[dev1042] Level Cap Increase (BST Related)

[Areola]

I wish the Dev team would just tell us what direction there trying to take with the job. If they did that maybe we could start to understand why there making all of these seemingly stupid decisions*cough*cloudsplitter*cough*.

The job is just a mish mash of randomness, its a below average dd its not a very good tank and its support abilities are based off pet TP and ready timers(witch is a joke). Yes bst can do a lot of stuff but it doesn't do any of it well.

All these updates and all this dev team "too powerful" crap is kinda making me want to stop playing bst. Its all just BS thrown in a blender and served to us in jugs.

[Xilk]

Thanks Rukkirii,
This is a really helpful update.

This makes me alot more curious to look at the apkallu again. StoreTP ? I'm going to have to see how spur affects apkallu differently than other pets.

I should have noticed the store tp before really. That IS interesting for a mnk typ to have. I did note in our ZAM testing thread that apkallu is getting 6.2 tp/hit, which is more than you would expect from a mnk. Normally a mnk would be 4.8/hit.
About a 30% increase... so its like it already has store tp 5. Wow. last I saw spur w/ ferine feet made that same boost. I hope it stacks... but either way, its the sam level of store tp on a mnk pet... What else is in this "special way of attacking I wonder".

You've piqued my curiosity some more ^.^

The triple attack from Hippogryph is much more obvious than Yuly. I guess I should test more specifically. There was some theory that ladybug only have the triple attack during daytime. I never confirmed that. However, the hippo dd and movement speed are points where it exceeds Yuly.

with the focus on familairs, I would REALLY like shorter call beast in many situations. Not for the tanking so much as the abilities.

[Zaknafein]

Certainly keeping my fingers crossed that the new merit axe skill will exceed rampage. Cloudsplitter was such a kick in the nuts w/o a brew active it would be nice to spam a new sexy multihit crit WS for bst. It's what I want for christmas.

[xbobx]

I tried the new ws on my ranger and it did 1300, that was no food, not in abyessa with no real DD equipment. Someone was testing on bst in dynamis and was doing over 2-2.5k with it.

So that will make a huge difference.

[Mavrick]

We decided to cut the abilities that inflict status ailments to enemies due to the fact that we have armed Apkallu with high HP, Subtle Blow, Counter, Store TP, and a special form of attacking.
If you are looking to paralyze your opponent, please consider using the Coeurl familiar. (The Dev. Team would like beastmasters to select their pets based on the situation and battle strategy.)

Well it looks like (from the developer's point of view) that the aim for the Apkallu is to be a tanking pet (.... yet another useless tanking pet......). In Abyssea any pet can tank with atma buff and provide far more DD capabilities that you get with the bird, not to mention powerful enfeebling abilites and/or self buffing abilities. The Sheep can full time Berserk with a 25%~50% cut to defense, very low evasion, 0% guard, 0% counter and still full time tank a large majority of NM's in abyssea all while under 50% HP. Why should I use Apkallu? Even when he gets 3 attacks in, (kick attack?) its still only a fraction of the damage from sheep/rabbit/Tiger and they can all tank just as well. Counter/Guard does not seem to activate anywhere near enough for you to be able to switch out defensive atmas for offensive ones on powerful enemies, and it certainly does not make up for the horribly low damage output and lack of useful TP abilities. I fail to see why BST would want to use this pet over any of our other pets... Dragonfly, Lizards, eft can all tank and deal better damage yet you don't even see BST walking around with those pets ... There is a reason why we start fights off with our strongest DD pets and then switch to Dipper at the last 1~3%. The only reason to start a battle off with a weak pet is for elemental resistances. Apkallu resist water... just like Turtle, Fungar, Slug, Leech... all of which are superior DD pets with superior TP Abilities and/or have resistances to multiple elements.

The developers have stated on multiple occasions that they are focusing on voidwatch content and moving away from abyssea and they want BST to be more party oriented. So I'm a little puzzled that we are still getting tanking pets which are now overkill in abyssea at 99 and are only useful for lv 75 content... Is there no attempt to make BST useful outside of Abyssea and lv 75 content areas? Vs strong enemies, lack of useful TP abilites or any special/unique characteristics means our pets simply auto-attack and die.

