Rampaging Beastmasters

One

Say hello to my little friend!

aspect of Beastmaster I like is that your charming level seems to carry over into other jobs when you sub BST. In theory (if you could survive the trip) a Lv. 15 MNK could charm Steelshells in Boyhada Tree as long as he's also a 75 BST at other times.

I went WHM/BST on Tuesday so I could use Widescan to look for clusters in Lufaise Meadows. I didn't get fog weather, so I decided to run through the vortex and into Qufim Island for the trek back to Jeuno. Along the way, I decided to charm the kraken down by the cliff. A lot of people will /check a WHM in a Noble's Tunic with a pet Kraken! It's fun to stop for raises and let the pet take out potential aggro mobs, too.

Other than that bit of fun, the past few days have followed a pattern. I wake up at odd hours, fish for an hour or three, and then restock the auction houses and my bazaar mule. The gil is then funneled directly into gear upgrades for for my Beastmaster job.

Neyla and I learned Rampage, an axe skill which does a lot of pretty damage. We're buying Attack and Strength gear to make it very effective and deadly when it's time to finish off a monster's life. Neyla is starting to see why melees like to keep track of their damage output, and I think the idea of one day leveling Warrior beyond the Dunes stage is starting to appeal to him.

We couldn't find a really nice spot to level BST. Toraimarai Canal presented problems (leech aggro on one side, blood aggro on the other), Pso'xja was slightly out of our reach for charms, and the Crawler's Nest is always crowded.

We

Now we truly look like beastmasters.

ended up in the Bostaunieux Oubliette. I'd gone solo for about 3,000 xp on Monday and loved it. We quickly learned that two Dark Aspic pets will kill a bat before we can build TP for Rampage, so we adapted. One of us would charm and pull a bat and the other would fight alongside it. When the pet was used up (or if the recharm failed), the other would charm. It seems messed up, and it created a battle inequality I wouldn't want to carry into other camps, but we were usually able to get Chain 3 and sometimes Chain 4 that way and gained experience at a rapid pace.

Looking back, maybe we should've each taken a slime and fought two bats at once (xp cut be damned!), but who cares? We made it work, and today we hit Lv. 56 and can wear our Beast Helms! Now I don't look like a Dark Knight when I run around with my scythe equipped. My scythe skills are horribly gimped, which is why I'll be using Blazer Beetles and Exorays for skillups when we finish getting BST to 60.

In other news, we ran into Miros in Port Windurst yesterday. He's the uber-BST who partially inspired me to take up the job. I like Miros because A) he's gay, B) he has a dirty mind, and C) he's a tarutaru who got BST into the 70s solo. He's sporting some Monster gear from Dyanamis these days, which only heightens my resolve to finish getting WHM to 75 so I can comfortably start that bit of endgame again.

Thank You, Otak!

Halifirien and Neyla - 1024x768 Wallpaper

I'd asked Otak a few weeks ago if she'd consider drawing me and Neyla in our Beastmaster AF, and this morning she posted it at QCDN. I love it. I think it'll be replacing the beefcake galka in subligar picture that's currently on my desktop.

Lowered Expectations

I'm

I don't love the Gaudy Harness, but I tell it that to get it into bed.

spending a week with my parents, so my gaming is going to be sporadic at best. I figured Neyla and I could get in a couple hours of Beastmaster time this evening, so I suggested we go back to the Sea Serpent Grotto for a little while. The xp had gone slow on us, but I reasoned an xp snack would be okay to tide us over until I returned home for the full-course meals on our way to Lv. 60 and the eventual break.

I was kinda surprised that we kept going as long as we did. Neyla had gotten ahead of me during the subligar run, but my xp scroll from the escort quest and the use of the Empress Band put me at only 1k behind him. We ended up getting to Lv. 55 before we logged. I guess we should've started in the next good camp instead, but that's okay.

This was the first session with our Gaudy Harnesses, and I can honestly say I love it. I didn't have to rest the entire evening. I tend to be the more active with spells like buffs and enfeebles, and that 49 MP was perfect. I could keep the bar- spells going, use Blink every fight and Regen as needed, and the MP would almost always be back to 49 by the end of the fights. It officially ranks up there with my favorite gear of all time (including the Noble's Tunic and Skulker's Cape).

Mouu the Waverider interrupted us again. I'll be glad to never see him again. Every time we have to switch jobs to take him out that's another charge lost from our Reraise Earrings.