Killer Instinct: The Beastmaster Compendium

I wanted to give more detail since the link might not be showing up for others. My log looked something like this during ready moves:

19:51:41 You need the dual wield ability to equip the charmers merlin as a sub weapon

19:51:42 You need the dual wield ability to equip the astolfo as a sub weapon

19:51:42 You need the dual wield ability to equip the aymur as a sub weapon

19:51:42 You need the dual wield ability to equip the astolfo as a sub weapon.


Sure enough, I went back out and with the equipment window open saw that during a ready move my sub weapon went from astolfo-->merlin--->astolfo---->aymur--->astolfo. For magic ready moves it did NOT do this and just went astolfo to merlin to aymur to astolfo.


I know this is not the gs help thread but my ready stuff is below. It should be straight out of the bst lua everyone uses. Is there any reason for this anomoly? If I spent all that time getting mythic and have been subbing astolfo when ready moves connect I'm going to be a bit upset. Using "pet only", and "Pet PDT" functions with kiting on most of the time if that matters.







-- PET SIC & READY MOVES
sets.midcast.Pet.WS = {ammo="Demonry Core",
neck="Ferine Necklace",ear1="Sabong Earring",ear2="Hija Earring",
body="Taeon Tabard",hands="Nukumi Manoplas +1",ring1="Thurandaut Ring",ring2="Dark Ring",
back="Pastoralist's Mantle",waist="Isa Belt",legs="Taeon Tights",feet="Taeon Boots"}

sets.midcast.Pet.MagicReady = set_combine(sets.midcast.Pet.WS, {
ear1="Diamond Earring",ear2="Diamond Earring",
hands="Regimen Mittens",
back="Argochampsa Mantle"})

sets.midcast.Pet.HighAcc = set_combine(sets.midcast.Pet.WS, {head="Totemic Helm +1",hands="Regimen Mittens",legs="Wisent Kecks"})

sets.midcast.Pet.ReadyRecast = {legs="Desultor Tassets"}
sets.midcast.Pet.Neutral = {head="Totemic Helm +1"}
sets.midcast.Pet.Favorable = {head="Nukumi Cabasset +1"}
sets.midcast.Pet.TPBonus = {hands="Nukumi Manoplas +1"}

-- PET-ONLY SETS THAT SWAP WEAPONS FOR READY AND IDLE
sets.midcast.Pet.ReadyRecastNE = {sub="Charmer's Merlin",legs="Desultor Tassets"}

sets.midcast.Pet.ReadyNE = set_combine(sets.midcast.Pet.WS, {main="Kerehcatl",sub="Aymur"})
sets.midcast.Pet.ReadyNE.MedAcc = set_combine(sets.midcast.Pet.WS, {main="Kerehcatl",sub="Aymur"})
sets.midcast.Pet.ReadyNE.HighAcc = set_combine(sets.midcast.Pet.WS, {main="Kerehcatl",sub="Aymur"})

sets.midcast.Pet.MagicReadyNE = set_combine(sets.midcast.Pet.MagicReady, {main="Kerehcatl",sub="Aymur"})

sets.IdleAxesNE = {main ="Izizoeksi",sub="Astolfo"}

It's only because there's a delay between executing the Ready move and the actual pet_midcast event. During the interim gearswap equips your idle set again.

Did you go to West Ronfaure and do the test? What were the results? You can attempt to use physical ready moves also, but might want to collect more samples because of the damage variance (although 500 TP Bonus should make a pretty obvious difference).

You said you were /thf which doesn't have Dual Wield as a sub. For that issue you need logic for readyNE for single weapon + shield which you can find in Falkirk's updated lua.

I don't know anything about gear swap so I can't help you there, but doesn't the mythic have to be in the main hand to have any benefit? I thought I read it somewhere in this thread that it has to be in the main hand to get the pet attack boost and the pet tp bonus.

I did the test. this is what alerted me to the fact that for magic ready moves the subweapon was operating properly. It's just for physical moves that try to put pdt axe in the middle of the ready command.

As far as single hand commands are concerned, i don't ever use bst without dw. It's just that being /thf this one time made gs display which weapons could not be used in the subweapon slot which alerted me to this problem. I still can't figure out why on physical moves it is trying to insert a pdt axe into the middle of a ready move so I'll probably just trash my current lua and start from scratch.

Is there any notable pets that people use besides tiger lizard bouncing Bertha that might be worth using? Just wondering if there's any hidden gems among all those pets available.

These aren't really hidden gems since they're pretty well known pets, but the bird is good for tanking things that do slashing dmg, fire dmg, or wind dmg and fly is a good nuker (I think it was mentioned on an earlier page of this thread by Falkirk that Cursed Sphere does 10% or 20% more than Fireball). Fly obviously depends on the mob you fight though, since Cursed Sphere is dark element, so if a mob is strong to dark or takes extra fire dmg, it won't be as good as fireball.

Some other useful pets are Jagil (for water resistance), Snapweed (for thunder and wind resistance), and Crab (for Avatar fights other than Levi, Ramuh, and Garuda). Another pet that can be useful is the Cactuar jug. While it's doesn't get to ilvl, ??? Needles can be useful on some NM's with unleash (it worked well for us on Bird Delve with a pet job setup).

O.O Which pet does ??? Needles?

What damage values did you get?

Also:


It's not necessarily the lua that is causing the problem. :)

AmigoSabotender - jug of sun water

1000 Needles was changed to ??? Needles.

What does the dmg range from? I guess I can go do some testing but that sounds fun :D

1000-10,000

-=-=-=-=-

Going back to the Gearswap issue for a moment, here's what I get under the various testing conditions:

If the Ready command completed in PetPDT gear, the damage would look like this (~13k damage):


Locking myself in Physical Ready gear for the entirety of the Razor Fang process results in this (~19k damage).

