Beastmaster (Final Fantasy XI)



In Final Fantasy XI, the Beastmaster is an advanced job. Beastmasters are the equivalent of Mediators from other Final Fantasy titles. The key ability of a Beastmaster is charm, allowing them to bend the will of certain types of enemy creatures, mostly plantoids, lizards, vermin, and animals.

The races of Vana'diel each bring different strengths and weaknesses to the job of beastmaster. Tarutaru have the highest charisma, thus are able to charm with the greatest success rate, but low HP and Vitality means they are less survivable. Humes and Elvaan offer a more balanced approach to the job with no major perks and no major disadvantages. Mithra and Galka have low charisma, making charming creatures more difficult, but even as the weakest two race choices in that regard, increased agility for Mithra and large HP and Vitality totals for Galka help them be more survivable.

Becoming a Beastmaster
Since Beastmaster is an advanced job, a player must complete a quest before he is able to level as a beastmaster. The beastmaster quest begins in Jeuno and takes the player all of one zone away to Qufim Island to inspect a coral outcropping. In all, this is the easiest of all advanced job quests, requiring, at most, the player to be mindful of the Gigas, skeletons, weapons, and the Kraken that loiters near the actual coral outcropping. Upon returning to Jeuno after looking over the coral, the player will be able to level as a beastmaster.

Beastmaster Abilities
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Job Abilities

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Job Traits

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Beastmasters in Final Fantasy XI
Beastmasters are not required for parties, in fact they rarely are even in parties. Beastmasters are, for the most part, solo. Sometimes two or three beastmasters will form a party together. Their abilities do not generally add much to a standard party except for raw damage. In terms of damage, Beastmasters have the best Axe rating in the game and are very proficient with the use of scythes as well. They have moderate HP and no MP unless they have a subjob that grants them MP.

Strengths

 * High axe rating means Beastmasters have potentially high accuracy and high damage.
 * Charm can be used to deal with aggressive adversaries without fighting them or to bind beastmen, allowing a Beastmaster to run away.
 * Beastmasters are able to tread where parties fear to go and fight enemies most parties would not consider fighting, providing a very unique experience.
 * Soloing does not require expensive gear or food, and leveling beastmaster can be potentially very profitable.

Weaknesses

 * Beastmasters offer no beneficial abilities to a party, only miscellaneous damage.
 * Beastmaster's pet, if greater than the Beastmaster's or groups greatest level, will figure into the experience equation as the party's level, reducing experience.
 * Soloing leaves very little margin for error, resulting in slow experience gain and many deaths.

Soloing and Duoing Strategy - Playing to Strengths and Weaknesses
Soloing is a style of play in Final Fantasy where the beastmaster is by himself. There is no party to support him. This is what most beastmasters do to gain experience. It is a slow and often painful process, one not conducive to most player's tastes. The general strategy for most is to try to charm a creature of an "even match" or "decent challenge" type and then fight a creature with the aid of the charmed creature that is either an "even match" or "tough" or possibly even "very tough."

Once engaged with a creature, most beastmasters allow the charmed creature to fight at least a few moments to help it gain enmity. The idea is to make sure that the charmed creature takes the lion's share of the damage. Then the beastmaster will engage in the fight personally, attacking the monster along with the charmed creature.

When the creature is close to death, with less than 10% of its health remaining or less if possible, the charmed creature will be dismissed. This is used to capitalize on the maximum amount of experience since if the creature is killed while the beastmaster has a pet, he will only receive 70% of the experience he normally deserves although through further updates this experience loss has been removed so now a beastmaster loses no exp from having a pet. Most beastmasters will save all of their TP for a weapon skill at the end to quickly finish off the remainder of the creature's life. This is the manner in which the beastmaster engages most creature types.

Beastmasters vs. Self-Destructing Creatures
Beastmasters may also fight other types of creatures, like Goblins with bomb toss or Bombs type creatures. With the latter, especially, there is an entirely different type of strategy. Basically, the beastmaster will try to charm a pet with a sufficient amount of HP to survive a protracted battle with a bomb. Eventually, generally somewhere below 50% of its experience, the bomb will use self destruct. Basically, the beastmaster will stand around at a distance so he does not get hit by the blast. The blast will often kill the pet. The pet will not be dismissed because it will interrupt the self-destruct action. Generally, a beastmaster can do this fast enough to gain experience in chains while remaining relatively safe even with the 30% experience penalty from having a pet on the off chance the pet survives.

Subjobs
The following are some of the most common subjob types for beastmaster in Final Fantasy XI. It should be noted, especially with regards to beastmaster that there are other viable combinations including Paladin, Samurai, or Warrior that are simply not used often or have only circumstantial usefulness. Considering that beastmaster is almost exclusively a solo job, it is left completely up to player preference how to run their character since there will be no one to complain to the beastmaster if he defies convention.

White Mage
White mage is probably the most common of all subjobs for Beastmasters who are soloing or duoing, which would account for the majority of Beastmasters in the game. The subjob mainly offers useful spells for physical and magical protection, negative status ailment removal, and of course curative and regenerative magic. The job traits clear mind and auto regen are both also helpful for Beastmasters.

Ninja
Ninja really is one of the only real choices for beastmasters in a party. The majority of beastmasters will use axes, since they have a higher axe rating. Dual wield, a ninja job trait, allows them to wield an axe in both hands thus increasing damage over time. Utsusemi will also help negate damage from incoming hits by providing the status effect blink.

Blue Mage
Blue mage is something of a novelty subjob, largely stemming from the amusement of being able to throw monster magic back at monsters while simultaneously controlling other monsters to do the beastmaster's bidding, but the job is not without its own merit. Blue magic can be combined to create traits useful to the Beastmaster, including some killer effects either not available to the beastmaster job normally or available earlier to blue mages. There are also defensive magic spells that could prove quite useful, including phalanx-like and stoneskin effects, and curative enemy magic.

Red Mage
Red mage as a subjob offers similar spells when compared to white mage (protect, shell, cure and regen) but at the loss of all spells that help remove status ailments. The red mage subjob would gain, instead, gain bio to help weaken enemy attacks, spikes to give a weak damage shield, and Phalanx to further mitigate damage. It would not be a bad choice for the second beastmaster in a beastmaster duo.