Beastmasters being undersold

[Glamdring]

Keeping your pet would be a huge help. on nights where my LS decides to farm multiple NMs my pet may live, but I have to immediately kill it to go to another zone, only to do it again (maybe 8 times a night). Even pup and drg get their pet back the second they step outside a city. Only jugs though, charmed pets aren't that much of a worry, and in fact below 35-70 on /bst-that is your leave command; it would be all too easy for that to turn into a situation where zoning does not lose aggro.

[Yopop]

There are always people out there who edit posts in their head and miss the subject.

Stray AoE can actually cause a pet to consistently turn to attack the casting mob. This can cause the target mob to go unclaimed and people will take that chance to steal that claim. By using heel you risk the chance of again losing claim. Spamming Fight on the intended target is about all you can do. You an get AoE from mobs from other parties and aliances still which sucks for any pet jobs.

It's not player error if they get aggro it's the perk of having a pet. BST was intended to be a solo job it was designed for it and should maintain that ideal.

I believe when you get more experience under your belt as a lot of the bsts who are posting ideals on the subject you'll understand the frustration of pets. Do not take this personal but after 7 years of tweaks being done to every job and the same problems still happening to BST it gets old after awhile.

AoE from a mob that is claimed by another alliance isn't a player error by the way. They patched that a few years back so that you couldn't mpk by there are still mobs whose AoE can affect players and pets. Isn't that kinda common sense that outside AoE shouldn't affect a players hate?

AoEs are more likely to kill the other pets rather than make it switch target and they have less methods of restoring pet HP, so would you like to gimp our pet's HP down to put it on par with the others, or lower our pet food to a straight-up regen like auto oils?

It's also really easy to switch mobs, and if your pet has hate on multiple mobs it means you either made a mistake in linking or you made a mistake in aggroing and had to save yourself. Both are cases of player error. If it's a stray AoE you should only have to heel/fight once. If it keeps happening? MOVE AWAY. Isn't that kinda common sense for avoiding AoEs?

[Kensagaku]

There are always people out there who edit posts in their head and miss the subject.

Stray AoE can actually cause a pet to consistently turn to attack the casting mob. This can cause the target mob to go unclaimed and people will take that chance to steal that claim. By using heel you risk the chance of again losing claim. Spamming Fight on the intended target is about all you can do. You an get AoE from mobs from other parties and aliances still which sucks for any pet jobs.

It's not player error if they get aggro it's the perk of having a pet. BST was intended to be a solo job it was designed for it and should maintain that ideal.

I believe when you get more experience under your belt as a lot of the bsts who are posting ideals on the subject you'll understand the frustration of pets. Do not take this personal but after 7 years of tweaks being done to every job and the same problems still happening to BST it gets old after awhile.

AoE from a mob that is claimed by another alliance isn't a player error by the way. They patched that a few years back so that you couldn't mpk by there are still mobs whose AoE can affect players and pets. Isn't that kinda common sense that outside AoE shouldn't affect a players hate?

"When I get more experience"...? I've been a BST for about a year now, and I've soloed plenty. Also, read my post, I never said AoE from another party's alliance was player error... but really, it is. If you have a problem with AoEs? Move. Not really that hard to get away from the mob.

It's not player error if they get aggro it's the perk of having a pet. BST was intended to be a solo job it was designed for it and should maintain that ideal.

How... how is it a perk of having a pet if you get aggro? It's a mistake on your part which causes the monster to attack you, which requires you to switch your pet's target and in turn make it draw hate, at which point it can swap between two targets because you couldn't be bothered to avoid aggro in the first place. It is an error. The perk is saving yourself from the aggro, but at the cost of dealing with your pet's hate list issues.

I'm not saying that I like the pet switching targets. But I'm saying that it's also very easily avoidable if you're careful and don't make little mistakes. Aggroing is a mistake when you're trying to focus on a target. Linking is a mistake when you're trying to focus on a target. Not knowing to move away from AoEs is a mistake when you don't want your pet to go wandering off. And I'm not saying I don't do any of these too; in fact, it's because I make these mistakes that I learn from them, and avoid making them as often as possible to avoid the issue of a battle that could go horribly wrong if my pet's attention gets diverted.

