Not sure which magian axe to aim for.

[animeprimeresh]

Well, I just dinged 75 the other night on my Bst and I’m ready to start working on the axe trials. I understand the way to do the trials, but I’m not sure which final axe I should aim for as a BST. Like Ganelon over Farsha but specifically which kind of Ganelon (Extra damage or extra attacks) I’m mostly a soloist with occasional small group play but don’t do the big group things like Dynamis, so I’m mostly stuck with trials I can do by myself like targeted mobs or weapon skills.
I’ve seen that most high level BSts use Astolfo, usually one with a pet enhancement on it. A lot of folks seem to have Pet Accuracy or evasion. Ganelon seems really awesome to me since I usually go very offensive when soloing. I’ve heard that in the higher levels when you’re farming abysea defensive enhancements are usually more useful than offensive ones though, and magic defense or mitigation are the best. So Ganelon might not be a good option. I just got back into the game two months ago and I’m still catching up what the world is like now, so I’d appreciate any insight you guys may have.

[Alpheus]

Can't go wrong w/ Pet: PDT Axes for the most part. As for multi hit axes I'd think the only one worth considering would be the OAT axe since the Occ Atk2-4 line of weapons (of all types) aren't as awesome since the proc rate spread on them aren't too impressive plus any multi hit trait interferes w/ the weapon properties and to top it off occ atk 2-4 weaps have horrible delay. That being said the OAT line of weapons have a nice balance of the 3 issues that the 2-4 weapon variants suffer from but even then general consensus is that only the 2handed OAT weapons are worth making.

All in all cant go wrong w/ PDT axes. If you're dmg inclined perhaps the STR axe route.

[Delvish]

What Al said. X2 -PDT Astolfos is likely the best way to go when you're soloing, given that it is -22% PDT With the Anwig Salade that is another 10% all damage, and the Ferine Quijotes +1 Stout Servants raises Stout Servant to -11%. Grand total is -43% PDT, and you can always toss in Atma of the Ducal Guard and make your pet virtually indestructable in Abyssea.

On the DD side of the house, then I would go with some STR axes, or 1 STR and 1 -PDT. Up to you depending on what you're doing, but pet boosts are the way to go. As for relics, if you want to put the time into it can always go for Guttler. Dynamis is completely soloable now with BST/DNC leading the charge. Do some research on it and you'll find legendary class weapons are not so unattainable anymore, except mythic... but that is a different issue.

[SpankWustler]

Start by making two Pet -Physical Damage Taken Astolfos. They have a ton of utility and decent base damage.

After that, what else you might want depends on how much you use Beastmaster. If you're serious about the job and want to do as much damage as possible; I'd strongly recommend making some mixture of one or two STR/ +Attack Astolfos, along a Double Attack Ganelon or a Guttler to main-hand if you want to feel different or more awesome respectively.

The possible combinations are all similar enough in damage output that, for a job that can't contribute much in content like Legion either way, any choice is fine. Although, if somebody twisted my arm, I'd say I'm fairly confident that two STR Astolfos or one STR Astolfo and a Guttler would be the better options. The Double Attack Ganelon is the way to go if you're dead-set on a Ganelon, though, and by no means a bad option due to Beastermaster having no natural source of Double Attack or Triple Attack as many jobs do.

Avoid Farsha with all your might, because the weapon-skill attached to it is truly terrible. Cloudsplitter is named literally; it is designed to part soft and fluffy cumulus clouds rather than damage monsters. Guttler has better performance at level 99 for what is probably less effort put into getting the weapon to level 99, since its performance isn't dependent on an Aftermath dependent on a extraordinarily execrable weapon-skill.

Also avoid Occaisionally Attacks a Bunch one-handed weapons from the Magian trials. As far as I know, all of them are pretty bad options. Between the high delay, the low damage, and the extra attacks only affecting one hand those weapons are never as useful as they sound. Every time someone makes one, the God of Statistics openly weeps.

[Xilk]

Don't waste your time w/ farsha. Cloudsplitter is a very underwhelming weaponskill. I have farsha, and it never sees the light of day.

I use my DA Ganelon and Fire Astolfo most the time, but sometimes I break out my pdt axes if there is anything big to tank.

