? and if it is supposed to be beast affinity then my friends and I would all like to give a big swirly (in a non-preflushed toilet) to the devs on behalf of our autos, avatars and wyverns.

Pet jobs are largely soloing jobs, if our pets can't keep up with us anymore it looks like we're all gonna be subbing reraise jobs again.

It depends on the pet. All the old ones are 99 without beast affinity and even with beast affinity some of the cap lower than 114. The crafted ones I beleive are 103-105 without beast affinity... And then the plasm one caps at like 113+ without BA. So basically all except plasm pet which is horribly unrealistically costed are basically not going to benefit from ilvl without beast affinity which as you said is kinda BS compared to all the other pet jobs. And even with beast affinity merits we basically only have 2 pets and only 1 really usuable that will go all the way up to 119. Again I don't see the best smn ammo only lvling 1 pet lol. Or altenator only working on 1 frame.

Now they have seemed to hear our pleas and are raising the stats of the pets... kind of a roundabout way of doing things and doesn't really go to the heart of the problem but it may provide a sort of bandaid temporarily assuming it's significant

[Camate]

Hello,

Below are some additional details about the planned beastmaster adjustments.



Matsui here.

We’ve been receiving a bunch of questions in regards to the post the other day, and I’ve asked the lead about each one.


What’s up with the level caps of familiars? There is no way to check the caps for each pet.

The level caps for pets implemented post-Adoulin are as indicated below:

<table width="475" border="1"><tr><td width="25%" align="center" bgcolor="#a8d0d7">Item Name</td><td width="25" align="center" bgcolor="#a8d0d7">Pet Name</td><td width="20" align="center" bgcolor="#a8d0d7">Level Cap</td><td width="30" align="center" bgcolor="#a8d0d7">Level Cap with Beast Affinity 5 & Monster Gloves +2</td></tr><tr><td align="center" bgcolor="#eaf2f3">Swirling Broth</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#eaf2f3">Droopy Dortwin</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#eaf2f3">103</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#eaf2f3">118</td></tr><tr><td align="center" bgcolor="#f5fafb">Shimmering Broth</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#f5fafb">Sunburst Malifik</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#f5fafb">104</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#f5fafb">119</td></tr><tr><td align="center" bgcolor="#eaf2f3">Spicy Broth</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#eaf2f3">Scissorleg Xerin</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#eaf2f3">105</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#eaf2f3">120</td></tr><tr><td align="center" bgcolor="#f5fafb">Translucent Broth</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#f5fafb">Herald Henry</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#f5fafb">113</td><td align="center" bgcolor="#f5fafb">128</td></tr></table>
We’d like to make it possible to check the level cap of the pets you call with Call Beast, and we are currently looking to write the level cap in the jug item help text.


Will you be adjusting all pets, such as the ones used before Adoulin? I don’t see there being new pets added in the fall.

In regards to the pet level cap, we will not be making adjustments to the level caps of pets implemented before Adoulin, and we plan on adding higher level pets moving forward as the content levels increase.


The current prices for jugs are very expensive. It’s annoying to make them myself and for solo players it’s really hard to get 2000 menace plasm for the delve jug.

The development team is aware that the amount of “Swirling Broth,” “Shimmering Broth,” and “Spicy Broth,” in circulation is rather low, and we are planning to make adjustments somehow.


It’s easy to steal hate off pets. When I’m fighting with Falcorr, I swing three times and the enemy is back to targeting me. How exactly will our pets get stronger? How much will they be enhanced by an increase of their stats?

As we plan on enhancing both the attack and defense of pets, it will be easier for them to generate hate through damage dealing and with reduced damage their hate will not be lost as fast. With that said, after this adjustment it will be much easier to keep your target on your pet.

However, for pets such as Falcorr and others that were introduced before Adoulin, you will only be able to increase their levels to a maximum of level 114 with Beast Affinity 5 and Monster Gloves +2.

With that said, when players equip Hunapu, which has a higher item level than the pet’s level cap, your stats will be higher than your pet’s stats, and considering the amount of hate generated through damage it will most likely be difficult to make these pets hold your target after this adjustment takes place.

In the event you are feeling that your pet’s ability is lacking, please try using a pet that has a higher level cap.

[SpankWustler]

None of that addresses that there are a total of three familiars, from a total of two families, capable of reaching the current highest iLVL. If Beast Affinity is taken out of the equation, there are zero familiars capable of reaching the current highest iLVL.

If new pets are only added as the highest possible iLVL increases, this particular problem will persist.

[Zadimortis]

None of that addresses that there are a total of three familiars, from a total of two families, capable of reaching the current highest iLVL. If Beast Affinity is taken out of the equation, there are zero familiars capable of reaching the current highest iLVL.

I fear that's explicitly what Matsui is saying isn't a problem in those last three paragraphs. The main problem is difference of perspective for how the job is played, and the very unfortunate but continuing truth that, particularly for Beastmaster, the development team is trying to enforce a very particular playstyle that isn't reciprocated by the vast majority of the player base.

[Leonardus]

SpankWustler, I feel an inner rage boiling from within, and yet-- I continue to pay SE with some tangible, albit fleeting hope that they...I don't know, know what they're doing, I suppose. With Beastmaster.

I'm two Naakuals away from manually earning my Hunahpu (Because of course, it rarely drops to someone who actually wants it). But, I don't...want anything past that.

There's naught but a void, blacker than any abyss within the shattered land of the scarlet sky. Well, there's that, that...sound. It sounds like...pincers. Oh god, get out of my soul!-- *hides behind Falcorr*

[dasva]

I fear that's explicitly what Matsui is saying isn't a problem in those last three paragraphs. The main problem is difference of perspective for how the job is played, and the very unfortunate but continuing truth that, particularly for Beastmaster, the development team is trying to enforce a very particular playstyle that isn't reciprocated by the vast majority of the player base.

Yeah I get the distinct feeling they basically think that every jug should be vastly under leveled compared to all other pets and basically get outdated every ilvl update and even then only useable really with BA merits. That would be like if when they raised the level cap they had kept only putting releasing 2-3 jugs out that capped at lvl 65-70 pets at first then when the lvl cap went to 80 lvl 70-75 when the lvl cap went to 85 and so on.

I mean seriously I don't other pets jobs only getting to use a small portion of their pets. Don't see them become immediately useless after an ilvl update (in fact they get stronger). And certainly don't see the whole ilvl system basically not do anything at all for their pets if they don't use a certain merit. Wake up SE these are big imbalances between jugs and all other pets.

[Limecat]

I don't mind moving to the new critters exclusively if they were to get a base power boost comparable to how the 76+ jugs all vastly outclassed 75-era ones. Another problem is that the new armor being introduced, while great for piles of basic stats, lacks the extremely important pet enhancements of pre-Adoulin equipment.

[Glamdring]

I see. Now, let's take the problem a step further. We are able through gear and merits to get our pets to our iLevel. There are 3 other pet jobs in the game, none of the 3 get Beast Affinity or Monster gloves +2 buff so they're stuck with gear, and that means 113. They get the shaft. So, if you give them a fix that means beast gets the shaft as they can 119 with just 1 slot while we need 2 gear slots and level 5 merits that could otherwise be used for something else. Am I reading this right? Because either way someone needs lube...

[Mavrick]

Job just seems to be getting weaker and weaker with every update and falling further and further behind 2-handers.
This expansion is horrible for pet users.

[Camate]

Greetings,

Below is a follow-up from Producer Akihiko Matsui in regards to the planned beastmaster adjustments.



Matsui here.

I have some follow-up information regarding the enhancements for familiars that I shared the other day. After carefully looking into magic evasion, it has already been set to the same high value as that of enemy monsters, and as such we’ve decided to hold off on implementing enhancements for this stat.

Though there is always the possibility for changes with in-development content, I apologize for backtracking on what I previously informed you about.

At the current stage of development, the below pet statuses will be enhanced when equipping a weapon with an item level in your main hand:


Attack
Defense
Accuracy
Evasion
Magic accuracy
Magic attack

[dasva]

I see. Now, let's take the problem a step further. We are able through gear and merits to get our pets to our iLevel. There are 3 other pet jobs in the game, none of the 3 get Beast Affinity or Monster gloves +2 buff so they're stuck with gear, and that means 113. They get the shaft. So, if you give them a fix that means beast gets the shaft as they can 119 with just 1 slot while we need 2 gear slots and level 5 merits that could otherwise be used for something else. Am I reading this right? Because either way someone needs lube...