[Xilk]

@Kensagaku
I hate when people say the "more experience" thing... but in this case, really its ringing true.

It's also really easy to switch mobs, and if your pet has hate on multiple mobs it means you either made a mistake in linking or you made a mistake in aggroing and had to save yourself. Both are cases of player error. If it's a stray AoE you should only have to heel/fight once. If it keeps happening? MOVE AWAY. Isn't that kinda common sense for avoiding AoEs?

You don't understand that there is really glitchy behavior going on here. The problem happens that you get hate on mobs for NO REASON AT ALL. Its not about getting a hit or 2.. because, when its an NM that "hit or 2" means death, loss of claim, loss of trigger set that took some work getting. Its not about fighting, its about having NM claims stolen.

Its not about you getting hate on another mob, its about another mob getting hate on your pet. you don't seem to understand what is going on here.

[Kensagaku]

You don't understand that there is really glitchy behavior going on here. The problem happens that you get hate on mobs for NO REASON AT ALL. Its not about getting a hit or 2.. because, when its an NM that "hit or 2" means death, loss of claim, loss of trigger set that took some work getting. Its not about fighting, its about having NM claims stolen.

Its not about you getting hate on another mob, its about another mob getting hate on your pet. you don't seem to understand what is going on here.

Give me a scenario then. Because I'm only seeing three instances where your pet could get hate from a mob it wasn't already fighting:

1) Your pet was fighting a mob, and another mob linked with first mob. Said new mob attacks your pet, and because of how the enmity system works, your pet could switch targets if this new mob does more overall damage, etc. This is player error because you didn't move your pet away from potential links.

2) Your pet was fighting a mob, you got aggro, and you used your pet to get aggro off of you before switching back to the original mob. Again, the enmity situation, and your pet could change targets. This is still player error for not avoiding aggro.

3) The rare cases where mobs aggro pets. I don't remember specifically but I've seen one or two instances where there are mobs that will actually aggro your pet. I think one of them was an Assault mission, I can't remember very well.

Look, I won't deny that maybe I'm misunderstanding the situation you're coming from here. It's possible that you and I are on completely separate trains of thought. But until you explain it more coherently and in a clear fashion, say, give me a scenario so that I may see where the misunderstanding may be, I'm going to say that the whole hate situation is reasonable provided you pay attention to reduce your own error as much as possible. Not saying people are perfect - I know I've done every one of these situations and died for the first two at least a few times - but you can still actively work to improve.

[Gotterdammerung]

Give me a scenario then. Because I'm only seeing three instances where your pet could get hate from a mob it wasn't already fighting:

1) Your pet was fighting a mob, and another mob linked with first mob. Said new mob attacks your pet, and because of how the enmity system works, your pet could switch targets if this new mob does more overall damage, etc. This is player error because you didn't move your pet away from potential links.

2) Your pet was fighting a mob, you got aggro, and you used your pet to get aggro off of you before switching back to the original mob. Again, the enmity situation, and your pet could change targets. This is still player error for not avoiding aggro.

3) The rare cases where mobs aggro pets. I don't remember specifically but I've seen one or two instances where there are mobs that will actually aggro your pet. I think one of them was an Assault mission, I can't remember very well.

Look, I won't deny that maybe I'm misunderstanding the situation you're coming from here. It's possible that you and I are on completely separate trains of thought. But until you explain it more coherently and in a clear fashion, say, give me a scenario so that I may see where the misunderstanding may be, I'm going to say that the whole hate situation is reasonable provided you pay attention to reduce your own error as much as possible. Not saying people are perfect - I know I've done every one of these situations and died for the first two at least a few times - but you can still actively work to improve.

in response to #1
Links are not always avoidable with skill. Here is a scenario for you. You are camping heqet. It spawns dead in the middle of 5 frogs. Your options as a skilled player are A). wait for it to move away from the frogs resulting in a good chance someone else gets the claim. B). claim it now and link the world.
Once you claim there is a high risk that your pet will randomly bounce back n forth between frogs and heqet leaving u vulnerable for NM theft. Its a design flaw. Your saying its not. But your wrong. Yes, there are things you can do to limit your risk, but ultimately it is an unfair burden and needs to be addressed.

