Why are bst pets getting shafted?

[Mavrick]

Job just seems to be getting weaker and weaker with every update and falling further and further behind 2-handers.
This expansion is horrible for pet users.

[Camate]

Greetings,

Below is a follow-up from Producer Akihiko Matsui in regards to the planned beastmaster adjustments.

Matsui here.

I have some follow-up information regarding the enhancements for familiars that I shared the other day. After carefully looking into magic evasion, it has already been set to the same high value as that of enemy monsters, and as such we’ve decided to hold off on implementing enhancements for this stat.

Though there is always the possibility for changes with in-development content, I apologize for backtracking on what I previously informed you about.

At the current stage of development, the below pet statuses will be enhanced when equipping a weapon with an item level in your main hand:

• Attack
• Defense
• Accuracy
• Evasion
• Magic accuracy
• Magic attack

[dasva]

I see. Now, let's take the problem a step further. We are able through gear and merits to get our pets to our iLevel. There are 3 other pet jobs in the game, none of the 3 get Beast Affinity or Monster gloves +2 buff so they're stuck with gear, and that means 113. They get the shaft. So, if you give them a fix that means beast gets the shaft as they can 119 with just 1 slot while we need 2 gear slots and level 5 merits that could otherwise be used for something else. Am I reading this right? Because either way someone needs lube...

Not sure you are getting it quite right. BA and monster gloves don't actually raise the jugs level it just raises it's cap. So regardless the highest level you can pull out will be based on your ilvl. It's not a both are used to boost it's a take the lower of the 2. Now we do get a higher level axe then smn gets ammo because no boss drop yet for summoner so we can get up to 119 with 2 pets (plasm doesn't count) if you have gloves AND BA and the axe from delve megaboss while smns avatars are 113 though dmg wise on soa content avatar will probably come out of ahead due to mostly how crapilly pet pdif scales vs all this new avatar mab. Drg gets a boss weapon so wyverns can go up to 119 well and another 5 thru there lvling system. Pup doesn't really count. Sure altenator is ilvl 113 but it came out before the ilvl for pets system came out and the stats it gets from that are basically what the other 3 pet jobs get combined lol. Seriously I've thrown 3 ilvl 113-114 jugs at one root in colo reive and watched an altenator pup throw his auto on another... he killed his faster

Regardless I don't see them giving other pet jobs an additional way to level up their pets other than higher ilvl items like I think you are saying since that isn't what BA does. Though if they did I think I'd just right then and their toss my 99 guttler.

tl;dr we already need 2 slots and merits that could go somewhere else vs 1 slot on others. Now as ilvl rises this will get worse since even with merits and gloves none of the current craftable jugs will go higher than 120. So basically all jugs right now including the ones they just brought out have built in obsolescence



In response to the dev note... yes jug meva is better off right now then it's other stats. But that has always kinda been it's thing. So while it's meva doesn't suck against soa content it's no longer the good thing it was. So not raising it with other stats is kinda like saying don't give war anymore attack because I mean it already has berserk lol

[Morier]

Job just seems to be getting weaker and weaker with every update and falling further and further behind 2-handers.
This expansion is horrible for pet users.

Lies. Use new pets and pup/smn got a ton of stuff. great expac for pet users.

[Genoxd]

Lies. Use new pets and pup/smn got a ton of stuff. great expac for pet users.

SMN got a huge boost, unfortunately other jobs also got a huge boost. We're no better now then we were before. 5k dmg every 45sec is a joke.

[Goldfish]

Not sure you are getting it quite right. BA and monster gloves don't actually raise the jugs level it just raises it's cap. So regardless the highest level you can pull out will be based on your ilvl.

