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Final Fantasy XI Correspondent - A Look At The Beastmaster
MMORPG.com Final Fantasy XI Correspondent Wesley Bond takes a look at the Beastmaster class in the MMO chapter of the Final Fantasy franchise.
In the original version of Final Fantasy XI, the class Beastmaster was the only true solo job in the game, but players developed solo strategies for other jobs and new solo jobs have come from the expansions to the world of Vana'diel.
Still, Beastmaster remains the premiere solo class in the game. Its strength comes from the fact that you temporarily charm creatures in a particular region to fight other mobs for you. You are able to garner the strength of beasts that would normally take an entire party to bring down and use them to wreak havoc on your local adversaries. The style of play is very different from other MMOs where you normally keep and level a pet more like a sidekick. In the Beastmaster's case you learn to use the monsters at hand and utilize your knowledge of a creature's natural predators or a humanoid's weaknesses to tip the advantage in your favor. It is a dance of death whose steps must be carefully managed as you charm a path of destruction through the land.
Wow! It sounds like quite a powerful class, so what's the catch? Remember when I stated temporarily charm creatures? The downside to taming this power is living on the constant edge of death. You have no idea when a charm will release or whether your attempt will make a creature your friend or provoke an attack. A missed charm makes monsters angry and want to eat your face off. Nothing says "you're screwed" more than having that happen in the middle of a fight when your pet drops charm and instead of facing a mob you couldn't kill alone, now you're facing two. Use your imagination because in this field there are a number of ways to get yourself killed. It's an adventure to be sure. With great power comes even greater risk and reward, thus is the life of a Beastmaster. Players that pick this class can't be afraid to break a few eggs when making an omelet and by eggs I mean every bone in your character’s body. Know your home point, love your home point and remember where you set it last.
;)
Beastmaster is an advanced class in the game, which means you must first attain level 30 before you can start the first quest to become a tamer. You must complete the two quests Save My Son and Path of the Beastmaster to unlock the job. You will start Save My Son at Dietmund the merchant's house which is located above the chocobo stables in Lower Jeuno (G-11). Click on his door to start a cut scene and the quest to save his ill son. You must bring back a flower that grows on Quifin Island (below Port Jeuno) and blooms only at a specific spot and time of night. The flower coordinates are F-8 (once there look for path down to a lower cave) and the flower blooms between 22:00 and dawn. F-8 is a hostile location with nasty gobs that will quickly send your soul back to your home point and a huge kraken guards the cave where the flower blooms. You knew this wasn't going to be easy right? You can try two methods to retrieve the flower. First, you can use sneak (or oils) and prism powder (invisibility) to attempt to slink your way past to nab the flower. You will not be able to pick the flower if invisible, so the trick here is to appear and click on the point on the ground (the flower) before the Kraken does to you what he did to Captain Jack Sparrow. The second method is to have a high level player(s) mow down gobs, kraken and all. This will allow you to tip toe your way through the tulips and snatch your valued prize. My first time through I attempted the ill advised level 30 party and took a 275 damage hit to my Galka Warrior (tanking at the time for squishy mage types). I believe there may be blackmail photos still circulating of my de-leveled Galka lying naked on the beach surrounded by fellow male party member's dead bodies in various compromising positions. I went back with option number two and sought my revenge. Lastly there is a cut scene at the cave and once that is done, head back to Dietmund's house to get your Beast Whistle necklace. I want a t-shirt that says, "I killed a Kraken and all I got was this lousy whistle?" to commemorate my adventure.
Next is the Path of the Beastmaster quest and you can breathe a deep sigh of relief as this is a very simple quest. After completing Save My Son, head to Upper Jeuno stables (G-7) and talk with your old pal Brutus (chocobo riding quest) to start your next adventure. You will need to talk to Brutus, then the kid taking care of the chocobo and Brutus again. You will get the quest "Chocobo On The Loose!". You want to make sure you get a cutscene with Dietmund and his repentance for being a poor chocobo owner and Beastmaster. Brutus will say to you, "You have taken your first step. The path of the Beastmaster lies before you." Welcome to the club.
;)
Now the fun really begins because it's back to a starting area to level your new job. I would like to take this opportunity to challenge conventional wisdom. I have read articles where it is suggested to not charm anything until after level 10 and have had players offer to power level me past the first ten levels, but let me say you don't have to go that route. At level one go out and play with charming low level mobs and have fun making them attack other low level mobs. It is a great time to start getting a feel for how long charm lasts. They won't be able to keep aggro off of you at that level, but you can use them as additional damage dealers, allow them to whittle a mob down for you to finish in a single hit or you both attack different mobs for double the XP fun. Check your targets! Start developing a gut feeling on how long charms last on different level mobs. An easy rule of thumb is EP (easy prey) is 1-3 fights, DC (decent prey) 1-2 fights, EM (even match) 1 fight and TM (tough match) good luck with that. Eventually you will be able to work with tough and above but not so much at lower levels. Also any mob above Tough will cost you and a party some XP, so always keep that in mind when choosing a pet while grouping with others. When you are soloing it's not a big deal but in a party the experience will be calculated from the level of the highest party member including your pet so even match or below (jug pets are safe as well).
If you are up for some early low level fun, go to the Zeruhn Mines in Bastok and charm a leech, use your 2 hour Familiar and go on a killing spree, wiping out anything that moves, especially bats. Once you have a charmed pet, Familiar will hold that charm for 30 minutes or until your pet is killed. It also gives your pet a nice 10% HP bonus to boot. A good trick is to either setup a time macro or manually check Familiar in your menu and use the countdown to know when your 30 minutes is up. Once you hit that magical 1:30 left, then you know that pet is about to come unglued. Before that happens either allow the pet no rest between fights and kill it off or zone the pet. One of my favorite things is finding the nastiest creature in a zone, charm/familiar and go on a rampage for half an hour. Good times! You can have fun at lower levels and it is a great time to learn how to manage your pet. As you get to higher levels you will have more tools at your disposal but early on the threat of dying is a powerful teacher. Learn your lessons well.
Good article!
Gives a good overview of the job with fair warnings of the risks you run. BST has become something of an "art form" for many players I've known in-game, and they describe playing one almost like it's a different game entirely. I've unlocked the job myself, but never leveled it; never been much the soloing type and had other jobs I was focusing on first. Also have heard many times that if you really want to learn the mobs in the game, their strengths/weaknesses and place in the "food chain" (yes, FFXI has one... sort of), BST is a must.
Only one critique of the article... It's Qufim Island, not Qufin :-p. Easy mistake and no biggie, but just wanted to point it out.
Hmmm this made me want to pick up BST. Only problem is that most people use WHM as a sub and I really don't want to level BLM to 18, and then take WHM to 37, to THEN play a BST. That's annoying, and it would be easier if I hadn't chosen the route of a DD. Oh well, might still consider it one day.
I played FFXI for 2 years on the Seraph server and the BST class is really challenging and fun. No group needed, just you and the animal you charm. I recommend a taru for bst because of the amount of mana pool you get, though hume can do just fine as well.
Great article! BST is great fun, and definately a totally different job experience than any other. By the way, for those who think WHM is a 'must' to sub for BST, it's not!! :) I know many who have chosen different subs to level, some without lvling WHM past 1, yet still have 75BST. DNC, BLU, NIN, and other jobs are all extremely well suited as subs for BST. Give them all a try, experiment, and have some fun!
Well you don't have to do what "most people do" in order to play the game. I would think DNC or BLU could do well as subs, too.
I mean, if you're playing the job in order to solo, then who cares what others do, or what they think about how you play it, right? :) Experiment with something different.
That's one thing that really grew thin on me over time (and this isn't directed at you, Carpe, but about FFXI's community in general).. The way they expect specific combos to be played in specific ways. So many possible combos, but players have reduced it down to a relative handful of "cookie-cutter" setups.
I used to get flack for that all the time as DRG.
Others: "You should sub WHM with DRG"
Me: "I don't have WHM leveled"
Others: "What? Why? Don't you know you can solo like that?"
Me: "Yes, I'm very aware of that. I just haven't wanted to level a WHM. I'm more a melee person."
Others: "Well, you should. All good DRGs have WHM leveled"
Me: "Says you"
Others: "No, everyone knows that. You should learn to play the job right"
Me: "I know how to play the game, thank you. Not leveling WHM is my *choice*, not a "lack of knowledge. If or when I decide to level WHM, I will. I'm not going to do so because "everyone else" says I should. Everyone else isn't paying my monthly sub".
Others: "How do you solo?"
Me: "I don't. I join parties"
Others: "DRG don't get parties"
Me: "I'm level 75. How do you think I got that?"
Others: "'cause friends or linkshell members invite you out of pity. DRG sucks ass"
Me: "Your ignorance is astounding. The majority of invites I get are from people I've never met"
Others: "I'm not the ignorant one. I know how to play the game right"
Me: "You mean you know how to play the game the way everyone else says you should. That's not knowing how to play. That's following instructions and being another carbon copy"
...and on and on... That's not a verbatim quote of an exchange I had, but it's pretty darn close, and pretty typical of the crap I dealt with all the time from players who "played the way others said they were supposed to". I finally got sick of it.
