BST Help Please!

[Velecic]

So... I've been levelling my BST solo, mostly for fun, I don't care how fast I level it. Anyways, I'm avoiding Campaign because I actually want to level the job the old-school way and have fun doing it. So, here's my dilemma. I dinged 52 last night and decided to try out the Rolanberry Fields [S] Camp, vs. Chigoes listed on Wikipedia's BST Solo Guide. Problem is, I can't find them I've spent the last 30 minutes running around Rolanberry Fields anywhere NEAR Coppercaps or Berry Grubs (the suggested pets) and through anything that could be considered a "small bush" with zero luck. I can't find them anywhere. Please someone help me, where are the Chigoes in Rolanberry Fields [S] ?

[Antithesis]

You know BST can party pretty effectivly now since post update. Just a suggestion

[Velecic]

Oh yeah, I've done it lol, me & my pet made up ~50-60% of Party damage. I just want to level it the old fashioned way, cuz I find it fun. If I want to party I'll just pick another job to level. I just can't find Chigoes anywhere in the zone ; ; Oh well, giving up for now after almost an hour, off to lame old Crawlers Nest in the present

[Sechs]

I wish I could take things like you. I originally started to level BST because I wanted to avoid the frustration of not being able to do what you want to do (XP) when you want to.
Those hours and hours and hours of waiting for an XP pt invite, or for those necessary jobs to show up so you could make your own pt. I couldn't stand that anymore, and wanted to level on my own.
You see, it took me like 1 year and a half to level PUP? More than my first 75 job lol, I really didn't want to go into that kind of frustration anymore.

So I decided to level up BST and had fun leveling up whenever I wanted to.
I'm level 58 and my problem is that XP is very very slow... at this rate it will take me 2 years to get up to 75. When I'm lucky and I mean very very very lucky, I get 4k per hour, which honestly isn't enough for my standards.

Some camps are really fun, but there are very very few camps that I found so far, checking them on the soloing lists, that I found to be really efficient. Most are very tricky, one mischarm and or one little mistake, or one pop at the wrong time, and you're done. Losing xp, maybe 2 seconds after your reraise just wore off.
Especially those with undead mobs and blood aggro... ewww
The most tricky part is finding good mobs. The best would be to have EM pets, and T mobs, you can melee with your pets and usually you should kill mobs.
Problem is that in my experience, it's hard to do that. You hardly find EM pets and T mobs. It's always VT mobs and DC pets, or T pets... and you try to Charm/moveaway/leave in the hope that an EM will pop, but sometimes it can take hours (LITERALLY, I've spent 57 mins once in Crawler's nest hoping for an EM beetle to finally pop).
And wanna talk about XP parties? Sometimes you finally get to your camp, only to find out there are no pets, too many people xping there.
Some other times you stay in a camp exping all alone on your own, then an XP party gets there and expects you to leave, because appearently their XP is more important than your XP.

So what's the result in the end? I chose BST to avoid the frustration of leveling, and found another kind of frustration.
Sounds like frustration is behind every corner in FFXI, when attempting to level jobs ;_;

[Azkarin]

You know BST can party pretty effectivly now since post update. Just a suggestion

I've been away for a bit and haven't taken out my BST in a year. What changed to make them more party friendly? Snarl?

[Max™]

Go to the fort in Rolan S, there are Coppercaps behind the for, surprised there aren't chigoes back there, but there are some just south of the fort.

Some more to the west, southwest of the Maw near the one zone to Vunkerl, but the flies over there aggro I believe, and pets aren't close by.

[Velecic]

@ Azkarin : Pets not cutting your exp / jug pets the same, bst/nin being a great sata partner since you can just snarl all hate onto your pet are a couple things that make them solid in parties.

