BST adjustment did not address the problem, Devs please read

[Jile]

The only way a BST will even draw their axes would be if we can be useful doing so. We cant get use of those fencer traits unless there is a shield that we could fulltime in the slot without macroing the Abyssea axe in every 10 seconds. Without a static piece in offhand we'll never have enough tp to ws because our pets damage is more important than ours.

For BST to function as frontline SE must:
1) Make JA's work within 15 yalms from the perimeter of the mob we're fighting.
2) Make a shield with stats similar to arktoi with ready-5 on it so we can stop using the abyssea axe.
3) Add job traits that would have been added naturally if the job had originally been intended to frontline
4) Play BST themselves before pushing out broken Nerfs. The JA's are inconsistent and must be fixed!
5) Listen to their paying customers. We've paid thousands of dollars over the years in fees to access ffxi and are tired of being disregarded.
6) Gear needs revamped with mutual focus in mind! Right now it is simply is not possible to be useful during combat when our pets are. It's not possible. We need either old gear adjusted with that in mind or new gear added if this brand new direction for BST is intended to be legitimate and not some impossible joke.

You want us frontline? Then bring it! Give us traits and gear to back that blasphemy up of fix our jobs and leave us alone.

I love this game. I love BST.

Keep me as a customer, please, keep taking my money. The only requirement is that you do your job.

[BlackHalo714]

The only way a BST will even draw their axes would be if we can be useful doing so. We cant get use of those fencer traits unless there is a shield that we could fulltime in the slot without macroing the Abyssea axe in every 10 seconds. Without a static piece in offhand we'll never have enough tp to ws because our pets damage is more important than ours.

For BST to function as frontline SE must:
1) Make JA's work within 15 yalms from the perimeter of the mob we're fighting.
2) Make a shield with stats similar to arktoi with ready-5 on it so we can stop using the abyssea axe.
3) Add job traits that would have been added naturally if the job had originally been intended to frontline
4) Play BST themselves before pushing out broken Nerfs. The JA's are inconsistent and must be fixed!
5) Listen to their paying customers. We've paid thousands of dollars over the years in fees to access ffxi and are tired of being disregarded.
6) Gear needs revamped with mutual focus in mind! Right now it is simply is not possible to be useful during combat when our pets are. It's not possible. We need either old gear adjusted with that in mind or new gear added if this brand new direction for BST is intended to be legitimate and not some impossible joke.

You want us frontline? Then bring it! Give us traits and gear to back that blasphemy up of fix our jobs and leave us alone.

I love this game. I love BST.

Keep me as a customer, please, keep taking my money. The only requirement is that you do your job.

I agree. They state they want us to be "frontline" jobs but do not give us the tools to do the work. It's like putting a house fire out with a garden hose. I don't get what there reason is just to nerf the distance but not do anything to compensate the draw back from it. This reply of "We just want beastmaster to take more risks" doesn't cut it. They spent the last 2 months or so revamping this particular job when there are so many jobs besides beast that need balanced. I never wanted to play like summoner and sit in the back line but that is how they created issue in the first place. Giving the pets tremendous vitality and power like I said before but leaving the master unbalanced.

I want to be frontline and melee with my pet but I don't want to have a whiff fest all day because all my stats are tied to my pet and I get to hold a short leash. Too many of the end game NM's spam AEO crippling tp moves or status debuffs. Give us abilities to survive those. Make killer instinct a straight buff and contribute to the party better. Revamp or get rid of this useless fencer trait.

I don't feel this is about solo aspect of beastmaster anymore. There are many jobs now that can solo anything just as good. So is this about beast being too powerful? As I continue to watch sch, blm burn through NM's like nothing. Too proud to say hey we might of went overboard with this and we were wrong? I just don't get it and never will. SE you have great content and a great game why do you continue to not listen to the players that pay for your service? I do not expect every request to be answered yes too. But frankly I am getting tired of seeing "We Have No Plans for This".

[Tidis]

SE could just cap ready reduction to 15 seconds so you have no reason to use the axe.

[Jile]

SE could just cap ready reduction to 15 seconds so you have no reason to use the axe.

If SE gives us a strong shield with strong stats that are worth more overall value than that 5 seconds gives us, the Abyssea axe wouldn't be used in every ready macro like it is now. BST might get use of fencer and nudge us closer to the 2015 vision of BST.

SE changed our JA range, called it a play style adjustment and........ BST still don't hit because they're not designed to.

I'm fine with being frontline. But for the love of all that's good, they need to backup the idea with functioning gear.

Fencer could be great, if SE backs this up with gear instead of "no plans".

[Ataraxia]

SE could just cap ready reduction to 15 seconds so you have no reason to use the axe.

That's a very good suggestion. This will be good for BST so they can focus on equipping shield, melee or bst/whm or bst/run.

[Jile]

That's a very good suggestion. This will be good for BST so they can focus on equipping shield, melee or bst/whm or bst/run.

This suggestion only works if SE makes a brand new shield. All the ones out are of zero benefit to BST and regardless of the ready timer time of the Abyssea axe, we wont use a shield if it castrates us and our pets.

Mr. Akihiko Matsui I challenge you to play BST. Please do not use other people to experiment on this job but I like for you to play it. I like you to challenge these NM with your trust and I hope you prevail. I want you to experience the frustration people are having right now.

Perhaps Mr. Matsui will have some useful suggestions on shields after he plays the job for the first time, as you suggest. He should also play with a real account not a GM-God account where he does not get a realistic feel for what we endure. Would be nice if he fraps records it and places his experience on youtube for us to review.

[Gwydion]

This suggestion only works if SE makes a brand new shield. All the ones out are of zero benefit to BST and regardless of the ready timer time of the Abyssea axe, we wont use a shield if it castrates us and our pets.




Perhaps Mr. Matsui will have some useful suggestions on shields after he plays the job for the first time, as you suggest. He should also play with a real account not a GM-God account where he does not get a realistic feel for what we endure. Would be nice if he fraps records it and places his experience on youtube for us to review.

I think this is a great idea! Cap Ready @ 15 seconds, give us a GOOD Ready shield (and 417 Shield Skill instead of 300) and I think we'd be much better off as frontline.

I would still ask for 10-12 yalms instead of 7.

[Selindrile]

Bst have frequently been not meleeing with their pets for years and years, anyone remember that everyone's favorite XP target for bst for ages was bombs because they blew themselves up? They certainly didn't melee on those. This change is tantamount to redefining the job, even if that wasn't it's original design, it's not like not-meleeing on bst is anything new.

Remember when the devs said ninjas weren't supposed to be tanks, but then the community tanked with NIN, then the devs released tanking gear for NIN? Yeah, that was cool, I mean, the devs have claimed to be asking for feedback, isn't deciding to play it as a backline job an example of feedback? I mean why bother claiming to ask for feedback if you're going to do the opposite of what the players obviously want?

[Faithful]

I applaud all the Bst who have quit over this mistake SE has made. I quit the game almost 2 months ago over this and right now don't even want to come back. I had considered returning if they fixed the job, but honestly at this point I don't even think I wanna come back even if they did fix it. I have a ton more free time on my hands now thanks to not having FFXI in my life.

It's a shame it came to this. FFXI meant alot to me for well over a decade. I almost went through a divorce over this game because I loved it so much. Bst was the only job I ever cared about, and the only job I ever played unless I was really bored. I hate to see what's become of it.

If SE won't listen and fix this mess then speak with your wallets and quit this game. Bst deserved better than to go out like this. It's clear to me that no ones at the wheel any more steering FFXI.

[Megalas]

As we’ve mentioned before, the development team has no plans to change the range at which beastmasters can use commands. As Matsui previously stated, we want beastmasters to be close range battle jobs and bear the risk of taking damage in the front line. This change was made, because players were using beastmaster to attack from the back line, and this was against what the development team had intended for beastmaster.

With this response which seems to differ from the original reasoning for the range reduction many questions come to my mind on the matter. Immediately my first question is how long has this been the "intended" idea from the development team? As far back as I can recall the player has always taken a back seat to the pet in all cases be it for XP or Endgame content prior to any adjustments made to the class. It has been over 2 years since Matsui took the lead and until now this is the first I am hearing of this intention. If this was just a recent change of ideals it is a bit late in the game literally to be changing a play style, or should I say force feeding a play style.

If this had been the intention from day one then why was there a lack of gear that was stat balanced with this idea in mind? The Emicho gear set looked like you started to understand the concept of hybrid job stats while the Nukumi+1 set which should be tailored specifically to Beastmaster lacks any kind of basic pet bonuses aside from it fitting the predator to prey correlation. Mind you the TP bonus and Stout Servant are very nice but that is not enough in a hybrid gear set that is Beastmaster only.

Another question in that sense though is why was there never any new job abilities or traits added to endorse hybrid play if that was intended from day one? You could possibly have still slapped Beastmaster on DD gear as you do now and given the job a trait that took stat boosts such as STR, DEX, INT, Accuracy, Attack, Magic Attack, etc. on gear and giving the pet a bonus to its stats by maybe 80-100% of the stat given to the master or even simply just have the pets stats scaled off the master.

I also have to ask do you have any plans to remove Fight, Heel, Stay, Leave, and to some extent possibly Ready commands from paralyze and amnesia checks on the master (mind you amnesia on the pet will still prevent ready moves)? Loss of basic control of the pet for a hybrid or even a pet focused class is in honest opinion unacceptable design. Ready moves would technically be considered "weapon skills" for pets so if players do not have to pass a check for weapon skills to go off why should pets be subject to it while the master is paralyzed? Do you intend to change the AI for pets with regards to enmity to ignore all threats other than what you issue the Fight command on? Since that is another form of control that when lost that "leash" becomes a frustrating issue by itself.

Do you at least acknowledge that there is a defining range variation between different pets and players? You know since a lot of players have made it clear as to being one of the glaring issues they repeatedly report not just scream "give us back our range". Do you intend to at least try to normalize that distance between all pets and players?

There are a lot of questions that need to be asked but I doubt there will ever be a clear answer on any of them. I myself would welcome the rollback of this change not for the ability to sit in the back lines again, but to not have to keep adjusting to stay in that "leash" range(especially since my favorite pet to use is the rarab). In my own personal opinion if the damage done while playing the back line was really an issue and something had to change capping ready recast at 15 seconds would likely have been a less "problematic" idea overall. Though at the same time I would have to say that the 1200 Gift should be changed to a Sic/Ready Recast Reduction to reach the cap with choice of merits or gear. In that same scenario I would also suggest looking at the 3 charge costing abilities and consider reducing them to 2 based on the current faster pace the game has taken. At the base design level of the Beastmaster it is really nothing more than a heavy armor wearing pet class with the option to go swing axes if the player so chooses.

PS: Considering this stance on what is "intended" as how Beastmaster should play I would seriously still like to know why the Founder Set excluded Beastmaster.