Killer Instinct: The Beastmaster Compendium

... yeah, I've been trying to use this dm augment campaign to fill out my waltz potency set. got 8% and 9% pieces so far.

thinking focusing on dnc waltzes and flourish for enmity might be more fluent than /blu mp management.

Also, I stumbled over an old note I want to test tonight. I'm not sure where it came from, and I'm not sure if its true.

However, the Reward page on ffxiclipedia notes that Reward generates enmity for the pet. So I want to see if I can test that. I don't have trouble keeping my pet alive, so I don't bother with reward recast merits, but maybe its another thing to see. also, would be interesting to try pet enmity gear with reward.


hmmm... digest only has tp modifiers so maybe using enmity+ w/ digest would be useful.

I hope you trolling lol

I looked into it, and it seems alright, but you more or less get it to a sort of crappy flash. Likely can hold hate for you, but not for any real party situations.

/dnc for heals and the voke does seem like the best choice. What I think is actually kind of interesting is that heel has 300 Volatile, so you can actually start some pulls by siccing your pet on the mob and then pulling it back. Bonus points for being able to use a pull enmity+ set, since the move has zero requirements.

It's a lot of animation lock though, so using it during combat likely isn't worth it.

Did we ever confirm how much Counter both Vickie and the BST get from Zealous Snort? Does it mirror the 25% Haste, +25 MDB also on it?

Spent a little while theory-crafting Subtle Blow / Counter builds and the potential is frightening. This is what I've thrown together with the options I have.

ItemSet 375091

This puts me at 60% Counter with Zealous Snort active (assuming it is 25%) and at 70% Subtle Blow. Even without Zealous Snort, again assuming it is 25%, 35% Counter is a pretty decent number; that actually beats the base rate a mastered MNK gets (22%).

This is what I am aiming towards. I think a build like this would be very interesting.

ItemSet 375093

I don't remember testing it. I would have to go back and look, but I'm pretty sure the counter rate is 25% from Zealous snort. In fact that was tested for just pet before I returned in 2015.

My current set almost matches exactly what you just made on the goal except for the malignance feet... which refuse to drop for me so far. Also, I wasn't using moonlight rings, I swapped in a chirich ring for subtle blow because no sb from dagger.

I used it for mephitas farming last night, and the difference when it was active vs inactive was very noticeable. I will say that AoE physical moves are really the main threat w/ the above set. There is so much mdb, mdt, meva that most magic just doesn't affect you.


I definitely prefer Aymur/Fernagu over Dolichenus/Digirbalag.
Even though Decimation can get a bit higher... with Aymur/Fernagu, I have 3x weaponskills around 30k~35k range and lots of skillchain options. Mythic Am3 is really nice too.

I actually very rarely hit the better numbers with Decimation, and decimation can be replaced in all skillchains with either primal rend or mistral axe.

I've also noticed on wave 2 farming in dynamis, before tandem strike, I would swap out of fernagu for offhand because the accuracy was just so bad. My accuracy was sill 93% on wave 2 once tandem strike as added.

changing to /drg in a fencer build is not bad also. its exactly where you want snort to be job ability haste instead. The tp bonus from fencer + the wsd from /drg makes up for the tp bonus loss of fernagu. self-skillchaining is really not hard in the /drg am3 build. 25 ja haste would make it absolutely perfect. /war would be better for decimation, ruinator and rampage build ofcourse, but /drg is better for mistral axe, primal rend, cloudpslitter and calamity. However you can get more defensive buffs from adapa shield or sacro bulwark also.

The defense is rather astounding while maintaining really good dd capabilities. Subtle blow, counter, 50% mdt, 58 mdb, lots of meva and eva, shield blocking, and 40~50% pdt as well. really high hp also. Its builds like this that make you wish bst had some enmity tools.

I'm leaning more defensive, myself, but I do think the concept is kind of crazy.

ItemSet 370719

50 PDT/48MDT, max SB, 35 Counter, and a decent amount of MDB and other gimmicks. About the only annoying thing here is that it's fairly slow, 7 hit build, though being one handed that's less of an issue than it seems.

What interests me so heavily here is the sheer defensive layers a BST has. Counter, Block, Intimidate, a good HP pool, Snarl...

I guess Scythe WS wouldn't do better than axe still. Not enough options, but I was thinking scythe might be more possible with tandem strike.


hmmm... also in the charm set... augmented metamorph ring +1 has 16 chr.


Seems the upcoming odc update will only have a few pieces of gear bst can equip:

Habilitator
Forfend
Dominance earring
Loricate Torque


I would guess Habilitator gets damage +35, accuracy & magic accuracy +30~40 and 1 more thing.. that 1 more is really what determines if its worth upgrading or not. It is a bst only axe so it could be something creative and useful (or completely boring) The axe has 18 str/dex/chr already and its styled as a master dd axe....
I'm guessing the main thing that would make me look twice at it would be a health boost to killer effects.

