November 2019 Update Impression

Hello SE... thank you for adding new pets. Its always fun for beastmasters to have new pets to play with.

but I am sadly a bit disappointed. it feels like instead of getting a splint a broken fingers, we are getting a piece of candy.

I know I have my hopes up because of the very cool adjustments that have happened for puppetmaster, dragoon, dancer, monk, red mage and so many jobs which had merit adjustments.

I hope there is a second round of adjustments to the job like many others have received.

The most significant would be reverting the range reduction on pet commands. I have explained at length the gameplay related problems with this. It appears to the player community that this was done more due to the complaining of few players who hold a strange grudge against the beastmaster job due to its history instead of any meaningful game balance.

The game balance motivations really fall flat from actual experience and comparison to other pet jobs.


Other wonderful adjustments would be to the pet enmity mechanics for self-buffing ready moves. As far as fun things on master, there are many, however gear adjustments would be the most significant. Having ready recast reduction on other piece of gear, or pet buffs on shields would be a fantastic place to make these adjustments.

Thank you for your had work and keeping this very cool game running. I hope you consider these impressions.

I, too and concerned (but optimistic) about these new pets. However, I would feel better if BST as a whole, was fixed. If we're supposed to be front-line DD, then give us the Job Traits and abilities to act as such.

GAKKARI

Well.. my optimism was thoroughly crushed.

I would rather wait 3 more months for a meaningful update than the update that happened.

I guess I should say the Pros first for the bst update:

1. We can buy mandragora pet more easily now instead of crafting it.
2. There might remotely be an opportunity where we want fusion from the pet and we want a vermin type instead of an avian type.... maybe

Cons:

This is a completely NOTHING update.

There is no substance to it at all. We get 2x reskinned pets. That's it. Its a glamour update.
Its a Bait and Switch scam.


Sweet Caroline has 10 more acc and 200 less def than Sharpwit Hermes.
How is this useful at all?

That is the only difference I can see.


Stalwart Angelina has higher eva and 300 hp more than Threestar Lynn... but less defense. so I guess its the best EVA tank pet now for bst... so maybe it could be useful for something in the future... maybe
if evasion tanking becomes a useful. I'll keep looking for a fight where this is meaningful.

I"m looking and looking for the positives in this update. and they are ridiculously thin.

It would be better to add a reskinned lizard if it were actually ivl 119 and we could save a beast affinity merit than it is to just reskin a couple pets. There is just no substance here.

Again, bst 'adjustments' are returning a stolen t-shirt and wrapping it up like its a birthday present. Where is the adjustment?

I mean.. is there some hidden mechanic that might be useful for these pets? weevils only come out at night and ladybugs are only aggressive during the day. Is that a stat change between night and day for either of them?

that would be interesting and slightly redeeming for the 'new' pet.... but if its that hard to find... I doubt it exists.

I have tested the pets more thoroughly, and I have to admit we got at least a little bit from the 'new' pets.

The evasion for the weevilFamiliar / Angelica is the best of any pet. it is honestly good enough to be useful. It is definitely the best for an evasion tank. so there is some mild improvement here. I still don't know what content to use an evasion tank on though.

Also, SweetCaroline appears to do better damage than Hermes.
So I would say there are mild stat improvements with the new pets.


I am very curious and nervous about the adjustments coming up in January. It could be awesome, or it could be terrible.

I did not expect an adjustment to merits. IIRC only spellcasting jobs have gotten merit adjustments so far by taking spells only learned thru merits out of the merit category and replacing it with something more stat or job ability related.

This does not apply to Beastmaster because we have no spells, of course.

So it beggers the question:
Which Merit categories will change? and How?

Killer Effects?
I hope not.
I would not complain at all if the killer effects potency was increased. It is a completely awesome and situational tool as it is. I do not see a need to change it at all. However if it went to +2 per merit instead of +1 it would be that much sweeter. It would help Beastmaster cap Killer effects more easily and much more efficiently. Increasing it WOULD improve the master's damage dealing and defensive capabilities a little bit.

Reward Recast?
I don't imagine a change to this either.
Again, improving it a little would be welcome, but really not very meaningful. Removing or changing the overall recast cap would be preferable in my opinion.

Call Beast Recast?
I don't imagine this will change either. Thru equipment and merits we can already reduce this to a very functional interval. This is one area where I would not be too upset if they replaced this merit category for something better. However, I bet many other beastmasters would disagree with me on this point. Its nice to have this category, it would be unpleasant to lose it, unless something much better replaced it. but why even remove it? why not just add something else?