Not sure you are getting it quite right. BA and monster gloves don't actually raise the jugs level it just raises it's cap. So regardless the highest level you can pull out will be based on your ilvl. It's not a both are used to boost it's a take the lower of the 2. Now we do get a higher level axe then smn gets ammo because no boss drop yet for summoner so we can get up to 119 with 2 pets (plasm doesn't count) if you have gloves AND BA and the axe from delve megaboss while smns avatars are 113 though dmg wise on soa content avatar will probably come out of ahead due to mostly how crapilly pet pdif scales vs all this new avatar mab. Drg gets a boss weapon so wyverns can go up to 119 well and another 5 thru there lvling system. Pup doesn't really count. Sure altenator is ilvl 113 but it came out before the ilvl for pets system came out and the stats it gets from that are basically what the other 3 pet jobs get combined lol. Seriously I've thrown 3 ilvl 113-114 jugs at one root in colo reive and watched an altenator pup throw his auto on another... he killed his faster

Regardless I don't see them giving other pet jobs an additional way to level up their pets other than higher ilvl items like I think you are saying since that isn't what BA does. Though if they did I think I'd just right then and their toss my 99 guttler.

tl;dr we already need 2 slots and merits that could go somewhere else vs 1 slot on others. Now as ilvl rises this will get worse since even with merits and gloves none of the current craftable jugs will go higher than 120. So basically all jugs right now including the ones they just brought out have built in obsolescence



In response to the dev note... yes jug meva is better off right now then it's other stats. But that has always kinda been it's thing. So while it's meva doesn't suck against soa content it's no longer the good thing it was. So not raising it with other stats is kinda like saying don't give war anymore attack because I mean it already has berserk lol

[Morier]

Job just seems to be getting weaker and weaker with every update and falling further and further behind 2-handers.
This expansion is horrible for pet users.

Lies. Use new pets and pup/smn got a ton of stuff. great expac for pet users.

[Genoxd]

Lies. Use new pets and pup/smn got a ton of stuff. great expac for pet users.

SMN got a huge boost, unfortunately other jobs also got a huge boost. We're no better now then we were before. 5k dmg every 45sec is a joke.

[Goldfish]

Not sure you are getting it quite right. BA and monster gloves don't actually raise the jugs level it just raises it's cap. So regardless the highest level you can pull out will be based on your ilvl.

Yeah, BST Affinity doesn't raise the level past your own level or ilvl (which ever is higher). BST Affinity has always been kind of a disappoint thing. When it was first released, it just meant you could bust out your Funguar Familiars that were (at 65 before BST affinity and then...) at level 71 with 3/3 Beast Affinity merits. Once they upped merit category 2 cap from 3 to 5, then you could get 3 new pet families with Beast Affinity (Fly, Funguar, and Lizard which are all capped at 65). Some of them are "almost there" (Tiger is capped at 63 most noticeably though I was more of a funguar fan myself and was content with my funguar).

After the level cap increase, it was much better since a huge portion of pets added already had their cap at 99. Some of them were still left at arbitrary level caps (like Sheep, Nursery Nazuna, was set at level 86 just to keep Beast Affinity relevant).

To clarify more, let me use SMN as an example to explain.

Imagine if for Summoner, they made all Avatars have varying arbitrary level caps. Like Carbuncle is capped at 75 (even if you were level 99, Carbuncle would still be stuck at 75 for example), Fenrir capped at 85, Garuda capped at 87, etc and they told you to "wait for new avatars with higher level caps". "Cait Sith and Atomos will be at level 115, wait for them to come out!"

Wait a minute, why is Carbuncle at 75? Don't worry! There's this merit trait you can learn called "Avatar Affinity" it'd boost your Carbuncle from 75 to 85 at 5/5. (Again, it can't be higher than your own level. If your SMN was at 75, Carbuncle will still be at 75 even with 5/5 "Avatar Affinity").

But wait, there's more - you also can also get relic gloves +2 fully augmented, and then with that on, it'll boost Carbuncle from 75 to 90! (These examples are exaggerated, yes I know.) (Also to be fair, most BST pets are kind of more or less the same compared to SMN Avatars which offer a decent variety, even if just for elemental differences. While we don't have a high level Antlion or Diremite jug pet anymore, most other jugs can do the same thing they do too. So it's not as bad it sounds but it still disappointing, and especially if you're a fan of either jugs.)

You wonder, why all these varying level caps across multiple families?

Hopefully, they'll change it in an update right? You hear - Everyone... Wait... Wait... Don't worry everyone... We're going to add a new stronger Carbuncle in the next update! The newer Carbuncle will be at lvl 103! (Not too bad right?) And with Avatar Affinity 5/5 + Relic Gloves +2, then new Carbuncle will be at lvl 118 (and that's only if you have the Satchel from the new Delve Boss that caps at 120; again remember Carbuncle still caps at your level, so it's 99 if you're gearless regardless of "Avatar Affinity" or not).

You say - That's great! But wait, what about Fenrir? Fenrir is still at level cap 85/100 and Garuda is at 87/102... Then you hear, well about Fenrir and Garuda, maybe we'll add higher level versions of Fenrir and Garuda later. But for now, just wait and enjoy your new higher level Carbuncle (while your Fenrir and Garuda are underleveled in comparison).

Basically, that's what the BST situation is right now. Though it's not as big of a deal for BST that they can't just an antlion or diremite jug compared to if SMN couldn't use Carbuncle or Garuda (for example) but still, why is it like that in the first place?

Also I know not all jobs are supposed to work the same (asymmetrical balance) but Beast Affinity and Beast Level caps are kind of silly. It wouldn't be as bad if they kept all familiars up to date but they haven't (they can in the future to be fair to SE but we'll have to see).

As BST, I don't mind having to get Beast Affinity (some jobs need certain merits or else they can't function while Ninja has almost all completely useless ones) but the fact that even with Beast Affinity 5/5 and Relic Gloves, not all our pets are usable (and we have to wait on some) is silly (and yes I am going to use the word silly a lot because that's what random pet level caps are... silly).

I would even be fine (happy actually) if Beast Affinity was changed so that it makes it so it's always your level.

Like I would like it if they changed it so Beast Affinity 1/5 would be, pet is summoned at least 5 levels below you (if not already capped), and Beast Affinity 5/5 always summons a pet the same level as you (or as item level).

That'd I'd accept happily (then I could keep using my favorite pets).

However, currently even with Beast Affinity (and then later) half of our current pet families are underleveled (a decent amount of them are capped at 95 or below) and the current ones capped at 99 may still be stuck at the same level.

Also as for things like "well BST can still do this and this better than most jobs" it's true but like I said in my previous post, why argue against buffs for a certain job when you can argue for buffs for your job instead? BST is not overpowered plus BST is the least gear intensive and least time investment job to get at a stage where you can get things done. Unlike leveling BRD to 99, then working on relic or empyrean and then capping skill (for example), you can get BST to 99 naked with 0 axe skill and still solo a ton of stuff.

Basically, most of BST benefits can be earned within 20 hours (3-5 hours to get to level 30, 12-15 hours to get from 30 to 99, probably 20 hours max assuming you get decent leveling experiences). So all of BST benefits can be obtained by anyone really (it's least time required job to get things done since you don't have to cap any skills). There's little reason to not get BST up to 99 (it's a good investment if you really needed it + again, it only takes 20-25 hours max to get to 99 and there are no skills to cap, not much required gear, etc).

Lots of things require or benefit different jobs. Yes, it's nice that one of my jobs I already like and play is also useful but first, I'm all for SMN buffs too and second, while BST is useful, I'd rather they fix the pet level caps so they're equal than it being useful (at least if I wanted to play things for fun, I could use whatever pet I'd like without worrying about one pet being 10-15 levels higher than the other for some random reason). You may be wondering, wait, if BST wasn't useful and lets say all pets were capped at level 30 (for example), why would I prefer that over what we have now? Again, it's just of those issues that feels wrong when thinking about and playing BST (pets with arbitrary level caps). At least if all pets capped at level 30 (for example), then it wouldn't feel as wrong because they're not random level caps spread across multiple pet families anymore, now they're equal. I'd only get to use BST in that case maybe to fight mobs in low level areas but at least the pets... they'll all be equally leveled! There will be no favoritism shown to one pet over another simply due to levels anymore! I'd be fine with weaker pets overall if they were at least all equally leveled with each other.

For the BST who leveled it the as one of their first jobs (throwing random charm pets at mobs and making 2-3k an hour, maybe 5k an hour on bombs for certain levels, all the way to 75), it's disappointing that your beloved job "still" has these arbitrary level caps for Call Beast families. And for the new BST who are enthusiastic about the job but later finds out that certain pet families are only useful at certain levels due to random level caps, that also is disappointing for them too. FFXI's appeal is the variety of jobs/classes and being able to job switch. In that case, why not FFXI team goes all out and make each job appealing in their own way as much as possible?