Forfend.... could get some dd buffs.. but thematically it comes from Tolba, so my hopes are not hight. Defensively it is far outstripped by Adapa Shield and Sacro Bulwark.

It already has a little accuracy and macc on it, so I expect it will get some more... but I wouldn't be surprised if it got exactly the buffs that Evalach got.. which would be disappointing.

I expect Dominance earring to get 10 dex and 15 accuracy.

Loricate torque is really wide open. It could go up just a bit more dt and def... or it could get a supporting buffs like hp + or enmity+ for tanking, though all jobs would not like the enmity+ most likely. I tink they will add something quirky and different here.

edit: I submitted bug ticket suggesting zealous snort showing up as magic haste instead of job ability haste to be a bug. I didn't find any such thread from last january/february.

Ok, was screwing around a bit, and maybe this has been brought up before, but digest seems to be physical damage, not magical. Found it first fighting Promethia for my monthtly, then went and soloed Amymone to try it out. With magical shield up, Digest works as normal, but when it's got a physical shield, the move has no effect.

Did anyone ever test how it scaled with attack rather than with MAB?

What's super strange to me is that the move seems to otherwise ignore DT: I can attest to the fact that it does it's full damage to statues in Dyna D, or at least far more than you'd expect their DT to effect it.



Going to go murder some more skeletons, but this time try out some attack bonuses.

Edit: well, reconfirmed that the move doesn't seem to scale with anything but TP, but now the question is how does it interact with other things? Given that it's physical damage, does it just flat ignore DT, and that's why it does full damage to statues? Going to have to try it on something with insane DT, maybe the moth in delve? And how does it interact with mobs that take bonus damage from things?

I thought subtle blow capped at 50%? I've been trying to get more SB on BLU and THF, but I gave up because I read it caps @ 50%.

SBI caps at 50%, SBII also caps at 50%, both together cap at 75%.

Tandem Blow appears to be SBII, so BST can achieve 70% total SB.

There is subtle blow and subtle blow II
subtle blow is capped at 50%
Both combined are capped at 75%

Tandem blow is not subtle blow 1 so it stacks. It is either its own category or Subtle blow II.

Oh perfect. Thank you.

I think this is more indicative of strange interactivity between magical Ready moves and those kinds of shields. Wheel of Impregnability and Polar Bulwark both block all magical Ready moves, despite being shields that block only physical attacks:


And then Pyric Bulwark (which is supposed to block magical damage) allows these same attacks to pass right through:

Well, that explains that then. I went and tried out some VD Tenzen, as he picks up some pretty serious DT at that level. Digest again seemed entirely unaffected in terms of total damage, though again it's difficult to judge.

Next step is to try out skeletons in inner Rakazar to see if the damage scales down at all for higher lvl enemies.

Also, as a side note, time is a major issue, but the slime seems largely capable of soloing damn near anything. Amymone went down pretty handily and Tenzen was also going quite well(the pet was eventually killed by Cosmic, but I think with better attention I could have digested through it). Thus far, pretty much anything that doesn't flat one shot the slime doesn't seem capable of killing it, given how powerful and spammable digest is.

I'm going to attempt a Wave 1 boss solo tomorrow, see how long it takes and if the bosses can actually push through the healing.

Well, tried it and the verdict is: kind of?

Bastok Wave 1 boss, and the slime is effectively invincible, but it simply doesn't have the DPS to kill a statue. Especially when one factors in the repeating damage nerf for WSs: Digest went from doing 2k to barely 200 without waiting or rotating in Fluid Toss/Spread, both of which obviously don't do much of any damage.

Still, a 1k TP Digest was doing around 1600 damage, so something affects how much damage it does.

Really though, if the slime had a consistent method of holding hate, it could tank all sorts of things.

If the damage it does is pretty much unaffected by gear wouldn't that be a perfect use of the +Enmity on the Heyoka stuff?
Also, if you were doing DD on the master and just Snarling it constantly?

Hey all, what are we using offhand? I have blurred axe +1 but trying to figure out what is better, ternion +1, or like arktoi or something else? I should add this is Aymur main hand, just really unsure how to work the offhand atm, I know kumb for ready moves.

Sometimes I use R15 Ternion+1 if I am fully supported.
If using trusts or just trying to get fast TP to spam decimation (omen fodder or Apex for example) I use Ridill or blurred dagger+1. Swaggy Rich Rich BSTs can make use of kraken club. I used to OH a second axe like blurred+1 but it felt slow to me and I wasn't able to consistently self sc with it. The knife is effectively the same thing, just faster

I'm jelly, currently 0/65 on Ridill hah hah. Using Blurred Axe+1 at the moment.

