Still no sic/read delay -5 shield for bst?

[Malthar]

Come on, SE. Please can we have this? If you want us to get in range of the enemy mob this will do it! We need a shield like this to protect our behinds because they are tender and we get 1-shot easily.
#disappointing.

[dasva]

Plus I mean they just gave us even more fencer gifts... gunna have to actually give us shields worth using if you want us to not dual wield... also put us on shields other heavy DDs get *cough* blurred shield *cough*

[Gwydion]

Come on, SE. Please can we have this? If you want us to get in range of the enemy mob this will do it! We need a shield like this to protect our behinds because they are tender and we get 1-shot easily.
#disappointing.

I think no one wants to play 1-handed jobs with a shield, unless you're PLD. So.....Having said that, unless SE gives BSTs an ochain-like shield (i.e. awesome); I'd rather have an iLvL axe with sic/Ready-5. (Hell, I'd even take it as an augment to offhanding an REM weapon).

[bazookatooth]

I think no one wants to play 1-handed jobs with a shield, unless you're PLD. So.....Having said that, unless SE gives BSTs an ochain-like shield (i.e. awesome); I'd rather have an iLvL axe with sic/Ready-5. (Hell, I'd even take it as an augment to offhanding an REM weapon).

Gonna have to agree. I have no interest in being the only single wielding DD in the game and I'm not giving up shadows or waltz for refresh gear willingly. I'd like a ready-5 axe with some decent pet stats though and maybe some pants to match.

[Malthar]

They are not going to give us a an iLevel sic/ready -5 axe. That's the unfortunate truth. The devs intend for bst to use an axe and a shield. You don't have to have an all powerful shield like an oChain or an aegis, just something that will keep you alive and block the occasional hit/AoE because the master shouldn't be taking hate from the pet. With that said, the best gear we can hope to replace the Charmer's Merlin is a shield with sic/ready ability delay -5. And I actually like DD'ing with an axe and a shield. I have a very good Primal Rend/Cloudsplitter build with decent TP gain (disclaimer: I do have an Aymur and most times keep AM3 up), and can put out better magic damage with them than the physical weaponskills available to bst. I did a 54k Cloudsplitter to Tojil after all. An ideal shield would look like this (with some combination of these augments):

Small to mid-sized shield
Some stat vomit
High defense
Damage Taken II -10
Sic / Ready Ability Delay -5
Fencer +2
Pet: Damage Taken -10

Who would complain about a shield like this?

[bazookatooth]

They are not going to give us a an iLevel sic/ready -5 axe. That's the unfortunate truth. The devs intend for bst to use an axe and a shield. You don't have to have an all powerful shield like an oChain or an aegis, just something that will keep you alive and block the occasional hit/AoE because the master shouldn't be taking hate from the pet. With that said, the best gear we can hope to replace the Charmer's Merlin is a shield with sic/ready ability delay -5. And I actually like DD'ing with an axe and a shield. I have a very good Primal Rend/Cloudsplitter build with decent TP gain (disclaimer: I do have an Aymur and most times keep AM3 up), and can put out better magic damage with them than the physical weaponskills available to bst. I did a 54k Cloudsplitter to Tojil after all. An ideal shield would look like this (with some combination of these augments):

Small to mid-sized shield
Some stat vomit
High defense
Damage Taken II -10
Sic / Ready Ability Delay -5
Fencer +2
Pet: Damage Taken -10

Who would complain about a shield like this?

I don't recall them explicitly saying that they wanted us to use a shield. Anyways, sure. I'd love that shield. I'd off hand it when my pet was tanking and / or swap it in during ready precast and then swap back to a TP bonus when the move goes off or w/e other axe is appropriate and stay dual wielding on the back line just like I do now. DTII-10 is nice, but I have to already have -50% in gear to take advantage of it and A) if I have to be anywhere near any monster that strong, there's better jobs to be on and B) you probably can't hit any monster that tough in full DT- gear on BST anyways without completely nerfing your pet. Stat vomit is irrelevant since you will spend all your time spamming ready and all your tp attempting to keep yourself alive (unless you sub a mage job. In which case, you will need refresh gear, further gimping your gear choices and increasing the amount of time that both you AND the pet aren't doing weapon skills).

TLDR; The amount of twisting and oddball gear choices you would have to make to make using a shield anywhere near as good as what we currently do make it a nonstarter with only one more major update coming.

[Olor]

They are not going to give us a an iLevel sic/ready -5 axe. That's the unfortunate truth. The devs intend for bst to use an axe and a shield. You don't have to have an all powerful shield like an oChain or an aegis, just something that will keep you alive and block the occasional hit/AoE because the master shouldn't be taking hate from the pet. With that said, the best gear we can hope to replace the Charmer's Merlin is a shield with sic/ready ability delay -5. And I actually like DD'ing with an axe and a shield. I have a very good Primal Rend/Cloudsplitter build with decent TP gain (disclaimer: I do have an Aymur and most times keep AM3 up), and can put out better magic damage with them than the physical weaponskills available to bst. I did a 54k Cloudsplitter to Tojil after all. An ideal shield would look like this (with some combination of these augments):

Small to mid-sized shield
Some stat vomit
High defense
Damage Taken II -10
Sic / Ready Ability Delay -5
Fencer +2
Pet: Damage Taken -10

Who would complain about a shield like this?

I'd love that shield.

