BST (beastmaster) TP set

[Corgan]

I just bonanza'd my way to BST Empyrean +1 hands and feet. Currently using NQ dusk hands and Perle feet for TP. What's better?! Feel free to suggest other easy to get options.

[Corgan]

Also currently using Alky bracelets for Rampage, BST Empy +1 better for WS there as well? Or what?

[cdgreg]

I'm currently doing the Joker cannottellifserious.jpg look at my monitor. I'll be glad to help if you're seriously, otherwise troll!

[dasva]

Yeah me too... if you are trolling go away. If you are serious you might want to look up the last 2-3 years of gear <.<. Or hell to make it easier just look at delve, skirmish and balyd gear

[Corgan]

Sadly, I am serious and have never done delve, skirmish, or balyd...

[cdgreg]

Are you just returning to the game? Do you have SoA access? Quite baffled still.

[Corgan]

Yea pretty much, don't have SoA yet

[Sechs]

SoA launched a new model for character evolution.
Since they decided it would have been impossible to allow level cap to go above 99, they created a new concept for "levelup". Now your character levels up from gear with ilevel.
Such gear (added in SoA) has an additionl information called "ilevel" that if I recall goes from 100 to 119 currently. Your average ilevel = your new "level". So basically if you average 116 you should consider your character as level 116.
These items have a wide amount of various basic stats, evasion, magic evasion and defense.

Which items have ilevel?
Basically the one you can see, so the 5 basic slots plus weapons/ammo.

Where can I get ilevel gear?
You can get it from the following sources

• Bayld vendors (currently 2 sets, ilevel 100 and ilevel 105)
• Skirmish (ilevel 113)
• Delve (ilevel 110)
• Wildskeeper Reive (ilevel 106/115)
• Delve Megaboss (ilevel 119)

What is Bayld?
The new Soa "currency" (think about allied notes for WotG or Imperial standing for ToAU). You gain that from several sources, mainly doing Reives I'd say, but others too (quests, assignments, skirmish etc)
They are gonna add new sets in the future, at least 2 new series of sets.
Currently there is the first one (ilevel 100) which was addedd at launch and second one (ilevel 105) which was added sometime ago.
When the new set comes out, the old one gets a reduction in price.
For BST the sets you want are Karieyh set and the Gorney set

What is Wildkeepers Reive?
A special kind of reive where you fight against one of the Naakuals, special bosses of SoA.
The first set of 3 Naakuals which was added at start drops ilevel 106 items, the second set of 2 Naakuals added some time ago drops ilevel 115 items.
To join these fights you need to buy special key items, you need Bayld to get them


What is Skirmish?
A 6men event. There are 3 areas for Skirmish, the old ones (Rala and Cirdas) and the new one (Yorcia).
Old ones drop weapons only, new one drops gear. (for BST it's the Iuitl set)
No special requirements to enter Skirmish. The party member entering needs a KI, and all other pt members get warped in regardless. What you need is to be in zone when the PT leader tries to enter, so you should at least "unlock" access to the mentioned zones. Further info HERE.


I will skip the info about Delve and Megabosses because they seem a bit out of reach for you atm.
When you'll catch up I'm sure you'll be more than able to gather the info on your own.
Last but not least though, info about your pets.
SE changed the way the merits "Beast Affinity" works. Previously it couldn't get you past level 99 pets, now it can but only if you're equipping a weapon with ilevel mainhand. There are also new jugs (4, if I recall?) which are automatically above level 99 without the Beast Affinity trick. Uh... not sure about this part, but I think so.

[cdgreg]

Good man Sechs. Also, some of the +2 abyssea and Neo Nyzul Investigation gear is still decent for BST. There are some newish AHable axes that are high quality and reasonably priced as well.

[Corgan]

Wow very helpful, thank you both!

[dasva]

SE changed the way the merits "Beast Affinity" works. Previously it couldn't get you past level 99 pets, now it can but only if you're equipping a weapon with ilevel mainhand. There are also new jugs (4, if I recall?) which are automatically above level 99 without the Beast Affinity trick. Uh... not sure about this part, but I think so.

Beast affinity doesn't actually raise pets levels just their caps. The main difference is now your main hand weapons ilvl is substituted for your level when calling out a pet. Also to note not all the "99" pets go all the way to 114 for some reason. And the new crafted jugs are 103-105 and the plasm one is 113. But those are just caps (pre BA caps though) it will still only call out something your level or ilvl at the highest

Specific old peices you'd want is af3+2 body. Af2+2 augmented gloves and legs. Possibly some other peices too but I'd figure you'd work on smaller gains like that slower. Still all the random pet gear like augmented armada feet, addon augmented items, the pet haste belt. Various acessories are still good like rajas, eponas rings, rancor neck or back suppa/brutal.

[cdgreg]

I have not messed with any of the new jugs. Are any of them situationally worth anything, or stick with Falcor?

[dasva]

Well they do cap higher so if you have higher ilvl axes it's going to basically be a use them or use something underleveld.... heck if you have mega boss axe even with augmented af2+2 hands and full BA merits 1 of the new ones will still be underleveled.