BST was the second job I got to 75 (first being NIN) and SMN is the first advanced job I unlocked (I even did all the avatars after they introduced the "mini tuning forks" version - I remember downloading all the videos of various people doing the Searing Light strategy and then doing it, fun times).

BST has come a long way since it's been released however there's still one thing wrong with the job is that certain pets are capped at certain levels and we get a "fix" known as Beast Affinity which only helps for certain pets (when it was first released, it was mostly useless since the second highest pets were at 65, and with 3/3 it meant it was at 71, still underleveled. Then once 5/5 came, now we finally get to have 3 extra pet families at 75 for some reason). Again, it's like, what if Fenrir was capped at 85 for some reason, Garuda at 87, and you needed a merit called Avatar Affinity and even with those, Fenrir and Garuda will still be underleveled and behind your other avatars (for example).

As for arguing against BST buffs (and in this case, said buffs are simply just allowing BST to have equally leveled pet families) because it's an easy job to gear and do things on? Again, while that is true, that doesn't make it right to not fix the pet problem with BST.

What if they made all SMN avatars bad (capped at level 99 and the made it so the new satchel doesn't affect avatars) but yet made the elemental spirits really good - like the elemental spirits all do like 50k damage nukes and 20k AoE cures with stoneskin once every 5 seconds, making SMN the best job ever. However that doesn't excuse the fact that why does SMN have all these variety of summons with different abilities but they can't be used because they're capped at level 99 (for example)? What if you wanted to use Garuda or Fenrir or Leviathan instead of Elemental Spirits? Nope, they're capped at level 99 for some random reason, instead you can just use these Elemental Spirits and still be a top tier job.

SMN becomes popular, then people argue "well SMN have spirits that do 50k damage nukes and 20k cures every 5 seconds... why do you need Fenrir or Garuda or Carbuncle to also be useful and relevant when you can instead have Elemental Spirits do 50k damage nukes?" but for the SMN enthusiasts, then it sucks that they won't buff avatars because "Spirits are useful and can get anything done".

(Again this is just an example.) That may sound like a silly example but you can put BST in that place and it's what's going on - "Why do BST need Lizard or Tiger or Sheep pets when instead they can use the latest Crab jug which starts at 113?".

BST was my second job at 75 (leveled it back in the old days) and to see it being now a job that everyone likes to hate on is saddening (to be fair again... BST was hated on even in the old days, probably more so than now due to MPKing and I did once encounter an MPK attempt from a BST, during a Garlaige Citadel party back during the day >.>).

I wouldn't mind if BST got nerfed but one thing that needs to be done, one thing... remove all the random arbitrary level caps on jugs and/or at least make 5/5 BST affinity make your pet equal to your level, so that all pets can be equal in level (or if they have to capped at some level, they should all be capped at the same level).

Edit - This post isn't towards anyone specific. It's just, again it's just, I hope everyone understands what BST players are asking for isn't too much and I hope people understand more (with the examples I used) how silly the concept of Beast Affinity is (Carbuncle is capped at 80, you need Avatar Affinity 5/5 and AF2+2 Augmented and even then, it's still at 95... for example). I wouldn't mind if BST sucked or was nerfed to be useless but again, at least make all our pets equal in level so we can use whatever we like ; ;. If all pets have equally bad stats, at least then you could pick whatever pet you want to use. I don't want to have to use latest Crab jug to fight random rocks efficiently in Reives just because it is 10 levels higher than every other pet (still be capped at your own level or item level though, and speaking of only crabs... that was also the case for the longest time back at the 75 cap days when CourierCarrie was most commonly used due to there be only 2 other pet families at 75 cap and them not being as supplied as CourierCarrie ).

[Glamdring]

Not sure you are getting it quite right. BA and monster gloves don't actually raise the jugs level it just raises it's cap. So regardless the highest level you can pull out will be based on your ilvl. It's not a both are used to boost it's a take the lower of the 2. Now we do get a higher level axe then smn gets ammo because no boss drop yet for summoner so we can get up to 119 with 2 pets (plasm doesn't count) if you have gloves AND BA and the axe from delve megaboss while smns avatars are 113 though dmg wise on soa content avatar will probably come out of ahead due to mostly how crapilly pet pdif scales vs all this new avatar mab. Drg gets a boss weapon so wyverns can go up to 119 well and another 5 thru there lvling system. Pup doesn't really count. Sure altenator is ilvl 113 but it came out before the ilvl for pets system came out and the stats it gets from that are basically what the other 3 pet jobs get combined lol. Seriously I've thrown 3 ilvl 113-114 jugs at one root in colo reive and watched an altenator pup throw his auto on another... he killed his faster

Regardless I don't see them giving other pet jobs an additional way to level up their pets other than higher ilvl items like I think you are saying since that isn't what BA does. Though if they did I think I'd just right then and their toss my 99 guttler.

tl;dr we already need 2 slots and merits that could go somewhere else vs 1 slot on others. Now as ilvl rises this will get worse since even with merits and gloves none of the current craftable jugs will go higher than 120. So basically all jugs right now including the ones they just brought out have built in obsolescence



In response to the dev note... yes jug meva is better off right now then it's other stats. But that has always kinda been it's thing. So while it's meva doesn't suck against soa content it's no longer the good thing it was. So not raising it with other stats is kinda like saying don't give war anymore attack because I mean it already has berserk lol

I do understand the mechanics of your post. However (and I believe this was actually confirmed with a dev interview years ago-like pre-Abyssea) that beast jug pets always spawn 1-2 levels below the master, the relic gloves were supposed to close that gap. BA adds I believe it was 2 levels per merit to the cap which was why I always used funguar pets when we were at 75 cap. So yes, to that point my remarks were taking pets that capped at about 114 the rest of the way to our axe, extending their useful life a bit.

The shaft comes in that the other jobs never required any merits or gear to get to master's level, now they do, but unlike us they don't HAVE merits to take as you said avatars beyond that piece (and why they discontinued the practice beyond 99 I'm not coder enough to know). That leaves them with a gap. However, if they fix it by giving a 119 piece to the jobs beast gets the shaft as it takes more than just the Axe to get our pet to 119, we need the gloves-and depending on the jug cap BA-to get there. Of course if they don't give smn a 119 piece they are getting the shaft (damage numbers for avatars or not, beast pets are harder to kill just from higher HP, even before any defensive stats). And I'm sure the avatar's iLevel effects things like overcoming prey resistances and the like, so a 119 piece may still be needed. Smn do have the advantage of the shortest cool-down time to get another full-strength pet of all the pet jobs tho'.

so please note, I'm not disagreeing with you, just expanding on my unclear prior statement a bit.

[dasva]

I do understand the mechanics of your post. However (and I believe this was actually confirmed with a dev interview years ago-like pre-Abyssea) that beast jug pets always spawn 1-2 levels below the master, the relic gloves were supposed to close that gap. BA adds I believe it was 2 levels per merit to the cap which was why I always used funguar pets when we were at 75 cap. So yes, to that point my remarks were taking pets that capped at about 114 the rest of the way to our axe, extending their useful life a bit.

The shaft comes in that the other jobs never required any merits or gear to get to master's level, now they do, but unlike us they don't HAVE merits to take as you said avatars beyond that piece (and why they discontinued the practice beyond 99 I'm not coder enough to know). That leaves them with a gap. However, if they fix it by giving a 119 piece to the jobs beast gets the shaft as it takes more than just the Axe to get our pet to 119, we need the gloves-and depending on the jug cap BA-to get there. Of course if they don't give smn a 119 piece they are getting the shaft (damage numbers for avatars or not, beast pets are harder to kill just from higher HP, even before any defensive stats). And I'm sure the avatar's iLevel effects things like overcoming prey resistances and the like, so a 119 piece may still be needed. Smn do have the advantage of the shortest cool-down time to get another full-strength pet of all the pet jobs tho'.

so please note, I'm not disagreeing with you, just expanding on my unclear prior statement a bit.

well sorta. Yeah the 1-2 is still there. Though not sure what you mean by taking pets that cap at 114 to the rest of the way of the axe... no jug naturally caps at 114 or higher. All the old ones are still naturally capped at 99. And we have to use the merits and augmented to just extend to 114 (though some are still lower)


But the way you put the merits kinda makes it sound like using merits is helpful when it's actually a part of the gimp. The BA merit system is actually a gimp not a help. The gap between jugs and avatars isn't because of BA it's because of the current ilvl item available. And if they did add it to smn it would actually hurt them. It would make it so they were still 99 even with the satchet unless you used the smn affinity and then when you did fully do that it would still be 113 with the satchet. So stating like it is somehow helpful makes it sound like you still think it works in a way it doesn't. Even though you state correctly how it works. Which vaguely confuses me lol

It's just that right now bst gets a higher ilvl weapon then smn gets satchet that produces the gap not the BA system. Similar to how mnk gets oats while say war only get razorfury. Except it would be like without using the right merits and the right augmented af2 and the right and more expensive/harder to find consumable that oats goes back down to being to something anywhere as bad ilvl 99 h2h to maybe a rigor. But basically you are just waiting for newer delve to get a boss drop which should be at least as high an ilvl as current possibly higher. Kinda sucks but it's at best a temporarily problem based on order they release gear (though one could argue the sheer insane amount of bp gear from skirmish makes up for it). While jugs problem is an actual systematic problem that not only wont be fixed just by event progression but will in fact be compounded on and made worse.