Yeah, BST Affinity doesn't raise the level past your own level or ilvl (which ever is higher). BST Affinity has always been kind of a disappoint thing. When it was first released, it just meant you could bust out your Funguar Familiars that were (at 65 before BST affinity and then...) at level 71 with 3/3 Beast Affinity merits. Once they upped merit category 2 cap from 3 to 5, then you could get 3 new pet families with Beast Affinity (Fly, Funguar, and Lizard which are all capped at 65). Some of them are "almost there" (Tiger is capped at 63 most noticeably though I was more of a funguar fan myself and was content with my funguar).

After the level cap increase, it was much better since a huge portion of pets added already had their cap at 99. Some of them were still left at arbitrary level caps (like Sheep, Nursery Nazuna, was set at level 86 just to keep Beast Affinity relevant).

To clarify more, let me use SMN as an example to explain.

Imagine if for Summoner, they made all Avatars have varying arbitrary level caps. Like Carbuncle is capped at 75 (even if you were level 99, Carbuncle would still be stuck at 75 for example), Fenrir capped at 85, Garuda capped at 87, etc and they told you to "wait for new avatars with higher level caps". "Cait Sith and Atomos will be at level 115, wait for them to come out!"

Wait a minute, why is Carbuncle at 75? Don't worry! There's this merit trait you can learn called "Avatar Affinity" it'd boost your Carbuncle from 75 to 85 at 5/5. (Again, it can't be higher than your own level. If your SMN was at 75, Carbuncle will still be at 75 even with 5/5 "Avatar Affinity").

But wait, there's more - you also can also get relic gloves +2 fully augmented, and then with that on, it'll boost Carbuncle from 75 to 90! (These examples are exaggerated, yes I know.) (Also to be fair, most BST pets are kind of more or less the same compared to SMN Avatars which offer a decent variety, even if just for elemental differences. While we don't have a high level Antlion or Diremite jug pet anymore, most other jugs can do the same thing they do too. So it's not as bad it sounds but it still disappointing, and especially if you're a fan of either jugs.)

You wonder, why all these varying level caps across multiple families?

Hopefully, they'll change it in an update right? You hear - Everyone... Wait... Wait... Don't worry everyone... We're going to add a new stronger Carbuncle in the next update! The newer Carbuncle will be at lvl 103! (Not too bad right?) And with Avatar Affinity 5/5 + Relic Gloves +2, then new Carbuncle will be at lvl 118 (and that's only if you have the Satchel from the new Delve Boss that caps at 120; again remember Carbuncle still caps at your level, so it's 99 if you're gearless regardless of "Avatar Affinity" or not).

You say - That's great! But wait, what about Fenrir? Fenrir is still at level cap 85/100 and Garuda is at 87/102... Then you hear, well about Fenrir and Garuda, maybe we'll add higher level versions of Fenrir and Garuda later. But for now, just wait and enjoy your new higher level Carbuncle (while your Fenrir and Garuda are underleveled in comparison).

Basically, that's what the BST situation is right now. Though it's not as big of a deal for BST that they can't just an antlion or diremite jug compared to if SMN couldn't use Carbuncle or Garuda (for example) but still, why is it like that in the first place?

Also I know not all jobs are supposed to work the same (asymmetrical balance) but Beast Affinity and Beast Level caps are kind of silly. It wouldn't be as bad if they kept all familiars up to date but they haven't (they can in the future to be fair to SE but we'll have to see).

As BST, I don't mind having to get Beast Affinity (some jobs need certain merits or else they can't function while Ninja has almost all completely useless ones) but the fact that even with Beast Affinity 5/5 and Relic Gloves, not all our pets are usable (and we have to wait on some) is silly (and yes I am going to use the word silly a lot because that's what random pet level caps are... silly).

I would even be fine (happy actually) if Beast Affinity was changed so that it makes it so it's always your level.

Like I would like it if they changed it so Beast Affinity 1/5 would be, pet is summoned at least 5 levels below you (if not already capped), and Beast Affinity 5/5 always summons a pet the same level as you (or as item level).

That'd I'd accept happily (then I could keep using my favorite pets).