I agree with folks saying they don't prefer to be a one-handed with shield DD (because let's face it, those suck)

But I would be willing to go that direction if we were given decent equips. Right now we have nothing but garbage to use. There is seriously not a single shield worth using. Nor is there enough gear with both master and pet PDT/accuracy/attack etc

If SE wants us to be more tanky - and get into range, they should give us some options to make that work. Frankly its their gear choices which have left us sitting on the sidelines. Only master or pet can be any good. Trying to gear for both means you suck completely. But every single piece of pet gear takes away stats from the master. There is not one example that I can think of where pet stats are an extra bonus on top - look at BST relic body vs WAR and you see what I mean.

Nevermind that we are animation locked all the damn time if we are using our pets to their fullest. Really SE should just leave BST alone. For the first time since the game started we are generally useful in endgame. Just treat us like a pet focused ranger. We use pets rather than arrows.

This nonsense where we are going to have to stand in AOEs while using skills is just outrageous and will make the job the worst it's ever been.

[Ulth]

I'd love that shield.

I agree with folks saying they don't prefer to be a one-handed with shield DD (because let's face it, those suck)

But I would be willing to go that direction if we were given decent equips. Right now we have nothing but garbage to use. There is seriously not a single shield worth using. Nor is there enough gear with both master and pet PDT/accuracy/attack etc

If SE wants us to be more tanky - and get into range, they should give us some options to make that work. Frankly its their gear choices which have left us sitting on the sidelines. Only master or pet can be any good. Trying to gear for both means you suck completely. But every single piece of pet gear takes away stats from the master. There is not one example that I can think of where pet stats are an extra bonus on top - look at BST relic body vs WAR and you see what I mean.

Nevermind that we are animation locked all the damn time if we are using our pets to their fullest. Really SE should just leave BST alone. For the first time since the game started we are generally useful in endgame. Just treat us like a pet focused ranger. We use pets rather than arrows.

This nonsense where we are going to have to stand in AOEs while using skills is just outrageous and will make the job the worst it's ever been.

I think SE finally noticed that, take a look at the Emicho set. Even the NQ augments seem pretty awesome, the HQ can only be better.

[bazookatooth]

What they really need to do is raise player HP across the board and stop giving monsters huge AOE spam. Powerful single target and conal attacks were fine. The only reason BST even matters at the moment is because people can't safely get near anything. All they are doing by adjusting BST is changing the go to DD job from BST to summoner, Nuker or RNG. The content will still be beat by the same people in the exact same way until they fix the root problem which is low player HP and huge AOE TP moves.

[dasva]

I think no one wants to play 1-handed jobs with a shield, unless you're PLD. So.....Having said that, unless SE gives BSTs an ochain-like shield (i.e. awesome); I'd rather have an iLvL axe with sic/Ready-5. (Hell, I'd even take it as an augment to offhanding an REM weapon).

I want to do shield... partly because I don't like being pigeonholed into subbing something with dual wield. Now if they finally gave us dual wield like other jobs one hand dds that don't use shields I'd be more ok with not using shield. I mean no native dual wield and fencer and not being on any 2hd weapons kind of screams they want us to use shields but nope.

Really though I'd be semi happy just with a sic/ready delay -5 so I wont completely kill my jug dps and can sub something besides dnc/nin. Heck yeah bst/cor!

[Kensagaku]

Eh, unless they add a large handful of shields with a wide variety of stats on them to replace things like Pet: Attack, Pet: TP Bonus, Attack and/or acc for the master, etc, I would prefer to stay dual-wielding. Shields have always been fairly negligible for anything that's not a PLD (though I'll admit I can't think of ever seeing a sword-and-board WAR, so there's a possibility) in reducing or mitigating damage, and while it would open up Fencer options, I feel like that would cripple too much of both the master and pet's DPS. Believe me, I'd love to sub something like /WHM for Reraise, backup cures, stoneskin, etc if I have to be on the backline, or something like /WAR on the frontline, but I feel that the loss of the second axe with all the various weapon bonuses is too much. But unless you can replace Skirmish options, Charmer's Merlin, Kerecatl, etc, it's just going to be a no-go. A second axe just offers us way too much.

[dasva]

How is a shield crippling master dps anymore than Charmers is though?

And for the whole wide variety... I suppose yes if you wanted to use it for every possibly situation that might be true. But it could instead just be an option for certain situations. Like when you don't need a full acc set on master/pet bam use shield. The not having to switch weapons and lose tp counters the lose of attack speed. The less offensive stats from dual wielding is countered by fencer. The little bit of pet attack can be countered by even more pet att /cor which would also counter the small gains from tp bonus. Alternatively you could counter some of the losses from another axe with other rolls or abilities from other subjobs

[bazookatooth]

How is a shield crippling master dps anymore than Charmers is though?

Presumably if you are on the front line, you are not swapping weapons because if you were, it would be pointless to be on the front line. So using a shield over charmers would increase the delay between ready moves by 50%. There's very little chance of you making up for that by using an axe or shield with better stats for the master. That of course assumes you are meleeing. If you aren't meleeing, then the stats being on a shield would allow you to use different subs, which would be nice, but still wouldn't compensate for the loss of stats available on current axes. Who knows, they might add shields with Pet: DT- 4%, TP Bonus +200, Attack +20 and a bunch of DT- / stat vomit for the master, but I wouldn't hold my breathe.


But it could instead just be an option for certain situations. Like when you don't need a full acc set on master/pet bam use shield.