With full -DT atmacites Turtle was the only pet that had any staying power against VW foes the likes of Akvan, Pil and kaggen. Of course, any non-water/Earth based magical attack would drop his HP like a 2-ton brick, but as far as phsyical attacks are concerned he handled them pretty well and he would usually survive 3~4 mins provided you spam the hell out of dawns, rewards and healing salves. After seeing the newly updated Aqua breath doing ~1100 damage at full HP to EP foes I was excited to see how it would do against high level foes. Unfortunately, after multiple attempts at or close to full HP, aqua breath was only doing ~50 damage to VW NMs. 3 mins recast for 50 damage, this level of crap can only be expected from BSTs..., Tortoise Stomp missed in 5/5 attempts so I just stopped caring.

Apkallu on the other hand was taking 200~+300 from normal strikes, counter/guard may as well not exist and he was hitting for a wonderful 10-35 damage, went down pretty fast even with his ~+5900 HP. Hippo? evasion had very little (if any) effect and he took just as much damage, and lasted only slightly longer than Apkallu... None of my pets could put a dent into these NM's. Now obviously jug pets aren't meant to tank VW nor deal any respectable amount of damage, but I have to ask the developers, with the current tools (or lack there of) available to BST, exactly what roles do they expect BST to play at 99? Are we to expect the same level of performance from "The Last Stand" and the dungeon crawls contents that were mentioned for 99? Or are we simply only expected to soloing abyssea, dynamis and other level 75 content? Does the development team actually test these jugs against high level enemies? or do they simply walk into W.Sarutabaruta and do all there testings there? I find it hard to believe that anyone on the development team would bring BST jugs into a serious fight and come out saying that the abilities are too powerful so I can only assume that all BST testing is done on level 0 mobs.

[Sparthos]

Id love for the dev team to respond to the above post.

[Xilk]

I bet we can find a situation where apkallu is just perfect pet for bst to use.

[Yinnyth]

We decided to cut the abilities that inflict status ailments to enemies due to the fact that we have armed Apkallu with high HP, Subtle Blow, Counter, Store TP, and a special form of attacking.

Special form of attacking? You mean like permanent formless strikes? Piercing-type damage? It just looks cute because it's a freaking penguin slapping a dragon?

Dev/community rep ambiguity when addressing the players has always been a large source of frustration, and now that there are players who actually work as testers, it just seems counter-productive. The most common form of it being "X has been adjusted." leaving us to wonder if it got buffed, nerfed, or side-graded (given a different tactical advantage). It makes me wonder if SE talks like that around the office.

"Hey, Bob, company policy has been adjusted."
"So we get the longer lunch breaks we've been asking for?"
"..."
"...no? Urm... new TPS report coverletters?"
"..."
".......am I fired?"
"..."
"Well, I'll test that by seeing if I get a paycheck next month."
"..."

[Glamdring]

1st off, i don't see were people are seeing tanking on the penguin from the mod's post. I see a DD pet, of the monk variety. Maybe one that hits harder than the mandy, our current mnk pet, and hopefully counters a bit better.

Personally, I've always used the jugs situationally, I just plan my situations around a 2 hour pet. I must be the only one out there that still pays attention to intimidation too, because I am VERY happy to get a bird; not happy that it seems like such a pathetic pet considering what it has the potential to be, but happy we at least HAVE one...

As to the charm comments, apparently I'm the only bst on any server that plays outside Aby because I use it all the time. I love GoV and find charmed pets leave me with 0 down-time. they also work just as well, if not better, than jugs because their TP abilities actually accomplish something. I also like not being forced to break out my wallet to play.

As to pets being made for tanking and bst being party friendly... how? Our pets are less effective than a pld holding hate as the game is currently played and I can pull hate off a pld with my brd/whm and a staff. Every party I go to now my bst is relegated to DD, and of course a damage soak for "Needles" type of attacks. If you want my pet to tank then the penguin MUST get yawn, and it needs to work on the party. Sorry, I see us still being awesome for solo on most non-magical mobs but only mediocre for parties.

[Glamdring]

Ah the best way to show support is not supporting FF14 and don't bother to subscribe to it. Let it go down to history as one of their biggest blunders ever As a company, it is quite surprising to see how they intend to kill their cash cow and keep insisting to save the Titanic that is sinking deep into the ocean...

the problem is that it's 11 we've got a problem with this time. And I deleted my 14 char after a week and won't give them another chance at my wallet. Just bad design, from initial concept all the way thru implementation. I'll take 11 any day over it, but that doesn't mean I'll let stupidity pass just because it's in the game that i actually LIKE.