Will Beastmaster ever be given a true pet companion?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

I had recently finished the BST AF storyline and much like SMN, PUP and DRG in this storyarch the bond between BSTs and a pet was emphasized. Without ruining the rest f the story for others, this BST had an Opo-Opo as a constant companion.

But in the way BST is played, its the direct opposite - the pets we charm aren't constant companions, they're disposable and so are our jug pets. And while this serves us in solo very well, we have access to few jug pets that equal BSTs in level, which doesn't help us much in parties. PUP, SMN and DRG all have pets that grow with them in power and are constant allies, yet BST has nothing loyal to him.

We do get a bigger range of pets than other jobs, but again, not all of our jug pets end up equal to the BST's level like a steady pet would in other jobs. Summoners must endure many trials to obtain avatars and I think BSTs could stand to have least one quested pet that could always accompany them when called, maybe a pet of their own choosing as a reward for such a quest. And perhaps we could do this at the expense of no longer being able to call the jug pet version of this familar.

Clearly, we don't want to break BST's ability to charm a wide variety of creatures or obselete the use of pet jugs, but I feel a steady companion would be a good option for BSTs in EXP PTs and zones where there are not any charmable mobs.

So, simply put, are there any plans to give BST a pet they can always call upon as a companion without the use of jugs or Charm?

[Spiritbear]

Re: Will Beastmaster ever be given a true pet companion?

I like the idea of giving Bst the ability to quest a companion that we can always call. I would like to pick a pet type and go quest it then give it a name and have it grow with me or even have it start out really low and have to lvl it to match me before I could use it. I know that would be a major pain in the a** for some of us but it would be worth it in the end. I would much rather that then always having to call or charm a pet that just dies, even if our permenant companion shared the exp with us (and only the Bst) it would make us a little more viable in partys.

Just my .02.

[Eohmer]

Re: Will Beastmaster ever be given a true pet companion?

Didn't Dar from the Beastmaster fims have a panther and an eagle?

Constant companions. :)

[Spiritbear]

Re: Will Beastmaster ever be given a true pet companion?

I thought he had a Tiger, Eagle and 2 ferrets as compainions.

[Eohmer]

Re: Will Beastmaster ever be given a true pet companion?

I thought he had a Tiger, Eagle and 2 ferrets as compainions.

You're right. I'm sorry. It as a black tiger, I guess that's why I thought it was a panther.

"Dar's black tiger is actually a regular striped tiger dyed black. The dye would wash off around the mouth whenever the tiger took a drink, so throughout the film the stripes are often visible around the mouth."

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Will Beastmaster ever be given a true pet companion?

I like the idea of giving Bst the ability to quest a companion that we can always call. I would like to pick a pet type and go quest it then give it a name and have it grow with me or even have it start out really low and have to lvl it to match me before I could use it. I know that would be a major pain in the a** for some of us but it would be worth it in the end. I would much rather that then always having to call or charm a pet that just dies, even if our permenant companion shared the exp with us (and only the Bst) it would make us a little more viable in partys.

Just my .02.

Well, I don't think a BST should be forced to go back and leveled thier pets in the manner of a NPC fellow. I wouldn't be against having the pet skillup, though, since that can be done more quickly.

As for a quest, I'd actually like the quest a pet that doesn't fall under the typical mob types or maybe something we just don't commonly charm or have trouble with when we do. The BST in the AF quest had an Opo-Opo, which are great pets but difficult to charm. I think being able to quest a Cactuar pet would be a tad overpowered, but a choice of perhaps a Courel, Opo-Opo, Variable Hare or Colibri would be nice. Dhamel wouldn't be bad, either.

[Idun_Midgardsormr]

Re: Will Beastmaster ever be given a true pet companion?

I think it would be a great idea! BBQ's choices would be good, but I'd leave the dhalmel off though for technical reasons:

Dhalmel is one of those oversized mobs that sets off the rumble in the gamepad when it moves. Like the antlions and the scorpions, this makes them instantly dislikeable as pets since putting the gamepad down for a moment (to scratch your nose or whatever) results in the gamepad dancing around on the desk like a thing possessed!

Unfortunately, there is no way inside the game to turn the rumble off short of logging out and changing the config - this would be an annoyance not just for the BST themselves, but for any other players nearby also, party members or not!

An opo-opo or a coeurl would be awesome though, especially since it should be able to zone with the player. Perhaps limit the recast on it so it can't be recalled if it dies, similar to the wyvern? It would certainly lend itself to helping resolve the lack of affordable jugs at level 75 since less people buying the jugs will force the price down to something more reasonable!

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Will Beastmaster ever be given a true pet companion?

Yeah, I think as far as pet jugs go, we need an equalizer to bring the prices down on the high-end HQ jugs. Its not unlike the problem with COR being singled out on the price of iron bullets - we're really the only class that makes use of this stuff, so crafters exploit that fact.

And I don't think its terribly fair to BSTs that we're not able to command our pets to do specific attacks while BLUs can spam some of those same attacks at will. If we can't pick the option of commanding pet TP attacks, I think that a constant pet would be nice since it would add something to PTs more often.