@ Max : EDIT, Nevermind, found them, and promptly aggro'd both and died & delvled to 52 ; ;

@ Sechs : I rarely level BST without EXP ring (though I'm starting to do so more) and now that I've gotten the hang of it I usually get 2-6k/hr without it, 4-10k/hr with it. Good camps get me around 4-5k/hr. Yeah it's slow, but I don't care cuz it's fun lol. For the most part I've had little to no trouble (aside from mischarms) using the camps posted on wiki's solo BST page. Now that I'm 52 with Apollo's, mischarms almost never happen, so that's one hassle taken care of. Once you get used to a camp a bit it's usually not so bad. Losing exp is part of bst, one camp I died like 9 times XD, but reraise ftw. I tend to prefer the safer camps and stick to them, as opposed to more dangerous ones. You're exactly right, mob level is absolutely key as I'm learning more and more now. Knowing mob level range & strength is super important, wiki is great for that. Since the BST MPK patch, getting pets to be the right level should be no problem. I just charm them, take em out of spawn area, leave. Wait for repop till they are the right level. Once they are, keep em in spawn area when you use Leave and they will jsut heal up. Dealing with jerkish PTs is gonna happen, but for the most part you can avoid highly camped areas. I have only been frustrated a couple times on BST, and that's been due to repeated deaths. But meh, you learn to live with it, and it's a lot of fun if given the chance

Anyways. thanks for the responses everyone, hopefully I can go find the chigoes now, though I just got level 53 in Crawler's Nest lol.

[Bakthi]

Some of what you describe is why I loved camps like Bostaunieux Oubliette. I could exp for hours and never see a single person down there, not even another BST. Usually the SSG camps were the same. Once I got to Garliage, I hated it because there would always be a party or another BST down there. BST is nice because you don't have to twist the arms of 5 other people to go to that crazy exp camp you've always wanted to try where you know nobody will disturb you.

I think it's best not to look at the exp/hour for solo BST. Enjoying the BST method of soloing is basically the reason to level the job; having BST to 75 is helpful sometimes, but not spectacular, and I think it works better if you don't necessarily see that as the goal. Some people look at it as a way to farm seals while also getting a bit of exp, which I guess works too.

There are many jobs that can get to 75 quickly, and for most jobs, the game starts at 75. I don't think either of those really apply to BST, although if you have a lot of time to solo, you can still get to 75 quickly enough. You also have to keep in mind that when you solo, you just go out to the camp and exp. There is no waiting while LFG, waiting for 5 other people to AFK at various times, etc., and who is to say your fellow party members are any good and you'll get more than 2-4k/hour while you're (finally) actually exping? This is why I only party in LS statics; otherwise, I find a way to solo my exp.

Sometimes you die while soloing, but there are lots of ways to have reraise, and I've seen parties end because they full-wiped, nobody had reraise, and camp was kind of far from HPs.

Edit: and do consider giving the Oubliette a spin now that you're 53. It's not fancy new WotG, but it's a fine spot for a few levels of solitude.

[Velecic]

Bakthi pretty much everything you just said I 100% agree with ^^ And yep, I'm in Boustanieux Oubliette right now, though... someone should have told me about the holes in the floor, I fell through while going after the last close werebat (had just mowed through all 5 others with a familiar'd T Dark Aspic) and died, reraised & died again, and had to rescue myself with other char cuz of the bloodsuckers ; ; This camp is by FAR the best I've ever had... almost everything is perfect... Best pets possible (slimes) vs. weak prey, Pets intimidate the prey, and prey doesn't link, I LOVE it. Gonna stay here till 56 lol, as long as the bats are chaining Exp will be great!
Boustanieux Oubliette FTW!

[Spekkio]

Bakthi pretty much everything you just said I 100% agree with ^^ And yep, I'm in Boustanieux Oubliette right now, though... someone should have told me about the holes in the floor, I fell through while going after the last close werebat (had just mowed through all 5 others with a familiar'd T Dark Aspic) and died, reraised & died again, and had to rescue myself with other char cuz of the bloodsuckers ; ; This camp is by FAR the best I've ever had... almost everything is perfect... Best pets possible (slimes) vs. weak prey, Pets intimidate the prey, and prey doesn't link, I LOVE it. Gonna stay here till 56 lol, as long as the bats are chaining Exp will be great!
Boustanieux Oubliette FTW!

sandy dungeon and leeches vs regular colibri at the blm marid camp are the 2 best xp spots in the game imo. 3rd best was probably scorps vs liz in chasm with a duo. we could rock out huge chains for well over 200 a mob with ease. bst has a lot of good spots and a lot of bad spots. too bad they cut off one of the best fixes to a dry area with djinn. 2 mobs on a pet on lightsday>diaga> chain 7 solo! <3! stupid se ruining my good fun. ><

[Max™]

Yeah, nerfing Djinns ruins a good lvl 45-48 Bst camp in East Ronf.

