Regarding Beastmaster as a potential job

So there's several posts with general discussions on Beastmaster, generally also dismissed saying it would likely be a limited job like Blue Mage. While its true it could, I wanted to also see what people thought about some general concepts for it.

Beastmaster itself typically does involve a catch-and-release method of fulfilling its namesake, which certainly would fit with a limited job system, even if their captured/befriended beasts weren't released in between "uses" of a particular beast. All well and good, since it would provide a lot of variation in gameplay and entertainment building a bestiary of friends from all expansions.

If we wanted to, however, we could make it a full job by removing some of the variation and dropping the total list to a few iconic monsters for core gameplay.

Mechanically, this could look something between how Summoner works and MCH's Automaton Queen or DRK's Esteem/Living Shadow; basically calling a monster for a short series of attacks before doing a "finisher" for them.

Rather than a pet type, this could be a tandem assault, keeping the beast at their side and performing certain attacks as the Beastmaster executes weaponskills. These weaponskills would likely also shift in form and function, entering different stances as each beast gets called to ensure a combat flow that flows and shifts. sort of like how summoner's DWT worked back in HW, where a calling starts a higher-powered "phase", which could be ended at will to do a burst or otherwise boosting damage. Could also be a type of "mounted" combat, since this would be new animations and could easily be something we haven't seen yet.

The trick with this latter idea is determining which beasts they would actually have access to, since it would likely end up being specific iconic monsters (like a Coeurl would be pretty much guaranteed).

This is mostly to gauge how interested people would be in something like this before I try to make a job concept for it; Could make one for the former showing what few things Beastmaster would have before/without making their friends, or one for the latter with tandem assaults and general ideas behind gameplay.

Also for bonus points based on what weapons Beastmaster themselves use, would y'all prefer a one-handed axe or a whip for them?

I would only support the addition of Beast Master as a full, normal job. Limited jobs, actually no the word "limited" should have never been allowed to enter FFXIV's vocabulary full stop. It's content that goes nowhere, and other games have hunter classes that run around with pets that can do the same content as everyone else.

Also axe > whip.

From the beastmasters we've seen, both Pagaga and Lyon use axe and shield. There's no real reason for the player character to swap to whips.

I think beastmaster would work far better as a limited job than another warrior or melee reskin. It absolutely deserves to have some uniqueness to the job and being able to select from a decent array of beasts with different associated skills rather than the tedium inflicted on current summoner.

Honestly if I made this concept as a full job it would likely still have a good array of monsters to choose from, just with different boosts depending on the beast chosen, and having them combo from calling to weaponskill, I was comparing it to smn, mch, and drk purely to show what the beast call might look like.

Also, not gonna lie, I definitely forgot that Lyon was a Beastmaster, might need to check his stuff again while I'm making this. At least there's a precedent for an axe/shield combo we could work with, so that's one thing probably set in stone.

I think it would be quite hard to balance a distinct identity for each beast, the beastmaster's roles and general flow of the job while keeping to ~30 actions and not having it feel too skeletal. Being able to select a handful of more involved beasts could help by having a lot of inaccessible depth, but they would have to bring their own positives and negatives or it'll end up as completely interchangeable or largely worthless

I brought this up in the "Other Battle Systems" forum before, but I really like the idea of BST being based off of Rinoa as a ranged physical DPS with a pinwheel as a weapon. The idea is that you have a specific pet, not overworld enemies you collect, and they are used specifically as a gauge mechanic that allows them to combo off your actions. For reference, here's the Rinoa trailer that showcases what I mean. Note that she does switch between physical and magical stances, but the idea here would just be the first half expanded upon.

It's also not unlike the Trainer Dressphere from X-2 where each character had their own specific pet.

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Originally Posted by AriaValkyrie

Mechanically, this could look something between how Summoner works and MCH's Automaton Queen or DRK's Esteem/Living Shadow; basically calling a monster for a short series of attacks before doing a "finisher" for them.