I'm aiming at Aymur, but also collecting towards guttler.. not sure If I'll sell off my currency to aymur instead but we'll see.

you could make 3x guttler for the cost of 1 aymur anyway :P.

[Zagen]

As other's have said Pet: -PDT Axes are a good cheap option.

DA and STR is your best combo when you want to focus on damage output. (Outside of Aymur of course)

Pet: MDB have situational uses.

Farsha is a nice weapon for brewing if happen to brew on BST otherwise skip it.

Guttler is nice at first, I mean high attack bonuses on the weapon and from Onslaught. That said when you realize a lot of what you'd melee on BST your attack would be capped from food all that attack loses it's appeal. Onslaught as a WS isn't bad but it also isn't going to beat Ruinator. So all you're left with is a weapon that has high base damage, occ. deals 2.5 damage, and choke.

Aymur if you're that hardcore about BST is the best weapon you can get.

[animeprimeresh]

Thanks everyone! I'll aim for the Pet PDT axes first and maybe get a DPS one after.

[Xilk]

Guttler is better damage than Aymur for the Bst main.
Its unclear if the AM3 from Aymur will win vs Guttler or not.

[Zagen]

Guttler is better damage than Aymur for the Bst main.
Its unclear if the AM3 from Aymur will win vs Guttler or not.

AM3 is Occasionally Attacks 2-3 times 40%/40%/20% split that can proc on WS and it goes to the pet how can you not see that would win?

Sure Primal Rend's damage sucks and won't ever beat Onslaught but the benefit of Aymur (like most other mythics) is getting OA2-3 on any WS while AM is up. Combine that with the fact Ruinator's fTP transfers to all hits including the OA2-3 ones how is it even a question that Aymur is awesome.

[Xilk]

AM3 is Occasionally Attacks 2-3 times 40%/40%/20% split that can proc on WS and it goes to the pet how can you not see that would win?

Sure Primal Rend's damage sucks and won't ever beat Onslaught but the benefit of Aymur (like most other mythics) is getting OA2-3 on any WS while AM is up. Combine that with the fact Ruinator's fTP transfers to all hits including the OA2-3 ones how is it even a question that Aymur is awesome.

This is ironic. I'm usually arguing the other side of this debate. I've always thought Aymur, would probably win. However, there have always been several unknowns. However, if you are counting master alone using ruinator ws, Guttler will always win.

Foremost among them is how much damage do bst pets actually do?
I know we all have some sense of this, but w/out determining what the real numbers are, we can't see how well it scales. The awesome damage we see when our pets kill lower level mobs is flipped on us when fighting higher level NM's.

For example, if you are fighting IG-Alima (whose level and def is super high) on bst, the melee dps is so abyssmal, that a pet, even if you could keep it alive, will hardly be doing any damage at all. It cannot be buffed up nearly to the degree which a player can. (Consequently, Primal Rend will be a great WS to use here, even w/ fantastic buffs). Guttler would definitely win in such a fight.

I took the opportunity to use the dps spreadsheets to compare guttler and aymur. I was surprised that I had actually not done that before. I was also suprised to see how close they were. level 99 guttler vs level 99 aymur only has a 2%~5% advantage in dps. This comparison compared the exact same optimal tp and ws sets and ruinator vs various targets from dc nightmare mobs to to Ig-alima.

It did NOT consider any aftermath effects, nor did it consider the choke effect from guttler nor did it include pets at all.
The choke effect will help pets also. However the numbers were still much closer than I anticipated, which I find encouraging for the aymur side.

Its still not conclusive. I do not think most bst will try to slip in the occasional Onslaught in there for the 10% attack bonus. It is almost never worth it vs the damage you do on Ruinator.

On the Aymur side, you are losing 2 Ruinator WS's for a single Primal Rend to get am3 up. In most cases thats probably an average of 1k damage/ws round you need to make up in the AM3 just to catch that portion up, let alone the dps gap to catch up w/ guttler. Its hard to be exactly sure, because your ws rate should go up w/ the am3 active also.

I do think Aymur will win. I think it would win by a HUGE margin for anything low level and for thing which are not too many levels above 99. Probably up to 109 or 110 maybe. After that it is not so clear.