So, what is the hold up on Beastmaster?

[Videra]

They aren't going to do Beastmaster due to the aggressively unhappy response that BLU and the whole idea of limited jobs rightfully got. And if they do Beastmaster as a real boy, it'll be in a form where they don't have pets.

[MonsutaMan]

They aren't going to do Beastmaster due to the aggressively unhappy response that BLU and the whole idea of limited jobs rightfully got. And if they do Beastmaster as a real boy, it'll be in a form where they don't have pets.

I don't disagree, but that is a Them issue, not a BST or BLU issue.

That is what happens when you put the cart before the horse. BST most likely birthed the idea of limited jobs. I remember Matsui and his team pretty much admitting BST was designed to be a solo job in XI a few years back on the forums (Something every XI BST already knew, and the people who deny it.....AKA the people who never played BST and was not around at the time but act like they did/were......). BST shifted to jugs (Summon pets), around the time they introduced instanced content without charmable mobs. I wanna say Abyssea.

BLU could have easily been a normal job. It was XI, and it worked beautifully. XIV does things well, but jobs are not one of them. I think it is time for people to concede that. Job design in this game is horrible.

This team can only do generic standard melee DPS model....which tanks can fall into as-well......when they have to think outside the box a little, they fail........(SMN, BLU, etc).

However, not even they can screw up BST.

BST should not suffer, because they released the wrong job as a limited job. BST as the 1st limited job was a layup.

[MagiusNecros]

And if they do Beastmaster as a real boy, it'll be in a form where they don't have pets.

That's fine with me. Because they have repeatedly shown that they can't do pet classes that aren't Healer.

BST has higher chances of being a Tank class.

Personally Limited Jobs are just bad as an idea and I think BLU by that metric should be the only LJ we ever get. Or better if they just become a full job.

I'd rather a BLU come into it's own by starting as garbage(which they do) and when they acquire more and more spells they become just as good if not better then a lot of other jobs(which is also possible).

The conundrum that the game has is being stuck in this 2 minute meta that the Devs are forcing in PvE.

Blue Mage in FF5, FF8(Quistis), FF9(Quina), FFX/FFX-2(Kimahri/Gunmage), FFXI, BDFF(Vampire), Honorable Mention Xenoblade 3(Soulhacker/It's a Blue Mage people) are proof that the job can exist and start poor but then outpace a lot of other jobs.

If anything they should be adding a lot more to Blue Mage by adding ingame achievements by clearing bosses or content multiple times to upgrade skills, getting skills from Hunts/Eureka/Bozja/Zadnor and stop being babies and add stats to weapons.

With Blue Mage they got 2 things right. Meaningful acquisition of spells and a fantastic leveling experience where no matter what content you run your gear and spell progression ALWAYS carries over with you. Unlike other job classes that lose all their skills when they sync down.

[Floortank]

BST won't happen, game can't do pet classes of any depth. It would be a fiasco like BLU.

[Packetdancer]

A bit belated, but...

By making it so that BLU doesn't do as much damage as a BLM, so yes some heavy potency nerfs can be expected.

The thing is, BLU's potency -- just taken as potency -- is actually not absurd. BLU does damage not only by having a ton of high-potency or OP spells -- especially since the OP ones don't work in the raid/challenge scenarios, like Level 5 Death or Missile -- but by letting you do stuff like add specific elemental vulnerabilities to your target and then exploit them.

Where BLU would break everything is, again, all the weird support spells it has.

But is, for example, a BLU casting White Wind going to really be needed so long as healers are up and able to use their CD's or other spells in their tool kits so that the Damage Dealing Job (Assuming it would be a DD Job and not something like a chad Magic Tank if it was a real Job) doesn't have to stop doing their role and making the boss cry.

Needed? No. Could it be more optimal? Arguably, yes. I can't think of a single tool in the healer toolkit that could heal both tanks simultaneously for about 63k health each in a single GCD. And that's relevant this savage tier, given the potency of the split tankbusters in several fights.

