Killer Instinct: The Beastmaster Compendium

I use mostly Argosy gear still for Decimation because I'm almost never BST in buffed melee party, usually solo with trusts or maybe GEO. Falkirk's set will both spike and average higher if your attack is high. Might be worth having a toggle for high attack versus low attack WS scenarios in your lua?

Rage is rarely useful compared to Corrosive Ooze. The times I use Rage are rare and usually involve situations where I'm using sheep to sleep adds plus solo melee'ing for damage. Off the top of my head I used Rage last month to solo Ambu vol 1 N (sleep to CC MNK add), I use it in Tenzen D solo on melee, and I use it in SKCNM Macrocosmic Orb fights sometimes. I can't think of any other situations where I'd rather use Rage than Ooze?

Thanks for everyone's great responses. I appreciate the help!

Not sure if anyones tried it. But how does pangu path b with the magian axe offhand for tp bonus do. Id imagine its probably pretty good for bst. But idk because i havent tried or ran numbers.

Last time I ran numbers I got Dolichenus > Aymur w/ Mistral > Pangu I think.

Thats good to hear. Just debating what to upgrade to r15 next or if i should work on pangu instead. Guess its time i start aymur to r15 then.

I had Tri-edge beating out aymur with a mistral spam.

It feels like this because i feel like i lose to much damage from setting up/using magic ws when only got physical buffs. But that am3 tp speed. Feels great.

Ok, I don't remember if I've posted about this before, but I have largely gotten the gear together I want, so I want to try and make BST a tank.

Now, my reasons for this are as follows:

1. Pangu. This weapon allows you to get half way to the DT cap without too much of a loss in terms of the main hand, and allows you to avoid having to sacrifice slots to defensive pieces as well.

2. Adepa Shield. Another 5DT, a pretty massive bonus to block chance, and Reprisal, which is getting buffed this coming update. I'm not too sure how much the on-hit effect procs specifically, but I see it often enough with some casual testing to think it's not super rare.

3. Pet Buffs. This is what really got me focused in on it, because we got some massive defensive buffs from our pets with the BST changes. The two I'm most focused in on are the crab and the boar, of course. Crab provides big defense, big MDB, and a spammable high HP stoneskin for some pretty constant reduction for both you and the pet. Boar on the other hand provides some MDB, but also provides what I believe is 25 Counter, a pretty large amount of counter that can be further buffed into a highly respectable 50 total counter

4. Killer effects. Largely ignored anymore, I think it's worth noting that on the mobs that they effect, they can be quite powerful. Even with the NM reduction, these come out to around 8% chance to totally resist any incoming damage without any other effects, which is quite a sizeable number. Add in the killer circle against certain mobs and you also get a pretty big boost, though this is often unreliable given you need specific pets to make it work. Though, with Empy +2 and +3 coming, the body piece might make an excellent slot for this, both buffing your damage and giving you some extra DT(which I think also applies after normal DT, so you can break the cap).

ItemSet 370719

This is the set I'm looking at, highly incomplete. Most notably, you can achieve the 50 DT pretty easily, since you only need 20 from the rest of the slots. I'm considering Counter and Chance to Block on the cape, so it'd be a matter of making up the 20 DT in the armor pieces. Mal pieces easily do this, though if you keep the ammo slot you can swap either the hands or the legs and still hit cap, I'm just not sure which piece would be better and what other thing to put in there.

Subjob is another major concern, and I'm not entirely sure what to do here. PLD is my idea at the moment, it provides a lot of the hate tools BST obviously lacks, in addition to a couple other minor shield buffs, but I'm not entirely sure if it's the right choice.

Anyways, as I said, this is likely just me being crazy, but I think this could be really cool if it can work.

Maybe, instead of the Pangu, the Aymur with AM3 will help keep threat?

Then maybe instead of that shield, the Beatific Shield +1 with 4 PDT and 29 MDT on it would be a good option!

Then you can wear the full Malignance Armor, the shield, 10% PDT on the cape and the ammo slot and you'll be at near DT cap. Then you can throw on the Chirich Ring +1s, which have subtle blow on them, which helps a ton if you're going to tank.

There is also the bunny pet that can heal you to help, if you get low, you can Snarl and swap to pet DT gear until you're recovered and resummon a pet if it dies. I think the debuffs from pets might help tank more than the buffs. Like Generous Arthur's attack down.

Crab doesn't provide any MDB, it provides MDT which is useless given that you are already at cap with Pangu + Shell V (29MDT). Remember that you only need 21MDT to cap. It's probably best to use crab/pugil for initial DT then switch jugs.



The only viable option is /BLU with a sird+enmity set. Right now you have created a job that can take damage but zero ability to keep enmity. Sadly, beast has no great way of gaining/keeping enmity. Unless you have a great way to either do damage to hold hate or generate hate with spells + enmity, you could possibly make this work with thief + dirge/sirvete and drg or /drg melee but that's a lot of support and coordination.