As far as which pets are stronger yes jugs have still a bit more survivabilty (though they lose alot with not being able to dual pdt axes anymore) right now avatars out solo jugs both in terms of speed and just can it be done. In a similar way to if you vastly increase your dmg output you end up decently lowering your dmg taken. And as far as pt... well let's face jugs have never been useful anyways so no big loss I suppose but not being able to take advantage of ecosystems because 95% of my ilvl pets are still underlevel even with maxing everything out is a huge loss similar to how smn would be if it conly only use 2 avatars at full level and being unable to take advantage of elements.

Anyways at this point I'm kinda confused. Some of what you say is exactly how it works but then some of your examples make it sound like you think it works the other way.

[dasva]

Lies. Use new pets and pup/smn got a ton of stuff. great expac for pet users.

Well pup didn't really get a ton of stuff. Mostly just alternator but this is a case of quality over quantity. The sheer epicness of it is kinda crazy. I mean the acc/att it gives is so great people are having a hard time qauntifying it lol. And yeah this whole thread is about them kinda forgetting bst. And drg... well you can polish a turd and put bacon on it but at the end of the day it's still a wyvern lol. Though I suppose 119 helps it survive long enough for drg to actualy do it's jumps

[Glamdring]

@Dasva, tink of it backwards, that's why you are confused by my statement. i.e. play bst with no beast affinity merits, and yes, I was talking about older jugs, like falcorr. See, when you look at the fan sites they list level caps, but the levels displayed all incorporate 5/5 BA, which isn't the case for where a jug caps. so, the rant is either SE is making my BA merits useless-at least once I pass I guess 109 iLevel or not applying them in the right order or something, so that the iLevel supercedes my BA merits.

Here's my analysis, say both a summoner and a beast have an iLevel 113 item that affects their pet by setting the level, the summoner's avatar is just 113, while an older jug will be 97, 99 if I have the gloves, 107 if I have the merits and no gloves, 109 if I have it all (possible that should be 109 and 111). Either way, the smn got 113 just having the piece on every pet available to them, the bst loses all but 3 pets hitting the iLevel without the use of merits and gear, a shaft tot he beast. However, there are armor pieces that let the master get above that 113 piece for their iLevel, BA should allow us to have pet exceed the 113 iLevel cap from the pet slot (no idea if they do, I don't have the stuff yet), if it does, shaft to the smn (yes, I know there's a delve axe, but I'm running the simulation based on skirmish +1 since smn has a limit below delve gear, the reason is they may add armor above 119, there is no guarantee they will create pet iLevel pieces, or new jugs that correspond, especially considering they dont give smn a pet piece that equals current master caps).

So, what I'm saying is beast either loses the pet pool we had a 99 cap, shaft (noone else loses usable pets); loses the need for BA merits on pets that cap above 99, shaft (for wasting merits), needs merits to take a 114 pet to 119, shaft (who else needs merits?), or they let us continue to hit 119 (or whatever the cap is later) but without giving the same tools to other pet jobs, shaft to them (why don't they have a 119 option?), or gives the tools to other jobs, but still leaves bst with a need for gloves and/or merits to get pet at master level, shaft (who else has those requirements?). It's just an inequity that's been with us for awhile and simply shouldn't be. All of the pet jobs should be able to go "balls to the wall" with an even levelled pet to the master without any 1 job requiring more than 1 item and no merits, OR all should require 2 items and 5/5 merits. That would be fair. Naturally I would prefer the 1st option, then I could retask my BA merits and carry 1 less item when I take the beastie out in the field.

[dasva]

Ah I think I get it. Kinda mixing up how it is and how it should be. Like how everyone lists the caps with 5/5 BA and augments and that should be the actual cap without?

As far as avatar vs smn if you are basing it on skirmish/delve nm ilvl both will have pets at 113 right now. But with bst having extra requirements to get the pets up right now and some still being lower. Of course if you have Hurkaan or the boss axe from delve then 4 jugs can go higher than avatars... but that will most likely be "fixed" along with all the other weapon types that don't hvae boss drops yet with future delve.

That said you do bring up an interesting point of what if they don't. What if all the armor and weapons ilvls keep going up but they miss adding items that increase pet lvls. While I don't like to think that would happen that was what was going on up until the last couple of updates. Hopefully the community reps are reading this and remember to including things like smn ammo, pup animators and a shit ton more jugs for bst as ilvl rises. Don't neglect major aspects of the jobs you are ilvling. This applies to both the ability to raise our pets ilvl as well as relavent "Pet:x" gear. Like all the pet:mab gear smn got this update was awesome and just what they needed. The minimal + pet:att didn't really help anyone though

[Okipuit]

Greetings,

We mentioned previously that we had decided to cut magic evasion from the list of stats that would be enhanced for pets in the October version update, but new testing was performed and the below comment from Producer Akihiko Matsui shares new details about the adjustments.



Matsui here.

First off, let me begin by apologizing.
We’ve been conducting further testing with magic evasion and have reached the conclusion that we can increase it a notch. Based on this, we will be revamping pet’s stats, and though it will be slight we will be increasing their magic evasion as well.

Below are the stats for familiars that will be enhanced in the October version update when you equip a weapon in your main hand that has an item level.



Attack
Defense
Accuracy
Evasion
Magic accuracy
Magic attack
Magic evasion



Normally the information that is shared with you is all content that is in-development and looking at the conditions we keep it flexible and can make changes; however, for this adjustment in particular I sincerely apologize for doubling back so many times and causing confusion.

Moving forward we would like to keep informing you of things as much as possible while striking the right balance between speed and accuracy. Please understand that there may be cases in the future where we need to correct information that was announced; however, we understand that it’s not right to change things over and over like this time and we appreciate your understanding.

[Camate]

Hello,

Producer Akihiko Matsui has provided some responses to questions we have seen based on the beastmaster pet adjustments that took place in the recent version update.




Matsui here.

I’d like to respond to some questions about the beastmaster adjustments.



I don’t really feel like pets got that much stronger at all. Were they really enhanced?


With the adjustments we performed we enhanced the overall stats of pets. Defense in particular was largely boosted, and the amount of damage pets take should be greatly reduced. Also the amount of enmity lost due to damage taken has become smaller, so with the current balance we feel pets can function better as tanks.

While there is a possibility that the enemy targets the beastmaster right after the start of a fight, we’ve balanced it so that by using Snarl every time the recast timer is ready the target will stay on the pet.

These adjustments were by no means the last of the pet adjustments and we will continue to look into adjustments moving forward, but please allow us to monitor the current balance for a bit.



I still feel like pets are lacking attack power despite these adjustments…


When it comes to high level pets that were designed to be attackers, currently there is only Scissorleg Xerin. We understand that there is a bit lacking when it comes to pets as a source of damage, and we would like to increase the choices players have by adding new pets that are attack focused.




Why is Herald Henry the highest level pet right now? Shouldn’t there be higher level pets or a way to make it possible to utilize lower level pets?


As Herald Henry has been designed around the idea that it is a pet to be used at the same level as that of summoner’s Dashavatara Sachet and puppetmaster’s Alternator, his level cap has been set to 113.

We will be making adjustments to Beast Affinity with the idea that it is a job trait that allows you to add pets that have a lower level cap to the list of possible choices.

However, as there are no pets that reach the level cap of item level 115 Hunapu or the item level 119 Kerehcatl, we plan on implementing pets with a higher level cap. Until then, we’d like those of you who possess Hunapu or Kerehcatl to acquire Beast Affinity.

We believe that we can solve these issues by properly supplementation of equipment, and the item and battle teams are working hard to create them, so please hang in there a little while longer.

[Malthar]

"We believe that we can solve these issues by properly supplementation of equipment, and the item and battle teams are working hard to create them, so please hang in there a little while longer."

Is this a promise or another *example* of how it might be done? We don't want another bst TH gear fiasco on our hands.

[Glamdring]

"We believe that we can solve these issues by properly supplementation of equipment, and the item and battle teams are working hard to create them, so please hang in there a little while longer."