But yeah... in the end, my advice is don't worry so much about what most others do. Most others don't put any more thought into the game than to look up guides online and then follow it step-by-step. Guides are great for reference, imo. But they should never be used as a "color-by-numbers" guide on how to play the game.
Newsflash: Beastmaster was not in the original Final Fantasy XI. The jobs in the original game were Warrior, Thief, Monk, White Mage, Black Mage, and Red Mage. Just like the original Final Fantasy game. Please check your sources before you type something you lose credibility when your first sentence isn't true. And what other solo jobs are you talking about?
Also, how to you propose making a time macro for 30 minutes when the maxium time for a /wait command is 60 second? Maxium of 6 "/wait 60" per macro technically, but realistically isn't possible. Not to mention once you hit another macro while in the /wait it kinda cancels your first one. So basically you'd be playing for 30 minutes without hitting a single other macro? Yeah what is their a third party tool that has a timer assocaited with it? 'cause that is illegal.
FYI beastmaster was in the original final fantasy XI, drg, nin, and sam were added with RotZ, blu, cor, and pup were added with ToAU and dnc and sch were added with WotG. Now if those jobs were the only ones added with the expansions, where do you suppose we got bst?
You are confusing starting jobs with original jobs. To quote you, "Please check your sources before you type something you lose credibility when your first sentence isn't true." Other solo classes include but are not limited to DNC, DRG, NIN, RDM, and just about anyone with /bst.
Thank you, I was just about to say the same thing to him.
And yeah, those jobs you mentioned are some of the best soloers. ANY job can solo well in FFXI, you just need to know how and where to do it.
Also, athough you stated "but limited to" for jobs to solo, I'd say THF should belong on that list right beside NIN and DRG and such
. I personally soloed very effectively and often on my THF, and once THF gets to high levels (70+, especially 74+) THF is one of the best and most efficient soloers in the game.
You have no idea how many of these types of covnersations i had while playing a Elvaan black mage...
although i did get alot of party invites still.
Well I'm with you as I don't fancy leveling BLM so what I did was WHM/BST and played it the same way. For the early stages you can use a Bird Whistle LVL 15 CHR+3 and maybe a Hope Ring LVL 14 CHR+2 to boost your Charisma up enough to help on sticking Charms. You work subbing BST just like you did when you first leveled the job. You don't have Leave so have to kill off your pet or zone it. I know that some people hate Beast until you get Leave but once I get into a rhythm, I find that it's not an issue. Find a secluded area and know where your zones are in case you have to run. If you are having problems or can't find your rhythm then work on easy, decent and even match mobs until you do. You won't get as much xp but your safety increases a lot. Pop an empress ring then go have a steady and safe level until you feel you want to try taking on tough mobs again. Since the last update, you get a lot more for easy mobs so it has made life better in that regard.
You could also sub RDM in parties with WHM for leveling though not as effective as BLM or as much mp boost but leveling RDM is easier to solo (for me anyways). Most player won't gripe about a RDM sub and if they do then they probably aren't worth pting with in the first place.
Sometimes the job trips me out. I was cruising through the Dunes in my mid-upper teens and ran smack dab into a Tough Goblin Gambler with no zone in sight. Normally this would spell death but I just kept throwing fresh mobs at him until he died. You just can't do that with any other job. Taking down T/VT/IT is unheard of solo especially at the low levels. I love the power. With a cool head you can do some amazing things.
It's one of those jobs you will either love or hate. I tend to run counter to the norm on things and play what works for me. When you're solo then what you do is your own business. I'm a Galka player and love the job. If you can learn to work it as a sub, you can level any job solo and it's a great way to level weapon skills that stink.
I'm doing guides on all the jobs. My best advice is to read them like you do when you eat watermelon....eat the good stuff and spit out the seeds. What worked for me might not work for you. I had Beasts scare me that the job sucked until you got Leave and I found that for me that was not the case. I'm not an uber know-it-all, I just like to talk shop with folks. I'm a pundit and am writing about how I see it from my point of view so not everyone will see eye to eye. It's all good.
I like the chat conversation that was posted. You'll get everybody and their dog telling you what's best...don't let it get you down. Thank them, ignore and move on. If I helped you or inspired you to try something new then great...if not /Ignore me. Fight the good fight and find people of a like mind to play with. Bottom line is if you aren't having fun then why play? Good Hunting to all.
-Wes
“The contents of this post do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com and its management.”
Just curious, what language is that you are using? That is probably one of the most unintelligible posts of the day on this site.
If you are going to use so many uncommon abbreviations, you had better supply an abbreviation list.