Sic Recast?
This is the scariest and most hopeful possibility for change. IF they increased this BUT added an Overall cap to sic/ready recast reduction (the current 10s would be fine, imo), It would be EXACTLY the request and hope of many beastmasters out there. This would remove our dependence on Charmer's Merlin dual wield support jobs and open up the playing field. HOWEVER, if recast were increased instead, it would a HUGE nerf to the job as a whole.

Tame Recast?
Oh please replace this with something better!! Because Charm has been nerfed to oblivion, Tame and Gauge are completely useless job abilities. Tame cannot be used when you have a pet! it was almost completely useless even when charm was highly useful. Replacing this with another category would be plenty welcome, unless they fix charm and tame instead.

Feral Howl?
This ability would welcome a little tweaking. Increasing duration would be welcome, reducing recast would be welcomg, making it aoe even with a shorter duration would be welcome. Any combination would be interesting and useful... as long as its not nerfed worse than it currently is.

Killer Instinct:
I don't expect any change here. This is one of my favorite Abilities on Beastmaster. If we could full time the ability I would be happy. However, I don't think it needs any changes at all.

Beast Affinity?
This one makes me as hopeful and nervous as messing with Sic Recast. This has potential to make or break the job also.

On one hand, this merit category really annoys me. It was the first 'ability' beastmaster has that says "rent goes up to keep the same thing you have." Square Enix designed some really great pets for beastmaster. Not all, but I really love the variety and balance of beastmaster pets.... but then the pets have level caps... AND you cannot use those abilities effectively anymore. If you want to keep them, you have to trade off other merit capabilities for them. So the NEED for this merit category has annoyed me since level 75 was the cap. It has gotten even MORE troublesome as we become more dependent upon called pets instead of charmed pets.

ON THE OTHER HAND, an increase to this category would fill one of the most desired options for Beastmaster. If Amigo Sabotender, Crude Raphie, Fatso Fargann, PrestoJulio, BloodclawShasra, FaithfulFalcor, LuckyLulush, and Crafty Clyvonne could reach level 119, then the loss of unique pets would be quelled. This would be ALOT of fun to use these pets in more varied and higher level content.

Likewise, a Nerf to adding 15 levels to our called pets would be devastating to the Job.

Beast Healer?
This ability is not nearly as useless as tame recast. However it simply has not scaled appropriately with the rest of our pets. I know several completely pet-focused players will continue to use it. I simply don't find it very useful. Even if you use 5/5 merits and the augment on the relic feet, you only get another 10 hp / tic regen. Which is another 600 hp over the course of reward's regen effect. Its not terrible, but its also not very useful at present.

IF beastmaster had a reliable way to build enmity on pet it might fill into a tanking roll. However, I don't need that 10/tic regen at present. I can mitigate damage thru gear and I'm only getting 200 hp maybe bfore I can use reward again. That is not significant enough for the current game. if it were a stronger effect it could be much more valuable.

tldr: I would love to see the improvements in Sic/Ready recast and beast healer, but I'm also nervous of a careless nerf in this regard.

Otherwise Replacing tame recast and improving or replacing beast healer would be welcome.

I wouldn't want any of the other merits changed especially, but a few minor buffs would be welcome.

Quote:

---

Also, SweetCaroline appears to do better damage than Hermes.
So I would say there are mild stat improvements with the new pets.

---

But this is exactly the problem.. These are cloned pets with a stat buff. They don't do anything new- this is something that could have been done with having a peice of gear that says "pet: level 119" on it. The update doesn't address any pain points or issues with the job, all it does is replace two crappy pets with identical but less crappy versions.

This month's update is supposed to have additional BST adjustments, so we'll see if they do anything at all to make the job experience more pleasant.

Hopefully the next update improves BST. It looks promising;pending if the new pets are true to their naturally form. Also, if they do really add missing abilities to the old ones (Great if the cap were removed), BST will be a vastly superior DD.

It would be great if BST were on more Scythes, or had cross-reaper naturally (Could make Raetic more appealing). Scythe is a solid weapon, with SC dark potential with several strong WS. Granted axe can as-well, with Ruinator, Cloudsplitter and Onslaught irrc. Dream scenario imo, several of the new pets can light/dark, while having magic burst abilities. Perhaps this is were Panopt or Hecteyes come into play. Even a Craklaw with its' water ability.

I put a lot of Pet Magic Burst on the 119 skirmish gear, to goof around with. I was on a mule (So I would not mess up my augments from the mains) with so so gear, full Skirmish 119, and the Crab MB for nearly 7k with bubble-shower on the revive root things in the Yorcia Weald. Not bad, not great, but if there was a true casting pet, could possibly be a game changer for BST on stronger enemies imo. If the pet had magic attack/burst Job Traits.