Is this a promise or another *example* of how it might be done? We don't want another bst TH gear fiasco on our hands.

that wasn't a fiasco, that was a flat out lie. That being said, had they done it when they said they would the gear would probably already be obsolete, like almost every single pet buffing piece of gear in the game for beast is now. and of course both of our TH pets are already below the current ilevel cap anyway.

[Camiie]

However, as there are no pets that reach the level cap of item level 115 Hunapu or the item level 119 Kerehcatl, we plan on implementing pets with a higher level cap. Until then, we’d like those of you who possess Hunapu or Kerehcatl to acquire Beast Affinity.

So, just going to outright remove all pretense that there was ever a real choice when it came to merits?

[Leonardus]

Thank you for the increased defense.

Really Mr. Matsui, right now Beast Affinity is a very boring but *required* trait. If we BSTs do not max it out 5/5, it is like summoner losing half their avatars. Do you think that's fair? I don't think that's fair.

[Randnum]

Sometimes I just want to hug him.

Not because I think what he does is good. Not because I like the content or that any of it is remotely relevant to me, but simply because I can only IMAGINE what this game's code looks like and the sort of estimates he gets in the workflow for fixing things we suggest.

I truly WANT to believe that all of the fixes we ask for make Mr. Matsui sad because he KNOWS they're the right choices but all he has is this big crappy 'reconstituted mashed potatoes' codebase and design spec and it's natural to give us things we can get in a month instead of the things we really want that would take 3.

In his position, the last post would put me close to tears. Cause you KNOW it's broken, you know that the players know it is broken, but you just don't have the time or resources to fix it.

So, from me to you, Mr. Matsui, /comfort hug.

[dasva]

So, just going to outright remove all pretense that there was ever a real choice when it came to merits?

It sounds like that's what they had been saying and for now it is but sounds like they are finally coming around to the idea of ya know fixing this huge problem instead instead of skirting around the edges and putting tape on it. Though who knows maybe what they mean is putting some pets that cap at 106 in lol. Or adding some 119 pets after they add weapons with ilvl 130

[Psxpert2011]

I can only IMAGINE what this game's code looks like and the sort of estimates he gets in the workflow for fixing things we suggest.

I truly WANT to believe that all of the fixes we ask for make Mr. Matsui sad because he KNOWS they're the right choices but all he has is this big crappy 'reconstituted mashed potatoes' codebase and design spec and it's natural to give us things we can get in a month instead of the things we really want that would take 3.



FFXI simply isn't 'that type' of game. I personally don't want FFXI to be 'that game'. FFXI was design for the RPG community, not the "I have to have everything over-night, fast & furious" player.

I truly wish some games stay underground instead of going main-stream but this is the world we have to put up with.

[Arkitan]

Oh, Id like to give Mr. Matsui a big hug......with my hands and his neck! Does it really take rocket science on how to edit a MMO? I know its semi-hard to fix the big mess up the previous dimwit did to the game but come on, man! Why not take what your players actually know, apparently better than you do considering we actually play the game to heart! So many things can and should be changed to this game. Setting new things isnt how you edit a current game. New things are nice but still doesnt help us in our current situation! Two things that I can think of that are the most annoying part of this game are the inability to climb/jump over 1 inch ledges in the game and the ability of monsters to charm us players. We cant charm goblins as they are sentient. Are you trying to say that any gob is sentient but we are not? Did someone not turn on their common sense factor switch the day those monsters were created or was it basic japanese logic?

[Kraggy]

So, just going to outright remove all pretense that there was ever a real choice when it came to merits?
You mean there are BSTs who DIDN'T max-out BA?

Really?

[Camiie]

You mean there are BSTs who DIDN'T max-out BA?

Really?

It wasn't always ideal to do so.

[dasva]

Yeah prior to this pretty much it's only use was for if you wanted to bring a sheep or flytrap to sleepga things.

Beast healer was pretty much an auto to do thing since it saved money if nothing else. And some people liked a terror on a 5 minute timer and well I personally liked being able to give out an aoe buff that gave +15% dmg dealt and -15% dt and killer effects which worked with your af3 body on top of that. Now I'm basically chosing between some extra pet survivability/gil saved vs a rather significant increase in dmg at least when I'm not in dynamis or something with random mobs types lol

[Blah]

Why can't they just lift the level cap of all pet pots? That's really the simplest, cheapest and easiest thing to do wait let me guess that is "harder" to do than to come up with yet more gear, pets, and job abilities? Honestly I would rather just be able to take my rabbit/ tiger/ mandragora into Adoulin than to have to slave away for some new gear then slave away for a new weapon THEN slave away obtaining a new pet jug just to be able to complete one, maybe two delves or skirmishes and then poof! Pet gone

[Olor]

Why can't they just lift the level cap of all pet pots? That's really the simplest, cheapest and easiest thing to do wait let me guess that is "harder" to do than to come up with yet more gear, pets, and job abilities? Honestly I would rather just be able to take my rabbit/ tiger/ mandragora into Adoulin than to have to slave away for some new gear then slave away for a new weapon THEN slave away obtaining a new pet jug just to be able to complete one, maybe two delves or skirmishes and then poof! Pet gone

Yeah I am feeling really miserable about the BST job right now. It really isn't fair to have to spend 250K to buy a stack of pets that hit a tiny bit harder than a wet paper bag and fall apart just as fast. I did a set of skirmish on my bst and all told it cost me like 300K between pets and foods. That's just not fair or reasonable. Even if your pet lasts a whole skirmish, as soon as it ends it disappears! They are WAY TOO EXPENSIVE.

We need cheap reasonable pets. Keeping our pets on par with PUP and SMN is bull because they don't have to buy their pets after every battle. If you want us to have to buy our pets, then you need to make them more powerful to make up for it. Otherwise, make each pet an ability on a timer and let us call them without the jugs.

[dasva]

So it looks like one of the crafting materials for one of the new jugs comes from the AA fights... seems SE didn't learn it's lesson with unreasonably expensive single use items for bst

[Louispv]

You forgot that another one, (the tulfaire) requires akaso. The same 200k each weed that makes GEO AF ungodly expensive. We got a pig this update, and nothing else.

[Leonardus]

The pig's decent (And easy to farm meat for), but yes, everything is going to be so expensive...

"Brave Hero Glenn," cute. But who was asking for another frog? Does it even have ANY TP moves at all? I'm just a little confused on this one.

I also love how my Lv117 CaringKiyomaro was getting critted for over 600 damage in the new BCNMs. That's cool SE, you really boosted their defense where it matters, huh?

You know, besides a total lack of (master's) accuracy and attack on our new AF, some Pet: Damage Taken%-, please?... We can't give them bard songs or anything (hint, hint), which you kind of need, so pets just get left behind in all these new battlefields, as far as I can tell.

[dasva]

I was kinda asking for another frog but one with a hat. Ya know ones that actually have moves and/or cast. Frog chorus on a jug yes please!

[Leonardus]

That would be a unique idea, but I think the frogs that stand up (Poroggo) are technically beastmen or something near that.

[Camate]

Greetings,

Below is a comment from Akihiko Matsui in regards to the familiars for beastmaster.



Matsui here.

Thank you for the feedback on familiars. Currently, the development team has been discussing revamps for the strength and cost of familiars.

First, we realize that when it comes to the attack power of familiars, their special abilities are lacking, and we are currently looking into boosting their power when they are used with Ready.

If we were to simply increase their attack power, the balance when fighting them as enemies would be disrupted, so we would like to proceed with this carefully. However, we would like to make adjustments so that they are easier to use and there is more enjoyment when using them.

In regards to the cost of familiars, we are currently looking into adjusting the recipes and reducing the costs involved in making them. We’ve also been considering ideas to reduce the consumption of jugs, and we’ll be trying to strike a proper balance between this and recipe adjustments.

We’d like to improve the usability of familiar moving forward, so please give us a bit of time.

[Addanny]

Man I read both of yall's posts from the beginning to the end. In my opinion you are both right to point out the shortcomings of the two/three jobs. That however is the case for all the jobs in this game. In this game unless you are a professional gamer you will never be able to get your money's worth out of the entertainment you pay for. Many veterans that have started playing this game from the beginning have left for games like skyrim because at least in that game everything available can be attainable. Not in FFXI especially since the XIV launch. This game is not for recreational gamers that's for sure. Good luck to y'all.

[pancakesandsx]

The pig's decent (And easy to farm meat for), but yes, everything is going to be so expensive...

"Brave Hero Glenn," cute. But who was asking for another frog? Does it even have ANY TP moves at all? I'm just a little confused on this one.

I also love how my Lv117 CaringKiyomaro was getting critted for over 600 damage in the new BCNMs. That's cool SE, you really boosted their defense where it matters, huh?