However, currently even with Beast Affinity (and then later) half of our current pet families are underleveled (a decent amount of them are capped at 95 or below) and the current ones capped at 99 may still be stuck at the same level.

Also as for things like "well BST can still do this and this better than most jobs" it's true but like I said in my previous post, why argue against buffs for a certain job when you can argue for buffs for your job instead? BST is not overpowered plus BST is the least gear intensive and least time investment job to get at a stage where you can get things done. Unlike leveling BRD to 99, then working on relic or empyrean and then capping skill (for example), you can get BST to 99 naked with 0 axe skill and still solo a ton of stuff.

Basically, most of BST benefits can be earned within 20 hours (3-5 hours to get to level 30, 12-15 hours to get from 30 to 99, probably 20 hours max assuming you get decent leveling experiences). So all of BST benefits can be obtained by anyone really (it's least time required job to get things done since you don't have to cap any skills). There's little reason to not get BST up to 99 (it's a good investment if you really needed it + again, it only takes 20-25 hours max to get to 99 and there are no skills to cap, not much required gear, etc).

Lots of things require or benefit different jobs. Yes, it's nice that one of my jobs I already like and play is also useful but first, I'm all for SMN buffs too and second, while BST is useful, I'd rather they fix the pet level caps so they're equal than it being useful (at least if I wanted to play things for fun, I could use whatever pet I'd like without worrying about one pet being 10-15 levels higher than the other for some random reason). You may be wondering, wait, if BST wasn't useful and lets say all pets were capped at level 30 (for example), why would I prefer that over what we have now? Again, it's just of those issues that feels wrong when thinking about and playing BST (pets with arbitrary level caps). At least if all pets capped at level 30 (for example), then it wouldn't feel as wrong because they're not random level caps spread across multiple pet families anymore, now they're equal. I'd only get to use BST in that case maybe to fight mobs in low level areas but at least the pets... they'll all be equally leveled! There will be no favoritism shown to one pet over another simply due to levels anymore! I'd be fine with weaker pets overall if they were at least all equally leveled with each other.

For the BST who leveled it the as one of their first jobs (throwing random charm pets at mobs and making 2-3k an hour, maybe 5k an hour on bombs for certain levels, all the way to 75), it's disappointing that your beloved job "still" has these arbitrary level caps for Call Beast families. And for the new BST who are enthusiastic about the job but later finds out that certain pet families are only useful at certain levels due to random level caps, that also is disappointing for them too. FFXI's appeal is the variety of jobs/classes and being able to job switch. In that case, why not FFXI team goes all out and make each job appealing in their own way as much as possible?

BST was the second job I got to 75 (first being NIN) and SMN is the first advanced job I unlocked (I even did all the avatars after they introduced the "mini tuning forks" version - I remember downloading all the videos of various people doing the Searing Light strategy and then doing it, fun times).

BST has come a long way since it's been released however there's still one thing wrong with the job is that certain pets are capped at certain levels and we get a "fix" known as Beast Affinity which only helps for certain pets (when it was first released, it was mostly useless since the second highest pets were at 65, and with 3/3 it meant it was at 71, still underleveled. Then once 5/5 came, now we finally get to have 3 extra pet families at 75 for some reason). Again, it's like, what if Fenrir was capped at 85 for some reason, Garuda at 87, and you needed a merit called Avatar Affinity and even with those, Fenrir and Garuda will still be underleveled and behind your other avatars (for example).

As for arguing against BST buffs (and in this case, said buffs are simply just allowing BST to have equally leveled pet families) because it's an easy job to gear and do things on? Again, while that is true, that doesn't make it right to not fix the pet problem with BST.

What if they made all SMN avatars bad (capped at level 99 and the made it so the new satchel doesn't affect avatars) but yet made the elemental spirits really good - like the elemental spirits all do like 50k damage nukes and 20k AoE cures with stoneskin once every 5 seconds, making SMN the best job ever. However that doesn't excuse the fact that why does SMN have all these variety of summons with different abilities but they can't be used because they're capped at level 99 (for example)? What if you wanted to use Garuda or Fenrir or Leviathan instead of Elemental Spirits? Nope, they're capped at level 99 for some random reason, instead you can just use these Elemental Spirits and still be a top tier job.