Tips to handle this situation:
1-You claim the heqet instead of your pet. Very quickly use fight to put pet on heqet. Then kite the frogs til they depop while ur pet fights heqet. Damage immunity and flee temp items can help this angle work.
2- claim with jug pet. Use leave. Use call beast. This will undue the links.
Things to watch out for with this angle-
make sure heqet will not pick up any NEW links in his path to u after "leave"


in response to #2 Getting agro is a player mistake sure i agree with you. But it comes with its own penatly that EVERYONE has to suffer. The penalty is FIGHTING 2 MONSTERS AT ONCE. Having your NM stolen doesnt need to be part of it. And again in some situations agro is unavoidable. For instance, Lets say you are hunting Chione in abyssea uleg.
You successfully get the pop but you are in a bad spot in the murex camp during the night. You have 2 options. Use fight to put pet on chione and agro a few murex's. Or try to kite Chione outside the murex range and hope she doesnt kill you otw. This is all to avoid the risk of having chione stolen.

If it was possible to choose wich NM you want your pet to fight, it would suddenly become fair again. And in situations like these you could play on even terms with other players. You could just tell ur pet fight Heqet ignore the other frogs and suddenly no risk to lost claim. You could have your pet do a sheep song to stop the Murex agro and tell ur pet to fight chione exclusivly and not worry about having ur chione stolen.


There is a 3rd and 4th situation where this type of thing becomes a problem.

3- Some NMs have AoE moves that hit outside alliance. When these hit your pet it will run off after it. This puts the target ur fighting at risk of being stolen. Yes it can usually be avoided by not standing near people. But sometimes that is not an option. And on top of that it can be abused by players. I have personally witnessed normal job shells using outside alliance AoE mobs to steal a Bennu from a bstmaster. He was fighting out of the way and they just brought it to wherever he was fighting.

4- random glitches. I have witnessed this happen around 4 times in my entire bst career so not a huge problem but
Occasionally your pet targets a monster without provocation. I mean you never told it to atk the monster. And the monster never agroed it or hit it or did anything to it. I usually laugh off these moments with funny comments like "hmm he must of been hungry i guess." But if this glitch were to cause me to die or lose claim on a NM i wouldnt be laughing.


There is also situations where this clumsy "you dont get to choose where ur claim goes because ur pets got the AI of a retarded monkey" can be inhibiting or even dangerous. It isnt always about issues of claim or nm theft. Sometimes its just dangerous for ur pet to /ignore your orders. Hell there not really even orders at this point its more like u suggest things to ur pet and hope it listens. Anyway heres an example.

Setting - Dynamis
Scenario 1 issue 4
Your nazuna gets bored and for no reason runs off into the sunset. You use heel but she doesnt seem interested in you. A few minutes later, an ARMY of enemies comes running back on her heels.

Setting- dynamis
Scenario 2
After a large pull your group has successfully slept everything. Then after a time a Bst pet enemy wakes up and casts an AGA. Your casts sleep on him. But nazuna is pissed for getting attacked. She says "Sleeps to good for this guy CHOMP!"
Now the pet is awake and decides to breakga the group. Well your inability to specifically command your pet has now become a liability hasnt it?


In closing, While player skill can go a long way towards dealing with this issue, It is still an Issue and needs to be fixed. Even highly skilled players lose hard earned opportunities for no reason due to this problem.

[Kensagaku]

Now see, these are very reasonable scenarios, and good examples. I can work with these.

#1 - Anyone who fights the NM has the same issue. You claim Hejet and it mad-links. With most jobs you can just outrun it and deaggro the frogs, but at the distance you'll end up making from Hejet due to its casting it will likely go yellow while chasing after you, making for easy steals. However, you're right in that how easily claim is lost to a BST pet, and it is annoying. It would be nice if we had better control, I never once disagreed with that, but at the same time in most situations it's easily remedied.

#2 - The example you described with Chione is partially your own fault. :s If you popped it around the murexes with no way to hold it (most jobs would have to use Provoke, etc anyway so they'd be on level ground with you) then that's more a SoL situation. However, as I said, it's not too hard to keep your pet's hate on the NM, since they generally tend to focus on whoever's doing more damage at the time. In the case of aggro/link generally you can let your pet focus on the NM due to greater damage and go kill the add on your own, using snarl to keep hate off of you while you tear it down and keeping your pet's HP up with Reward. Of course, this won't apply in all situations such as particularly hard-hitting mobs.

