Viable BST Subjobs Post Abyssea + Lvl99

After being away from the game for a few years, I was wondering what the most viable subjobs are for BST since Abyssea and the level cap increase.

When I first started BST, /WHM was all the rage, but slowly /NIN became the standard for most situations, especially DD, due to dual axes.

Now before people start shouting "Dancer!," I know /DNC is basically the way to go for most situations, but I was just curious if /NIN has any merit anymore. Is it worth my time to level Ninja or does Dancer basically out perform it in all situations?

Regardless, I plan to level Ninja eventually either way, but if just returning, is it still a priority subjob to level like days past?

Any discussion on /WHM I'd be interested in hearing, as well.

/nin is not a priority for bst at all.

I have it, I've used it, but its very rare. You get a bit better delay from higher dual wield. and shadows.. but thats it. Shadows were mostly good for bst when charm failed or you were changing pets.

You rarely ever charm anymore and shadows get ripped up by AoE which is usually the only thing that hits you anyway. The only time I might use /nin is if I want a chance at yellow proc when solo farming seals in abyssea.

If you have whm support to take care of you, then /nin would be better for dd... but if you have whm support, you probalby wont' be on bst.

even so, the utility from /dnc trumps the increased attack speed from /nin by far.

/whm is still a great sub. its number 3 for dd because of haste. The utility is ofcourse thru the roof. W/ twilight mail, you never have trouble keeping enough mp. /whm is great for doing quests and missions and the few old fights where you still want pet only.

/sch is also a great mage sub. you pick up sleep, aspir, drain, but lose the haste. You also gain better potency from support spells like stoneskin from the skill from light arts.

/rdm can be useful, but you lose reraise and the enhancing you have is not as strong as /sch. /rdm is not as good for bst as /sch or /whm

I used to like doing /blu alot, but that only has a small level range of good utility. I haven't found a good use for /blu on high levels.

/blm or /drk can be useful too for stuns on magic casting mobs when it's too dangerous to melee yourself, just keep in mind that you'll lose that extra axe for -pdt or mdb or regen or whatever you desire.

I love that you mentioned /BLU. Such good times when bst/BLU was a hidden gem and even BLU/bst was awesome at lv30-40. Considering they are both the jobs assigned to controlling the beast abilities I always wished they worked better together in higher levels.

Ahh, thank you. Knew I forgot something.

I always loved bst/blu and blu/bst. I loved the style of crowd control you could manage w/ bst/blu using sheep song (chr mod) and charm. I worked through dc and em groups of mobs very thoroughly that way. Not to mention cocoon. it was loads of fun.

I used blu/bst for spell farming right up to 99.

THere are a few mobs with wild hate, mostly in abyssea, and /nin is useful there, but really /dnc just rains supreme. It offers some DD, stun, better pet gearing, and self heals. What more could you want.

/sch with sublimation makes running around with reraise, sneak and invisible so much easier I wish they really do something with 20 sec dnc version lol...

Also worth keeping in mind if you choose to sub a mage, bst has access to Entropy, which if geared properly, can do decent damage, though not as much as ruinator, but more importantly, offer you an unlimited supply of MP.

/dnc is pretty much the way to go. i however prefer /whm because with the twilight set you get regen/refresh. you lose a -pdt axe, but i've never had any issues with just one. i've considered my main bst for about 8 years now and have a special place for /whm. to each their own i guess..... not gonna lie though, if i do an event where dmg matters i don't go as bst.

Spectral jig costs nothing, is instant, and doesn't cause magic aggro. Even with the short timer it has advantages over the vanilla spells.

at the moment, for most bst encounters you're going to use /dnc.

when you're not running around with /dnc, /whm is the other option for solo. the only time you truly needed /nin was to survive a barrage of Despots fury in the past, these days you dont even need to pet swap Despot so thats out the window. by the way, what is a petswap?

you could also bring /nin for DD setups, but to resort to having a BST come to DD is in itself something fishy.

in solo these days its all /dnc. /nin will work, but in survivability cases it will lose to /dnc even with the shadows.

I always just went /DNC. Twilight mail, RR earring/hairpin, or a scroll took care of reraise, I was 90 something alchemy so spectral jig was never a concern, if I needed longer sneak I just popped a home made pot. Think the only thing I ever /mage on was that unicorn mob in Vunkerl that spammed lightning horn and other thunder based stuff for barthundra.

I usually /war for red procs in Abyssea. Just putting it out there.