Pet Classes /Personalization/?

[Shurrikhan]

thats no solution.

imagine a bossfight against garuda with a beastmaster in party.. after 3 minutes "oh sorry guys.. my pet ran away"
do you REALLY think a beastmaster would get invited then anymore? a beastmasters positive aspect is his pet and its monsterskills. when he loses it many times within a fight its nothing more than ineffective, useless and annoying of course.
the only guys who liked that job in FFXI have been pure soloist players or masochists. the system itself was just poorly bad. (and that opinion coming from a person who loves pet jobs)


and isnt it better to have a real "companion" with you as a beastmaster instead of always wild and timid pets who run away how they want to? Does a wild horse run away after you succeeded taming it?..

to make him a useful class for groups.. and of course.. less ANNOYING..

*the resistable charm would give BST the option to charm mobs, that are at a higher level with a risk that they can break the charm at anytime.

because a pet only does not grant you a place in a party. when they are going to introduce BST they should do a bit more than just a charm skill.

You could always change the way a Beast-master works depending on his being in a raid vs. simple leveling. Having the possibility of your pet running away, while being fairly bursty when able to partly influence that same wild (and thereby non-weakened) enemy beast would be a fun part of leveling. Though even then it would certainly help to have a spare consistent (weaker) pet at the ready to back you up.

All it really takes is formula changes. A "tamed beast", as compared to a "pet", would keep its additional abilities and strength, rather than sharing strength with you based on your stats and its calculation types, but is able to flee. A single additional pet slot already allows a beast-master to be used to cause friendly-fire among enemies in the worst of cases, without the risk that comes with being unable to replace the risky minion at a later time. If that's not enough, we could set boss fights to keep "tamed beast" type skills at "pet"-calculated loyalty and strength. This would allow certain pre-scripted encounter variance dependent on having certain beasts from before the boss fight, etc, without immense risk (aside from perhaps losing whatever bonuses you've worked up between you and your pet during the fight before fleeing or going berserk on your party).

I'd prefer that taming itself not be too easy at low levels, and taming by spell alone not last long without due later effort even at high levels. I'm fine with seeing it rarely used in instances when there's not enough time to lead a lonely-looking enemy wolf away with a line of meat slabs, kind telepathy, and some petting. We always have our primary pets, and at some point we'll hit the limits of our kennel sizes, no matter how much room we're given.

Edit: I completely agree with SodRansom that taming should be a major element of the job though, for those who wish to use it. It's a feature of the job that goes beyond merely how it does combat, and removing it would be like a Gambler class without any risk involved in its structure. Trusting the instinct of a beast, guarding against it, efficiently or optomistically balancing both... those are some pretty cool thematic elements, to put it mildly.