#3 - Unfortunately this ends up being a situation of MPK, and players are idiots. My condolences to you, I have been fortunate enough not to deal with such childish folks. GM them and move on, and try again another time. =(

In the non-MPK incidents though, my suggestion is to have a quick claim tool yourself. If you're /NIN, toss a Hyoton: Ni (Tsurara are cheap/pathetically easy to make), if you're /DNC use Animated Flourish. /WHM or /RDM can use Dia, /WAR can use provoke. That way you can get claim back on your NM fast while getting your pet back on track. This is a bit annoying as well, I won't deny, but unless it's an effort at an MPK, you can just move away.

#4 - I don't have an explanation for this. xD Gotta love random glitches?

As for Dynamis... I honestly haven't used BST in a Dynamis-type setting, so I cannot say I really have seen that or have a solution for that. If that is the case, then yes, at very least the whole Heel being ignored needs to be fixed. Overall, I think a lot of the issues are easily solved by a player thinking quickly and reacting appropriately, like with any other job, but there are a few things to be tweaked. I'm not in total disagreement with you, and you've made some certainly valid points, I just feel that some of it is working as intended and players need to work on avoiding said scenarios if possible.

[Flunklesnarkin]

I think part time bst's are misunderstanding what is going on with the pet glitch lol

Say you were out soloing hedjedjet... no aggro or anything... after you kill him.. you do your victory dance then wonder.. where has my pet run off too...

You start to run around thinking this is odd... eventually you come upon your pet fighting scorpions... his blood lust not satisfied by the previous kill he went off to get another on his own... w/o asking permission first ;o

thats the basic idea of it >_>

[Gotterdammerung]

Now see, these are very reasonable scenarios, and good examples. I can work with these.

#1 - Anyone who fights the NM has the same issue. You claim Hejet and it mad-links. With most jobs you can just outrun it and deaggro the frogs, but at the distance you'll end up making from Hejet due to its casting it will likely go yellow while chasing after you, making for easy steals. However, you're right in that how easily claim is lost to a BST pet, and it is annoying. It would be nice if we had better control, I never once disagreed with that, but at the same time in most situations it's easily remedied.

#2 - The example you described with Chione is partially your own fault. :s If you popped it around the murexes with no way to hold it (most jobs would have to use Provoke, etc anyway so they'd be on level ground with you) then that's more a SoL situation. However, as I said, it's not too hard to keep your pet's hate on the NM, since they generally tend to focus on whoever's doing more damage at the time. In the case of aggro/link generally you can let your pet focus on the NM due to greater damage and go kill the add on your own, using snarl to keep hate off of you while you tear it down and keeping your pet's HP up with Reward. Of course, this won't apply in all situations such as particularly hard-hitting mobs.

#3 - Unfortunately this ends up being a situation of MPK, and players are idiots. My condolences to you, I have been fortunate enough not to deal with such childish folks. GM them and move on, and try again another time. =(

In the non-MPK incidents though, my suggestion is to have a quick claim tool yourself. If you're /NIN, toss a Hyoton: Ni (Tsurara are cheap/pathetically easy to make), if you're /DNC use Animated Flourish. /WHM or /RDM can use Dia, /WAR can use provoke. That way you can get claim back on your NM fast while getting your pet back on track. This is a bit annoying as well, I won't deny, but unless it's an effort at an MPK, you can just move away.

#4 - I don't have an explanation for this. xD Gotta love random glitches?

As for Dynamis... I honestly haven't used BST in a Dynamis-type setting, so I cannot say I really have seen that or have a solution for that. If that is the case, then yes, at very least the whole Heel being ignored needs to be fixed. Overall, I think a lot of the issues are easily solved by a player thinking quickly and reacting appropriately, like with any other job, but there are a few things to be tweaked. I'm not in total disagreement with you, and you've made some certainly valid points, I just feel that some of it is working as intended and players need to work on avoiding said scenarios if possible.

@#1 No it is not the same. Yes the situation is dangerous for everyone but this is not a discussion on dangerous situations.

