The Lucky Beastmaster Lounge

[Areya]

Since there's a fair amount of people in the Linkshell either leveling Beastmaster, or expressing interest in doing so, I thought I'd start this topic and relinquish various tips and advice I've accumulated in my experiences with the job.  Maybe a bit later I'll post some camp advice as well.

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General BST tips:

When fighting spellcasting monsters such as magic pots, stand opposite of your pet, and barely in melee range.  If set up correctly, any -ga spells that target
your pet will not affect you.  This works best if your pet is at maximum distance
from the target as well.

When charming a target, it's a good idea to run away from the target as you charm.  If you mischarm, you'll have a head start, and in many cases you can
just kite the mob around until your charm timer is ready.

Kiting Tip:  Know your terrain.  You can use pillars, rocks, and other obstacles to keep a mob busy.  Additionally, you can use pathing to your advantage.  Sometimes if you drop off a cliff, your chaser will take the long way around.

If you're in a camp that requires pet swaps, save Tame for midfight mischarms.  You can typically handle one mob attacking you, but having a mischarm and your original target on you at the same time is dangerous.

After a pet swap or in the event of a mischarm, it's useful to have a hateloss equipment swap macro.  An Earth Staff, Crow gear, and AF body are all useful to put in.  Your Haubergeon is definitely not going to improve your survival with -20 evasion....

Keep an eye on your surroundings.  If you're in a camp that has a lot of aggro, or elemental pops, it's useful to unlock the camera and do a 360 around your character to check for danger.

Pet food is handy if you need your pet to survive just a little longer.  AF also allows it to cure status ailments, most useful for paralysis.

If a suggested camp is too dangerous or aggravating, you always have the option of grinding through EP-DC targets.

(More to come.)

[Evanesce]

Good deal. For now, I simply offer you this, The BST Anthologies- New Index. Obviously, I'm not running it anymore, but all the original threads, along with a lot of expansion ones, are detailed by various BSTs from all servers. It's a good resource.

I'll probably be back with some advice as well; thanks for starting this Areya, great idea. I expect Zerila will stop in soon as well~

[Ennaor]

I've been trying to use that too Evansce (whenever Areya isn't around) 

[Evanesce]

Alright~

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Certain mobs can be lost if you run through water (i.e. Slimes, Leeches).

Keep in mind that some mobs can track you by smell and others can't. If you have very little hate (e.g. all you did was order your pet to attack once), you can run far away from the mob and avoid pursuit. If it tracks by scent, use Deodorize to avoid being chased.

If you get caught in Self-Destruct/Meltdown range and your pet has hate control, use Leave. The mob's special will cancel; once this happens, recharm your pet and send it at the mob again.

"Fight" will cancel neither Invisible nor Sneak, so running into dangerous areas to pull is fine (assuming nothing links). "Sic" and "Reward" cancel Invisible, though (and maybe Sneak as well, can't remember).

I find the ideal Charm macro line to be this: /ja "Charm" <stnpc>. That way, you can have the mob you're attacking selected while Charming.

Here's a useful macro to keep track of what's going on:

/echo pet <hpp>
/echo pet <tp>
/recast "Sic"
/recast "Call Beast"
/recast "Reward"
/recast "Divine Seal"

I'm pretty sure that's right; if not, well~ You get the idea.

Charm has a stun effect on mobs that cannot be Charmed; this can be useful, but it burns your Charm timer and builds a fair deal of hate. Only use it if you really need to make some distance.

Get an Apollo's Staff if you can; there is a noticeable difference between Light and Apollo's (I semi-tested this in Bostanieux; really, don't bother with that place if you don't have Apollo's). When you have Apollo's, I suggest you go lighter on the CHR gear (just go with a few staples- Corsette +1, Noble's Ribbon, Flower Necklace/That other +3 CHR neckpiece). I never found rings or other items (e.g. CHR food) necessary.

Accuracy is extremely important; nothing's worse than whiffing on a 1% HP IT Berserked Bomb 4 times and going from 100% + Blink to 0% + Shuteye.

If you send a pet into a group of mobs, and your pet picks up links, only the original mob you ordered it to attack will follow you when you use Leave, provided that you were not involved with the linkage.

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I'll come back if I think of some other stuff.

[Areya]

First, to clear up a couple of things Eva said: Charm does a Bind effect, not a Stun.  And Reward and Sic don't remove Sneak.  Additionally, Gauge does not remove either Sneak nor Invisible.

And now, a discussion about regions, the MPK patch, and converting pets.

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Home Sweet Home
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Every critter in the game has a home area.  Basically, they never wander outside this area if left alone.  The only ways for a mob to leave this home area is to aggro, to link to something else, or to be charmed.

If a mob aggros or links, it will stay in an engaged state until the target (and any target that gets placed on the mob's hate list) is defeated, or out of play (zone, warp), or if they lose the pursuit.  At this point it goes into neutral mode.

If a mob is charmed, it will return to neutral mode when Leave is used.