Perhaps the AoE effects of these quested pets could also be altered to single target since that's the biggest problem with not being able to pick your pet attacks. You can't control whether or not its an AoE, which can endanger the pet.

[Legal Fish]

Re: Will Beastmaster ever be given a true pet companion?

I don't think this is necessary, even for flavor.

What BST really want, aside from being able to DD like WAR, is to find jug pets useful and to be able to solo with Charm. The former is only partly true and the latter is it's former glory because of that retarded MPK fix. BST also wouldn't mind a good 2hr.

Jug Pets practically are exactly what you are describing. They are even named "Familiars", which if you didn't know, is the classic name for long-term pets in Fantasy games. They are named/unique monsters. Perhaps they could use some character depth, that can solved with a quest or few.

Three problems plague Jug Pets: their timer, their creation, and their tactics.

First off, most jug pets are only out for 20 minutes and the uncapped ones for 15 minutes. Since most usually parties last from anywhere between 30 minutes to 4 hours... I think it's clear why this is a problem. Crab Pets should last 40 minutes, normal pets should last 30 minutes, and the rarer pets should last 25 minutes(Basically add +10 minutes to each jug pet).

The recipes for the CoP Jug Pets are insane. Did you know it is much easier to HQ a Scorpion Harness than it is to HQ the Antlion Jug? In comparison, all of the other jug pets(which exception to ones like Amigo Sabotender) are below 40 skill cap, making HQing them not so far. On top of this, the methods to obtain the materials unique to these recipes can be brutal. Can anyone explain why Alchemist can't make Antican Acid? Anyway, just drop the skill caps for all CoP Jug Pets to 40~ range and make some of the rarer materials come from things like Assault and be craftable.

Tactics. Pets need to be smart, especially Jug Pets. What moves they use with Sic should be based on the situation. For example, let's look at classic Courie Carrie:

When Cabby is taking a decent amount of damage: He will use Metallic Body(stoneskin) and Scissor Guard(defense up) more often. If it is magical damage, he'll use Bubble Curtain(shell).

When Cabby isn't taking much damage: He'll will use Big Scissors. In addition, if he won't hit any other creatures, he'll use Bubble Shower. He will use these two almost exclusively, focusing on doing damage.

One of BST's biggest problems is that when they want to do damage, the monster ends up buffing himself with something like Shell.


Quiver-able Jugs and Reward treats would help a lot as well.


Now for Charm/Solo... the MPK fix was beyond retarded. I'd like to address it, but it wouldn't be the right topic for it. Maybe I'll make a thread for it. Anyway, letting BST solo again would be very nice.


Familiar needs to be more potent. It's suppose to mimic the "personal" companion feeling. It should be changed to last 1 hour and the stat difference should be pretty visible. The idea would be to summon a Jug Pet for an exp party and use Familiar to save on money. Reward should become more potent with a Familiar'd pet.

Hell, Call Beast should be a level 5 ability. Did you know BST is one of the only melee without a level 5 ability? At level 23 they get access to 5 jugs. You can spread that out from level 5 to 23.

[RunningDemon]

Re: Will Beastmaster ever be given a true pet companion?

First off, most jug pets are only out for 20 minutes and the uncapped ones for 15 minutes.

When Cabby is taking a decent amount of damage: He will use Metallic Body(stoneskin) and Scissor Guard(defense up) more often. If it is magical damage, he'll use Bubble Curtain(shell).

When Cabby isn't taking much damage: He'll will use Big Scissors. In addition, if he won't hit any other creatures, he'll use Bubble Shower. He will use these two almost exclusively, focusing on doing damage.

1. No. Most jugs last 30 minutes, besides amigo/lars/chucky that go 15.
2. Their TP moves are random.
3. All BST needs is uncapped jugs from NPCs or with a sane recipe, or ability to choose to choose TP move.

[Legal Fish]

Re: Will Beastmaster ever be given a true pet companion?

2. Their TP moves are random.

I know this, you quoted my idea to fix that.

3. All BST needs is uncapped jugs from NPCs or with a sane recipe, or ability to choose to choose TP move.

Cooks are in bad enough shape as it is, so sane recipes make more sense, which is what I suggested.

Choosing a TP move seems odd to me since its quite a leap from Sic. I think it has its problems as well:
-SE would either have to add tons of menus for almost every single monster in the game. It would be like adding over 60 Avatars and their BPs in one update.
-Would completely slaughter some macro sets for players. A lot because of what I said above.
-Would require Sic to be removed from the game.

Just having it work more subtle like Automatons or Fellows makes more sense in my opinion and be a lot easier to implement.

Are you sure that there is only three of them that go under 30 minutes? I had a good idea that most don't. I guess you would know more than me on the matter, so whatever. Despite that, the ones you mentioned should stay out longer.

[RunningDemon]

Re: Will Beastmaster ever be given a true pet companion?

Bleh, didn't see the for example part.

But the only jugs I know of that are not 30 minutes are Amigo/Lars/Chucky/(mebbeGalahad).

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Will Beastmaster ever be given a true pet companion?

