Can we please assess Beastmaster?

[Gwydion]

It is very difficult to play and enjoy Beastmaster currently.

Can we see some changes to Charm, Tame and Group 1/2 Merits? Simply adding pets (if this ever happens again) is only a band-aid. Beastmasters must be able to buff the party if they're going to stay competitive with WAR/SAM/DRG/etc (other front-line DDs).

Also Rage's DEF penalty is too high! This makes beastmasters too difficult to heal for many average healers. This is one of many reasons that Beastmaster is continuously excluded from content.

Please help us out, SE!

[Sacher]

I agree with the previous poster. BST used to be a great job for soloing. Now it just seems gimped. You have SMN pets doing 99,999 damage and jug pets barely breaking 10~15K. Add to that Axe weapon skills aren't good, it just makes the job less comparable to other jobs. It's REALLY unbalanced now. I'm not a great player but on DNC I can do 70K weapon skills and 99,999 dark in places like sortie with no buffs and using trusts. When I try BST I cannot do 1/10th the damage nor am I able to complete the same tasks in the same amount of time. PLEASE,PLEASE,PLEASE re-balance it to match other jobs.

[Sueno]

One of the problems with bst is that our pets are extremely attack starved.
Energized Sefina can do 70k+ dmg with rhinowrecker to lvl 80 mobs; yet in dynamis D and sortie I can barely break 22k. We have so much equipment now for pet: accuracy and hardly anything for pet: attack.

As far as party support; Quite a few of the pets have def down effect on their ready moves which indirectly increases the party's dmg(-25% def down is like adding +33% attack). Also Pondering Peter is amazing at curing a entire party.

In regards to bst doing dmg with axe; it is quite good at the moment. In sortie with trust; I can do 16k Rhinowrecker>43k blitz> 61k light. With brd/cor/geo buffs; Blitz can do 99999 every time and I can spam Onslaught at 1k tp for 45k. What is lacking at the moment; is the magical axe weaponskills.

[Alhanelem]

I don't think there's a player alive who doesn't think the range cap was stupid.

Even if someone were to argue the range nerf was justified, it is still excessive when you have to clip into an enemy's or pet's model in order to be close enough to use commands.