[ HMMM ] BST= Beastmaster as next class ... ALL WILL /bow

[Kranel_San]

As others have said. The devs have made it clear that a real pet job will not be a thing in the foreseeable future. See SMN for more details since it's an example of such an approach.
If you ask me how I can imagine a beastmaster as a normal job, then I'll say the only way I can imagine it working without having real pets at your side would be by having each skill calling out for a different beast or something similar in that regard. Think of release but each skill is based on it.
But if it was a limited job, then it can be either a real pet job (Since balancing doesn't matter) or by taming different beasts around the world where each kind can give a different skill. Think of Bozja lost actions but you acquire it from taming beasts and add more uses to it up to its limit by taming more which means BST would probably be on the lookout for taming more from a while to another.

[Shougun]

Said it in another BST thread a while ago but I think one way to approach having substantial actions on a pet while not having all the major issues FFXIV normally has with pets could be by having you assume direct control of the said pet. You can have it like Pokémon where the trainer, you, is still there and perhaps you have some minor actions you can do (or alternatively you can switch them on some cooldown interval such that you might control both throughout the fight), but the main point being when you need that direct responsiveness the command isn't going from you to the pet it's as if you had suddenly taken over the RP system some quests use.

Like using the new follower system we have in EW, that NPCs use so you can escort them about (except your character is the follower lol). Naturally you can switch when you want, for RP / sanity sake- but for combat you'd mostly control the pet (s?) directly.

Such a concept may get around the current pet issues the game has, and perhaps in general balance as well (for example do pets have health bars? it would be nice if they did, but then do you yourself also have a health bar?....). Here it would be like a single health bar, and you can unlink yourself perhaps via a special ability with duration / cooldown- such that you might be able to preposition 'teleports' (for next 60 seconds when controlling one the other doesn't reposition via follower system, now I can quickly control myself into a corner while the pet doesn't move or more ideally stays on target, then when I switch back my character is like a summoner egi and can't get hurt, and I can keep playing as the beast- finally when I need to 'teleport' I activate the ability again and my controlling character warps to my non-controlled character. Give it more range that most movement skills, but obviously it requires preperation, another movement skill might be just higher movement speed or pet dependent like powerful dash attacks as a big form, stacking faster movement speed on an agile animal, dash swoop on an aerial).

Only thing I don't really like about the idea is that it is vaguely akin to a transformation job, and one thing it would do well is allow you to show your character with all of it's glamour and have a transformation 'pokemon-like pet system' which is actually fairly smart idea..... but... I really want to get to personally transform lol. And I believe a transformation job can still have some customization via ideas like WoW had but also through a clever pick of weapon, for example I've suggested a scarf, cloak, sash, Nezha, like thing that would be incorporated not only in the forms you take but also in the transformation animations.

A simple picture for changing might be you'd have your weapon lift off you a bit more than however much it already was and a de-threading animation plays as it surrounds your character and then you change shape- might also think of some of the Bayonetta visuals with her hair. You might need to make a few standard shapes (just like many other jobs have for their common 'variants'), but so long as you're able to reuse those shapes with a similar texture I think the extra work wouldn't be too much (like scarfs could have a different pose and scale that fits on you with the same model / texture and fit on a wolf form- looking proper yet saving a lot of resources and still also allowing each job of this type a level of customization that usually transforming jobs lack, certainly some forethought in shapes but I think you can optimize the situation so it's not significantly more difficult). Originally I was really hoping for Diablos like theme transformations but with reaper it might not be bad to do others, obviously animals but you have WoW so that might feel like a copy, alternatively you may consider more Esper (like FFXII) which could be very cool, and potentially also take inspirations from the FFXVI game coming out in a bit.

[C000kiemonster]

The problem with pets was the lag in the days of modems or lazy tab targeting.

BST is golden age Final Fantasy and long overdue

[Kewitt]

If it was a real class.
Ability to store 4-5 different animals you catch in open worlds and can call as many times as you want.
DPS