What BST really want, aside from being able to DD like WAR, is to find jug pets useful and to be able to solo with Charm. The former is only partly true and the latter is it's former glory because of that retarded MPK fix. BST also wouldn't mind a good 2hr.

We have the same rating in Axe as WAR. We just lack a worthwhile DD job trait or ability that are usually native to other DDs, we're forced to draw on from a subjob, limiting our PT subjob choices quite dramatically. /WAR gives us much of what we need, /NIN gives us nothing but Dual Wield, which isn't enough.

Familiar lets us keep a charmed mob - regardless of this difficultly level for a half hour. Our two-hour is fine.

Jug Pets practically are exactly what you are describing. They are even named "Familiars", which if you didn't know, is the classic name for long-term pets in Fantasy games. They are named/unique monsters. Perhaps they could use some character depth, that can solved with a quest or few.

Jug familars are very weak - even some of the HQed ones - and aren't always uncapped. All other pet jobs can call pets that are always equal in level to them, this is unbalanced and needs to be addressed either in uncapping the jugs or something like what I've suggested.

And there is nothing really unique about the jug pets, I don't know where you're getting that from. They have no special attacks over their general family.

Can anyone explain why Alchemist can't make Antican Acid?

Its an antican drop. Not terribly difficult to obtain.

Tactics. Pets need to be smart, especially Jug Pets. What moves they use with Sic should be based on the situation. For example, let's look at classic Courie Carrie:

When Cabby is taking a decent amount of damage: He will use Metallic Body(stoneskin) and Scissor Guard(defense up) more often. If it is magical damage, he'll use Bubble Curtain(shell).

When Cabby isn't taking much damage: He'll will use Big Scissors. In addition, if he won't hit any other creatures, he'll use Bubble Shower. He will use these two almost exclusively, focusing on doing damage.

Just allowing BST to pick an offensive or defensive state would be good enough, changing AI wouldn't do terribly much.

Quiver-able Jugs and Reward treats would help a lot as well.

Agreed.

Now for Charm/Solo... the MPK fix was beyond retarded. I'd like to address it, but it wouldn't be the right topic for it. Maybe I'll make a thread for it. Anyway, letting BST solo again would be very nice.

I understand the MPK fix in its intention and I wouldn't be 59 now if I couldn't work around it. At the very least, the despawn times should be increased so we don't lose a pet we may want to keep. The MPK fix cannot be undone because players and RMT would go right back to exploiting it for NM claim.

Hell, Call Beast should be a level 5 ability. Did you know BST is one of the only melee without a level 5 ability? At level 23 they get access to 5 jugs. You can spread that out from level 5 to 23.

I think we just need a set of melee abilities and traits, the Killer effects are all well and good as traits for damage until you get to chimera, beastmen, archane and demon-type mobs, three of which. are commonly EXPed on these days.

Call Beast's placement is appropriate, if you haven't learned anything about pet hate by level 23, you're in for a rude awakening at level 23 when you get this ability. You can learn much about Charm and pet hate if you choose to solo prior to that point. Problem is lots of BSTs just take PLs now, so they don't learn anything and fail in solo.

[Feba]

Re: Will Beastmaster ever be given a true pet companion?

Better Call Beast/Jug is definitely the path to take with BST. Honestly, if you want to be friends with your pet, play DRG, if you want to have consistant pets, but be varied, play SMN, if you want to have a wide choice of puppets, play BST.


BST definitely could use some improvement with regards to jug pets (and cooks could use more reciepes), but having the same pet would detract from the job, in my opinion, especially if it makes Charm useless.

[Legal Fish]

Re: Will Beastmaster ever be given a true pet companion?

We have the same rating in Axe as WAR. We just lack a worthwhile DD job trait or ability that are usually native to other DDs, we're forced to draw on from a subjob, limiting our PT subjob choices quite dramatically. /WAR gives us much of what we need, /NIN gives us nothing but Dual Wield, which isn't enough.

In my opinion, Killer Traits are too weak and if improved, this can fill this void. Something like +5~10% Attack Bonus and +5% Critical Hit. Have Circle effect give this same bonus to party members and give the user twice the bonus than normal. Have gear give something like +2% attack and +1% Crit for each piece. Kind of funny how ever job with a Killer ability is deemed lower-tier in merit? DRK, PLD, DRG, BST, and SAM.

Its an antican drop. Not terribly difficult to obtain.

That doesn't explain why they can't make it. Alchemist make all kinds of acid, they should be able to make this.

Familiar lets us keep a charmed mob - regardless of this difficultly level for a half hour. Our two-hour is fine.

I disagree quite strongly and I think there are others who wound too. I'm sure there was others who thought DRG's 2hr was fine, but in truth it wasn't. 2hrs needs to be monumental. The most use the 2hr gets is people playing with the Kraken at Qufim.

Jug familars are very weak - even some of the HQed ones - and aren't always uncapped.

This is where the 2hr can come in. Familiar means your personal companion. If a BST gets into the party, someones his jug pet, then uses (improved) familiar, he would have a 1 hour pet with very good stats.