Sounds like a pretty niche situation to ask the devs to update the game and add a bunch of new items for. Still better off with the ready delay- of charmers and an attack / tp bonus axe.


The not having to switch weapons and lose tp counters the lose of attack speed.

I want to switch weapons. Even if they give me an iLvl ready delay -axe, I'm still going to swap it out if it doesn't have Pet: MAB/MACC /ACC/ATT TP bonus, DT- etc. and some sort of ACC / DT- for the master as well. It would have to have pretty huge stats that aren't realistic in order to compensate for all the things we can do by swapping weapons.



The little bit of pet attack can be countered by even more pet att /cor which would also counter the small gains from tp bonus. Alternatively you could counter some of the losses from another axe with other rolls or abilities from other subjobs

You are not gonna compensate for the loss of dual wield with a single /cor roll and cor sub doesn't really offer anything else. Any other single hand sub is going to offer nothing to the pet at all to compensate besides what? Dia? Trusts will cast that.

[Grekumah]

Considering the information that was mentioned during Freshly Picked Vana'diel 20 (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/48119-Freshly-Picked-Vana-diel-20-Digest?p=557092&viewfull=1#post557092), we understand the desire to equip a shield; however, there are no plans to add a shield with the requested stats for beastmaster at this time.

Instead of thinking of ways to combine defensive capabilities (and making use of the Fencer job trait) with reduction to the recast time for Ready, we would like players to devise ways to adapt and handle various situations. For example, electing to maintain a low recast time for Ready while covering the defensive side with positioning, or focusing on defense while slightly sacrificing the Ready recast time.

[bazookatooth]

Considering the information that was mentioned during Freshly Picked Vana'diel 20 (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/48119-Freshly-Picked-Vana-diel-20-Digest?p=557092&viewfull=1#post557092), we understand the desire to equip a shield; however, there are no plans to add a shield with the requested stats for beastmaster at this time.

Instead of thinking of ways to combine defensive capabilities (and making use of the Fencer job trait) with reduction to the recast time for Ready, we would like players to devise ways to adapt and handle various situations. For example, electing to maintain a low recast time for Ready while covering the defensive side with positioning, or focusing on defense while slightly sacrificing the Ready recast time.

There is no "slightly sacrificing Ready recast time...". Removal of any piece of ready recast gear is a 33% drop in Damage output.

33%!


That would probably be the biggest nerf any job has ever taken if we were forced to do that. That's like telling Samurais that they have to use a non iLevel weapon to survive a fight.

And your proposed change to ready use distance will just cause everyone to use summoner and RNG in place of BST (which they already do in many cases).

[Ulth]

In March they lowered the ftp of rudra's storm from 19.5 at 3000 TP to 13, aka a 33% nerf. Here it isn't so cut and dry because they expect the master to make up some of the damage. Could they make up 33% of ready move damage now? No clue. If they could it would probably require the new HQs abjuration armors.

[bazookatooth]

In March they lowered the ftp of rudra's storm from 19.5 at 3000 TP to 13, aka a 33% nerf. Here it isn't so cut and dry because they expect the master to make up some of the damage. Could they make up 33% of ready move damage now? No clue. If they could it would probably require the new HQs abjuration armors.

Well, let's see... thief doesn't WS at 3,000 tp every time even when that was a thing. Generally only when SA/TA are up. So not a straight 33% there. And correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it still more efficient to WS at around 2,000 TP even before the nerf. Not to mention, that nerf didn't affect all of thief's weapon skills across the board. And last I checked, THF does almost half of it's damage in straight melee attacks anyways. Where as with bst pets, auto attack accounts for like ??? maybe 5%-10%?

FWIW. I was just as vocal about the THF nerf. I thought it was a terrible idea too. None of these nerfs address the real problem which is that anything that lives more that 30 seconds kills everyone in range.

[Ulth]

At 2000 TP it was a 32% nerf, and thf does not deal anywhere close to half it's damage in white damage. If it did Mandau wouldn't be an overpriced letter opener. And it pretty much did affect every thf weapon skill across the board. Mandalic stab, Mercy storke, and Shark bite all got nerfed as well, which were already pretty far behind Rudra's.

Anyway that wasn't my point I was just establishing a pattern. SE has no problem taking away 1/3 of a jobs damage for being popular. Smn is ahead of bst now, and dnc and blu were ahead of thf back then. Only bst and thf are popular jobs and smn, dnc, and blu are not as much. Rng and cor might have also been on the chopping block if most rng weren't left overs from the pld decoy shot bandwagon and awful at the job, and cor isn't popular because most people only see it for rolls instead of having some of the best elemental weaponskills in the game.

But yeah the real culprit here is survivability. I personally think it has to do with how little hp players have. Basically to survive on the front lines the whm has to keep the DDs capped off with cureskin because AoEs can kill you from yellow.

[JeanPaul]

Considering a BST with maximum possible bonuses can get Ready down to 10 seconds per charge, I can't see why it would be reasonable to give them any more unless there's a hard cap established. If you want to stay safe from aoes, do whatever every other job does: Utsusemi, damage reduction gear, support from other party members, etc. You could complain "oh, there's not enough gear that provides protection for master and pet", but that's not to say that there won't be such gear added in the future, like ya know, when they actually implement this range adjustment.

[Ataraxia]

Considering the information that was mentioned during Freshly Picked Vana'diel 20 (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/48119-Freshly-Picked-Vana-diel-20-Digest?p=557092&viewfull=1#post557092), we understand the desire to equip a shield; however, there are no plans to add a shield with the requested stats for beastmaster at this time.