Loading up Gearswap and activating "showswaps" gives this as output (~19k damage again).

The problem is I'm 100% sure my armor is swapping correctly. It is only the sub weapon that I am concerned about and only on physical ready moves. So testing would be a nightmare. If GS is fast enough to put Astolfo in between charmer's merlin and aymur I'm all for that so long as it ensures the right axe is on when randy claws someones face.

Is there a shorter time in between the ready command and patricks fireball than there is for razor fang? That might explain why gs isn't putting in the pdt axe in my magic moves.

There are different timings for a variety of moves, which is why you're seeing different results.

Short readying time: Foot Kick/Sheep Charge/Sickle Slash...
Normal readying time: Razor Fang/Tail Blow/Swooping Frenzy...
Longer readying time: ??? Needles/Wild Carrot...

Fireball is relatively quick to start, but the readying time for it is long enough that it's easily handled by Gearswap.

Going to ask again since it was on the last page. Considering Reward, Call Beast, Beast Affinity and Beast Healer. I'm not sure which jugs are under level 75 that are worth using, if none are, possibly Feral Howl to interrupt TP or spell casts. Sic doesn't seem that useful with the lack of dependency on jugs since wild pets most likely will die before they have TP anyways for anything I plan to use BST for. But with my considerations, at least when I have to use a jug, it'll be useful.

so which pieces and which augments are most suitable for higher teir bcnms+ ? Between acro and teaon. I would assume pet double atk for leaf, acc or atk for snow, haste or dt- on dusk. Especially not sure between haste/dt-

For high-tier fights, particularly difficult, you won't need an exceptional amount of accuracy. A good mix between accuracy and attack should work well. Your ready armor should be acc/atk and DA for your pet. If you want, you can put -DT on those pieces as well so that when you swap to use a Ready, the damage your pet takes won't be too severe.

When it comes to your pet being engaged, you'll want -DT on everything. Our pets' TP phases are very lackluster, and all of our damage comes from ready moves. Keeping your pet alive is far more important than having it attack quickly.


Sidenote: I was curious if anybody knowledgeable with Gearswap might be able to help me out on this. I wanted to add a way to receive a notification about remaining items after using Reward or summoning a pet. I'm way too forgetful, and wound up doing an SR run last night where I ran out of literally everything I needed and had to mooch off of my BST buddy in the run. Thank you for any advice in advance.

if so then will there be any difference (or need) in a set for a pets regular atking vs there ready? or would the acro or teaon with DA, acc/atk, dt- work well for both?

There are different options. For me, I built an acro set with def, -dt and regen across the board, I am wearing this most of the time. When using a ready move I use the pre-cast set, charmers and desultors, followed by a midcast set with attack and DA, then quickly back to my -dt, def, regen set until the next ready move is ready. If I'm doing content over lvl 130 ish I then start swapping in my acro that is acc and DA for midcast.

The short answer is it depends on what you want to do as BST. Depending on how you look at it, the things you want to merit don't really change much between 75&99/119. I'd say that in general, Reward/Sic-Ready/CB are what you want to look at in Cat1, and FH/Affinity/healer in Cat2. Thankfully meriting is so quick now we can afford to pretty much move merits around as we please to try different things.

- - - - - - -

I think that the merit categories you mentioned you were considering are great choices but you really can't go wrong. Personally I keep FH merited once for the extra tool for hate or a pseudo-stun sometimes. Where you might think there's less reliability on jugs, depending on what you're doing I'd say there's still a high dependency on them at 75 even if comparative damage potential and tank ability is limited by what is available to you. I remember Call Beast being one of the tools I'd use to deal with hairy situations like mischarms/agro/linking/buffer between pet repops. It has a lot of utility in alot of situations. Especially since the sic/ready update, with D. Tassets and merits you have a 20sec ready timer. But more importantly, the ability to instantly pop ready moves that lots of us would have loved in the past is HUGE. This allows you much more flexibility and control over your environment.

As far as jugs are concerned, there is still a healthy variety of good pets to use between Lars/Chucky/Amigo/Galahad.

How does the DA effect the ready moves?
--
What kind of weapons are worth looking at (that arnt r/e/m)? Right now i was just looking at skirmish2 weaps since they are simple enough to get.

It's pet DA to be more precise and physical ready moves can double attack just like regular hits and player wses.

As for weapons, alluvion skirmish weapons are probably one of the best/easiest options to get. Also some of the augments (+200 pet tp bonus, for example) just can't be equaled by other weapon options, except for mythic, which is considerably much more work than a skirmish weapon.

I only intend to use it to solo things I can't do faster and safer on RDM or can't do at all on RDM (or any other job, really.) Which isn't a lot. Beast Affinity will allow me to use the base 65 capped up to 75, correct?

Correct

are there any alternatives to the shepherd's chain? Lottery spawn with low drop rate and other ppl still camping it isnt exactly close to ideal. (was trying for it last night with no drops)

0/5 now, some bst gave up...dont think theres is an alternative.

Can anybody tell me if the rabbit pets wild carrot can heal pets and pets outside of main party as well?

It'll cure characters in your party, but won't have any affect on pets. ; ;

As an aside, it's worth noting that if you're in [Campaign Battle/Wildskeeper/Colonization/Lair Reive/Domain Invasion], Wild Carrot will also heal anyone in the vicinity regardless of them being in your party.

I keep trying once in awhile if I'm in the zone but yeah drop rate is really low.

In the mean time get an Empath Necklace from Pazuzu in Escha Zitah. Very nice pieces even has Regen +1 on it.

Thanks