As far as strength they seem okish. Nothing spectactular. Grasshopper is kinda dissapointing but vermin types generally are. But the crafted ones still have price/availability issues. The plasm one is a little step up but not really worth 2k a shot. Hell for those kind of gains not really worth 2k a stack if you ask me. Kinda like they did bullets and such. Of course once we get new ilvl axes there is going to be bigger and bigger differences due to caps on them since right now only the plasm one can go more than a level past the mega boss axe. Overall I wouldn't bother with new jugs right now unless you have megaboss axe. You only losing a couple of levels and well there move lists and stats aren't that exciting. No cool debuffs like alot of the 99 ones had. And they have already hit their limit . I think the crab is cheap now though

[Fwahm]

Jugs above level 99 are getting a big stat boost in about a week, though.

[dasva]

Well hopefully big lol. Though they deciding to not do meva then to do it then not to do it lol

[Sechs]

Jugs above level 99 are getting a big stat boost in about a week, though.

They mentioned Acc, Att and other stuff, but that applies only for the abovelv99 jugs? You sure about that? Honestly I still favored Falcorr because of TH and availability so far, and I was hoping he'd be getting the boost too :'(


@Dasva
Why AF3+2 body? For situations where you can make use of the KI>Damage% bonus? I thought at least in uncapped haste situaions (which realistically should be the majority of times if you're playing BST) Skadi+1 Body was still the best with its ~7% DW
I need to re-read your pet cap level post now because I found it confusing, after breakfast and a cig maybe, hoping my brain will have turned on by then >.>

[Sechs]

Ok let's see if it's on now.
Dasva the way I thought it work it's like following, please correct me if I'm wrong.
ilevel weapon on MH is the new "cap" for your current jug, and it overwrites what would normally be the cap for that jug, but there are some pre-requisites

• For old lv99 capped jugs (Falcorr, Yuly etc) you're gonna need BA merits for the ilevel weapon to apply and make your jug cap at higher level. Since max you can get 15 BA (10 from merits, 5 from AF2+2 gloves augment) the old jug pets can cap max at level 114, which means if you have a higher ilevel axe (Delve MB 119, Hurkan's 115) you won't be able to use them fully
• New jugs have a higher cap (~105 for the crafted ones, ~113 for the Plasm one?) and these *naturally* cap at their respective caps, no need for BA or ilevel weapon. An ilevel weapon can make that cap higher, but you'll still need BA merits for that to happen

Something wrong in here?
You mention not all lv99 capped pets go all the way to 114 for some reason, where is the proof here? How has this been tested? (don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't trust you, I just wanna read it myself and see the details)



Personally I don't have much experience with this. Tested it with Hunaphu and 12 BA levels in Dynamis - Tavnazia solo and while I could clearly notice the higher health pool, damage taken was actualy higher compared to what I used to average pre-SoA in Dynamis - Valkurm.
Altough in Valk I was fighting EPs while in Tav I was fighting DCs so... ungh... yeah, it's hard to compare I suppose.

[dasva]

Sorta best to think of it is BA does what it has always done and raise the cap on stuff. So for the 99s that means up to 114 for the 103, 118 and so on with plasms going from 113 to 128. That's it for capping

But as always when you call a jug it calls it out at 0-2 levels lower than your level unless the cap is lower than that. Just like when you were level 95 using falcoor it would still be level 93-95. The only thing they really changed so much is made it so the ilvl on your weapon is used instead of your actual level. As far as testing on the 99 pets I'd have to look it up later but it's on the alla bst forums. Basically you just tweak expected level with various ilvl axes and BAs and check HPs.

[dasva]

@Dasva
Why AF3+2 body? For situations where you can make use of the KI>Damage% bonus? I thought at least in uncapped haste situaions (which realistically should be the majority of times if you're playing BST) Skadi+1 Body was still the best with its ~7% DW

Haven't really mathed it out so not sure but as far as tping goes the haste might let you rework something and while KI is down probably not worth it offensively anyways but assuming KE merits with KI down not counting the skill/acc/att that is +7% damage dealt and -7dt. With KI up that becomes 15% each on top of what KI does (they are factored multicatively if you were wondering). I'd imagine 15% dmg per each would probably beat 7% dw but who knows.

Either way I can't see anything coming close to beating it on ws lol

Disclaimer: Doesn't work in dynamis and has only has 2/3s potency on mobs that con ITG.... so like all battlefield/events etc.

[cdgreg]

Well they do cap higher so if you have higher ilvl axes it's going to basically be a use them or use something underleveld.... heck if you have mega boss axe even with augmented af2+2 hands and full BA merits 1 of the new ones will still be underleveled.

As far as strength they seem okish. Nothing spectactular. Grasshopper is kinda dissapointing but vermin types generally are. But the crafted ones still have price/availability issues. The plasm one is a little step up but not really worth 2k a shot. Hell for those kind of gains not really worth 2k a stack if you ask me. Kinda like they did bullets and such. Of course once we get new ilvl axes there is going to be bigger and bigger differences due to caps on them since right now only the plasm one can go more than a level past the mega boss axe. Overall I wouldn't bother with new jugs right now unless you have megaboss axe. You only losing a couple of levels and well there move lists and stats aren't that exciting. No cool debuffs like alot of the 99 ones had. And they have already hit their limit . I think the crab is cheap now though

I've been toying with the idea of soloing some neo salvage for Alex, specifically khimara zone. Was planning falcor for the bosses. Should I consider one of the newer jugs? I know this answer may change in a couple weeks.