You know, besides a total lack of (master's) accuracy and attack on our new AF, some Pet: Damage Taken%-, please?... We can't give them bard songs or anything (hint, hint), which you kind of need, so pets just get left behind in all these new battlefields, as far as I can tell.

Pets can get corsair rolls. Rather, there are rolls that land on players that affect pets.

[Leonardus]

Pets can get corsair rolls. Rather, there are rolls that land on players that affect pets.

Indeed, but it's not practical. You can usually only justify them in situations where pets are doing the fighting alone.

[Draylo]

Letting buffs hit pets would be a nice enhancement.

[dasva]

That alone would make pets outside of wyvern at least useable in alot more content. Wont be as good as a good buffed dd with gear swaps and such but somewhat nice for times when you are tempted to use pets and such

[Olor]

Letting buffs hit pets would be a nice enhancement.

Yes please. This would help a lot.

Honestly though, why are you making pets come from really hard to get items? It isn't like the pets that use these items are even especially strong. Personally, I'd rather that instead of adding new materials to content and then making stuff crafted from them to justify their existence - that you make older content continue to be relevant by adding new uses to old items. Things like Goblin Weels or Ca Cuongs or other of the innumerable items that has no market anymore - crikes, even moonstones, etc all those gems no one wants to buy (that I npc constantly after doing WoE) would be more sensible.

Seriously I'd actually appreciate it if you stopped adding crafting materials to the game because the economy is completely dead with almost nothing in the game worth anything anymore. If there was less items and they were used in more things they would actually be worth something again.

[Louispv]

What. The. Fuck?!

Just tried out 2 Sharpwit Hermes. (which ran me 100,000 gil by the way) His normal swings do 50 and his critical hits do 80, and that's against beasts, which he's ostensibly receiving a damage bonus against. What the fuck SE?! Using a pet capped down the 90's gives out better damage. And for this you required a god damn endgame drop? This isn't the level 20 synth joke frog pet SE!

This is some sort of mistake, one would hope, or I'm just not fucking playing BST anymore.

EDIT: Out of curiosity, I pulled out a Flowerpot Merle. She does exactly the same damage and caps in the 90's somewhere.

[WoW]

Perhaps they should allow jug pets to possess all of the special abilities that are unique to their specific family; barreling smash (Raaz), mega scissors (Crab, or the ones in rala waterways at least), baleful gaze (Lizard), sanguinary slash/nature's meditation (Chapuli), etc. I can understand why NM abilities are not included, such as fatal scream, however, several non-NM skills are removed from jugs.

With the release of each new jug pet, I am constantly wondering how gimp they will be and which abilities have been completely removed from the jug. The current jug pets may not perform so poorly if they had their native abilities.

[dasva]

Hoof volley for falcorr! 4k needle on a newer cactuar. Tepal Twist, petalback Spin, and/or Phaeosynthesis from the mandy. Wild Ginseng for rabbit. etc. Make the moves we already got actually land on nms

[Leonardus]

Just tried out 2 Sharpwit Hermes. (which ran me 100,000 gil by the way) His normal swings do 50 and his critical hits do 80, and that's against beasts, which he's ostensibly receiving a damage bonus against. What the fuck SE?! Using a pet capped down the 90's gives out better damage. And for this you required a god damn endgame drop? This isn't the level 20 synth joke frog pet SE!

This is some sort of mistake, one would hope, or I'm just not fucking playing BST anymore.

Ark Angel Drop: Check
Yet Another Mandragora: Check
Not a Cooking Synth: Check
Is the Same or Worse Than Existing Pets: Check

Rare, Boring, Annoying, and Confusing (RBAC™) Test: Pass

I guess something had to balance out giving us pink eaglebirds (Ibuki wins this update, expensive as it is).

[Olor]

I can't afford most of the new pets. I'm not doing anything important enough on bst to justify spending that kind of gil.

[WoW]

RBAC, lol, that is pretty funny. I concur, these pets take an herculean effort to obtain, however, they are boring, annoying, confusing, etc. Jug pets are named monsters, but there is nothing special about them (Not even their appearance). They are also noticeably weaker compared to their wild counterparts, barring an extreme level difference.

I recall the first moment I summoned Courier Carrie, she was somewhat unique compared to the nq crab familiar (Physically and I belive lvl wise). I was of the mind set that the remaining named jug pets would share Carrie's unique physical qualities, but that was not the case. I wholly understand that monster balance has to be taken into consideration when increasing jug pet's power, however, like NMs, jug pets are named creatures, they should have a unique appeal to them as it pertains to their physical appearance and performance. Certain monster abilities may too powerful for jug pets to possess, such as tp moves based on a target's hp, doom, etc. Perhaps the jugs could posses a spinoff ability of some sorts or a ready move that is unique to the named jug pet.

Honestly, I do not have an issue with jug pets that are hard to obtain; however, jug pet performance does not equate to the level of difficultly needed to obtain them. If the tulfaire possessed a ready move that does respectable damage, shoot, I will happily go beyond the call of duty to obtain her. One of the ingredients for the mandy jug drops from the new AAs. Individuals do the the AA battles for chapters which allows them to make incredible gear. There is nothing incredible about the mandy jug, he is not worth the hassle. The effort he takes to make and his power does not equate. Back in the day, I would gladly sit in my mog house trying to hq tree sap, because panzer was worth the effort, he could solo avatars with the greatest of ease. Honestly, the hq jug pet system was not all that bad, pretty neat actually; cheap ingredients, respectable synth level, and hqs would result in a noticeably more powerful pet, but the auction house is pretty dead atm XD.

[Rwolf]

I agree that pets need more moves. I'd like some unique ones but they have a ton unused that I'm like what the hell in not being able to be used yet.

Sharpwit Hermes sucks, it does the same damage as Flowerpot Merle, more or less with the exact same move set. There's a ton of TP moves that are used by NMs and mandragoras learn in Monstrosity. Surprised it hasn't at least gotten Photosynthesis, Dream Flower, Demonic Flower, Petal Pirouette, Petalback Spin, or Tepal Twist.

But honestly I'd like to see more variety in jugs. When Crude Raphie (Adamantoise) was added I thought we'd get more types of monsters finally. Instead of more crabs and mandragoras.

[WoW]

Good point, there are a plethora of unused moves that are not available to jug pets. No clue why the majority of these moves were removed, the chapuli's ready move list was really a wth moment for me, lol.

[Louispv]

Especially since it doesn't make much sense to remove them. If putting a 6 second invincibility move on a 3 Ready charge timer was broken to the point that Scissorleg couldn't get nature's meditation, (in which case, Sentinel says, "Hi! Did you forget me?") why was SE simply able to change what it does and give BLU nature's meditation as a cheap effective ATT+20% buff?

If the ready moves are too powerful, change what they do like you keep doing to BLU spells, don't just leave us with an empty move list.

[Leonardus]

I'm glad I'm not the only one annoyed with how stripped-down our familiars can be at times.

Also, I agree that they should possess a unique move of their own. Like an NM, our pets have unique names, so why not make them more interesting?

[WoW]

I decided to play around with Ibuki and Kiyomaro post-update, nothing too in-depth, just eye-balling. Ibuki was noticeably stronger than the other pets pre-update, best tank imo, however, molted plumage was only doing around 1kish to pugils in foret de Hennetiel, today she was doing 2.5k damage. I wanted to test the pets out on a few stronger mobs (Ashen tigers in Kamihr Drifts checked as decent challenge), molted plumage was still doing respectable damage, 2k. They did appear to significantly boost the pets ws power. Perhaps one of the math wizards can perform an in-depth analysis post-update (Do not know how they will perform in boss battles, but Ibuki was pretty strong against normal mobs).

[dasva]

I'd say Kiyomaro is a better tank. It's counter/gaurd rate go thru the roof with zealous snort.

Anyways seems like the boosted att and base dmg of pets a bit. Possibly just adjusted how pet pdif works. But yeah it's nice

[WoW]

Meh, Kiyomaro got slaughtered while trying to solo SCNMs, used Ibuki and it was a breeze. He nearly cost me my orb so I never trusted that pet in tanking situations since that battle, lol XD; I mainly use Ibuki or sometimes falcorr for TH (Birds ftw^^), but different strokes for different folks I suppose^^

I do agree that the new pet buff is pretty neat; totally unexpected. I was anticipating another letdown, but that was not the case with this update. Good one SE^^

[Demonjustin]

Depending on the difficulty of the Orb and the level of your pet, was EVA a factor in that? Birds are more evasive mobs, very possible that your beast was dying faster simply because 5 monsters were hitting it where as with your bird 5 monsters were missing it. Just a thought.