Hmmm hadnt thought about the blurred dagger +1!! Now thats an idea

That's funny. The thought popped in my mind the other day while I was bored so I started buying up some honey wines. Got it in five kills. Thought they increased the drop rate because it dropped so fast. I must have been super lucky.

Of course I'm not that lucky with Up In Arms BCNM

Further testing also got weird: Against undead, the move does a consistent 2134 damage across the board, regardless of mob type(ghost, skeleton, hound, etc) or level. The only variance to this is that Dullhans in Inner were taking 2401 instead. Given that the mob type takes 12.5% more magic damage, this fits perfectly. I occasionally get slightly more damage, I had one skeleton in xarc take 2220 instead for example, but these are exceptionally rare and the damage change seems so little to almost be ignored, if not for the fact that the move is so consistent otherwise.

When it was pointed out to me that most non-NMs have very little to no MDB, I instead went to test on the first undead NM that came to mind, Sava in Escha. The first three casts of Digest did 1333, but later ones were both much weaker varied a lot, between 7-800. That variance is surprising, though I don't know enough about the mob type to know if it had something special. Regardless, though MAB might not have an effect on the move hitting, MDB might do so. Will have to test this more.


Actually, what's interesting about this is given the 10% bonus DA the slime has, AM2 with Aymur, a +2 neck, and it's natural 38% DA is enough to get 100%. So you can reasonably melee in full Heyoka and provide the pet with a lot of passive enmity. Setting up digest to equip the set for the ready moves might actually provide a fairly consistent source of enmity for it. A major problem here is that you're going to be really cutting into your own personal DPS, given you'll be popping a ready move every 10 seconds for hate, but it might not be exceptionally terrible. If nothing else, it might be an interesting duo setup for some fights.

I've also taken to using several Valor pieces with DA/Crit +% with the slime, as those pieces can also achieve 100% double attack while also cranking it's crit rate fairly high.

As for offhand axes, I actually augmented the Mdomo +1, and I'm surprisingly happy with it. You lose the direct multi hit of other offhand pieces, but it's a lot of acc/macc and it helps the bursting pets out a bit when you're using them that way. Pairs especially well with the lynx, for example.

Maybe the NM grabbed Shell or some other buffs off you with Heliovoid? That's a pretty big drop and I haven't seen mention about Digest having resist states yet.

I had a fun conversation with Ruau about beastmaster and pet synergy with another dd job. I won't steal his thunder, but it really got me thinking.

It opened my eyes about how to approach beastmaster in party situations.

IMO, Beastmaster's strength has always been in choosing the right pet for the right situation. whether that was charming pets and understanding the environment (what pets are available and where to get them or use them) or called pets, knowing what traits and abilities to use in what combinations is where you find some really great power.

Well, my approach has usually been matching my pet vs my target. Things like ecosystem affinity for killer instinct, or damage resistance types or exploitable weaknesses from ready abilities are all very valuable.

However, this approach is very much the same as the solo beastmaster approach.

in A party situation, Beastmaster will be in one of the damage dealing roles. The master has respectable damage, but will almost never be the best dd you can get. So in order to differentiate, the beastmaster way to do it, is ecosystem synergy. The party dynamics are part of the ecosystem the Beastmaster should adapt to.

In a typical party, there are 2 damage dealers, a tank and 3 support.

If we want 1 of those dd slots, we should figure out which pet will help the other dd, and which weaponskills will help them best. This means we are most likely the skillchain opener, instead of closer (and we have great options for this)

I don't know all the strengths and weaknesses of all the other dd jobs. But I think if the community does some brain-storming with that focus, it would be fun, and beneficial.

What are the weaknesses of the other dd jobs we might get paired with? Which bst pet abilities could really help that other job?

I think finding that synergy will give beastmaster a welcome spot in alot of party setups.

This might sound like "of course thats how you setup a party" but beastmaster's abilities are not well understood by alot of players (though its gotten better lately). So is up to beastmasters to figure out how to best work with other jobs methinks.

I'd like to invite people to post about what pets might work well paired with other jobs. should be a good discussion either way.

Maybe Falkirk might consider adding another table to the guide of pets to use to help other jobs :D.

Except that wont solve your issue. If you are already on that step when you are in party and try to figure out how to adapt into composition, then you are probably playing with friends and getting into the party wasnt the problem in the first place.

From my understanding, the problem is to get into pugs. In that case person creating the pug party must be aware of how BST works and about advantages that BST can bring to party. Unless you want to spam person creating the pug with all the information thrying to convince him that your BST is worth it.

