BRD/BST is the fastest leveler!!!

[CJack14dt]

I have seen many topics discussing this combination and saying that it's not effective except for the higher CHR. This is false. I started this combination and am leveling faster than anyone i've ever seen (except an exceptionaly good party). The idea that you can only tame monsters at the BST level (half of main) is false. You never have to heal with this combo. Your CHR is high enough to charm toughs. Send one tough to beat another tough or an even match to a tough and then use a attack boosting song and hit attack
(but stay back) and wait for one or the other (usually the enemy wins) to win and then because it will be so drained from the battle it only takes 2-3 hits to kill!! To cure the damage play Paeon quick and charm a new monster and immediately and start again. By the time their battle is over, you are fully healed and you get an experience chain if you do it fast enough. I have been soaring through levels doing this.


Oh and when you do your attack boosting song do not target the enemy, target your own pet as I've noticed the enemy will hate you less if even at all. (Yes I'm aware it does not boost your pet.) Also make sure you play your song a good distance away.

That's all there is to it!! It's awesome.

[UnnamedGalka]

The idea that you can only tame monsters at the BST level (half of main) is false.

Actually, that idea is most definitely TRUE.

BRD/BST will work effectively at very early levels (hell, pretty much anything can work when you first start out with a new job), but you're gonna run straight into a brick wall sooner or later.

Naturally, low level mobs have a very low resistance to Charm, which is why you're always landing each of your attempts. Once you start leveling up and the level gap between your main (BRD) and your sub (BST) gets wider and wider, you're gonna find your Charms being resisted every time.

I try to keep an open mind about unconventional characters, but sometimes you have to face the facts. If you REALLY want to keep this combo, stick with EXP parties, because you won't be able to solo with it for very much longer

[Bishop]

At higher lvls, mobs have an insane amount of hp that would take your pet too long to solo. You're better off sticking with a pt doing 4 chains for 200+ exp a kill.

[Herk]

Well, I hate to stick my nose where it probably doesn't belong, but I find my self wanting to be sure. Browse over to the Bst forum if you disbelieve, but the success of charm is based on your chr. At least according to all of the threads I've read. On the other hand, the length of your charm is based on your lvl vs. the mob's lvl. Now I am curious if it is your main lvl or you bst level which would be half your lvl. Good question to ask a beastmaster.

Even if it is you main level, rather than your bst sub's level, then yeah you could charm pretty good mobs, but it still doesn't seem as though it would be advantageous. I say this because you would be lacking bst abilities till way late - "reward", "sic", and most importantly "leave."

Seems like a cool, non-cookiecutter idea though.

Herk

[Aniga]

Originally posted by Herk
Well, I hate to stick my nose where it probably doesn't belong, but I find my self wanting to be sure. Browse over to the Bst forum if you disbelieve, but the success of charm is based on your chr. At least according to all of the threads I've read. On the other hand, the length of your charm is based on your lvl vs. the mob's lvl. Now I am curious if it is your main lvl or you bst level which would be half your lvl. Good question to ask a beastmaster.

Even if it is you main level, rather than your bst sub's level, then yeah you could charm pretty good mobs, but it still doesn't seem as though it would be advantageous. I say this because you would be lacking bst abilities till way late - "reward", "sic", and most importantly "leave."

Seems like a cool, non-cookiecutter idea though.

Herk

Well, I can most definately tell you that BST charm success is not based solely on Charisma alone. Today while camping the Lord of Onzozo, I was playing with my Beastmaster subjob. I couldn't charm Toramas, I couldn't charm the Kraken there, and I couldn't even charm the "Too Weak" scorpions there. Somewhere around my 30th try at Charming it (Kept it asleep and charmed it that way) my BLM friend who also had a subjob of BST walked up, charmed it, and released it without a sweat. I had a level 1 BST subjob and 136 Charisma with my Etudes. He had a fully leveled BST subjob (73/36 BLM/BST) and under 90 Charisma. BST levels definately have something to do with charm success.

Though on a note for comparison, I had absolutely no problem charming Toramas and anything else in there with Maiden's Virelai.

If the BST sub is kept high, perhaps this might be a viable idea. I'm not really interested in leveling my BST to 37 to see if I can charm Toughs or not though

[Akari]

Advantages of sub BST

- Ok soloablity. I dont know what you consider exceptional but unless the pt sucks they have more killing power then you. Though you can eaisly make 100 exp a mob solo at lower lvls.

-Higher CHR. Not a considerable boost.

Disadvantages of sub BST

-Using a pet is a 30% exp penalty till your 75
-You cant release the pet which means you have to wait for it to turn on you to to recharm it.
-Yeah its easy to kill of 25% or less of a mobs hp in valk try doing that to a lvl 40 mob.
-Pets are always full of tp. Sick just doesnt reset often enough. So your pet is going to sp you when it turns on you.
-Charm success is affected by the lvl of BST main/BST sub though. This isnt as litteral as you can only charm mobs that are even to your sub.

Over as a pt combo it sucks. As a solo combo its not horrible.