SMN becomes popular, then people argue "well SMN have spirits that do 50k damage nukes and 20k cures every 5 seconds... why do you need Fenrir or Garuda or Carbuncle to also be useful and relevant when you can instead have Elemental Spirits do 50k damage nukes?" but for the SMN enthusiasts, then it sucks that they won't buff avatars because "Spirits are useful and can get anything done".

(Again this is just an example.) That may sound like a silly example but you can put BST in that place and it's what's going on - "Why do BST need Lizard or Tiger or Sheep pets when instead they can use the latest Crab jug which starts at 113?".

BST was my second job at 75 (leveled it back in the old days) and to see it being now a job that everyone likes to hate on is saddening (to be fair again... BST was hated on even in the old days, probably more so than now due to MPKing and I did once encounter an MPK attempt from a BST, during a Garlaige Citadel party back during the day >.>).

I wouldn't mind if BST got nerfed but one thing that needs to be done, one thing... remove all the random arbitrary level caps on jugs and/or at least make 5/5 BST affinity make your pet equal to your level, so that all pets can be equal in level (or if they have to capped at some level, they should all be capped at the same level).

Edit - This post isn't towards anyone specific. It's just, again it's just, I hope everyone understands what BST players are asking for isn't too much and I hope people understand more (with the examples I used) how silly the concept of Beast Affinity is (Carbuncle is capped at 80, you need Avatar Affinity 5/5 and AF2+2 Augmented and even then, it's still at 95... for example). I wouldn't mind if BST sucked or was nerfed to be useless but again, at least make all our pets equal in level so we can use whatever we like ; ;. If all pets have equally bad stats, at least then you could pick whatever pet you want to use. I don't want to have to use latest Crab jug to fight random rocks efficiently in Reives just because it is 10 levels higher than every other pet (still be capped at your own level or item level though, and speaking of only crabs... that was also the case for the longest time back at the 75 cap days when CourierCarrie was most commonly used due to there be only 2 other pet families at 75 cap and them not being as supplied as CourierCarrie ).

[Glamdring]

Not sure you are getting it quite right. BA and monster gloves don't actually raise the jugs level it just raises it's cap. So regardless the highest level you can pull out will be based on your ilvl. It's not a both are used to boost it's a take the lower of the 2. Now we do get a higher level axe then smn gets ammo because no boss drop yet for summoner so we can get up to 119 with 2 pets (plasm doesn't count) if you have gloves AND BA and the axe from delve megaboss while smns avatars are 113 though dmg wise on soa content avatar will probably come out of ahead due to mostly how crapilly pet pdif scales vs all this new avatar mab. Drg gets a boss weapon so wyverns can go up to 119 well and another 5 thru there lvling system. Pup doesn't really count. Sure altenator is ilvl 113 but it came out before the ilvl for pets system came out and the stats it gets from that are basically what the other 3 pet jobs get combined lol. Seriously I've thrown 3 ilvl 113-114 jugs at one root in colo reive and watched an altenator pup throw his auto on another... he killed his faster

Regardless I don't see them giving other pet jobs an additional way to level up their pets other than higher ilvl items like I think you are saying since that isn't what BA does. Though if they did I think I'd just right then and their toss my 99 guttler.

tl;dr we already need 2 slots and merits that could go somewhere else vs 1 slot on others. Now as ilvl rises this will get worse since even with merits and gloves none of the current craftable jugs will go higher than 120. So basically all jugs right now including the ones they just brought out have built in obsolescence



In response to the dev note... yes jug meva is better off right now then it's other stats. But that has always kinda been it's thing. So while it's meva doesn't suck against soa content it's no longer the good thing it was. So not raising it with other stats is kinda like saying don't give war anymore attack because I mean it already has berserk lol

I do understand the mechanics of your post. However (and I believe this was actually confirmed with a dev interview years ago-like pre-Abyssea) that beast jug pets always spawn 1-2 levels below the master, the relic gloves were supposed to close that gap. BA adds I believe it was 2 levels per merit to the cap which was why I always used funguar pets when we were at 75 cap. So yes, to that point my remarks were taking pets that capped at about 114 the rest of the way to our axe, extending their useful life a bit.