Instead of thinking of ways to combine defensive capabilities (and making use of the Fencer job trait) with reduction to the recast time for Ready, we would like players to devise ways to adapt and handle various situations. For example, electing to maintain a low recast time for Ready while covering the defensive side with positioning, or focusing on defense while slightly sacrificing the Ready recast time.

Grekumah you can easily fix this by placing a cap for sic/ready base on equipment only. If you give sic/ready -10 to bst empyrean gloves 119 or empyrean helm 119 or added to a new equipment in future update than player would no longer need to use lv. 90 axe Charmer's Merlin and Lv. 75 legs Desultor Tassets. This will give player the option to use shield if they want to. However, they would be sacrificing Pet accuracy 28 and attack 28 from Lv. 119 Axe Kerehcatl if they aren't dual wielding which is a small price to pay for being defensive.

If there was a bonus to pet if a player use shield like small Pet TP bonus, increase in pet accuracy and attack, pet damage taken -10% or enhance pet regen effect from gear and reward than maybe we see a lot of Bst using shield over dual wielding. =)

[Olor]

Basically this: "We know that BST will be useless but we are nerfing it because JP players are angry. Enjoy your last few months of the game."

[Malthar]

Considering the information that was mentioned during Freshly Picked Vana'diel 20 (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/48119-Freshly-Picked-Vana-diel-20-Digest?p=557092&viewfull=1#post557092), we understand the desire to equip a shield; however, there are no plans to add a shield with the requested stats for beastmaster at this time.

Instead of thinking of ways to combine defensive capabilities (and making use of the Fencer job trait) with reduction to the recast time for Ready, we would like players to devise ways to adapt and handle various situations. For example, electing to maintain a low recast time for Ready while covering the defensive side with positioning, or focusing on defense while slightly sacrificing the Ready recast time.

Grekumah, I hear you. I do. When the update lowering the sic/ready recast was released I did try out a bunch of combinations, including axe and shield. I thought I could make up for the loss of pet damage with my damage, and at the same time protecting myself more with a shield. What I found is that using an axe and shield was massively inferior (I know this is an oximoron) to dual-wielding an axe and the Charmer's Merlin. Any bst would prefer to stay out of AoE range and dual wield inflicting massive pet damage rather than get close to the mob with a shield equipped and incurring a 33% penalty in damage and a higher possibility of getting K.O.'d. The only reason I could see a bst equipping a shield for protection is if the fight arena was 10 yalms by 10 and you had no choice but to get hit by AoE. This is not the case. Even lowering the range that sic/ready commands can be used would not motivate a bst to stay within AoE range. They would simply run into range between AoE's, execute their sic/ready command, then run back out. There is no reason to stay in range and or melee. Giving us a shield with sic/ready recast -5 with defensive stats, however, would motivate some to stay in range/melee because there is a reduced risk of getting K.O.'d, and it would expose the master to any AoE's and negative status effects, thus exposing the master to more risk. There will still be those who wish to stay out of range, but for myself, I would rather get in there with an axe and shield and mix it up, but I'm not going to sacrifice pet damage to do that so that I can show off my Cloudsplitter damage; nope, not gonna do it. It wouldn't be prudent.

[Siviard]

Malthar? Just Cloudsplitter all the things.

ALL.....THE.....THINGS!!!

[Leonardus]

As much as I would like this shield, I'm thinking it's just taking BST in the wrong direction. We wield axes, not staves. I would suggest hardcapping Ready, adjusting monster AoEs+rampant status inflictions and increasing player Max HP so we have more opportunity to fight alongside our pets.

Basically, less cowering 20 yalms away and more Guttler, or whatever axe fancies your tastes (They're axes, you should be hacking things to pieces with them). I'm guilty of keeping my distance as much as anyone, but I can't say I enjoy it. There is definitely an imbalance floating around here.

Good luck with your plan of action, SE.

[Malthar]

Staves? Whatever the heck are you talking about, sir?

[Arenegeth]

Staves? Whatever the heck are you talking about, sir?

I assume he means we are melee fighters and not mages to be safely out of melee range while wielding axes with the staves comment. Since now, we basically SMN 2.0, or more like 0.5 given that SMN is for the most part, better.

I’m one of those BST’s who would like to go back to meleeing (and Charming for that matter, but I know that ship has sailed) but nerfing us, for not being in melee range is not the way to do that, that is not going to make us melee, that will only make people ask us to bring a proper melee job instead, as they’ve been doing for all those years before the update that made us useful.

If you do want us to melee without invalidating the job for endgame play, then you have to give us a buff not a nerf, like a master 20% increase in dmg when meleeing with pet and new, better master/pet hybrid gear, because what hybrid gear is available now will not make up for the loss of pet dmg, especially in giving up Charmer’s Merlin (let’s assume ASA pants can be swapped in for Ready).

Or you could nerf us back into oblivion because some people can’t stand that after 12 years of being in this game, BST is finally a useful job for endgame activities, despite not being any more powerful than SMN, RNG or even COR.

Oh and yeah, Shields, don’t give us any good shields with pet stats, just keep giving us Fencer JP gifts instead, because that totally makes sense!

[Urat]

A better solution would be to give Bst native dual wield.

The massive variety of pet buffing axes for offhand means its mandatory for bst to be /dnc or /nin, otherwise not being able to use a second axe means our pet misses out on a LOT of buffs.

