Beastmaster don't really use Fencer, right? Let's get rid of it.

[Gwydion]

I just saw that BST Gifts Job Points @ 500 = Fencer effect bonus.

Beastmasters don't use Fencer and in fact, dual wield 100% of the time.

Alternatively, if you want to keep Fencer on BST...can you give us a higher cap of Shield skill than 300?

Either way, it seems unnecessarily weak.

If you insist on BST main-hand 1 weapon + shield, can have a better BST shield? Perhaps with Ready/Sic recast -10? .....or even Ochain?

Thank you.

[Gwydion]

Honest question:

How are BSTs supposed to make use Fencer (Mainhand + shield) when dual-wielding two weapons is much more productive for a BST?

Weapons like Charmer's Merlin make wearing a shield and for Fencer ....a very poor choice.

Also, Beastmasters only have 300 shield skill @ 99.

Can someone please explain to me why BST is expected by SE to use Fencer?

Please give us something to work with if you want us to use Fencer: give us a shield with better sic/ready timer, more pet stats, higher shield skill...hell, even Ochain....because as it stands, Beastmaster shields and Fencer are a terrible, terrible option. :(

[Zekander]

They gave BST Fencer for the same reason they gave RDM Shield Mastery (RDM has the lowest shield rating in the game btw, caps at 265), purely for trolling purposes.

[dasva]

Well at one time actually wielding an axe for master dmg was actually decent. And SE thought how do we get people to not /nin every time they use 1hd weapons and came up with fencer. In theory with high enough fencer and ws that scales well with tp and decent shield options it could be very good. Like for example war with all it's fencer, and traits in it and such and that new blurred shield can do amazing things with savage blade. But since bst doesn't get as much fencer, gets crap for shields, has to use axe ws which didn't really get much in the 1hd ws update it's not so great especially when compared to maxing out your jug options which were recently increased. What they should do is apply that fencer to your pets

[Gwydion]

They gave BST Fencer for the same reason they gave RDM Shield Mastery (RDM has the lowest shield rating in the game btw, caps at 265), purely for trolling purposes.

Wow....trolling indeed :(

[Leonardus]

Beatific Shield +1. That's pretty much the only shield I carry on BST, and it certainly isn't blocking anything worthwhile with my "beastly" 300 skill.

I'd suggest a shield with "'Sic' and 'Ready' ability delay -5." Then you can get rid of Charmer's Merlin.

[Nakts]

At least it's something like "Steal cooldown -.05 seconds" on BST, which I could see them doing because they hate us.

[Gwydion]

I'm bumping my original thread, because it seems Beastmaster continues to get Fencer augments from job point Gifts.

However, Beastmaster shield is still capped @300 skill and no new shields have appeared to incentive Beasmaster to use a one-handed weapon.

SE, can you help balance this issue for us? Fencer is being augment but our skill and available items has not been modified ...ever.

[Jopa-Sopa]

Should the Fencer gifts be replaced by Familiar Magic Accuracy/Magic Evasion Bonus? BST pets are the only ones who don't get those from gifts (minus SMN and M.Acc.).

[Gwydion]

Should the Fencer gifts be replaced by Familiar Magic Accuracy/Magic Evasion Bonus? BST pets are the only ones who don't get those from gifts (minus SMN and M.Acc.).

I would take anything over Fencer at this point :(

[dasva]

I'd take a reason to use fencer... ie make it so using a shield doesn't completely cripple the job

[Gwydion]

I'd take a reason to use fencer... ie make it so using a shield doesn't completely cripple the job

I agree completely.

[Raborn]

I've posted this before a long time ago, but SE could you please add more latent abilities to BST's Fencer.

I propose one of two things:

Add shields that not only benefit the "Master" but also the "Pet".
When it bottom lines, BST's pets are just as or more important in certain scenarios than the Master themselves.
When a BST can get Pet: Regen +2 x2 with Dual Axes or Attack and Accuracy +40 on Dual Axes, they are not going to use a Shield with "Enhances Killer Effects". It's just not going to happen. NIN or DNC is going to be the primary option for most BSTs.

Add latent effects to the Fencer trait such as:
Pet: Accuracy +xx
Pet: Attack +xx
Pet: Critical hit rate +xx
Pet: Critical hit damage+xx
Crit hit rate+xx
Crit hit damage+xx
TP bonus + ?

xx = the current level of the Beastmaster so: Tier 1 starts at 5 and 5% for crit ratings, Tier 2 goes 11 and 7%, Tier 3 goes 15 and 9%, Tier 4 goes 20 and 11%, Tier 5 goes 25 and 15%
? = Tier'd as so +50, + 150, +200, + 250, + 300.