And moreover, I will point out that we, as a playerbase, have demonstrated that if we can cheese a thing we will.

People who don't want to have to actually think about mechanics will strip their armor off in order to ensure Alliance Roulette only gives them Labyrinth of the Ancients.

Last tier, a popular party finder strategy for P1S Intemperance was "tank damage down", meaning you just ignore the mechanic because it was possible to resolve by only punishing one tank.

This tier, the dominant party finder strategy for the second Cachexia mechanic in P6S is "save LB3 and tank LB3 it so we don't have to actually try to do the mechanic."

So if BLU were a full job, and its presence -- with all its weird support spells and the ways you can get creative with them -- could allow you to cheese a mechanic and resolve it with less effort? Then yeah, I can absolutely see people locking a DPS slot in their party finders to BLU and BLU alone.

And that's something which, for good or ill, the developers have demonstrated they will try to take action to prevent. If a job is being excluded from PF or otherwise shut out of content by players for being 'non-optimal' compared to some other job, they will shuffle the balance around to try to make every job equally viable.

You can argue this makes jobs more bland (honestly, yes, it probably does), but you can't really argue that in the absence of that balance, we won't lean towards 'optimal' party meta.

And if one specific job allowed you to cheese your way through mechanics in savage? Yeah, I see a lot of people deciding that was 'optimal'.

If you wanted BLU to be a full job, it would have to be sanded down and squished into the same shape as other casters. And at that point, I'd argue that what you have isn't BLU, really... just another flavor of caster, where the spells are themed after monster attacks.

And if the answer here is "well, okay, just don't let BLU queue into current savage or ultimates so you don't have to account for it in fight balance"... you have turned it back into a limited job, as it is now.

And -- to the topic of this thread -- I think if you tried to make BST in this game, with this playerbase (and all our demonstrable tendency to seize on 'optimal' paths with the tenacity of a starving badger), it would either have to suffer that same fate as a full job (e.g. "Summoner, but with animals instead of carbuncles/egi."), or be something creative and different and unique but off in its own little world: a limited job, like BLU.

Is saving the party from a wipe by using Avail really going to be the make it or break it as to whether or not a group will comfortably beat a boss? Likely not.

Sure, if you're speaking just of clears. But is saving the party from a wipe by using a tank invuln, BLU's Avail, and then BLU's Angel Snack to get a healer back up to LB3 going to speed up prog, meaning you get everyone back up and see the next mechanic rather than having to start a fresh pull? Absolutely.

[MagiusNecros]

They probably will never release BLU because they will just wait for a Final Sting kill zone and take BLU just for that. The beauty of BLU is building it how you want to instead of being pidgeonholed into a single bland kit.

The general kit the devs are gonna choose is Primal Burst with Moon Flute being on a 2 minute CD.

The bulk of BLU's damage comes from Moon Flute windows and buffed attacks like Tingle+Whistle+Triple Trident.

And Blue Mage is the only job that can perform all 3 role types to a decent degree.

Ironically BLU tanks play like a HW Tank with how Mighty Guard works as opposed to current Tanks.

The Healer kit is not awful and they do rather good DPS with specific loadouts. Primarily Primal spells. Surpanakha, Nightbloom, and Phantom Flurry are BLU's strongest attacks.

Personally I don't think BLU is limited from content but content is limited from BLU.

It's ironic that Blue Mage potencies were never adjusted like the other jobs were so as a result I find BLU a more balanced and engaging job to play.

[ZanzhizExaverion]

Personally I hope the hold-up is because they realized Limited Jobs just create an insane amount of more work for them, for the payoff of.... players getting mad at them for limit-locking a beloved job that gets updated ONCE per expansion.

I really hope they make it an actual DPS, perhaps a Melee (Scouting) DPS.

I really want them to use an Axe + Jug. Or perhaps just a Jug.