That’s exclusively an Asura problem. Shutting down a conversation because pugs won’t have you does not respond to the prompt at all. In this 2020 landscape where nearly all content can be low manned, finding suboptimal, but functional, strats keeps me playing and enjoying the game. There is joy in discovery. I keep up with this thread to bring ideas back to my sleepy server, and my BST is embraced by the community I play with.
I will brainstorm and hopefully contribute, but I will definitely reflect on what others bring up and employ interesting ideas I read about.

Yeah, but I was adressing Xilkk post and specifically "This might sound like "of course thats how you setup a party" but beastmaster's abilities are not well understood by alot of players (though its gotten better lately). So is up to beastmasters to figure out how to best work with other jobs methinks." part.

I see it as 2 situations
a) You play with friends, LS etc. and there is no problem to play BST in such party, because optimal setup is not a concern when you can accomplish the goals. In such scenario its kinda obvious that you look up for the best synergy with jobs you have.
b) You want to join a pug. Leader of the pug dont know anything about BST advantages. You as a player can brainstorm your approach to party composition and find best synergy with 2nd DD, but what you gonna do with that? Spam leader of the pug with that info and try to convince him? I guess it might work.

So I guess what Im trying to say is that it was always up to xxx job (not only beastmaster) to figure out how to best work with other jobs, if you play with friends and want to bring that job specifically.

Now for pugs it also up to xxx job to convince leader of the pug to get invite on specific job, unless this job is meta job, then you dont need to convince anyone.

So basically BST is in same situation as every non meta job. You can say BST abilities are less known, but tbh I bet 80% of people dealing with meta dont know what's hybrid WS is or whats Decoy shot or Reaving Wind, White Wind etc. or Collaborator and how all of this can be used in party composition.

Not really. More like 1 dd 1 tank with geo cor bard whm. Bard and Cor are both capable of good DPS now so i guess you could consider them DD. I consider them hybrid support/dd now. the jobs that is swapped out the most is the tank. Bst can sorta take up the geo slot.

I have been trying to consider where I would want bst instead of those jobs.

For me it is the tank slot or geo.

As far as extra SC properties from pet, mostly dont even care about them. Super buffed DD can do it on it's own so I would simply take a tank, DD or second cor instead of the bst. It is fairly easy to 4-6 step double light with all the DD and a few have really good double dark. A second cor or just a regular tank would work much better.

For geo, it is trading the geo debuff/buffs for the bst ooze. Problem is you usually get more advantage out of using a dnc instead. Bst you are only getting 33% defense down which wont cap attack. Using a dnc with a sam, drg or war gets you 48% defense down which actually will cap attack on a lot of content with light shot dia. DNC has has a wider range of debuffs and has better DPS and durability than bst. Going dnc and bst is a decnet option imo. Can go with a fencer build with bst, but you can go with fencer war which is much stronger. You can do seigan sam for great durability and better DPS. I just dont see any realistic options where bst is as good as 3-5 other options.

I think with the addition of the new pets we are even more slaved to dynamis D wave 2+. the terror and the ooze are good for those events and kinda meh on everything else. Second option, which is surprisingly rare to even want, killer effects, they are really good sometimes. Best fight for killer effects these days is probably onychophora. But you can kill the mob faster with quite a few other jobs.

I think these updates were a decent step in the right direction (if they fix the pet being dispelled). But we still need a good chunk more. DD ready moves still arnt strong enough. Debuffs are pretty decent, pet buffs are mostly a joke. Master DPS is fine imo if you buff something else. If you don't, then i think master has to be buffed, which isnt my preferred solution. All the original major issues in bst still exist. Pet/Master buffs, enfeeble heavy fights with pet, ready move lockout etc etc.

Whether people on small servers like it or not, asura has between 5-10x the active population of most servers, asura problems are a big deal. Asura is the first server that should be looked at when dealing with issues. It is the server that has the most people. To think that a major problem on asura is not a big deal because you are on a smaller server is extremely odd.

Bst is in a weird position where it has been abused by SE for so long that most people have given it up as a serious job. They player their max bsts for nostalgia.

Best composition I can think of for bst atm is cor bard whm tank/dd bst dnc. WHat I hate about that set up is that the pet is just a debuff battery. But i cant think of a better one for now. Set up is a bit slow because you need to build up steps. But it does let bst go fencer builds.

Spaitin your approach is from totally different direction I think. You trying to think whats optimal setup with BST, while I think what Xilkk was trying to say is how to make optimal BST in setup you are in.

So his point was how to play optimally with SAM, how to play optimally with WAR, how to play optimally with MNK etc. How to change your BST build to work around different DDs or party composition.

While you are trying to find optimal party setup where BST will be the most useful or justified.