Not another Beastmaster fanboy!

[Suko'to]

Okay, okay, seriously. This isn't -exactly- a thread to rave about the idea of Beastmaster being one of the next jobs to be released in FFXIV. It is, but I'm proposing something just a little bit different. 

 

I know the argument has been made that "we should have another pet class", and I'm sure an argument has been made against the idea as well, otherwise, summoners wouldn't feel as special as the only pet class available in the game. What I propose is drastically different, but, I think, possibly just as fun (if not more so). Recall for a moment all the speculation made before Ninja was released in FFXIV and how it will play as a job. After its release, it was determined it was fundamentally different than how it was played in FFXI. Good or bad is irrelevant in this scenario, as I'm not arguing whether it was for the better or not. I'm speculating about how different it was from its predecessor in FFXI, as well as previous appearances the class makes in the Final Fantasy Saga. Red Mage was also very different. If you look back to the original Final Fantasy, you'll see Red Mage was simply another mage that could cast both White and Black magic spells. Throughout the series, it's evolved into what we see it as now - not just another mage, but also something that can fight in capacities other than purely magic, i.e. the rapier. If you recall, it's also very different from its predecessor in FFXI.

 

I think you're starting to get the trend I'm setting here. If you go by said trend, wouldn't it make sense to assume that Beastmaster may very well -not- be a pet class at all? After all, it's one of SE's jobs to release classes/jobs that are interesting to as many players as possible.

 

Many of you might not be able to look back this far, as some of you are still very new to the Final Fantasy saga, and frankly it's an often overlooked thing for most who can. The official wiki states, in FFVI, Relm was the closest thing to what we know as Beastmasters, but only because of simply one ability she possessed - Control. Otherwise, she's what could only be described as a Pictomancer. However, I highly disagree with this assessment and chalk it up to mere coincidence. It's also stated in the Wiki that the different "Beastmasters" that appear throughout the Final Fantasy saga have one thing in common, their ability to control monsters and use them to the party's advantage.

 

Recall you a character named Gau? True, a Beastmaster's defining feature may be the ability to control monsters, but what about the ability to BECOME LIKE the monsters they encounter? Those of you who recall, Gau had such an ability, and yet, even though it's fundamentally different from what we know of Beastmasters, I would label Gau as a Beastmaster as well. Hence, I propose not a new pet class, but something perhaps more akin to that of a Blue Mage, except we're not talking about aether. No, we're talking about the ability to study, learn about, and master the ways of monsters themselves, to emulate their very moves and their very natures.

 

Would something like this be harder to implement into FFXIV? Maybe, maybe not. However, I think the idea has potential, and, not only for the job itself, but also storyline. That's not to say how we already know Beastmasters isn't valid. I'm simply proposing this as a possible alternative, so as to create a new way to look at the Beastmaster archetype.

 

What are -your- thoughts on this? Am I stepping out of line with this proposal? Do you agree? Disagree? Why?

 

 

Edited April 14, 2018 by Suko'to

[Gegenji]

I kind of skimmed over your post some, but I want to suggest that the idea of both Beastmaster and Blue Mage (as I think Gau is sort of more on the Blue Mage side, though I think Strago actually fulfills that role with his Lore abilities) aren't invalid. They just might need to be handled a bit differently than what we've seen so far.

 

Let's start with Blue Mage. The biggest issue with Blue Mage is that it - as a class - has been very... polarized based on what abilities it has. It's either very situational/bordering on useless compared to more consistent options (Quina from FF9, his/her's 9999 damage technique requires keeping him/her at 1 HP compared to just stealing a bunch for Zidane's Thievery or Freya's "kill a bunch of dragons") or so powerful to the point that it's game-breaking (FF5, where Blue Mage - along with Chemist - are among the strongest jobs in the game). It also has a unique "learning" method that is completely different from all the other classes (except maybe Summoner, technically) in that you have to fight something first to get it.

 

However, that doesn't mean it couldn't work in the FFXIV setting. In fact, you could probably keep a lot of the flavor of it without too much difficulty. You would just need to have a set list of monster abilities your character can learn, but require a special observation method of some sort that only occurs in the job quests - after all, learning an ability at the end of a job quest is nothing new. Then it's just a matter of determining what abilities you'd have, how strong they'd be, and all that good stuff. For example:

• Thousand Needles for basic high-damage spell
• Bad Breath for DoT
• Self-Destruct for AoE (we've seen enemies survive it, so why not us?)
• White Wind for self/support healing

The only issue with this pattern is that they break away from each quest teaching you something at the higher levels. So either Blue Mage would require you to still do that, unlike other jobs, or just imply that you observed enough of a certain kind of enemy at that level to pick up a new trick. So nothing too difficult to finagle into the paradigm already set up in FFXIV.