The Jug would determine what your pet's appearance is. If they go this route, the Jug can be used as a Glamour for the Beastmaster. For example; if you get the Asphodelos Jug, your summon would be a Hippokampus. Or a tiny Phoinix. Crafted Jugs? Oh, a Rabbit, a Crab, a Sapling. Whatever they want to do.

The jug >> animal can easily act as the glamour for the pet itself, you can pick and choose what YOU want to summon. (This is a lot of work, and pretty unrealistic, but would be incredible to see.)


My idea to make the job actually function as a Melee DPS is to anchor the pet to the master. What I mean by this is have the beast be a PART of the job, while summoned (using Call Beast, like a stance such as Dance Partner/Tank Stance etc.) The pet will then summon, and follow at your side. When you move, the pet moves, instantaneously, it's linked to your character, and is invulnerable. Think of it like being a battery for your job's animations & weaponskills. The pet acts or performs actions when you press GCDs, while your character motions with the Jug or maybe a horn/instrument to command the pet. Of course intricate mechanics like comboing with your pet, being Scouting suppose it has a supporty-flair like Howl or Killer Instinct to buff the party.

[MagiusNecros]

I get you I really do but with how they treated Egi Glamour and their insistence on only one Voidsent demon to summon I just don't think they will do a FFXI Jug system. It could be really cool but I think too much time and work is required.

A problem they have had with pet actions is it's like they perform like macros by having a .5 second delay to anything they do.

I dunno if BST will become a thing or if it'll be a DPS or Tank but all I really hope for is a unique gameplay style because since a lot of the jobs play the same you can get bored really quickly.

I have hope they are thinking of things given that Bahamut and Phoenix have their own AI in PvP so there is still hope for a proper BST but given the track record I see them going the Tank route as it would be easier to justify another Melee without it getting too bloated and evens out the class ratio.

And then they can they can think about adding another ranged class which is I feel needed for Phys Ranged but also a Caster of the BLM variety.

When BLU gets updated I expect it to powercreep the jobs even more which will make playing even the current jobs a turnoff because in any game the stronger the Blue Mage gets the weaker everyone else is.

And I think when it comes to DPS you already have 5 melees, 9 if you add the Tanks. So I dunno.

If they do pet stuff it'll probably be oGCDs or special actions where you attack with the Pet or a bunch of different ones that don't change and it's just a aesthetic thing.

I'm with you on adding a Scouting class BTW to pad out the gear. So NIN's have some competition with loot. But I'm not opposed to things remaining the same because on the same token you aren't competing for gear.

[Hanayumi]

Are the devs talking about adding Pup into XIV again? I pray they don't. XI's Pup class was bliss and I would rather not have the devs touch that system. I can already think about how they would "streamline" the automation frames for "balance". Leave puppetmaster alone XIV, you have blu. ;A;

This was way back when blu initially came out, so given the so so blacklash on limited jobs its hard to see them working pup or even bst. Folks also got to keep in mind, blu is basically done during dev freetime when there isnt any major projects going on, its why they decided to delay blu stuff this expansion since they had a lot on their plate for EW launch.

[Videra]

snip

BLU in its current state and BLU as a real job are not mutually exclusive. By way of an example, have a BLU patch that brings it up to level cap be dedicated to giving it a functional caster DPS kit, maybe a dot-based one, those specifics don't matter.

Say, in a theoretical update that brings BLU to 90, its questline ends with giving it a cane that has actual real job stats on it. You then gain access to a 'template' system, where you can save and edit BLU profiles for future use and ease of swapping. It comes with a default profile that is legal for DF content, and part of the storyline is gathering that DF legal toolkit.

You can, from here, simply bring BLU up to level 100 in 7.0 and maybe change the legal toolkit to match that jobs get shifted around in expansions. Might be a pain in the ass Dev Side, but this way, you could preserve the mini-game part of BLU and make it a real boy. And it would be better than having a fan favorite languish in the limited job category for the sake of 'Class Fantasy'.