When in neutral mode, there is a grace period where the mob does nothing.  After this grace period, the game runs a check to see if the target is still within its home area.  If it is not, the mob will despawn, then respawn in the new area after a short period of time.  I believe it's like 60 seconds but uncertain.  If the target is still in the home area, it will simply start wandering normally (and will start aggro/link etc. normally) and will regenerate hp provided no DoT is active.

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Conversion
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Once you have Leave, you can take advantage of these properties to "convert" a group of charmable monsters to Even Match, which is the maximum rating you can charm without incurring exp penalty.  The process is as such:

1) Charm a DC / T that you want to convert to EM.
2) Drag the mob outside of its home area.
3) Leave.
4) Wait for it to respawn.

Every time the mob respawns, the game will reroll its level.  If it does not roll EM, simply repeat.

In this way, you can make a zoo of EM pets to swap between when taking on a camp.

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Conversion Prevention
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Now, sometimes you'll have a situation where your pets will only have a 1/3 or 1/4 chance of being EM.  To avoid a lot of time reconverting if they die, here are some tips:

1)  If your prey doesn't link, try this one:  Dia your target and run back to your pet's home area.  Then when you Leave the pet will simply start the regen process.  If Dia is too dangerous, Fight then Heel.

2) An alternate strategy is to Leave right when the mob is very weak, and WS to finish it off.  (This is normal BST strategy.) Then swap your charm gear back in quickly and recharm your former pet while it's still in the grace period, before it despawns.  Then run back to its home area and drop it off to heal.

3) Obviously death is a bad thing for your pet.  A Pet Food Zeta is a good way to
help keep it alive.  With AF you can get rid of poison and such too.

[Evanesce]

It's a good thing Areya's around to correct me~

[Areya]

Meh it's more just a warning.  You know, don't stand next to a bound mob, etc.  Charm is a light based move but bind is an ice related effect, so not sure whether light resist, ice resist, or just raw CHR affects how well it lands.

[Areya]

*walks in and puts briefcase on table* Good evening class.  Today's discussion discusses the fine art of pet pulling.

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Pet Pull
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Inevitably you'll have situations where you cannot pull a single mob safely.  So knowing how to properly pet pull is useful.  This is basically a variation of Carby Pulling, and many of the same rules apply.

Here are some general tips:

1)  If your pet misses with the first hit, DO NOT pull back.  The very low hate you generate with Heel or Leave is still enough to where you'll get hate immediately, which can lead to disaster.  I usually wait for two hits personally.

2)  Unlike avatars and puppets, beastmaster pets will change attack targets based on enmity.  If for some reason your pet swaps targets without you telling it to, it's OK.  When you leave, the original target will come after you and the rest will ignore you.

3)  If not all of the mobs linked immediately, use Heel to drag your target back first.  If you use Leave, you may pick up a link when a mob moves, and it will be linked to you, not your pet.  This is most common with sight linking mobs.

4)  Pet pulling is good for mass clearing of crowds too.  Simply attack one target, then drag a whole linked group out of their area and Leave.  They'll all despawn (as per my discussion of this a couple of posts back).

5)  Be wary of mobs that either cast or use ranged attacks.  They may inadvertedly link more mobs while they're waiting, so Heel and drag them back a ways first.

6)  Have a target you want to charm but don't want to run the risk of a mass link on mischarm?  Charm a weak target and send it versus your desired pet!  Then drag it out, Leave, and Charm.  This works well if there are weak targets around that are too low for general use, like triple bats.

[Ariamo]

-Raises hand- But Professor Areya D: What if like you're stuck with a PUP?  Just kidding.

[Zerila]

I've been working on something contribute to this guide, but I've been trying to do it at work (I'm so bad ^^; ) and I've been busy...

[Areya]

There's been a few changes to Beastmaster so I'm going to update this topic with them, along with some added notes.

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Recent Changes
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Normal charmed mobs don't cause an exp penalty unless they're higher than EM.  This eliminates the need to Leave before you WS to finish a mob.

At level 45 (I think) you get an ability caused Snarl, which transfers all your hate to a jug pet.  This only works on jug pets, and has a 30 sec reuse timer.

The Stay command acts as /heal for pets.  They'll start recovering HP, and will increase more per tick the longer you keep them Stayed.
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More Tips
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A great strategy when fighting with a jug pet familiar..  WS then Snarl.

Another great use for Snarl is as a panic button when your target is not quite dead.  Quickly call a defensive jug (Courier Carrie is a great choice) and snarl to save your skin while you either look for another charm, or simply finish off the mob if it's weak enough.

Remember that Snarl doesn't work for normal charmed pets!

Even though there's no need to save your WS for finishing a mob, it's still a good idea not to go as soon as you have 100 tp because it can cause hate issues.

The healing quality of Stay can be used to keep pets charmed by Familiar around longer.  Use it in conjunction with Pet Food.  Note that Leave + the mob's natural regen is probably faster, so Stay is best used if you've dragged a pet a fair distance away, or if it's a camp where it's difficult to find EM.

When participating in Besieged or Campaign, bear in mind that any jug pet you have out beforehand will disappear.  Also the AI seems to like targeting pets.