 

Beastmaster... Beastmaster I've had my own ideas on for a while, actually. I've mentioned them here and there - mostly on Discord when we get on conversations about new jobs - but I think I only mentioned it in passing once way early on in my thought processes on it here. So, since I'm being overly verbose about this stuff, I might as well go into my own personal head-canon idea of how Beastmaster could work.

 

First and foremost, you are right in that the idea of the Beastmaster usually involved using monsters more directly than Blue Mage. Relm's Control is very Beastmaster-esque, as the FF5 Beastmaster uses Control to effectively do the same thing as well as capturing and releasing monsters using a gourd. In FFXI, you could actually just grab a monster and have it as a pet, making Beastmaster one of the few jobs in that game (at least at the time when I played) where you could actually solo - as you'd just grab a level concurrent beastie and have it kill things for you. These are mechanics that I don't quite think would work in FFXIV... if they were dropped in wholesale, at least.

 

The ability to straight up grab an enemy and use their abilities against other enemies - even temporarily - would likely be difficult to program and could potentially break the difficulty of various fights if you could... say... have King Behemoth in Crystal Tower drop meteors for you or something. If Control was kept in any sort of capacity at all, I would instead have it be Confuse - as that is a debuff that's already in the game (and otherwise player unusable) that causes you to go physically melee an ally. Obviously bosses and other key enemies would be immune to it, but it could be an amusing crowd control method for a single add and maybe even useful for a bit of added DPS. Using the Crystal Tower example again, you could Confuse the Iron Giant mobs and they could trudge over for the length of the debuff and smack around the Behemoth with some melee strikes for a bit.

 

Beastmaster is all about having monsters do stuff for you, though, so how would you have it work in situations where there aren't any adds like that around? As mentioned above, grabbing an enemy temporarily has its own difficulties, but grabbing things permanently would be an issue as well. Honestly, I suppose you could just take the concept of the WoW Hunter here and have a list of beasts you can grab (and possibly name) that fall into various "families" that would all have their own sets of skills, and then also have the ability to keep several and either summon them at will or swap via the stables (sounds like an advanced version of the Chocobo system, honestly). But my idea was a bit... different from that.

 

Basically, create a special beast that is specific for the Beastmaster. Summoner brought the idea of the Egis, so I had the idea of the Interceptor (named after Shadow's dog as a nice reference, though I suppose you could also call it Angelo) - an attack/guard dog that is effectively your "weapon" as a Beastmaster. You'd still have your actual job weapon (a whip in my head-canon) for auto-attacking and some techniques (Entangle to slow/heavy enemies, Whipcrack to stun), but most of your abilities would involve around having your Interceptor. I like to imagine Beastmaster as a tank class of all things, so moves could include stuff like:

• Fetch: Sends your Interceptor to pounce a single target and bring it back to you. (Shield Toss/Tomahawk move)
• Round-up: Order your Interceptor to corral all enemies around you. (AoE aggro move)
• Howl: A rallying cry of both Interceptor and Beastmaster that temporarily raises the attack of all nearby allies.
• Raise Hackles: Command your Interceptor to brace for an incoming attack, raising its defense.

All of which I would think would keep a lot of the spirit of the Beastmaster while also having it sort of fit the setup of the FFXIV job system. I also have ideas of the MT/OT stances being the Interceptor being at your side (combining your health pools) or out and able to protect/boost others and a bunch of other stuff like that... but I've been pretty verbose about this whole thing already so I'll quiet down on that.

 

But yeah, I think it isn't quite as hard as one might think to work BLU or BST into the game. You might just need to... standardize a lot of functionalities so that it fits in line with how the other jobs work rather than the more... freeform and dynamic traits commonly inherent to these two jobs in other games.

[Talamh]

I too skimmed over the post but as someone who loves Summoner/Arcanist/Scholar ...

 

I don't mind more pet classes. That's a ridiculous statement said by Square.

Known, for their outlandish, stupid, and ridiculous statements.

 

ADD BEASTMASTER NOW! IT'd be soo cuuute with all the puppies and stuff.