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I can garantee you, you don't want these pets.
They're flashy and all but once the flashyness settles, you quickly realise they're glorified dots.
Their AI are terrible and can make them lose/forget attacks if they need to search for a new target.
You quickly forget them and they often and they exist to make you think "Who is that idiot standing in the wrong spot? Oh, that's only Living Shadow/Automaton Queen..."

Bahamut and Phoenix are kind of okay but they're most magic turret you summon and do their signature move when you tell them to do so.

Ironically, the best pet you can ask for is the Reaper's avatar.
It's a pet in visual only and makes the kit extremely smooth to play.

The limited job concept is dead in the water, not sure why people keep bringing it up. They haven't even updates the one we have for quite a while.

Also, Beastmaster is going to be a tank. That's non-negotiable.

I'd love beastmaster, but i feel like it would need to be a limited job or dumbed down A LOT.

And if its a limited job ... well look at blue mage, alive once for 2 weeks when something happens that's relevant to it, after that it becomes something like 1% of the players do.

The last time i was on Blue was to get the morbol mount and that was over a year ago because there's nothing to do for blue, and no the carnival does not count the stuff it gives is a joke.

So its gonna be, a poor mans version of beastmaster to fit it into the dps role ... and lets face it SE does not want any more pets ... all pets that were on the field are already reduced to basically a toggle stance.

Or it becomes a limited job that they don't care to develop.

F

Doesn't need to be a limited job and probably isn't going to have much interaction with pets since the game just can't do pet classes to save it's life. Closest thing is Healers managing the party as their pets.

It has a high chance of being a tank like Aluja says. And it probably is going to take a lot of notes from Lyon Helsos the Beast King. Alongside some callbacks to the Beastmaster in past SE games.

Beastmaster is a very popularly demanded job. Especially by Matsuno.

It did make a lot of sense to be a DPS but i can also get it being a Tank pretty easily, especially after doing a bit of thinking about it.

Also hard to describe the directions I'm thinking about going with it, but I'll work on some concepts and see what happens. Might end up going in the tank forums, who knows.

I guess another good question, if we end up having multiple beasts instead of one familiar type of beast, what would be the best choices for a variety?
Or, what would be your dream for monster friends?

I don't think the poor popularity of limited jobs and their content really justify another one.

Please just make beastmaster the next tank, using axe and shield. The lore could be "good" beastmasters use their skills to protect people from monsters (easy in to tank identity) and "bad" beastmasters like Lyon use those same skills to wage war on people.

There could be loads to pick from but probably go for the Tank mounts as our beast picks although I think a cool lore thing they could do is pick one Monster and it ends up being the same beast as Dawon that Lyon Helsos had tamed and in our job quests we get a young one and it eventually gets bigger and can be used in a few attacks but also can be unlocked as a Tank mount for that extra immersion.

Would be interesting for sure.

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Originally Posted by Aluja89

The limited job concept is dead in the water, not sure why people keep bringing it up. They haven't even updates the one we have for quite a while.

Also, Beastmaster is going to be a tank. That's non-negotiable.

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Onion knight is clearly the limited job tank.

Beastmaster is a DPS with a 10 yalm attack range instead of 5.

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

They're flashy and all but once the flashyness, you quickly realise they're glorified dots.
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The glorified dots argument is why we have a job suffering from stripped away synergy into a pump and dump mechanic. Added to that, "glorified dot" is just a bad faith argument altogether and leaves gaping holes for semantics of what "is" and "isn't" a "glorified DOT" .

A handaxe and shield would be more the way to go IMO.

Automaton queen and living shadow just do damage until the effect expires. The only way you can interact with either is by ending aq early. They may as well be a dot, it’d offer less confusion when there’s a figure standing in the bad. Both jobs with glorified dots hardly changed since shadowbringers, aq and ls are design dead ends.

Onion knight is clearly a limited maiming dps.

Dot definition is "Damage over time".
You press the button, it deals X damages over Y seconds without the need of any additionnal player input.