So just give bst Dual wield I, and let us have a variety of options for sub jobs instead of strictly /nin and /dnc

[kylani]

Grekumah, I hear you. I do. When the update lowering the sic/ready recast was released I did try out a bunch of combinations, including axe and shield. I thought I could make up for the loss of pet damage with my damage, and at the same time protecting myself more with a shield. What I found is that using an axe and shield was massively inferior (I know this is an oximoron) to dual-wielding an axe and the Charmer's Merlin. Any bst would prefer to stay out of AoE range and dual wield inflicting massive pet damage rather than get close to the mob with a shield equipped and incurring a 33% penalty in damage and a higher possibility of getting K.O.'d. The only reason I could see a bst equipping a shield for protection is if the fight arena was 10 yalms by 10 and you had no choice but to get hit by AoE. This is not the case. Even lowering the range that sic/ready commands can be used would not motivate a bst to stay within AoE range. They would simply run into range between AoE's, execute their sic/ready command, then run back out. There is no reason to stay in range and or melee. Giving us a shield with sic/ready recast -5 with defensive stats, however, would motivate some to stay in range/melee because there is a reduced risk of getting K.O.'d, and it would expose the master to any AoE's and negative status effects, thus exposing the master to more risk. There will still be those who wish to stay out of range, but for myself, I would rather get in there with an axe and shield and mix it up, but I'm not going to sacrifice pet damage to do that so that I can show off my Cloudsplitter damage; nope, not gonna do it. It wouldn't be prudent.

This. I'd rather get in there and fight, but without some help staying alive, just forcing us to run in to get KO'd will kill the job and consequently FFXI for me.

Even though my friends would group with me on BST for content, I used to take BRD, RDM, WHM, BLM, THF, because it sucks dying to strong AOE, Mijin Gakure, Astral Flow, while the rest of the party survives. I loved BST solo or duo, and still do, but a big part of that for 11 years has been being able to use the bst pet abilities to win even if it was tons slower and riskier than Blue, DNC or DD/pocket WHM.

I don't mind risk. Back in the day, a big part of the fun was the risk of charming mobs to kill with. It could get frustrating to die after bad luck at charming, but I still loved BST. Then the job was changed to use Jugs more. I hated it at first, but I got used to it. I don't want to be a joke again.

I'll wait to see what happens, but am prepared to vote with my sub if this goes as badly as I suspect it will from Grekumah's post.

[Leonardus]

Oh and yeah, Shields, don’t give us any good shields with pet stats, just keep giving us Fencer JP gifts instead, because that totally makes sense!

Those do slightly help Cloudsplitter and Calamity, heh. Better than some of the other gifts that are out there.

With shields, I feel like Blurred Shield was a missed opportunity. All it needed was "Ready damage +5%" next to that ws damage, and of course, BST being allowed to use it. But...nope.

[bazookatooth]

Do you guys really think that they're gonna let you get in there and melee in any meaningful way? I mean this is SE we're talking about. You know that if they put us on the front line, we are never getting invited to events again right?

[Olor]

I am so depressed by this. I basically came back to the game because BST was finally somewhat useful and now it is going to get nerfed into the ground again.

[kylani]

Do you guys really think that they're gonna let you get in there and melee in any meaningful way? I mean this is SE we're talking about. You know that if they put us on the front line, we are never getting invited to events again right?

It seems that's the point. BST never competed with DDs or anyone much in a party. Now that BST is taking slots, other jobs want BST out. When other jobs still die to the AOEs, THEN they'll think of ways to beat the content. Has nothing to do with BST except BST is the easier path for once and some folks always want to take the easy road.

I personally don't mind the party stuff as much. I just don't want the job to be made useless again.

[Malthar]

Ok SE,

Here is a solution to the shield problem. Don't put sic/ready -5 on the shields. Instead, add a job trait that says when single wielding with a shield, when a ready move is executed, give the master -50 dt, an attack/mab boost, and a store-tp effect for a short time. This will not only keep the master alive, but also increase his damage in compensation to loosing -5 recast on sic/ready.

[Leonardus]

I dunno, Malthar. If they did that, why not just boost our shield skill in general and give us some kite shields? Kind of like warrior? I think we're fairly similar to them in design and in role, just that we branched into pets rather than enmity and self-buffs.

[Gwydion]

I am so depressed by this. I basically came back to the game because BST was finally somewhat useful and now it is going to get nerfed into the ground again.

I thought the BST-nerf of 2005 (making charmable mobs disappearing) was the worst thing ever for Beastmaster, but this news makes me so sad. :(

I played Beastmaster for 10 years and now that we're finally useful and being asked for in /shouts, we're getting a nerf that is going to hurt us significantly. When will it all end? ( ...in November, I suppose). :(

[Inx]

If SE wants us to melee with our pets, then the recast timer on CB/BA needs to be slashed drastically. Talking 30 secs - 1 min, BA every 5.

Every master death is also death for the pet, so its doubly damaging.

[dasva]

If SE wants us to melee with our pets, then the recast timer on CB/BA needs to be slashed drastically. Talking 30 secs - 1 min, BA every 5.

Every master death is also death for the pet, so its doubly damaging.

Even more so since you can't gear defensively for both. On any content where safety in range is a concern I can't see anyone wanting to use bst unless it becomes the best dd. Twice the bodies to keep alive and gear for with half the dt for less dmg than basically any other DD isn't exactly going to work

[Olor]

It's really sad that people can't stand to see a job that has never had a place in endgame have it's time to shine

[Sabishii]

It's really sad that people can't stand to see a job that has never had a place in endgame have it's time to shine

Except every other person who doesn't want to go level and gear up BST is being forced to stand on the sidelines, because it's the "only" job suited for current content. It's the easiest job to get things done in escha, vagary, sinister reign, etc. No one wants any other melee. One job is being propped up beyond all others because they can do so much insane damage so fast, while staying completely out of range of deadly AoEs. They need to nerf enemy AoEs and status effects, in all honesty. Hell, I'm being forced to spam nuke spells on BLU instead of being able to melee with my Tizona on most things. I'd like to be able to pull out my dual swords and smack things around, but I can't because then I'll die and be useless.

[Tidis]

Except every other person who doesn't want to go level and gear up BST is being forced to stand on the sidelines, because it's the "only" job suited for current content. It's the easiest job to get things done in escha, vagary, sinister reign, etc. No one wants any other melee. One job is being propped up beyond all others because they can do so much insane damage so fast, while staying completely out of range of deadly AoEs. They need to nerf enemy AoEs and status effects, in all honesty. Hell, I'm being forced to spam nuke spells on BLU instead of being able to melee with my Tizona on most things. I'd like to be able to pull out my dual swords and smack things around, but I can't because then I'll die and be useless.

This man hit the nail on the head so hard it went through the other side of the wall. If nerfing BST encourages diversity in DD selection then I'm all for it, if all it does is promote the sole use of another job then it's all a bit meaningless, this is the problem, ignore whether or not BST is OP, what needs to be addressed is whatever is in game that makes people want to have BST as their only DD, we need a situation where if people want to set up a group they just fill with whatever DD/Support/Tank they can get and not have to worry about failing.

[bazookatooth]

This man hit the nail on the head so hard it went through the other side of the wall. If nerfing BST encourages diversity in DD selection then I'm all for it, if all it does is promote the sole use of another job then it's all a bit meaningless, this is the problem, ignore whether or not BST is OP, what needs to be addressed is whatever is in game that makes people want to have BST as their only DD, we need a situation where if people want to set up a group they just fill with whatever DD/Support/Tank they can get and not have to worry about failing.

That's what I've been trying to tell people. Before the bst update, people were shouting for nothing but relic RNG for everything but a few delves and that's exactly what they'll do after the bst nerf. If they nerf range, people will use summoner. If they nerf that it will be SCH + BLM skillchain strategies (people already use these a lot on escha). Nobody is ever going to want to do things with front line DDs until SE get's over using these cheap insta-death mechanics.

SE is probably not going to go change all the NMs, but they can adjust player Hit points / defense and resistance to the same effect.

[Ulth]

I did the "A Thirst Before Time" quest and got eagle eye shot for over 51k. I can't say I was expecting it to be that high, but still SE is ridiculous with their instant deaths. So basically I needed to know ahead of time I need shadows to not die. Which there is too much of that in this game. There is no suspense anymore, you are alive or you're dead nothing in between. It's ridiculous, pretty much every NM just has some move where they flick their tail and deal double the max hp of every front line in range.

[kylani]

Except every other person who doesn't want to go level and gear up BST is being forced to stand on the sidelines, because it's the "only" job suited for current content. It's the easiest job to get things done in escha, vagary, sinister reign, etc. No one wants any other melee. One job is being propped up beyond all others because they can do so much insane damage so fast, while staying completely out of range of deadly AoEs. They need to nerf enemy AoEs and status effects, in all honesty. Hell, I'm being forced to spam nuke spells on BLU instead of being able to melee with my Tizona on most things. I'd like to be able to pull out my dual swords and smack things around, but I can't because then I'll die and be useless.

I think Blue should have to run into AOE range on nuke spells. That would fix the problem. /sarcasm

[dasva]

Except every other person who doesn't want to go level and gear up BST is being forced to stand on the sidelines, because it's the "only" job suited for current content. It's the easiest job to get things done in escha, vagary, sinister reign, etc. No one wants any other melee. One job is being propped up beyond all others because they can do so much insane damage so fast, while staying completely out of range of deadly AoEs. They need to nerf enemy AoEs and status effects, in all honesty. Hell, I'm being forced to spam nuke spells on BLU instead of being able to melee with my Tizona on most things. I'd like to be able to pull out my dual swords and smack things around, but I can't because then I'll die and be useless.

If by one job you mean cor, rng, blm, sch, geo, smn, bst and by your own admission nuking on blu then yes "one" job

As far as the melee vs ALL the other sources of ranged dmg I honestly think SEs "answer" to that is all the -macc/+meva debuffs/buffs. Ie geo and rdm and maybe brd on something that is single element

[bazookatooth]

If by one job you mean cor, rng, blm, sch, geo, smn, bst and by your own admission nuking on blu then yes "one" job

As far as the melee vs ALL the other sources of ranged dmg I honestly think SEs "answer" to that is all the -macc/+meva debuffs/buffs. Ie geo and rdm and maybe brd on something that is single element

No, No, NO. You cast nothing but offensive buffs for DDs and if that strategy doesn't work then SE needs to nerf the crap out of a job. Never ever try any other method. That's cheating. /s

[Ulth]

You say that sarcastically but it actually brings up an important point. Why would players use front line jobs if they need twice the support when they could bring more back line DDs and less support.

[bazookatooth]

You say that sarcastically but it actually brings up an important point. Why would players use front line jobs if they need twice the support when they could bring more back line DDs and less support.

Because if they don't, then they nerf backline jobs and then they have to do it anyways? See, nerfing back line jobs won't make it any easier. What it will do is make it significantly less likely that those BSTs and RNGs who are doing all the work now will come back and help you when their job is not needed. I for one will be like "I already got the gear and I'm not changing jobs from BST so I can go GEO for you while you whiddle it down...."

[Ulth]

Because if they don't, then they nerf backline jobs and then they have to do it anyways? See, nerfing back line jobs won't make it any easier. What it will do is make it significantly less likely that those BSTs and RNGs who are doing all the work now will come back and help you when their job is not needed. I for one will be like "I already got the gear and I'm not changing jobs from BST so I can go GEO for you while you whiddle it down...."

What are you even talking about? At no point did I say anything about nerfing any job in that post. I'm going to paraphrase a little, but the way I read things you said that SE forcing bst to be a front line won't work til they fix the problems with front lines and instead people will just do the blm sch strategy. Dasva stated that they think SE's answer to front lines is use more geo. Since answer was in quotation marks I get the feeling Dasva doesn't think it's a good solution. I guess what I was trying to get across is I don't think it's a good solution either, and given the choice people would still just use the blm sch magic burst way of doing things. Seriously what are you trying to argue here? Seems to me that everyone is in agreement.

[Draylo-]

That guy is extremely volatile, I wouldn't even bother responding to him. He does nothing but insult anyone that has something negative to say against BST, while hiding behind a mule account. You can melee practically any of the content with the right buffs, but someone said it earlier in that it requires extra support that jobs like BST don't need. Delve had strong AOE's yet nobody stopped bringing DD to that, you can do all of them with DD and its some of the fastest methods. RNG setup was used originally but after people got the mechanics they went with DDs as well. The problem is the community is so fixated on BST because its a low skill job that requires bare minimum for it to function above all other DD with the same effort put in. It's a brainless job that of course everyone will bandwagon due to how they can sit out of range laughing at everything while popping healing items for their pets. Forcing them to stay in range makes them susceptible to debuffs and other dangers and will thin out the bandwagon crowd. Well geared and competent BSTs won't be hindered too much by this but it will lower their dmg for sure, which is needed atm.

[Draylo-]

I think Blue should have to run into AOE range on nuke spells. That would fix the problem. /sarcasm

BLU actually has to be closer than any other nuke to do their spells. Our range on our new nuking spells is smaller than most casters and we still get hit with debuffs by most things due to being within 20' range.

[bazookatooth]

What are you even talking about? At no point did I say anything about nerfing any job in that post. I'm going to paraphrase a little, but the way I read things you said that SE forcing bst to be a front line won't work til they fix the problems with front lines and instead people will just do the blm sch strategy. Dasva stated that they think SE's answer to front lines is use more geo. Since answer was in quotation marks I get the feeling Dasva doesn't think it's a good solution. I guess what I was trying to get across is I don't think it's a good solution either, and given the choice people would still just use the blm sch magic burst way of doing things. Seriously what are you trying to argue here? Seems to me that everyone is in agreement.


I got the impression from your post that you don't think back line jobs should be so powerful. I don't think that is the problem at all. Back line jobs need the same number of support jobs to perform as DDs as front line jobs do. I don't know where you get "Twice the support" from.

[Draylo-]

This guy is such a troll

[bazookatooth]

This guy is such a troll

You've been on every FFXI site on the web spreading false information and trolling people about BST. BST isn't the best DD. BST isn't trivializing content and nerfing BST isn't going to fix anything. I'm going to go ahead and put you on my ignore list because you keep saying things that you know aren't true and seem intent on provoking me. Best of luck. I hope you find whatever it is that's missing from your life. Cheers!

[Draylo-]

This site doesn't have an ignore list, but if it I overlooked it let me know as I'd love to add you. I don't spread misinformation, I posted my opinion on three sites including this one and rarely do I bring it up if ever. BST is getting the adjustment it needs. Maybe I should have used a troll account like you though so people don't try and label me as the only one posting their opinion against BST, as if lol.

[Ulth]

I got the impression from your post that you don't think back line jobs should be so powerful. I don't think that is the problem at all. Back line jobs need the same number of support jobs to perform as DDs as front line jobs do. I don't know where you get "Twice the support" from.

You got the wrong impression then. I was saying front line jobs shouldn't be so easy to kill. Though admittedly the developers might not be setting mobs magic defense bonus high enough while setting things like accuracy and evasion too high. Well accuracy is definitely too high, or maybe player evasion just isn't high enough. Pretty sure someone tried to blink tank Wrathare on ninja and even with every accuracy debuff and evasion buff they couldn't make it off the floor.

Anyway the twice the support thing is that both front line and backline DDs need offensive support buffs to deal good damage, but front lines also need defensive buffs to not be one shot by various aoe attacks as well are require a lot more healing. It's probably not exactly twice but it's still enough to make front line jobs the least appealing option. Especially when you think about how if you are set up to deal damage by magic bursting geos and rdms become DDs too.

[Olor]

Frankly I'd rather they just reduced pet weaponskill damage than mess around with having us in range. Making us in range makes BST essentially useless. It won't even be good for soloing completely worthless content anymore. What people are asking for is for the job to not be viable in anything. That's really sad.