[WoW]

I set the difficulty to easy mode and used a 117 weapon; but good point, EVA could have been a factor in these battles. However, it appears that Kiyomaro is severely exposed when zealous snort is down, even in 1 on 1 situations. Personally, I am not particularly fond of the boar, but I can understand why others use him. Kiyomaro's counter and guard boost is really nice, but battles appear so much smoother with Ibuki. I have not used him in tanking situations post-update, the EVA, durability, and damage capabilities of the bird are too good for me to pass up (Do not have to spam pet food). However, this is strictly my opinion.

I rarely use the boar, perhaps I will give him a spin again and see how it goes. His ready moves are a real turn off for me, notably the 3 charges for zealous snort. Ibuki on the other hand just tears through the SCNM, doing 3k ready moves on occasions (I believe the magic def and def down from swooping frenzy was in effect). Ibuki is my main pet atm, only use the others for the killer effects, killer instinct, etc.

[Leonardus]

Both the Apkallufa and Akaso are quite easy to obtain, now.

Also really love the Ready boost, but it was needed. It does seem to apply to older pets as well, so any old favorites got a free boost (This is cool, thanks SE).

...So does Ibuki have slashing resistance? Haven't watched closely enough, but supposedly tulfaires have -50%?

[WoW]

Had no idea the boost applied to older pets, thanks for that tidbit^^ As it pertains to Ibuki's slashing resistance, I was unaware of this also (Sorry). Ibuki does appear extremely durable in most situations, even when taking damage. I am not sure if she does possess this trait, but I am intrigued and would like to find out myself. There is someone who does conclusive jug testing, I usually wait for him/her to post results pertaining to jug pets.

Ibuki is somewhat of a pain to synergy, other than that, she is pretty easy to obtain. I usually harvest akaso every game-day-night on ninja (for the speed boost). Pre-update I was netting a decent amount of akaso, currently akaso is flooding the auction houses in Asura, extremely easy to obtain. However, there are very few salubrious broths up for sale. Perhaps individuals just save the jugs for themselves like I do.

[dasva]

Part of the problem with Kiyomaro is it's durability is based on gaurd/counter. So if you can't get the mobs in front of it (almost impossible in situations with more than 2 mobs and hard even with 2) then it loses all that.

I did a bit of testing awhile ago on tulfaire (was trying to get all dmg types for all the new mobs down) but kinda stopped halfway thru. I definitely got half dmg on excalibur procs...wether that was due to specifically slashing dmg or pdt idk since I never really went back and finished. That said a large amount of enemies are slashing so it would be good either way especially when the pet is getting gang banged lol. Last I saw prices were still like 500k a stack but I think just no one is selling/buying since the update but should be worthwhile to do it.

Also one thing I liked about Kiyo before the updates is you could do his AoE move and hit other stuff and it wouldn't aggro it lol.

[Olor]

Razor I'd love it if you hooked me up with the bird sometime. I haven't had a chance to try it out. The price on singles is sort of ridiculous.

[WoW]

Sent^^ Ibuki is really nice imo. I was able to get to HQ Khim in AR2 with unleash and molted plumage spam on the chariot(Other pets may be able to do this also post-update, have not tried them). I could not do this pre-update, not sure if anyone else was able to, perhaps self skill chaining would make it possible, idk, but I am just speaking from my perspective.

Ibuki landed a few 2k ws on the WKR shark, that is not summoner esque by any means, but pretty good for a jug pet. She is also a blast to use in besieged, swooping frenzy at the gates full of enemies is pretty fun^^ Viscous pet.

[Olor]

Sent^^ Ibuki is really nice imo. I was able to get to HQ Khim in AR2 with unleash and molted plumage spam on the chariot(Other pets may be able to do this also post-update, have not tried them). I could not do this pre-update, not sure if anyone else was able to, perhaps self skill chaining would make it possible, idk, but I am just speaking from my perspective.

Ibuki landed a few 2k ws on the WKR shark, that is not summoner esque by any means, but pretty good for a jug pet. She is also a blast to use in besieged, swooping frenzy at the gates full of enemies is pretty fun^^ Viscous pet.

Wow, that's really sweet of you, I'll pull out bst tonight and give it a try.

[Louispv]

Sent^^ Ibuki is really nice imo. I was able to get to HQ Khim in AR2 with unleash and molted plumage spam on the chariot(Other pets may be able to do this also post-update, have not tried them). I could not do this pre-update, not sure if anyone else was able to, perhaps self skill chaining would make it possible, idk, but I am just speaking from my perspective.

Ibuki landed a few 2k ws on the WKR shark, that is not summoner esque by any means, but pretty good for a jug pet. She is also a blast to use in besieged, swooping frenzy at the gates full of enemies is pretty fun^^ Viscous pet.

You could solo the armored chariot in under 3 minutes at 99, you can do it with any pet at 117. Just don't watch the fight from afar. The real reason Ibuki's the best is you don't have to pour a stack of biscuits into her on the floor before that, because she can dodge shit that's not in front of her, unlike Kiyomaro's gaurd/counter.

Everyone forgets Zealous snort adds 25 MDB though. Anything that casts magic has real trouble with him. Was able to solo Easy Microcosmic orbs, while I left for the toilet. Could maybe do normal with a 119 pet.

[WoW]

You could solo the armored chariot in under 3 minutes at 99, you can do it with any pet at 117. Just don't watch the fight from afar. The real reason Ibuki's the best is you don't have to pour a stack of biscuits into her on the floor before that, because she can dodge shit that's not in front of her, unlike Kiyomaro's gaurd/counter.

Everyone forgets Zealous snort adds 25 MDB though. Anything that casts magic has real trouble with him. Was able to solo Easy Microcosmic orbs, while I left for the toilet. Could maybe do normal with a 119 pet.

Nice^^ I never tried the microcosmic orb BCNMs with him, only mac. I also had no idea that zealous snort added MDB, but the 3 charges is what gets me. I could not get zealous snort off because he was getting pounded by the orcs before he could gain enough tp.

Ibuki is a solid DD; her moves are fairly cheap and powerful. The boar appears to be a decent dd. I was playing around with him in colonization revives; his moves where doing 1.3-1.4k to mobs and 500ish to the roots, however, Ibuki was doing 2.7-3k to mobs (Hit 2 mobs simultaneously for 3k, made me smile^^) and over 1k to the roots (1.5kish). Edit: Pentapeck is pretty cool too, highest I have seen from Ibuki was an 6k on the toads in besieged and 9.3k on the qutrub (Granted it is besieged, lol XD).

The boar was a pretty decent dd, not bad, I was somewhat surprised.

The main thing that bothers me with these pets is when they run off and fight other targets. I wish there was a command that keeps them on the intended target. For instance, I will engage a mob, then another monster will cast blind or something and he wanders off into the blue. Not a major issue, but annoying nonetheless, ruins my unleash fun XD.

[dasva]

Boar is more for 1 on 1 fights really. That's where it excels. Get out of that and you lose out on it's counter/gaurd and well it's dmg move isn't the greatest for dmg. Though the def down is really nice. Snort... yeah really should be 2 charges. But a bunch of haste and rediculous counter/gaurd rate with some mdb is still not bad.

As far as AI i think that was actually brought up a long time ago and SE rep basically said they are monsters they do what they want lol

[WoW]

Boar is more for 1 on 1 fights really. That's where it excels. Get out of that and you lose out on it's counter/gaurd and well it's dmg move isn't the greatest for dmg. Though the def down is really nice. Snort... yeah really should be 2 charges. But a bunch of haste and rediculous counter/gaurd rate with some mdb is still not bad.

As far as AI i think that was actually brought up a long time ago and SE rep basically said they are monsters they do what they want lol

Ah, ok, thanks; it is what it is I guess pertaining to our monsters, oh well, lol.

[dasva]

So it turns out that the frog which even at 119 has pretty much every stat lower than 114 falcoor and the new meh mandy which has lower stats than a really old many from awhile ago are both 119+ for natural cap. But the good jugs boar and tulfaire are 116 and 109 respectively <.<

[Olor]

has anyone asked them to check to see if they accidentally messed up the stats on the Mandy? That happened before with DiscreetLouise - they had put the wrong stats on her

This is what someone in another forum noted:

Sharpwit hermes averages 50 damage a swing and crits for 80. I have no idea why, it doesn't seem like he's capped real low, or had his stats and flowerpot bill's switched like they did with the fungaurs, since he has level appropriate accuracy. No new Ws's either.

EDIT: Pulled out a Flowerpot Merle. She and HErmes have exactly the same stats and hit for exactly the same amount, except for Hermes's higher max hp.

ALSO: can the devs please stop capping new jugs well below current levels? It's really a crummy thing to do.