The other job does not have to deal with the same issue. In #1 if a non- bst claims heqet even if all the frogs linked that player would maintain claim on Heqet. they would keep claim until either they or heqet died. A Bstmaster in the same situation would not keep claim. A normal soloist is kiting heqet away to avoid dying. A Bstmaster is kiting heqet away to attempt to avoid having heqet stolen due to a design flaw. Its not the same.

@2 no this situation is not my fault. Chione spawns where she spawns. If she spawns near JA agro i have no control over that.
And again No its not the same for everyone. Whereas everyone DOES have to deal with the danger of JA agro in this situation, BST is the only one who has to deal with JA agro AND worry about maintaining claim on a Notorious monster due to a design flaw.

These scenarios help give examples of the unfair effects of this design flaw as well as show that agro and links are not always avoidable with skill. The latter is in response to your suggestion that this design flaw is a non-issue due to links and agro resulting from a lack of player skill. I'm showing you that even highly skilled beastmasters suffer from this poorly designed aspect of a pets AI.


@3 yes what they did is illegal but hard to prove intent so hard to convict. Also hard to provide evidence. And very rarely have i seen a GM call end in justice. In the mean time, hard working bst's are still succeptable to theft due to a design flaw.

And in regards to simply using a "fast claim tool"
Firstly, Bst solos usually require standing back 20-30 yalms. In many of these scenarios the pet moves away from you when it follows the pet to the neighbor NM. This puts u out of position for a "fast" reclaim.
Also in this same scenario it puts u in the danger zone when you reclaim. Basically you are now temporarily in range of Your NMs moves and spells as well as the neighbors Moves and spells. Even if its short its undue risk all over a design flaw.

On top of this The ninjitsu's are not "fast" even the Ni's take too long to cast to be adequate for reclaiming.
Flourish requires charges wich u may not have for many reasons.
/war is not a job used by bst to solo.

And as far as moving away. There are many instances where this is not possible. Many times the reason for a neighbor NM being too close is there is only one safe place to fight NMs in this area.

Another example would be /whm sub cant put up sneak due to a elemental floating into camp therefore it is unsafe to move.

there are many other examples where it would be difficult or unwise to move your fight.

We are not just dumb. We wouldnt stand in or near danger for no reason. obviously if moving the fight was an easy choice then we would do that.

At the very least, #4 needs to be looked into. It doesnt happen often but your pet should never just run off into the distance with bloodlust.

But i believe the other scenarios are the result of a major design flaw causing substantial problems. Yes they are a result of the current rules. And Yes we will cope if they arent changed. But there is good reason to reconsider the way this aspect works and so far NO reason presented against changing this aspect.
Ultimately its an easy fix. If it was changed to where the pet only fought the enemy u specifically targeted with "fight" then most of these problems would go away.
This really needs to be considered. Losing hours of prep work due to no fault of your own is just aweful.


It would be nice to also be able to claim 2 targets as a pet job. 1 for the pet and 1 for the master. But this is a lesser problem.

As i stated in the other thread talking about this:

Basically we need

#1 the pet to only atk wat its told so we can maintain claim on a NM in the midst of links

#2 If your pet fights 1 monster while you fight another monster they flash back and forth claimed/unclaimed. This needs to be fixed. We are a pet job. We get 2 toons. Give us the benefit that comes from that in regards to holding claim on 2 things.

P.S. as far as losing claim on a pet swap. never had it happen to me. I have used heel and stay b4 duing an NM fight and had the NM just decide to go yellow for no reason even tho its still hitting the pet. That shouldnt happen =/

[Visari]

In regards to the whole Heqet scenario, and this will work in many situations dealing with linking mobs to an nm. Now obviously you were already planning on getting the nm so you timer will be down for this. Send your pet to attack Heqet. This is important for all you new folks to bst. MAKE SURE YOUR PET ACTUALLY HITS HEQET. Not just miss and turn red. Immediately heel pet keeping heqet red and linking whatever else, it doesnt matter. when you get get heqet back on land leave pet and immediately call another. This drops all links. Badda boom badda bing heqet is yours, or whatever nm for that matter, without ever losing hate. This comes from years of experience and you just cant expect most folks to operate like this whom have key whored their bst to 90. Obviously the technique isnt as good as using naturals as you are wasting gil, or time if you farm all your own stuff like myself.