(Does not include Fencer bonuses from Job Points)

[Gwydion]

I'd take anything, literally anything at this point.

[Olor]

Adding latent pet effects to fencer is actually a great idea. Really either SE needs to swap out fencer for a more useful job trait (dual wield would be nice) or change fencer to be better and add better shields (and give us better shield skills... omg)

To be honest I haven't used beast for months and months now I've totally given up on it.

[Nyarlko]

Replace Fencer with Dual Wield please. It's rather annoying to effectively be locked down to two total viable subjobs.
Native DW could be enough of an improvement in master+pet damage vs pet-only that it might actually be not-crazy to consider it as an option for most players.

[Urmom]

Replace Fencer with Dual Wield please. It's rather annoying to effectively be locked down to two total viable subjobs.
Native DW could be enough of an improvement in master+pet damage vs pet-only that it might actually be not-crazy to consider it as an option for most players.

Especially considering other jobs that are more or less locked into 1hd meleeing get native dw.... or in plds case great shielding

[Gwydion]

Sounds like we want 1 of the following:

1.) Latent Pet effects to Fencer (like Acc/Atk/Crit-hit rate, etc).
2.) Native Dual-Wield. (This would open up so many subjob possibilities, like BST/WHM from ages ago! Remember, BST shield is absolutely terrible both in skill level and shield choices. Just abysmal! )

This sounds like fun...which is more than I can say for Beastmaster right now. :(

[Selindrile]

Beatific Shield +1. That's pretty much the only shield I carry on BST, and it certainly isn't blocking anything worthwhile with my "beastly" 300 skill.

I'd suggest a shield with "'Sic' and 'Ready' ability delay -5." Then you can get rid of Charmer's Merlin.

But uh, if you do that you might wanna make sure that it either doesn't stack with Charmer's Merlin or that the minimum delay for Ready is capped at 15, cuz, well, obvious reasons.

And I too agree that they should get dual wield natively, and their Ready/Sic range back, even if that means a nerf to damage to compensate, I understand why the nerf, but, it seems so ridiculous in practice, I wonder if square will ever learn, bsts still aren't meleeing on anything worthwhile, and it's hilarious/sad seeing JP parties space out the PLD and BSTs perfectly on one side and the other to let bsts still avoid some AoEs, you know, that thing they made the changes to fix which makes BST really awkward at times especially for soloing of all things, but they're still doing successfully.

[Urmom]

But uh, if you do that you might wanna make sure that it either doesn't stack with Charmer's Merlin or that the minimum delay for Ready is capped at 15, cuz, well, obvious reasons.

Eh it's not that bad. On easy things it wont really matter and on harder stuff going to lvl 99 even for less than a second is a pretty huge risk not to mention so would the risk of lag/macro misfire leaving you at 99 when the move actually goes off

[Olor]

Eh it's not that bad. On easy things it wont really matter and on harder stuff going to lvl 99 even for less than a second is a pretty huge risk not to mention so would the risk of lag/macro misfire leaving you at 99 when the move actually goes off

Yeah it wouldn't matter if it stacked with charmer's as the level adjustment on the pet would make it pretty worthless.

[VahnEris]

Most skilled BSTs already use /WHM or /SCH. You don't lock Charmers into the off hand anyway, it's just a precast piece. Now that Arktoi exists, you do lose out on a pretty heft chunk of ACC, or a small amount of TP bonus/MAB/MACC/ATK/Whatever your offhand is giving you. But generally speaking, the survivability of /mage outweighs the benefits of /nin or /dnc most of the time.

With good timing the momentary loss of pet level isn't really an issue.

[Gwydion]

I think the bottom line is that we're not incentivized to use shields to benefit from Fencer, which includes a poor selection of shields and a very poor shield skill (300 skill cap!).

[Urmom]

Most skilled BSTs already use /WHM or /SCH. You don't lock Charmers into the off hand anyway, it's just a precast piece. Now that Arktoi exists, you do lose out on a pretty heft chunk of ACC, or a small amount of TP bonus/MAB/MACC/ATK/Whatever your offhand is giving you. But generally speaking, the survivability of /mage outweighs the benefits of /nin or /dnc most of the time.

With good timing the momentary loss of pet level isn't really an issue.

Depends on the situation but sure if you time it it wont be disastrous. On the other hand the amount of delay involved with moves combined timing in there would likely make it pretty hard to ride a 10 second timer which I think was the fear idea behind the shield.

[Kjara]

I do use Fencer when going in dynamis areas with restricted subjob. I really do not mind the bonus.

[Zeldar]

I don't play bst so I really don't know: would it be a good idea to treat bst shields as they do SMN satchets? Which is to say, add things delay- and pet level + ?

[Jile]

If SE were to make a shield that had "JA Range +10, ready delay -5, pet level +1" on it.... It would go a long way toward many retired BST resubscribing.

Make it reachable in the same way Aegis is though, add it as a relic-shield for BST and make us work for it farming Dynamis. Something any BST could attain with some work, not some HELM nonsense.

[Sicycre]

Hi, everyone!

As the Fencer trait has the ability to boost damage, and there are those that are currently using it for this purpose, changing or removing it would lead to a negative experience for those users.
As such, we do not have any plans for adjustments to it at this time.

In addition to that, in terms of adjustments for beastmaster, we're not currently looking into boosting their damage any further at the moment.

That said, we will continue to look into your feedback regarding beastmaster so please be sure to keep it coming!

[Urmom]

What bst is actually using fencer? What about reduced timers like smn is getting?

[Jile]

Hi, everyone!

As the Fencer trait has the ability to boost damage, and there are those that are currently using it for this purpose, changing or removing it would lead to a negative experience for those users.
As such, we do not have any plans for adjustments to it at this time.

In addition to that, in terms of adjustments for beastmaster, we're not currently looking into boosting their damage any further at the moment.

That said, we will continue to look into your feedback regarding beastmaster so please be sure to keep it coming!

Sicyre, welcome to the community team.

As you described yourself as a long time player of XI in another post I would like to implore you as a fellow player of this wonderful game and extend to SE's development team that there really needs to be a better implementation method for the nerf that was applied to BST for our Job Ability range. A simple, we have no plans, frankly is a slap in the face and I'm hoping for something more respectful.

Honestly, Fencer, isn't used. Those who do use it, use it as a novelty one-off, at best.

The change that was made to BST's JA's, taking us to a 7 yalm tether to the front of the mob we're fighting, was not a solution, it was another slap in the face. I don't want more damage, in fact I'm fine with a solution that lowers damage when in effect. A job ability similar to 'avatars favor' that SMN has and would extend our JA range to 15 yalms (effectively double what it is now and still around 1/2 what it was when the band-wagoners were playing) while also cutting our damage from pet moves in 1/2 while in effect.

Can we move past the non-issue of adjusting Fencer, as BST don't have shield's worth using so they don't use a shield nor benefit from whatever adjustments are made to Fencer? If a new, amazing and usable shield isn't going to be released, then for all intents and purposes the Fencer trait can be removed from BST entirely and the perhaps 3 or 4 people total across all world servers that are using this trait are frankly not in the realm of the majority regardless and we shouldn't be punished for their use of our main job.

So, since you're reading and replying to this thread, I again implore you to express this to the Development team so we can address issues that need adjustment over those that are not a remedy to any actual problem the real BST player-base cares about.



What bst is actually using fencer? What about reduced timers like smn is getting?

Precisely. 99.995% of BST are not using fencer.... so the response from SE is bizarre at best.

[Gwydion]

Hi, everyone!

As the Fencer trait has the ability to boost damage, and there are those that are currently using it for this purpose, changing or removing it would lead to a negative experience for those users.
As such, we do not have any plans for adjustments to it at this time.

In addition to that, in terms of adjustments for beastmaster, we're not currently looking into boosting their damage any further at the moment.

That said, we will continue to look into your feedback regarding beastmaster so please be sure to keep it coming!

This response is so disappointing. I see that one person in this thread uses a shield in Dynamis content, which is no different than using a dagger, which someone is entitled to do for low level content.

However, I purposefully worded my original post in the hopes that my premise would be acknowledged. The premise here is that Beastmasters do not rely on shields (at least for iLvl content) any more than they rely on lesser weapons like Daggers, Swords or Staves. To say that users who choose to use shields need to be considerable here is like arguing that the introduction of Aeonic Axes unfairly disrupts the gameplay of Beastmasters who use Daggers and Swords.


I just saw that BST Gifts Job Points @ 500 = Fencer effect bonus.

Beastmasters don't use Fencer and in fact, dual wield 100% of the time.



I even gave an alternative suggestion if you wanted allow Fencer to persist, that it's use has some obvious shortcomings, like our current shield cap of 300:


Alternatively, if you want to keep Fencer on BST...can you give us a higher cap of Shield skill than 300?

Either way, it seems unnecessarily weak.


I even started this post, assuming defeat, and explicitly stated that if you insist on making 1-handed weapons + shields a viable option, could you possibly give us a shield geared towards Beastmasters. We currently have no shields that enhances or aguments the unique abilities or characteristics of the Beastmaster or his/her pet.



If you insist on BST main-hand 1 weapon + shield, can have a better BST shield? Perhaps with Ready/Sic recast -10? .....or even Ochain?


I even asked for Ochain, as a throwaway suggestion, but just to highlight how utterly unprotected we are when forced to be within 7 yalms at current level cotent.

As a software engineer by trade, I understand the lack of development resources for a product that has been in existence for 15 years, but my original request, to increase shield skill cap from 300 and/or to add 1 single shield to make Fencer a viable bonus, could not take more than 1-2 hours of development time and 1-2 hours of regression testing.

My hopes and standards here are remarkably low and I thought that by asking for the most modest of changes, we could gain some traction for Beastmasters as whole. The shield cap could be raised and a new shield (using an existing model) could simply be purchased from an NPC.

However, this is the part that as a paying customer hurts the most. I'm happy to continue to post and leave feedback, but I'm afraid that some of my initial points, have been overlooked, perhaps inadvertently.


Hi, everyone!
That said, we will continue to look into your feedback regarding beastmaster so please be sure to keep it coming!

Sicycre,
I'd like to welcome you to the forums but I humbly ask if you could you possibly take another look at this thread or perhaps bring some of the current shortcomings of Beastmaster and Fencer/shields in-practice, to the development team?

Thank you for your time and consideration.

[Urmom]

Want a bst to use fencer to DD well? Jack our fencer amounts to what war is at and give us access to literally the only shield with fencer on it that jobs without fencer get to use ie Blurred Shield +1

[Jeanfi]

Yes and give war ability to charm!

[Jile]

Yes and give war ability to charm!

Sounds good, done. BST has not used charm in so many years we could care less if it's taken away.

[Urmom]

Wait we still have charm?

[Nyarlko]

BST: Charm is effectively useless in all 99+ content (at least as far as I can tell.) Everything is flat-out immune to it in all event/instanced content and the downsides to using a wild pet versus a jug pet are undeniable to the point that even if there were charmable targets available, it would be a poor choice to do so.

On the subject of Fencer.. Even if there are a few BST out there who may include it in their playstyle, the userbase as a whole does not seem to.
As a BST, I feel hardlocked into using /NIN or /DNC solely for Dual Wield and would be dancing with joy in my living room if Fencer gifts were converted to DW (even just a single tier of Fencer>DW conversion) because it would open up the possibility of using other subjobs which allows for more viable playstyles in more content/situations.

The argument that Fencer boosts damage output is flawed. I'm relatively certain that the increase in personal DPS from fully utilizing Fencer (which would also require several additional full equipment sets beyond what most multi-job BSTs have available) would not be enough to make up for the 33% loss of Ready damage that giving up access to an offhand Charmer's Merlin alone would cause. That is not taking into account whether or not the master is actually capable of matching the combat numbers put up by a pet focused gearset/playstyle. I change /equipset (including weapons) twice every time I hit my Ready macro, then a third time to go back to pet TP set after it's done. Unless something goes horribly wrong, I should actually never have enough personal TP to actually WS anyway due to my TP constantly resetting to 0.

I honestly don't use an offhand weapon to smack things, I use one for the additional stats it gives my pet.
Losing access to pet.acc&atk+30/pet.TPbonus/ready-5sec/etc hurts far more than Fencer is capable of making up for. Please do take into account that the vast majority of JSE provides little benefit to master damage output and that BST has zero JA that impact meleeing. BST meleeing is literally: Auto-attack > WS > repeat. BST melee can't really be called "fun" in any way and will give worse results than any other comparatively geared melee job. If I want to smack things myself instead of ordering my pet to, I'll switch to a different job whose focus is indeed to smack things. I'm 99% sure that if I just had the urge to whack something with a single 1h axe, my under-geared WAR would put up better numbers than BST doing the same thing, plus it has actual combat related JAs.

If there is an absolute insistence on the Dev's part that Fencer is the way to go, then perhaps it's time to bake the effects of the Merlin into the baseline job along with capping Ready recast to a minimum of 10sec. Main-handing it is not an option due to pet level being tied to our mainhand ilvl. The simplest option I can suggest for implementation would be to increase the effect of the Sic/Ready merit category. I imagine it shouldn't be amazingly difficult to change "1" to "2", but I have no idea how hard it would be dev-wise to implement a lower boundary cap to 10sec.

[Gwydion]

This response is so disappointing. I see that one person in this thread uses a shield in Dynamis content, which is no different than using a dagger, which someone is entitled to do for low level content.

However, I purposefully worded my original post in the hopes that my premise would be acknowledged. The premise here is that Beastmasters do not rely on shields (at least for iLvl content) any more than they rely on lesser weapons like Daggers, Swords or Staves. To say that users who choose to use shields need to be considerable here is like arguing that the introduction of Aeonic Axes unfairly disrupts the gameplay of Beastmasters who use Daggers and Swords.



I even gave an alternative suggestion if you wanted allow Fencer to persist, that it's use has some obvious shortcomings, like our current shield cap of 300:



I even started this post, assuming defeat, and explicitly stated that if you insist on making 1-handed weapons + shields a viable option, could you possibly give us a shield geared towards Beastmasters. We currently have no shields that enhances or aguments the unique abilities or characteristics of the Beastmaster or his/her pet.



I even asked for Ochain, as a throwaway suggestion, but just to highlight how utterly unprotected we are when forced to be within 7 yalms at current level cotent.

As a software engineer by trade, I understand the lack of development resources for a product that has been in existence for 15 years, but my original request, to increase shield skill cap from 300 and/or to add 1 single shield to make Fencer a viable bonus, could not take more than 1-2 hours of development time and 1-2 hours of regression testing.

My hopes and standards here are remarkably low and I thought that by asking for the most modest of changes, we could gain some traction for Beastmasters as whole. The shield cap could be raised and a new shield (using an existing model) could simply be purchased from an NPC.

However, this is the part that as a paying customer hurts the most. I'm happy to continue to post and leave feedback, but I'm afraid that some of my initial points, have been overlooked, perhaps inadvertently.



Sicycre,
I'd like to welcome you to the forums but I humbly ask if you could you possibly take another look at this thread or perhaps bring some of the current shortcomings of Beastmaster and Fencer/shields in-practice, to the development team?

Thank you for your time and consideration.

No reply to this thread in 4 months. It's been 1 year since the 7 yalm distance restriction. It is so unfair to change Beastmaster so drastically after 13 years. What's a Beastmaster to do?

[Urmom]

No reply to this thread in 4 months. It's been 1 year since the 7 yalm distance restriction. It is so unfair to change Beastmaster so drastically after 13 years. What's a Beastmaster to do?

Take all their taeon gear and put it on pup apparently lol

[Jblauh]

Honestly if SE would up the shield skill for more jobs that can use a shield such as War,Bst,Rdm I feel like we'd be able to use these jobs to fill in some extra rolls. It still bothers me that War can't really be a effective second option tank. I gotta jump through all these flaming hoops with War to do the most minor or tanking and still I get my arse handed to me dmg wise. Lot's of -Dmg gear, lots of JP's,a few extra +chances to block pieces, and a good shield and still I need cure bombed like crazy for basic UNMs and some Apexs. I feel like in this time in XIs life we should make certain jobs fill in more roles for accessibility with in the community. Not asking to make anything "easier" just more options to approach a battle.

[Xilk]

NECRO BUMP!!

I charmed an Apex Bat in Ra'kaznar Inner court to have it fight other stuff... its incredibly slow and boring. then the mobs have over 150k hp it takes a LONG time. and charmed mob damage really sux. Only bonus is that your pet can have a HUGE hp pool also.

I do miss the fun utility of charm :P

[Xilk]

There are a few BIG reasons I can think of why bst almost always dual wield:

1. There a no good pet buffs on shields.
It would perhaps take 3x shields to come close to what we can do with dual wield. a 10% pet -pdt shield (or -damage taken), a Pet Magic Attack bonus +30 shield, and a pet Attack + 30 shield. even this wouldn't compete w/ the tp bonus 200 and pet mab +25 kumbhakarna. but it would be close. if there were 1 shield that might make it worthwhile, it would be ready recast -5 seconds to replace Charmer's Merlin.

2. Master DPS. Dual wield is 100% necessary for faster tp build and more frequent skillchains. If I could self-skillchain 1 handed, I probably would.

3. Charmer's Merlin - the 5s ready recast is invaluable for bst dps. It means that we either swap weapons for pet ready moves and don't engage on master at all, or we keep it equiped for off-hand.
The only situation where a bst shouldn't do this is if using a pet that is all about utility instead of dps, and ready move frequency is less important.

[Shiyo]

Give RDM fencer.