[dasva]

Well it's /checkparam stats aren't horrible about on par with the other jugs added this update not including the frog but I'm told an older mandy had a 20% att/def bonus which makes it even at a much lower level almost as strong. The thing is though mandys moves suck so it can't just have similar stats to something else it's level. I mean boar has 2 awesome abilities as well as nice counter/gaurd. Tulfaire has -50% to slashing which is most mobs as well as a couple of nice moves that do way more than mandies. I'm guessing somehow they set mandies base dmg really low too like definitely less than half the other mobs instead of just half to make up for the 2 hit thing

[Olor]

I'd like to point out that this is absurd:


Hermes: 788 acc 750 att 706 eva 745 def
Merle : 718 acc 808 att 633 eva 797 def

So it looks like they stealth fixed him so he no longer hits for 45 damage. Now he hits for about 120, which is still terrible. And they "Fixed" him by making him almost always weaker than Merle. (Barring very evasive enemies, which you won't use BST on anyway since all the pets have crap acc.) Merle, who is a level 76 jug made with 32 woodworking from 300 gil worth of NPC bought ingredients, and is incredibly common in all treasure caskets, is stronger than a level 104 alchemy synth that uses philosopher's stones and a drop from level 119+ endgame activity. That makes sense.

[WoW]

Time flies when you are getting shafted^^ I kid, but seriously, almost one year later and bst pets are still in the dumps.

Was just browsing through the bst forums and discovered that the same issues still persist today, almost a year and multiple updates later http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/41479-Pet-Stat-Calculations

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/42025-Give-us-a-Pet-Defending-Ring-%28from-a-Delve-HNM-%29

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/42320-Haven-t-played-my-BST-in-months.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/41479-Pet-Stat-Calculations?p=511200&viewfull=1#post511200

The pet food buff was nice; my pet is indeed buffed (Hit rate wise) on lvl 119 content that is, however, pet's are still lacking in the dd department. My acc is fine on lvl119 battles; however, anything higher than that (Battle levels higher than my pet) causes the pet's efficacy to drop tremendously. Unlike pt members, pets do not have access to JAs nor songs/buffs. Having rolls specially for pets causes issues; pets are buffed at the expense of other dd which makes having a bst or pup less desirable. Is it possible to allow songs/buffs to hit pets? We do have a very nice JA buff, but it is on extremely long timer (Run Wild).

Something else stands out to me regarding bst; http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/36907-Why-are-bst-pets-getting-shafted/page5; if I am reading this correctly; scissor leg Xerin was designed to be our attacker pet. I found this discouraging and disturbing; Xerin is far from an efficient striker pet..the best attacker atm is Dortwin, by default, due to his high lvl cap (Foot Kick and Whirl Claws spam are highly overrated, does not get the job done on content that matters. Foot kick usually does high 1k-3k on incredibly easy prey, can spike higher on dated stuff. Ibuki hovers around mid 2ks). Xerin's ready moves are extremely weak and his most beneficial moves are gone. The post goes on to imply that, the team would like to add more pets that are attack based; well, the next batch has been released and none of our current pets are particularly damaging because, almost a year later, the same jug issues persist. You guys did not release more attack oriented pets because most of our pets were just repeats of older monsters (Mandy, rabbit) and one of them is weaker than the previous capped jug of the same species http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/36907-Why-are-bst-pets-getting-shafted?p=485869&viewfull=1#post485869.

I am inclined to believe that not much thought goes into our jug selection. You cannot just throw us any monster, strip the monster of its' moves and pass the jug off as a striker pet. When I hear attacker pet, my initial thought was Scorpion, Opo-opo, Sheep, or another Hippogryph (With hoof volley). Not all monsters make great dd pets. The only way to give us attacker pets is to really give us damaging pets, with damaging moves. A chapuli is not a damaging monster in general; neither is the frog of tulfaire. This is why the team had to boost pet ready move dmg, but to no avail. You cannot transform a mandy's headbutt into a destructive force; why not just implement damaging monsters with strong moves? Scorpion? Hippo(Hoof volley)? Opo-opo? Gnat? Wivre? Crab(Mega-scissors)? If our jugs possessed moves native to their species, this would be a non-issue. The pet stat formula should have been boosted (Updated) as opposed to this. You cannot have damaging/attack oriented pets without damaging moves. For instance, a scorpion jug missing sharp strike, critical bite, and death scissors would be a sub-par dd pet. Yes, in theory a scorpion would be a great dd, but not without its' beneficial abilities. Kiyomaro for instance, has its' most damaging ability removed (Understandably so in this case; barreling smash is an hp based move), hence he is a extremely sub-par dd, even on weaker content. Honestly, the boar should have never been implemented imo, considering the fact that he had a potentially broken move that would have been removed. Opo-opo would have been a better choice for the beast family; Scorpion would have been a better choice as opposed to the chapuli, a snapweed would have been a better choice as opposed to another mandy. If the next batch does not contain a particularly damaging pet, I will be highly disappointed :(

There has to be some way you guys can give us beneficial/damaging abilities. Our pet's are basically stripped down entities trying to compete. I don't care if it is on a 4th ready charge, we cannot compete with stripped down pets. SMNs can do insane 5 digit damage on like a 35 second timer in delve, how will giving bst pets moves such as hoof volley or mega-scissors on a long ready charge break the balance? Doubt hoof volley or mega-scissors can do this, even in besieged http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/39806/summoner-in-delve-share-your-stories/4/. Bst is a dd itself, however, we have no native offensive JAs, hence our pet selection/move slection is extremely vital to our success. It takes the master time to get 100% tp; it takes the pet longer to reach 3 charges; 2 minutes 30 seconds with merits. Smns are firing off powerful pacts every 35-ish seconds iirc. Even if a bst could reach 100% tp faster than the pacts (Which is likely); there are far more powerful than a bst ws.

Capped pugs is another issue. If the jug cap will not be lifted, bst needs every pet family represented with the introduction of new jugs.

Run wild: This is a terrific JA, but diminishes not only our pet, but the familiar effect as well. This can become a hassle. If run wild was on a shorter timer and the pet removal was removed, I truly believe that jugs could attain a decent hit-rate, even on difficult content.

Pet Food: The pet food was indeed a great start, however, food is not enough. Food and run wild allows me to maintain a pretty good hit-rate on difficult stuff; but that timer is extremely restricting to us beastmasters.

Also, is it possible that we can get some -PDT on some new axes? If the new WKR weapon augmentation included this, that would be awesome. -10%PDT on the axe would be pretty nice.

Imo, bst is a few fixes away from being a serviceable job. Run wild adjustment, better jug/move selection, and songs/buffs hitting pets. We can only do so much as a player; SE, can you meet us half way?

[WoW]

Another update and yet again, another missed opportunity to address our pet's damage dealing issues (Any plans to adjust run wild in one of the upcoming updates?)

One of the main gripes with our pets are the ready move damage. http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/41042-Allow-pet-ready-moves-to-have-a-tp-modifier. I must admit, our pets ws damage is pretty weak. A monster whom has weak special attacks or does not use special abilities at all is pretty harmless (Frogs). The easy mobs have less than stellar special abilities, or attacks that are no a threat to the party (We usually avoided damaging mobs at lower levels). Another example; you guys/gals may notice that not all player weapon skills are particularly damaging. To put it plainly, some ws are just better than others, and the same is true for monster special attacks. Even with the nice ready move boost, our jug pet damage is still lacking. The problem is the pets/ready moves SE chooses to give bst.

I play monstrosity on occasions and have noticed that some monsters are just plain better than others, in the dd department. Monstrosity monsters and jugs are really not comparable, however, I have noticed that the jugs bst currently have access to, are far from the best monster dds; the rabbit is somewhat decent. (of the same job; War vs War, etc). Personally, I believe that our jugs need need stronger native monster abilities. The HQ jugs was good idea, in theory, but those jugs are a hassle to hq and the are not much differnt than the NQ counterparts, you basically recycled the same pets, Once again :(

If you have no intentions of uncapping jugs and continue to constantly recycle old jugs with assorted looks, how about some recycled capped jugs with different looks/with more dd potential?

Don't mind the JAs and whatnot; strictly referring to job traits (Attack bonus, critical hit, double attack, triple attack, etc; traits that jugs are known to have) and special abilities; :)


http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Gamboge_Beetle_%28MON%29

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Hippogryph_%28MON%29

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Collared_Lynx_%28MON%29

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Karakul_%28MON%29

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Sabotender_Florido_%28MON%29

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Ferromantoise_%28MON%29

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Vermilion_Raptor_%28MON%29

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Tarichuk_%28MON%29

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Arundimite_%28MON%29

Can you please consider releasing these guys in one of the future updates; bst was so much better with those guys. Imo, this guy put it best

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/36907-Why-are-bst-pets-getting-shafted?p=469094&viewfull=1#post469094

Edit: Well, sange is receiving an adjustment, hopefully other crazy long recast abilities will get some love as well.