Worst bst ever.

[Neosutra]

I swear to god I have never sucked at a job more than I suck at bst. At least once a year I try and take up the bst trade and always quit after about 2 days. I usually take alot of pride in my jobs, farm the best gear, do alot of research, but I just havent found what it takes to make bst not the most miserable experience ever.

Now to be clear in 4 years I have made it all the way to lvl 14 (every xp session consists of me lvling for 2 hours, combined with dying over and over).

Either the mobs I fight are so fucking low that it feels like im a melee whm fighting easy prey to 75, or the shit is too hard and kicks my ass.

I have yet to find a camp with good even matchs or decent challenges paired up with toughs or evens to kill, and even when I do the xp is slow and mischarms almost always kill me.

Does the job get better? Is there some hints some pro's can lend me to make it not suck so bad? Better camps, tips on what to fight, some cool super secret handshake to make the job not suck. At what lvl is this shit not miserable?

/sigh.

[Bartylby]

you wont find any good camp 1-15 for bst using em or even dc vs toughs. it's not worth it

goto ghelsba (or any other place you like) and kill EP till 15, then goto ordelles (rescue drill entrance) and burn the fucking house down lol.
it'll still be a little annoying at 15, but it really loosens up at 16-17, and it's GREAT exp till 18, and good exp at 19, you could even suffer your way to 20 if you didnt feel like leaving.

[Poodevi]

Ha, 2 years of lurking on here and forgot I'd ever registered.

You're not being a terrible bst, you're being a bst.

Does the job get better? Is there some hints some pro's can lend me to make it not suck so bad? Better camps, tips on what to fight, some cool super secret handshake to make the job not suck. At what lvl is this shit not miserable?

Yes, the job gets amazing later on. Yes, it sucks horribly at your current lvl. At 35 it gets much better since you can Leave rather than waiting for your pet to die (wondering the entire time "should i jump in now? is my pet gonna last long enough for us to kill this mob, etc). At 51 an Apollo staff makes mischarms much less frequent so things get even easier.

In the long run this job is awesome. I have 4x 75's, 5x 50-60's, and most others at 37, and not a single one of them was as fun taking up as bst was. Granted at 75 my 2 fav's are war/sam and bst, but 35-75 there is no comparison. In other words, stick with it through the very steep learning curve and you'll love it later.

I'm probably going to get ostracised for linking to Alla, but the bst forum there is the one good forum on it so...

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/jobs.h...num=132;page=1

That is a great guide for camps and will serve you very well.

Hope you stick with it and learn to love it. Sure 1-34 sucks, but which job doesn't suck to do low lvl on? GL

[BerenTebogo]

I have exact same problem Neo, except mine is 22 because I leeched some PL.

I'm thinking part of it has to do with enmity+ merits? Since the only people I ever hear of having trouble are PLD mains like us, either way, I'm absolutely terrible at it, every few months someone says 'OH MAN I MADE SO MUCH MONEY LEVELING BST AND YOU CAN TOO!' I'm like FUCK YEAH! And I take to the streets in my frilly noble's ribbon, and proceed to waste 2-3 hours of my life.

I don't think I'll ever understand it, but to be honest I stopped caring, if I ever do level it, it'll be in a LS patent-party of 4 DD 1 leech 1 BRD 4 outside PLs 30-75.

THEN I'll be the worst BST ever, boosh!

[Eratosthenes]

You're almost to the point where BST starts getting good, so don't give up now. The best thing you can be doing now is charming a DC or EM pet and farming EPs. It's safe and since they're fast kills, pretty quick XP. At level 16, you can start messing around in Buburimu and doing more BST-like stuff.

[Bartylby]

there is a delicate balance of hate when it comes to exping solo on bst, usually i wait 10% of the mob's HP to gauge whether or not i should engage it.
of course it all depends if your pet can last the entire fight or not.

there is alot of stuff you can't really teach other people about the job without typing out EVERY possible scenario you would encounter as a bst.
a trial by fire as it were.

[Keria]

I had a ton of fun in Carpenter's Landing from Sandy entrance about level 17, til then just massacre EP-DC or something~

Stick with it, you get a fuckton of seals and some epeen from saying "I soloed all the way! booyah!"

[Isiolia]

You finish unlocking BST when you hit 35. Don't judge the job pre-Leave because that's not how it winds up being played. It'd be like judging NIN prior to Utsu: Ni.

In general, the job is very camp dependent. You will have level ranges where things go fast n' smooth. Others that are a grind.

The teen levels are a real pain. Do anything you need to in order to level then. Kill EPs. Join parties. Get someone to PL you even. That range just sucks. I would assume it's a little better now though, given that you can just keep a pet and get full XP.