This is true and sad, but I do think the constant stoneskin is still worth considering. Especially since, if I recall, stoneskin hits don't lose any enmity because they hit for zero damage.


To be honest, I'm considering more single target tanking, ala NM pops and such, than I am group tanking, exactly because of the hate issues presented. This is why I considered /pld, since shield bash and flash both provide acceptable single target boosts to secure hate, and then use the DPS of the setup to enforce it.


I have also considered Aymur as a main hand for tanking, absolutely, depending on the swings to keep things up. I'm not sure how I feel about it in totality, because the biggest benefit to Pangu is being able to use the other slots more freely, like for example the counter setups.

As for the rabbit, it's absolutely worth using, but a big Curaga V+ every 20 seconds might not have the total impact on the fight as other jugs.

I'm also curious about the beetle, as BST has access to a few decent evasion pieces and adding 25% on top of that might push us into pretty high numbers. More of a gimmick then anything, but still, having a full DT BST with evasion like a THF might also be quite hilarious.

I tend to call this solo w/ trusts, unfortunately nomenclature in ffxi doesn't specifically provide a good name for this scenario.

I started looking into this one night, using some combo of killer effects + counter + shield to see how high damage mitigation could get against a lizard nm. However, I stopped after realizing how much gear I would of had to mule... let us know how it works out.

The 25% evasion looks interesting on paper, but from what Rua or someone mentioned at some point, eva doesn't scale well against high level nms. In particular there seems to be a level difference penalty, so stacking eva isn't really that beneficial.

When you /blu or /pld for enmity, you will quickly run into mp management issues.

/blu is better for enmity generation than /pld is. you have more tools to choose from. Also pet defense+ stacks with cocoon.

if you need the mp, maybe you fill out more of your tanking set with refresh pieces instead, Since Pangu caps dt so well. You lose out on alot of malignance this way, but I actually have 9/tic in refresh gear. Juamalik mail has enmity, refresh and 8% dt. so it probably one of the best pieces for bst tanking despite so many better options for defense alone.

/blu will still be better than /pld. you will generate more enmity and use less mp. Blank Gauze is your main tool. it has like 10s recast and costs 25 mp.


Full malignance + Rhino guard would be pretty incredible for eva, but as has been mentioned the real problem is how useless eva is in general for tanking.

I don't know how much I would want an SIRD set on bst. To cap it out, you need 5/5 alluvion skirmish pieces augmented for it, and you can still barely cap it out... while doing so, you wipe out all your slots for enmity+ gear.

Blank gaze and other /blu enmity spells take 3s to cast before fastcast, so i see little point for sird set. FC set will help more. and use good timing. If you have too many mobs on your to cast.. then you should probably snarl away, then start building enmity again.


hmmm...
I actually really like your counter set. I would change it up a little. with all that malignance gear, I would definitely want to get stp and counter on the artio mantle. between mantle, body, and piggie, you have 50% counter rate. That's pretty awesome. but focusing on stp, I would want to use Aymur for aftermath, so I would probably use flume belt +1, moonlight ring, and defending ring to fill out the damage reduction... though its 45% -dt and 4% -pdt. so 1% short.. could use a tp belt and loricate torque instead.
Still gonna have mp issues for enmity. but your dd is still quite good this way. I also just put dd earrings in (sherida / Telos)
I count 71 STP in this set, 33 MDB from gear + 25 MDB from Snort, combined w/ all that meva is pretty ridiculous.



I don't think 5% block rater with shield would compare.

These are all good points, and considering how to balance it is a big deal. A RDM or BRD with a single refresh song might be enough to offset this, but who knows.

Also, shields just got a flat defense buff across the board, and reprisal scales your block skill. How is still a mystery, but still, both those points help this idea out.

Also, I did not realize that cocoon and pet buffs would stack. That's kind of absurd, actually.

bathy choker +1 can easily add another 10 to counter now also.

looks like a fun build, and I actually have an stp mantle already, changing the def portion to counter is really easy, so i think I'll try it out. lacking malignance boots though.

a brd is probably most helpful for a bst tanking. Foe Sirvante, Mage's Ballad, March being the most helpful.

I think I only have like 50% FC for bst though. Its hard to cap.

Played around with it a bit more, the set now has 50 PDT and 43 MDT, 35 counter(so 60 with the boar), and a decent amount of regen.

ItemSet 370719

I've got three slots to fill, and I'm not entirely sure how to fill them. To be honest, my best idea was to wait for the next dark matter campaign and see if I can't get some Valor pieces with Refresh on them along with some decent melee stats, that'd cover some of the holes of the set.

But yea, I think the setup needs a THF to better control hate and a BRD to help with several of the secondary issues(like capping haste since the boar forces haste I), but it seems hilarious and possibly even acceptably good.

The buff to Adepa Shield didn't hurt either: doubling the DEF stat is a minor but still nice buff, and the Reprisal buff actually helps out BST shield skill a decent amount.

Edit: just tested the crab with Cocoon, they do not stack, and the Crab's DEF bonus is far superior.