[SweetStupp]

BST sub

I read in another post that a lvl 1 BST sub charmed a lvl 29 monster... and your saying that a charmed pet in a PT is bad.
I played BST for 20 levels and the xp is hella slow. (irrelevent? iunno, it sounded ok when i first typed it)
Soloing a T after your pet has died - 120-140 xp
Soloing an EM after your pet has died - 72-100xp
200xp with 30% xp loss - 140 xp (theoretical but hardly unlikely IMO)

What are you contributing to the PT? an EM member of the PT and your subjob (healing, melee, etc). the EM deals quite a bit of dmg. Please don't mention other members of the PT losing XP because I haven't heard any complaints from my PT and I do get 30% less than them.

And lastly, why would BST want to PT? because its dangerous out there. I die too often when my pet turns on me or I get a linked monster. In a PT you can get a raise, and there are many ways to deal with a linked monster (sleep, let your pet(s) tank it until the PT is done with the first monster, take them both).

BST in a PT doesn't suck. Please correct anything wrong and prove they suck.

[Mikeb]

Why BST sub sucks:

- No broths
- No Pet Food
- No Sic until lvl 50
- No Release until lvl 70
- No Tame until lvl 60
- If you're Bard your melee sucks - have fun killing a T-VT at lvl 40+ even if it's at 2% health
- If you're not Bard have fun trying to charm stuff

As BST main I've had solo EXP chains up to 3 or 4, every fight above 200 xp...(that was at lvl 37 - found a real nice lvling spot). Since I got release I've been levelling about 1 lvl per day, only playing a few hours a day, and am very quickly catching up to my LS...

Soloing is tough enough with an A- axe skill and access to lots of heavy armour and weapons, Bards should stick to parties (where they are #1 support anyway).

BST's in a party are great if you're in the right spot - with an EM pet and /War you'll easily be doing the most melee damage in the party. However I solo because I like to level at my own convenience (can log on whenever I feel like it, level for as long as I want, and leave whenever), and because I'm sick of noob parties.

[SweetStupp]

Why BST sub sucks:

- No broths
- No Pet Food
- No Sic until lvl 50
- No Release until lvl 70
- No Tame until lvl 60
- If you're Bard your melee sucks - have fun killing a T-VT at lvl 40+ even if it's at 2% health
- If you're not Bard have fun trying to charm stuff

we were talking about bard (i don't know whether bard can tame decently), bard should not solo, and one reason my BST PTs is because I don't yet have release, sic, or calm. also I'm subbing BST as an experiment to see if my bard can help the PT even more than another sub. In valkurm for example, my pet dies in a PT due to AoE attacks only, about every 8 battles (rough approximation). Then I head out during downtime to pick up another pet.

This is to say in a PT why some of those "Why BST sub sucks" reasons do not apply as severely.

I also find it difficult to chain like you do. I end up killing EMs. I'll go read more on normal BST XP later.
One thing I did read was 70WAR/35BST was a very damaging character, maybe one of the most damaging (I do not understand why). Don't discount this until you explain to me why they would be one of the most damaging and compare their damage. But this would be an example of a good BST sub.
Edit: maybe its because of a high AXE/GREATAXE proficiency. only thing i can think of

[Herk]

One thing I did read was 70WAR/35BST was a very damaging character

I don't know why that would be true. At lvl 59 you'd have 12 less chr than a bst/whm(even more at 70) so I believe you'd have a bit of trouble charming anything worth while, and just pure melee is worse than say a drk/war. So, I don't know what would be damaging about it, gimped melee and no pet. I'm curious if there is any support for that argument out there.

Herk

[UnnamedGalka]

Over as a pt combo it sucks.

BST is definitely not the optimal BRD sub for EXP parties, but it's not completely horrible, either, on account that a BST sub gives you the best CHR bonus. There are worse subs for BRD out there.

[Layoneil]

There are worse subs for BRD out there.

like DRG, isn't that the worse sub for everything?

imo, BRD/BST is a decent soloing/farming combo, having a pet do some extra damage is always a good thing.

/BST does not take advantage of the best qualities of the BST main job (which someone has already listed).

combined with what we all should know as the benefits of /WHM or /RDM even, /BST will be quite inferior.

[sudo]

war/bst

War already has A in Axe use. Subbing something woun't make it any better or worse.

equipment not affected

bst active abilities like charm, tame, gague, heel, stay, etc, are not useful in most areas.

You do not want to use charm as an extra provoke because once in a while (10% ish) you will actually succeed a charm against an IT. and guess what? charmed mobs give no exp even if you kill them after they break charm. IT will break charm in liek 10 sec. Then you'd have to kill them again but no exp gain.

The bonuses of a war/bst

you can tank fairly well against certain types of monsters. Bst have "killer" passive abilities that give them protection from certain creatures.

you can join a pt. (but what's the point of a pt if you are already lv 75 and killing HNM's all day? (maybe charm a too weak to help hit? not too much damage but some help I guess, although most HNM areas won't have anything you can charm and as a sub you can't use broths)

You basically get a free paralyze that is always active and you do a bit more damage. I am not sure how much. 5%? (You will still miss out on some of the higher level killer abilities though lv70 beast killer for example)

Bst is a melee job, so melee sub melee does work pretty well. And if we ever figure out if provoke is affected by chr, then maybe that'd be another reason to sub bst.