Lead shot was pressed and dealt damage during 30 seconds without additionnal input.
Automaton Queen & Living Shadow are pressed and deal damage during 20 seconds without additionnal input.

This isn't saying that apples and pears are the same.
They function the same way, produces the same result and are only different in visual.
I used to think otherwise until the flashyness settled.

I prefer Lead shot and Scourge over AQ/LS given that at least I know Lead Shot/Scourge will do it's damage and isn't contingent on attacking a target or waiting 6 seconds for the damage to happen.

The 6 second startup for the 12 second duration DoT is all kinds of bullshit.

Yes, while very plain they're incredibly consistent.
If you replaced AQ by an ability consuming battery for a big shot and inflicting a dot, you'd get the very same result but far more consistent.
Same goes for DRK if you gave it Scourge on 120s CD and a cost of 50 Blood gauge.

You just lose the "cool" visual aspect of the ability.

The point is not to rework those into actual dots, but to show that those summons are a scam trading gameplay&control for cool effects.
Thus, glorified dots.

Still working on the specifics of it, but the mechanics so far is the beast(s) function for a particular time but are more akin to a buff, the beastmaster and the beast attack together in tandem.
This would also change the behavior and effects of their main attacks

I am also debating is whether or not the beasts would be persistent (pet, machinist's Automaton Queen/DRK's Esteem) or be simply an aspect of the attack (reaper's avatar/summoner's summons), since both could work.

If persistent, the trick would be making it so they always dash to the Beastmaster's side when executing an attack, or at least gapclose to the target each time.

If an aspect of the attack, it would be easier to control and code, but could end up feeling less like "this is my friend here on the battlefield with me" if it fades after each attack. The feel would depend on the actual feel of the animation, of course, since it doesn't feel that way with reaper since their avatar more or less part of them.

Either way though, it would eliminate the feel of having "pets" that don't react or move in sync, since their actions would all be dictated by the the Beastmaster.

Either a “Glorified DOT” (btw, semantics would argue auto attack is DOT if you want this to go into a realm of bad faith arguments and just fill a thread with stupid semantics, but I’d advise against it)

The pet working alongside would give some of that synergy.
But if just exists while still being the main component of beast master, why not make the beast the weapon slot itself at that point? It’d somewhat solve the desire for having other beasts tag along. But make the beast the primary or secondary weapon while the hand axe is the other slot. Gap closer can be hanging on while the beast rushes and jumps the enemy. And there you still have some customizable preference to what beast players will have by their side.

Auto attacks are a completely different field, meant to ensure every player does a minimal amount of damage regardless of skill level.

We presented argument and showed how AQ/LS exactly function the same as a dot but with different visuals.
We provided the proof it is triggered like a dot, function like a dot and require the very same player input as a dot.
The only differences between a DOT and AQ/LS are the buff snapshot and visuals.
This is quite the opposite of bad faith.

You disagree but without counter-argument, just saying it is "bad faith" but with no explanation.
You're free to participate to the debate but the minimum would be to explain your logic.

I appreciate and admire the earnestness, but mam this is a wendys BST thread.

So far, going over a few of the more signature monsters, the current list of potential friends is:

Behemoth

Coeurl

Fenrir, or at least a wolf of some sort

Morbol

and a version of Dawon, just younger and smaller, since they were a pretty big thing for the biggest Beastmaster we've seen.

I'd like to expand the list a bit if people have thoughts on more mundane beasts like an Aldgoat/Ram, or a giant crab.
Could also go for something like a Rathalos since it is in the game already, could certainly work with that.

Again, these are meant to be monsters that fight in tandem with the Beastmaster, or replacing certain of their attacks, so they will be able to use any iconic moves as well.


I'm also potentially also including a trait to buff companions for field instances where your chocobo is out, since I know that I'd personally want to include my chocobo in a repertoire for Beastmaster but idk how well that would work given the variation with everyone's birb's stats and/or builds.


Anyone got input on what other beasties you'd want to befriend? I would love to hear more about what folks would like to see!