[Raineer]

I'm really glad to see this thread. My BST is like 13 and I was having the same troubles trying to actually charm things and do "BST stuff". It sure seemed like raping EP's was the way to go, and I'm glad to see others have the same issues.

I simply just can't wait to try 75RDM/BST, it's been my main motivation behind leveling the job.

edit: How does 'Leave' affect things now that you get full XP anyways? Is the goal to Leave somewhere in the mob's initial radius to let it heal fully?

[Isiolia]

The full XP thing isn't a benefit anymore, no, but the other benefits are still there, and so it still means a lot.

It's actually usually optimal to release a pet outside of it's radius of activity since that way it just depops and repops a minute later with full HP. Depending on what your prey is, your pet may have a DoT on it or something that would prevent it from healing back HP immediately, and depopping gets around that.

The reason you wouldn't want to do that is if pets can potentially be popping Tough. Letting them depop and repop may mean that your nice EM pet comes back as a Tough that you need to convert back to EM or lower. "Convert" in this case refers to getting pets to pop at an appropriate level. Back in the day, this meant killing them and hoping they repopped the right level. The depop change means Charm, run outside radius, release, and hope it repops at the right level. HUGE timesaver.

You need fewer pets with Leave too. Where prior to that, you just use a pet until it dies (or use extra time if a mob doesn't track by scent by Stay'ing it and waiting for it to uncharm), with Leave you swap over to a fresh pet at least for every fight (if not using more than one pet per prey). Ideally, you only need 2-3 good pets in an area to rotate through, whether they repop in 5 minutes or 20.

A fresh pet also means a more consistent fight. Charm duration is reset, pet has full HP at the start, it isn't enfeebled from the last fight, etc.
Leave also clears hate on a mob. It can be a crowd control tool. Charm something, release it, and it behaves like a new mob pop. There's a few seconds before it'll link/aggro/etc. It also allows for pet pulling without your pet dying.

BST solo XP isn't so much pet + BST DD'ing together, it's about the BST manipulating the mob population to their advantage. Leave makes it so you aren't attached to any one mob any longer than you need to be, or it's convenient to be. It's huge.

[Midnightjade]

At lvl 14, you can actually start to Charm stuff semi-reliably since you can stack CHR gear to +10 or so. La Theine is pretty good, the lake at H7 (crab vs worm) or ravine at E8 (wasp, worm, sheep). Take a RR scroll out with you.

At first, you need to just learn the rhythm of the job. The hate line is critical, you should make every effort to not be at the top of the hate list. Always give the mob a target other than you that gets to the top of the hate list quickly and stays there.

Charm a pet, attack a mob, let the pet get some hate, and watch for a little while. Be patient and don't jump in to the fight straight away. If the pet is getting owned, stay back, find another pet, and Charm it when the first one dies. Get the second pet onto the mob asap, to minimize the amount of damage you take. Only engage the mob when it's a sure kill with your current pet.

You also need to develop a sense of what's around you - any potential links, and any potential aggro that might become a problem. If the situation looks like it might turn bad, then bail on it, either by zoning or logging out.

Hope this helps, the first 13 level of the job are easily the worst so just drive on through them and it gets a lot better. ^^

[Bakthi]

I actually love when I get to around 15 or 16 on jobs, because then I do as /BST what I did as BST main: head to Tahrongi, get a Dhalmel, and destroy everything in sight, possibly including a weaker Dhalmel. A DC Dhalmel will win against a T Yagudo if it's fresh, or it will slaughter EP mobs until it becomes uncharmed (2 crawlers at a time might be an issue). 13 and 14, I think I hated as well. I died a few times in Horutoto; think I eventually went to Stray Mary's pop area and used sheep against everything.

I think when I really knew I liked BST was when I hit bombs in Gusgen, and especially when I dinged 35 there and hit Leave. Nothing anyone can write can prepare you for how good Leave is after soloing 34 levels and then getting it. I suppose the effect is slightly diminished now, but...even if you theoretically understand why it's good, I think you'll get that "Oh...oh hey...YEAH" moment.

I'd also advise anyone against rushing BST to 75, especially in a party. Because honestly, I felt like the trip up was the best part, especially dangerous camps like Bost[tab] or anywhere with bombs. You can go to all kinds of weird places and fight in a style different from any other job. At 75...well, you can help people with Xolotol/Alastor/Hakutaku, screw around in some areas, solo the CN escort, get extremely slow merits at 1 or 2 camps, or join a merit party and probably do at least somewhat worse than you would have on some other job (I guess depending on what you have leveled...it was true for me). If, once you hit about 40 or so, you're still not enjoying the journey...I wouldn't bother unless it's your last Maat's Cap job.

