BST merits

[Morgantisthedon]

Yes and no.

It depends on the situation. If you're in an Exp party, if you're any good you'll be out-DDing your pet. VV/RR/Apoc does more for master than pet because of Weaponskills like Rampage. your pet will keep up, But a good BST will out-do his pet, even gearing for the pet. (gear like ACP body, AMK Head or Spurrer's, etc), The Master, if any good, will still out-DD his pet, maybe not always during TP phase, but the WS phase will be like a 10 to 1 split because of how Epic Rampage is with Razed Ruins/good gear/macros/intelligence/etc.

If you're a solo-er BST (lets face it, most of us are...) Then the idea of BST would be keeping your pet alive, and keeping the Call beast timer up when needed.

This is why Im inbetween Killer and Callbeast/Reward. Killer Effect+5% Combined with Ferine Body+2 would increase my Damage by about ~5% when im in a party/event situation. While Reward/Call-beast would increase my pets survivability and my own when soloing.

Before Abyssea I would (And did) go with 5/5 Callbeast/Reward. I still have those, Its just always been a thought about Killer mErits due to the Bodys Augment.

It depends on your majority playstyle, But there are two sides to the BST coin, your solo and group playstyles.

I agree it does depend your play style but I only realy use bst to solo or for sticking a pet on nms personaly or events. I use other jobs when I xp but I concur what your are saying.

[Rambus]

Yeah I wrote this mainly because I was confused on the outcome of killer effects where and the beat affinity.

Was also wondering how the relic gloves came into play with BA merits

[Xilk]

Killer effects are actually a very good option if you have Gausape +1/2

you get a +2/5% to damage from the "augments killer effects" from Gausape +1/2
(same % -dt also)
Killer effects merits will improve this by 1%/merit. So you can get a total of 10% damage improvement on anything you have killer effect for. Thats pretty sweet, and should probably be a priority for any DD focused bst.

[Fadnog]

The way i have my merits right now is

Group 1:
Killer Effects 5/5
Call Beast 5/5

I have killer effects meritted cause i got a Tatami Shield and call beast because jug pets are like supreme now.

Group 2:
Feral Howl 5/5
Beast Affinity 5/5

I have BA merits cause i don't know when the pets will cap, so just in case i have them, and I have feral howl cause i like having a stun-like ability (terror) even though it doesn't work on anything in abyssea. (to my experience) It was good for soloing magic casting mobs.

I know my merits could prolly be set up better but I really don't feel like reallocating them.