[Bartylby]

52-54/55 CN circle room

54/55-60 duo/trio bombs(54-57), jugs/ occasional weapon(57-60) to keep chain up (trio works even at 59, compared to solo anywhere else)

60-61 boyahda (convert room of mushrooms to EM and goto town on spiders)

61-65/66 caedarva marsh murres (ideal spot is west out of town, but north/east is decent when a party is on the west side)

65/66-69/70 puks (preferably duo, duo works well even at 69, much better than solo)

69/71-72 colibri (this spot doesn't really support two bst's in a duo unless one is willing to use jug pets or tigers in the area)

72-73/74 bibikibay camp on the plateau with the tragopans (careful of fog, spawns a VT bomb which is nice for exp but can hurt if you dont know it's there and are buffing/healing) solo goblins with duo dhamel

72/73-75 sky jugs/dolls

or 73-75 bibikibay dhamel and goblin near the EXP camp with 4 rabbits. convert them to EM for your level as you level convert them up.

[Valyana]

To avoid conflict with parties in Garlaige basement, go XP behind gate 2. You don't even need help through the banishing gate anymore, and can grab your AF helm while you're there.

[Rafike]

Since there is already a thread talking about BST xp figured I would post here to ask a question I have been wondering for a while now. Can a BST fairly effectively follow the BLM solo guide killing Goblin pets with jug pets? I've been soloing my BLM following this guide and have often times encountered BLUs and RDMs doing the same thing. However, I have never seen any BSTs at BLM camps which I always thought was a little odd. Forgive me if I am somehow overlooking something blatantly obvious.

[Keria]

Yes, probably. It may be difficult to find level-appropriate pets though and there will be a disproportionate amount of competition at beastman pet camps, compared to normal BST xp camps. Probably why you don't see BST at gob pets.

[Velecic]

Since there is already a thread talking about BST xp figured I would post here to ask a question I have been wondering for a while now. Can a BST fairly effectively follow the BLM solo guide killing Goblin pets with jug pets? I've been soloing my BLM following this guide and have often times encountered BLUs and RDMs doing the same thing. However, I have never seen any BSTs at BLM camps which I always thought was a little odd. Forgive me if I am somehow overlooking something blatantly obvious.

I think you may run into difficulty, Jug Pets don't have enough HP and you're typically fighting T-IT Pets, which will hit your jug pets for 100-200+ / hit, they will go down fast. I'm not sure if you could take out the pet in time, but it's worth a shot, let me know if it works out for you ^^

[Bakthi]

There are also a few locations where you have level-appropriate natural pets to take down BST pets, which BSTs have been doing for years. But as far as solo exp goes, I only ever treated jug pets as a smokebomb, not a regular thing. And yeah, I did pets in Gustav Tunnel and they savaged the DC-EM bats/leeches, so I can only imagine what they'd do to a jug pet.

It is very nice that BSTs can get behind gate #2 solo these days; that should make things a lot easier. It's a better camp anyway.

[MarkM.]

If you know where the north colibri camp is you can actually go there around 65 if you have a duo partner and both of you use treeant saplings (maybe the wrong name). Just go past the area where colibri and treeants farm, near where the entrance to the undersea ruins, camp near where they spawn. A ls mate and I duo'd there and at times were getting 8-9k/hr xp off colibri duoing.

And yes I know this is the "don't talk shit" forums, but as someone that leveled bst before they buffed it. If you want to level bst the old way, you have to leave you pets before you kill your prey. ~.o

[OctavoGilgamesh]

If you want to level bst the old way, you have to leave you pets before you kill your prey.

I rarely play bst anymore, but I still release my pet and finish with a ws lol. Did so a bunch of times solo skilling on drk/bst recently. Just habit I guess.

[Max™]

Was watching a friend do Blu/Bst in sky earlier.

Saw "The Flamingo defeats The Sprinkler." at least as often as I saw "Serpical defeats The Sprinkler.", then he'd drop the pet, still in it's spawn range so they wouldn't de-convert from EM, and swap to one of the others/lather/rinse/repeat.

He got Bst to 75 before the pet exp loss change, but it totally revolutionized /Bst play for him at least, and I can't say I blame anyone for not leaving their pet til after the kill.

Gotta love getting a mob low, then landing one non-crit hit in your Rampage, whiffing your next three swings, and getting nuked/WSed/Critted into the dirt.

Least if your pet is still wailing on it, and you land a crappy killshot, the pet will take it out before you die generally.