I split it into 2 different defensive sets for testing. haven't been able to test yet though.

One set being the counter set, the other being refresh.

Refresh is much more of a turtle build, while counter is more of a hybrid dd/tanking build.

I'm actually quite curious how well a bst/dnc build could keep hate if having a good waltz set. My waltz set is incomplete, as I have been trying on DM campaigns. I have 3x refresh +2 valorous pieces, though I wasn't aiming for them, I ended up keeping them.

I think a good waltz build + animated flourish might work quite well in a hybrid dd/tanking set (counter set). Don't underestimate the power of all that Malignance gear.

I Might settle for taeon waltz gear if I get impatient enough. Stones for upgrading old taen laying around just got cheaper methinks.

I didn't even remember DNC, and with it in mind I think a lot of stuff gets easier. Waltzes might not be a bad way of building some hate either. No more concerns with MP either. TP gain might be a problem though.

Mdomo Axe +1 becomes a very good pet macc piece but I think if I were going that route maybe just a second Pangu on path A or B combined with path C MH would be more overall utility?


With which offhands? Aymur/Fernagu vs Tri-edge/Barbarity +1? I kinda forgot about Tri-edge to be honest but it seems like a very viable option, WS'ing at 1250 TP.

I have to correct myself:

Cocoon, does NOT stack with water wall, or Scissor Guard. They will overwrite each other.

Berserk, stacks with rage however, and Rage 'stacks' w/ Water Wall and Scissor Guard.

Having an issue with the gearswap from the OP

Is there supposed to be a text box displayed with the active modes? It looks like that's set up, and I see some icons included, but I don't know where those files are or how to get it to display.

Disregard, I forgot to install the Text addon in Windower

I had it winning if aymur and triedge were both using the same offhand. I think I compared tri/barb to aymur/fernagu. But i dont remember the results.

I retired my bst after doing a bunch of testing. But I had triedge beating out aymur pretty comfortably.

Next time they get some good stuff ill pull it out and test it again. Job doesnt stand out enough to unretire it unless it gets some improvements.

Yo, one of you read/understand jp? Matsui posted something that sounds really interesting. But google translate isn't "great"

It looks like some form of multihit something. It's in the new freshly picked.
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/57054-%E3%80%8C%E7%AC%AC51%E5%9B%9E-%E3%82%82%E3%81%8E%E3%81%9F%E3%81%A6-%E3%83%B4%E3%82%A1%E3%83%8A%E3%83%BB%E3%83%87%E3%82%A3%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB%E3%80%8D

That's interesting, just the rough translate. Some measure to increase the hybrid performance of beastmaster when fighting alongside pet? If S-E ever took master + pet gameplay seriously then that would be pretty great. The problem is this, though- since pets and players don't share buffs, you have to make the pet very powerful in its own right, and to some degree it has to compensate for the JA delay from Ready moves. A very powerful pet would allow us to exploit it for pet strats, too, though, encroaching on summoner's territory (which IMO would be fair since we have to sit right on top of everything!).

Let's see what happens. I am not going to get my hopes up after the last big beastmaster adjustment where they gave us two joke pets and messed up Ready timing, and then "fixed" it by making Ready have a long forced delay.

Geez I hope these morons fix my favorite job. ALthough when it is all said and done bst is likely to be something similar to drg. Which isnt bad, but really different than when i really loved this job.

Dragoon is one of the strongest and best DD's so if that was the outcome for beastmaster I wouldn't be mad at all.

I wouldnt be mad. but it changes how bst is. I liked bst because it played unique from other jobs. But i guess to get it to catch up we need to remove most of that. Id like to see more of a 50/50 split in dps between pet and master tbh.


Knowing SE they are going to remove decimation from bst and ninja buff smn.


I personally would like to see more synergy between the pet jobs. Like bst/smn should be a good job combo. Like make certain pet commands on drg/bst work or something. idk. it is annoying how they have it.Id like to see pet jobs be good subjobs for other pet jobs.

Asked a JP buddy, and it seems like google has it mostly right:

They're adjusting ACC on gear, adding in something that gives both you and your pet bonus acc when attacking the same target, adding some subtle blow to the master, the pet, or both to make up for the double attacks, adding a new pet, giving old pets new TP moves(it doesn't say which or how many), and adjusting the DEF on shields(this might have been the PLD update that already happened).

The subtle blow effect is interesting. Don't think anybody really cared much for that as a concern but whatever

I hope the adjustment to pet attacks when master is attacking the same monster affects their a attack rating or pdif of some sort; the biggest gripe on BST is having no real gear affecting both master and main St the same time. Having something that simply innately makes pets stronger when master is within their range, engaged, and attacking the same monster would be more beneficial than just an ACCURACY boost.

Probably won't be enough to overcome all of BSTs shortcomings, but it's a start on the right direction. Let's hope some of the new pets (SCORPION PLEASE) have something that gives decent TP moves as well as buffs, so BST isn't stuck playing the rotating jug pet game just to keep useful buffs on the master up

More of this please: