BST adjustment did not address the problem, Devs please read

[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.

[Ataraxia]

I was in the RoV final battle a few days ago, on my PUP, I joined a shout run and we went 1/1 with PUP and SMN and other jobs.

During the fight, which I spent the whole time hiding in the corner, while my Valoredge tanked the NM, I kept thinking about BST, and how hard it would be to do that fight on BST now. On Pup, I was standing literally the other side of the arena from the mob, spamming my maneuvers, and running into Repair Range, which is thankfully far away from the NM's huge ugly AOE spam. That mob really spams AOE, and big awful horribleness everwhere. As I ran in to use Repair, I kept thinking "wow this would be impossible on Bst now."

Obviously the answer to that is "don't do that fight on Bst, do it on another job." But it is the Last Mission battle, maybe a person wants to finish the storyline on their main job, for the memories. I was lucky because my main is PUP, and I could hide in the corner the whole time.

Nice Job Stompa you are making a lot of sense. SMN and PUP continue to have 20 yalms distance to avoid, stay safe and run away.

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.

Escha - Zi'Tah

Tier 2 "Level 125" - Kamohoalii this NM have charm AOE.
Tier 2 "Level 125 - Brittlis this NM can use chainspell up to 3 times base on it's HP. Why would anyone give a Tier 2 NM 3x 1 hour ability?

Escha - Ru'Aun

Tier 2 "Level 125" - Yilan
Tier 2 "Level 125" - Palila

Reisenjima

Tier 2 "level 129" - Kabandha this NM does Deathly Glare and you can avoid this by turning. The question I have is why does this move work on PET like Alluring Honey when it have no eyes? Alluring honey does not have eye and it detect by sound and if it does have eye I don't see it. Now explain to us what common sense is? To die from a deathly glare when you have no eyes? or not to die from a glare because you have no eyes?


I do not like to see people quit this game because someone in SE fail to see that BST range was given for the past 12 years.
I personally will continue playing FFXI and find other battle strategy and enjoy my job. For once in your life Akihiko Matsui do something great for FFXI and make sure that when FFXI end people will know Akihiko Matsui that your the best Director and number 1 because you are reasonable and you listen to your fans. Right now people are having second thought about you and your decision. Thank you and have a good day. :/

[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.

[Olor]

I am so disappointed in the devs. Not reupping my sub this month. If BST are intended to be front line, then we need front line JAs, front line stats, and armor that applies to both master and pet. We have none of that.

BST has been back line for more than a decade. Why ruin it now?

[Jile]

SE Devs. Just another reminder that the JA's do not work when we're standing behind mob's we're FIGHTING. This is obscenely designed, please review and adjust it so we can be in MELEE RANGE behind any mob we're fighting with our JA's functioning. We're still waiting for gear to back up your claim that we're frontline... our pets and ourselves (CANT) be geared to have ACC/ATK/-DT etc at the same time so we're simply forced to be in melee range and using JA's while not bothering to engage ourselves since we cant hit end game content when our pets can and vice versa given the pre-nerf-2015 limitations of our gear and job abilities which were NOT designed around this current 2015-BST intent.

We either need you to backup the assertion (with gear and Job Traits/Abilities) that you want us front line or please restore our JA's and leave us alone before you hemorrhage even more good players due to stubbornness.

I love XI, I hate that you killed the playability of my main job at the end of the game's life - please, Dev's, take action.

[Kensagaku]

While I do want them to improve our JA range, I do want to point out that they have made gearing both master and pet for acc/atk or DT easier as time goes. Sure, not at the same time, but that's why you tap a macro to switch to DT when you see a move or spell and use your Acc/Atk set otherwise. Just examples:

Acc/Atk:
Skullrender Path C x2: 10 Atk/Acc (Master), 20 Atk/Acc , 8% Haste, and 5% DA (pet) each.
Despair Helm Path C: 30 Acc and 20 Atk (Master), 20 Acc/Atk (Pet)
Valorous Mail: Acc+20, DA+2, PDT-2% (Master), Up to Acc/Atk+20~30 (augments for pet).
Emicho Haubert Path C: Acc/Atk+15, DA+3 (Master), Acc/Atk+15, DA+3, DT-3% (Pet)
Emicho Gauntlets Path D: Acc+35, STP+6, DW+5 (Master), Acc/Atk+20, STP+6 (Pet)
Despair Greaves Path C: Acc+27, DA+2 (Master), Acc+17 (Pet)
Pastoralist's Mantle: Acc+10/Atk+20 (Master), Atk+20 (Pet), Acc up to +15 and DT up to -4% (Pet Augments)

Assuming Valorous Mail is out of reach and you go with Emicho, you're looking at:
+137 Acc, +75 Atk, +5 DA, +5 DW, +6 STP (Master)
+112~127 Acc, +105 Atk, +13 DA, +6 STP, -3~7% DT, +16% Haste

And this isn't including accessories which can boost your stats or your pet's stats higher. Empath Necklace gives +10 Acc to the master, and +10 Acc/+5 Atk to the pet. Get a good Angel Ring aug from the last fight of ACP, I've got Acc+4/Pet: Acc+6 on my augments. Waist you can do Hurch'lan Sash, with Acc+15 for them master and Acc+10/Haste+5% for the pet. Earrings you'd have to consider between the two, and I'd probably do something like Cessance/Zennanori for extra master acc, or DW earrings if you don't need that extra Acc. Legs, which were not listed above, you can do Acro with a Pet: Acc aug to get 10 acc for the master and up to 25 Acc for the pet. And then there's other augs such as Pet: Pet: Haste (which, if you get 4%, caps your pet haste via gear with the stuff above).

As for a DT build, here's what I currently use:
Izizoeksi (Pet: DT-5%) / Kumbhakarna (Aug'd with Pet: PDT-4%) / X / Vanir Battery (MDB+4)
Jumalik Helm (PDT-5%) / Twilight Torque (DT-5%) / Handler's Earring (Pet: PDT-3%) / Handler's Earring +1 (Pet: PDT-4%)
Jumalik Mail (DT-8%) / Ankusa Gloves (Pet: PDT-3%) / Dark Ring (PDT-4%/MDT-4%) / Dark Ring (PDT-4%/MDT-6%)
Pastoralist's Mantle (Pet: DT-3%) / Isa Belt (Pet: DT-3%) / Taeon Pants (Pet: DT-4%) / Taeon Boots (Pet: DT-2%)

I pop this on when I see a TP move or spell coming. Gives, in terms of PDT/MDT: 26 PDT/23 MDT (Master) and 31 PDT/17 MDT (Pet). With Shell V on the master (via trust), that nearly caps MDT, or with Shell III from the scroll, you're only 6% lower. If I capped my augs and got some DT- luck on Taeon hands to switch those in (assuming a cap of -4% on all Taeon), pet defenses start looking like 33 PDT/24 MDT. With Stout Servant, that's an additional -9% DT, so we look at 42 PDT/33 MDT.

So yeah, of late they have done a lot better for creating hybridized gear for us, and we can adapt to situations with a variety of gear sets. They still need to do something like double our current JA range though.