I love beastmastery. I trained my first beast, a wyvern, to have a generally wide array of skills with no particular end goal:



Bodyguard is a nice bashing tool. Chameleon is useful to accompany my stealthiness... Spit senso helps stick slickness for my lock. Otherwise I never really use fly or mount for travel (perhaps I should). And the Heal Health never really panned out for bashing since I kata chain both nekai and raze attacks. It's nice, but not necessary (esp. since I have the nice M&M system, something I didn't have when I first trained the beast). Never used beast healing to the point that regenerate ego was necessary, and regenerate health is a complete waste. Bodyguard doesn't tap into a beasts health (maybe it should?). And in combat people tend to ignore the beast due to chameleon. She was a great learning experience, but now I am ready to move on.

Recently acquired a Chimaera. My intention is to retrain the wyvern into a bashing/influence beast and use the chimaera for a combat mount. Not quite sure what is involved in retraining a beast. I assume it should be explained through the help files; nonetheless, any help is appreciated. Though, my real question is how to train up each beast to maximize it's potential, and compliment/supplement my skills as a loboshi, stealth, psymet, nekotai monk. Here's what I'm currently thinking:



Is training up to gust helpful? Should I focus on trample (and does it require me to be mounted?). What other skills are "must haves." for my setup? Focus curing? Reflections? Chameleon to maintain my stealth? Would appreciate feedback... esp from a combat monk.

Also:



Not much of an influencer, so I see these skills really helping out-- especially with quests. Are there certain influence types that are more "quest" worthy? Like empower & weaken? Also thought about getting burrow to have an alternative to flying (hear both have applications for astral bashing). What about heal ego for influence?

Anything I am missing here?

Report 424 was just approved, which will allow beasts with Battle training to attack mobs (not the suggested solution, but it sounds pretty nice). We won't know how it works or its effectiveness until it goes live, but you might want to keep that in mind for your hunting beast.

*furiously re-plans beast training program*
Awesome!

Hrm... I was wondering how that report was going to be settled. Unfortunately Beast Battle suffers from the same issues as did Beast Healing: it requires eq/bal and therefore does not mesh with kata performances. The writing on the wall is quite clear-- have to move from kata chaining in PVE to attacking form by form. Suppose it was about time to change anyway... Will check into the Vadi Do Repeat system to make it work (also just noticed he has a beastmastery add on).

Battle at 20 trains is an absolute steal! Would really love to see some hard data (i.e. beast on beast battle) to figure out if Aggressive is a worthwhile investment. Even at that, Battle + Agressive should mesh well with Bodyguard to account for the bashing half of my beast's abilities, with the other half devoted to influencing. This is what I'm currently thinking:



Not enough wiggle room to get chameleon, but I can train up healing again. Maybe I'll drop aggressive for healing, regeneration, and chameleon. Then again a pony would give me 50 trains where I need it. Hrm... got me thinking. Thanks for pointing this out.

I'm also going for a influencing/bashing beast, so having the same trouble planning. However, I would suggest dropping the paranoid. It cannot help with questing, and unlike charity or empowerment, is quite useless except for annoying the heck out of other people. That'll give you another 50 trains to work with.

Mine is very similar to yours, except that mine is a chimaera.

I'm planning for:

Battle - 20
Aggressive - 120
Bodyguard - 150
Flying - 100
Riding - 10
Influence (all except paranoid) - 200
Total: 600

I was considering dropping Flying for Chameleon as I can already fly, but I like the idea of wings on my chimaera, and I don't have Beastmastery up to Chameleon yet, so...
(Yes, I do know that means I also don't have Bodyguard, but that sounds too awesome to not plan for the future.)

I know, as a mage when I use my turtle for battle I time it so the turtle hits and then I immediately do (that way I don't have to regain equilibrium and then order the beast). Or does the beast balance interrupt momentum for kata? (not sure here, never played a monk)

-cough- I have three beasts. One needs to be revamped with wackodoru, due to the fact that I am an idiot.

Then I have a WIP hippogriff and an influence pony.

Chameleon would be super useful. A lot of the time I don't take my beasts into battle because I don't want my invisibility to be ruined by my hippogriff, turtle or pony trotting after me. (I don't have up to chameleon either)

So if you can squeeze it in there, I would.

By the way, this is the plan for the revamped turtle:

Battle - 20 body
Aggressive - 120 body
Jumping - 120 body
Flying - 100 body
Chameleon - 70 mind

Suggestions for how to fill the last 70 trains?

Edit: Yeah, sounds like you do need Riding to be able to Jump. That leaves you with 60 trains.


Edit: And all that you're left with is either Trotting + Galloping, or have Regeneration in mana to utilise your minorbreathe?

Alternately, shell out the 60,000 gold for a wyvern (cheapest beast that has flying inherent), which will free up 100 flying trains.

Yeah, forgot riding wasn't inherent.

Trotting I have on the hippogriff, useful. Hmm. Thanks.

I'm getting a wyvern eventually, maybe. I'm getting an eagle first. Was debating on getting a pegasus too... it's like Pokemon. Gotta catch 'em all. >_>

I prefer to catch one really BIG one! So much easier on the training and far more useful.

From my initial tests of Beast on Beast damage.

Battle on beast w/out armour = 55 damage
Battle w/aggressive on beast w/out armour = 100 damage

Beast battle attacks CRIT. Speculation that beast crit rate = players crit rate.

Seems very worthwhile, especially considering the crit factor.

I heart Pokemon.

Where can you buy eagles?

http://sites.google.com/site/xieltalnara/BeastTable

You'll have to work out the specifics.

Faethorn. You'll find the guy by the glove. It's something like "A heavy glove covers the hand of a man here"

You can view the full list of where to get all the beasts on the Lusternia Lore Wiki or on Xiel's epic site, as Janalon stated.