[Draylo-]

No it doesn't, most BST just AOE old content where you would be in range anyway after you collect all the mobs. It lowers your dmg output but it won't make you useless, you just have to run in with PDT gear > run out after JA. I would have preferred a capped timer of 20s, allowing bst to use a 2nd axe w/o worry and evening the dmg across DD.

[dasva]

You say that sarcastically but it actually brings up an important point. Why would players use front line jobs if they need twice the support when they could bring more back line DDs and less support.

The same reason as always higher dps potential... the caveat being of course that it only works if you can get said support AND if you can survive. Hence why when difficulty lvl of nms jump up you often see ranged strategies tried first until people learn how much it takes to stay in range. Which before the enmity update was basically rng onry DD strats. Though it's not really necessarily twice the support since some of that would be used on pld anyways on farther strats

[Ulth]

Is it a higher dps potential though? The magic burst way of doing things seems like a lot more damage than any melee could put out. Jug pets are about on par with melee damage, but bsts do pretty well without needing pld tanks.

[dasva]

No it doesn't, most BST just AOE old content where you would be in range anyway after you collect all the mobs. It lowers your dmg output but it won't make you useless, you just have to run in with PDT gear > run out after JA. I would have preferred a capped timer of 20s, allowing bst to use a 2nd axe w/o worry and evening the dmg across DD.

And then your pets constantly die... and with 10 second timers and ja lock you are basically in range over half the time

I'm curious to your idea of "evening" as a 20 second timer would basically put jugs at a max 1k dps assuming capped acc/pdif with averages being much lower. I'm really curious who actually thinks that's a lot of dmg since ilvl was introduced?

I say this because for fun and because I've been wanting to see what it could do I made up a quick single wield war build on the dps calculator spread sheet. Was kind of tricky since it wasn't setup for single wielding or swords at all and basically had to input all new gear, ws mods, adjust for differences in single wielding, and of course make up a quick simple set which was basically just the gear already on there swapping out main/sub and putting arco in except reforged af3 legs for ws so likely not best sets (I'm guess the new hecatomb would be better but meh) I'm getting about 1800 dps without self buffs, cor rolls, samba, enspell etc just normal capped pdif/acc and magic haste from brd (so small stat boost from that) and boost str from whm. Adding things like haste samba, sam/war roll and warcry with savagery merits/gear it jumps up to 3200 (most of that from the samba since not having dual wield or ja haste hurts ALOT with). While I admit with all the fiddling I might have slightly messed a couple things up by small amounts but I doubt it's by more than a couple hundred dps considering war can get 1060 tp bonus just between fencer and gear and savage blade has over 10 ftp at 2k tp so should be able to break 10k dmg wsing as soon as they get tp

[dasva]

Is it a higher dps potential though? The magic burst way of doing things seems like a lot more damage than any melee could put out. Jug pets are about on par with melee damage, but bsts do pretty well without needing pld tanks.

Hard to say It's certainly superior dps to other ranged strategies though... I don't think the new bonuses for magic bursting were completely quantified... it's also rather well bursty so like short fights where you can basically end it in a single skillchain MB yeah I doubt anything will compare to that. Longer fights it probably still is best until the sch starts running out of charges but might depend on how well/quickly go from skillchain to skillchain and still MB. Doing that quickly with little pause between and consistently actually does require a bit of skill/coordination. And of course mileage will vary by mob. Like does it have high eva/meva mdb dts and then even player things like if it has strong debuffs can you bring a 2nd geo etc.

[Draylo-]

I'm curious to your idea of "evening" as a 20 second timer would basically put jugs at a max 1k dps assuming capped acc/pdif with averages being much lower. I'm really curious who actually thinks that's a lot of dmg since ilvl was introduced?


Didn't you say they did this already when I said they do 8~15k dmg every 10s? Listen, I'm not gonna be arguing with you in two threads on a subject I couldn't care less about. It's obvious you are just trolling at this point or trying to put up a front to make things seem different. I'm content with SE's adjustment, blame them not me. I'm just gonna ignore these threads as I don't care to discuss BST.

[dasva]

Actually that was when you said 10k moves every 10s. Which is a somewhat fair average with medium support. For this I was doing the max dmg with capped pdif acc (well I assumed 100% acc but close enough) at 20s then compared it to what a DD job that doesn't even get used anymore can do in similarly buffed fashion. But sure call it trolling. I can't wait for the next edition of people keep using a ranged job therefore it needs to be nerfed brought to you by the real troll here. My money is on smn but who knows they are buffing lolpup and the ranged dmg is actually not horrible (melee dmg is seriously stupid though 250-300 hits on lvl 1 mobs it's like I'm lvl 75 again). Maybe rng strats will be a bigger thing again!!! Just hope it isn't one of the jobs that I actually play for events when being serious. bst was mostly just an easy way to multibox without sucking... and farming jps almost as fast as againg stuff. But they wont ever nerf pld and pretty sure I'm going to be stuck on that for awhile now...

[Raborn]

I like using single axe and shield, I know people may think its bad but in all honesty I enjoy it. Did so much exping as /nin back in the day and having 2 weapons its boring to me now.
Anyways Idea for a shield for BST:
DEF: 35
Spur+ 15
Fencer+ 150
Sic and Ready ability Delay- 5
Pet: DT- 5%
Double Attack+4%

[Songen]

ooo, thats a 2 year necro bump right there mate lol