[Spekkio]

my experience with low lvl bst was different than most of the above:
pretend you're a war that gets a crab buddy at 23. i got most of the way to 35 in parties, finding that i could regularly keep up with most melees with a decent jug pet (tiger familiars at 28 just tore through mobs.) remember, bst has a fairly good rating with an axe, equal to that of a war at that lvl, so you're not just leeching, you are actually contributing. once you hit 35, the game changes. it's when bst comes out of its shell and changes from "lawlbst" to "hey, this is actually pretty fun." get a duo partner at 35, and the world is yours. you're not reliant on parties with players who screw up and MPK everyone then the whm realizes they don't have rr on. you're not stuck with domaru sams and martial axe wars. it's just you and 2 mobs (you, a buddy, and 3 mobs if you duo.) you start when you want, you stop when you want, and you take home all the KS and BS too! ^^ bst is a challenge, there's no doubt, and that challenge changes over time, from finding a way to get xp to 35, to finding camps, to figuring out what the hell you're going to do with all these blasted seals, it's a fun path. stick with it till at least 35 before you condemn it.

also, i loved that i could be incredibly cheap and it actually worked out great. if hate gets wonky with your pet, sometimes intentionally handicapping with inferior gear is a bonus, letting you continue to build tp and do some damage w/o getting faced by an ornery mob. don't stress over gear, just ride it out and have fun. have a decent charm set, a couple of axes, and nuts to the rest if you like.

[Raineer]

Just wanted to say thanks for the responses to my question and for all the additional info. Since I came back this time I have been really interested in BST, but it seemed so boring. After reading these, I find out it is not at all :D

[arshesney]

The lower levels can really be tedious, but it gets really better. At level 14 you get access to a nice chump of +CHR gear, that will help you charm better. Only thing is that hate is still hard to balance, pets can't tank well, you need to learn how hate is going to shift (and I'd say that that is one of the things that make BST fun), and generally "taking it easy".
Also check if there are other BSTs levelling you can team up with, duo/trio is a LOT of fun and increases xp by a good amount, I had one of my best "parties" at 26 in Batallia Downs: 4 BST jugburning bounty hunters, went 26->28 in like 3 hours and loads of fun

Then 35+: Leave and pets that can hold hate and tank for you, you'll start enjoying xping much more, and chaining mobs easily.
...And dying is part of the job, in all my 75 levels (and merits!) it always been HP or R1, only once I cried in LS for an R3... but it was the 4th delevel 62 -> 61 of the night xD

Hope you'll enjoy the job as much as I did, it's really worth levelling.

[isladar]

A good friend + ventrilo make low-leveling BST duoing insanely fun, as long as you remember that it will get exponentially funnier each time you die horribly. Close shaves with a bud make the bad levels really worth it.

[Shuemue]

What do people think about BST/DNC?

[Skeetaru]

My advice to anyone lvling bst, is

-Treat it completely different than any other job you have leveled, like it is its own game.
-You will learn more than you'd ever want to learn about mob behavior, aggro ranges, pop areas and more so use that info.
-Don't level it if you cant pay attention for long periods of time because small mistakes end up in dead BSTs.
-Take it slow, leveling BST is most definitely about the road and not about the destination.
-BST is very much a "flow", if its going well then stick with it for that time period. But in the same idea if you die, take a break and clear your head because I can tell you that deaths happen in bunches because you get off your game.
-There are PLENTY of leveling guides out there but do not be afraid to look up some mobs on your own (usually want a level range 1-2 lower than your level to 1-3 above your level)
-Don't cheat yourself by PLing or getting into parties, sure I've leveled in parties from time to time but soloing/duoing is so much more rewarding.
-ALWAYS BRING RERAISE.

[Neosutra]

Thanx for all the advice guys.

Ill keep at it and see how it goes, and try and find some better camps than then ones I am currently at.

One other thing, my wife will be duoing with me for most of the time, at what lvl is this a good idea? Or can we duo pretty much whenever?

If im not doing the "spam kill easys and decents", should I be focusing on decent pets and EM prey? Or EM pets and Tough prey? When duoing should we be doing VT prey ??

I am working on this job for a few reasons:

1. Gil, working on next relic.
2. To help finish maats cap, be nice to solo on other jobs while seeking with /bst sub.
3. To spend some more time with wife farming and having fun.

So I really want to make it work.

[nekura]

I started duoing at 20-ish in Maze of Shakhrami and it worked pretty well (you will probably get links here, so watch out). VTs were doable, just be careful about pulling hate from your pet because you will take a severe beating and need quite a bit of time to recover.

Reading this thread makes me excited about getting back into duoing BST with my new partner. :D