The shaft comes in that the other jobs never required any merits or gear to get to master's level, now they do, but unlike us they don't HAVE merits to take as you said avatars beyond that piece (and why they discontinued the practice beyond 99 I'm not coder enough to know). That leaves them with a gap. However, if they fix it by giving a 119 piece to the jobs beast gets the shaft as it takes more than just the Axe to get our pet to 119, we need the gloves-and depending on the jug cap BA-to get there. Of course if they don't give smn a 119 piece they are getting the shaft (damage numbers for avatars or not, beast pets are harder to kill just from higher HP, even before any defensive stats). And I'm sure the avatar's iLevel effects things like overcoming prey resistances and the like, so a 119 piece may still be needed. Smn do have the advantage of the shortest cool-down time to get another full-strength pet of all the pet jobs tho'.

so please note, I'm not disagreeing with you, just expanding on my unclear prior statement a bit.

[dasva]

I do understand the mechanics of your post. However (and I believe this was actually confirmed with a dev interview years ago-like pre-Abyssea) that beast jug pets always spawn 1-2 levels below the master, the relic gloves were supposed to close that gap. BA adds I believe it was 2 levels per merit to the cap which was why I always used funguar pets when we were at 75 cap. So yes, to that point my remarks were taking pets that capped at about 114 the rest of the way to our axe, extending their useful life a bit.

The shaft comes in that the other jobs never required any merits or gear to get to master's level, now they do, but unlike us they don't HAVE merits to take as you said avatars beyond that piece (and why they discontinued the practice beyond 99 I'm not coder enough to know). That leaves them with a gap. However, if they fix it by giving a 119 piece to the jobs beast gets the shaft as it takes more than just the Axe to get our pet to 119, we need the gloves-and depending on the jug cap BA-to get there. Of course if they don't give smn a 119 piece they are getting the shaft (damage numbers for avatars or not, beast pets are harder to kill just from higher HP, even before any defensive stats). And I'm sure the avatar's iLevel effects things like overcoming prey resistances and the like, so a 119 piece may still be needed. Smn do have the advantage of the shortest cool-down time to get another full-strength pet of all the pet jobs tho'.

so please note, I'm not disagreeing with you, just expanding on my unclear prior statement a bit.

well sorta. Yeah the 1-2 is still there. Though not sure what you mean by taking pets that cap at 114 to the rest of the way of the axe... no jug naturally caps at 114 or higher. All the old ones are still naturally capped at 99. And we have to use the merits and augmented to just extend to 114 (though some are still lower)


But the way you put the merits kinda makes it sound like using merits is helpful when it's actually a part of the gimp. The BA merit system is actually a gimp not a help. The gap between jugs and avatars isn't because of BA it's because of the current ilvl item available. And if they did add it to smn it would actually hurt them. It would make it so they were still 99 even with the satchet unless you used the smn affinity and then when you did fully do that it would still be 113 with the satchet. So stating like it is somehow helpful makes it sound like you still think it works in a way it doesn't. Even though you state correctly how it works. Which vaguely confuses me lol

It's just that right now bst gets a higher ilvl weapon then smn gets satchet that produces the gap not the BA system. Similar to how mnk gets oats while say war only get razorfury. Except it would be like without using the right merits and the right augmented af2 and the right and more expensive/harder to find consumable that oats goes back down to being to something anywhere as bad ilvl 99 h2h to maybe a rigor. But basically you are just waiting for newer delve to get a boss drop which should be at least as high an ilvl as current possibly higher. Kinda sucks but it's at best a temporarily problem based on order they release gear (though one could argue the sheer insane amount of bp gear from skirmish makes up for it). While jugs problem is an actual systematic problem that not only wont be fixed just by event progression but will in fact be compounded on and made worse.

As far as which pets are stronger yes jugs have still a bit more survivabilty (though they lose alot with not being able to dual pdt axes anymore) right now avatars out solo jugs both in terms of speed and just can it be done. In a similar way to if you vastly increase your dmg output you end up decently lowering your dmg taken. And as far as pt... well let's face jugs have never been useful anyways so no big loss I suppose but not being able to take advantage of ecosystems because 95% of my ilvl pets are still underlevel even with maxing everything out is a huge loss similar to how smn would be if it conly only use 2 avatars at full level and being unable to take advantage of elements.

Anyways at this point I'm kinda confused. Some of what you say is exactly how it works but then some of your examples make it sound like you think it works the other way.

[dasva]

Lies. Use new pets and pup/smn got a ton of stuff. great expac for pet users.

Well pup didn't really get a ton of stuff. Mostly just alternator but this is a case of quality over quantity. The sheer epicness of it is kinda crazy. I mean the acc/att it gives is so great people are having a hard time qauntifying it lol. And yeah this whole thread is about them kinda forgetting bst. And drg... well you can polish a turd and put bacon on it but at the end of the day it's still a wyvern lol. Though I suppose 119 helps it survive long enough for drg to actualy do it's jumps

[Glamdring]

@Dasva, tink of it backwards, that's why you are confused by my statement. i.e. play bst with no beast affinity merits, and yes, I was talking about older jugs, like falcorr. See, when you look at the fan sites they list level caps, but the levels displayed all incorporate 5/5 BA, which isn't the case for where a jug caps. so, the rant is either SE is making my BA merits useless-at least once I pass I guess 109 iLevel or not applying them in the right order or something, so that the iLevel supercedes my BA merits.

Here's my analysis, say both a summoner and a beast have an iLevel 113 item that affects their pet by setting the level, the summoner's avatar is just 113, while an older jug will be 97, 99 if I have the gloves, 107 if I have the merits and no gloves, 109 if I have it all (possible that should be 109 and 111). Either way, the smn got 113 just having the piece on every pet available to them, the bst loses all but 3 pets hitting the iLevel without the use of merits and gear, a shaft tot he beast. However, there are armor pieces that let the master get above that 113 piece for their iLevel, BA should allow us to have pet exceed the 113 iLevel cap from the pet slot (no idea if they do, I don't have the stuff yet), if it does, shaft to the smn (yes, I know there's a delve axe, but I'm running the simulation based on skirmish +1 since smn has a limit below delve gear, the reason is they may add armor above 119, there is no guarantee they will create pet iLevel pieces, or new jugs that correspond, especially considering they dont give smn a pet piece that equals current master caps).

So, what I'm saying is beast either loses the pet pool we had a 99 cap, shaft (noone else loses usable pets); loses the need for BA merits on pets that cap above 99, shaft (for wasting merits), needs merits to take a 114 pet to 119, shaft (who else needs merits?), or they let us continue to hit 119 (or whatever the cap is later) but without giving the same tools to other pet jobs, shaft to them (why don't they have a 119 option?), or gives the tools to other jobs, but still leaves bst with a need for gloves and/or merits to get pet at master level, shaft (who else has those requirements?). It's just an inequity that's been with us for awhile and simply shouldn't be. All of the pet jobs should be able to go "balls to the wall" with an even levelled pet to the master without any 1 job requiring more than 1 item and no merits, OR all should require 2 items and 5/5 merits. That would be fair. Naturally I would prefer the 1st option, then I could retask my BA merits and carry 1 less item when I take the beastie out in the field.