Well I don't write on forums that often but this is something I need to say. I came back to playing after a year long hiatus and I'm disappointed. My main character, the one I have leveled up the most (and that is 180, feel free to call me noob) is a Beast tamer, a class that most will say is weak and unviable but one that I love nonetheless. There are problems with Beast Tamers, most of which almost everybody knows but that I'll repeat anyway because I made this character 4 years ago and it is kind of grating to come back after a long time and see that the class has not only not gotten fixed, but gotten worse.
The problem with the animals
The point of BT is to use her 4 animals to get the advantage of any situation. Bear is the beefy heavy hitter meant for bossing, Leopard is the fast damage dealer that moves you across the map meant for mobbing. Hawk has the absolute best mobility in the game with a double high and far Flash Jump, upwards jump, glide and fly, as well as plenty of status dealing options. Cat is the full support with a lot of active buffs, meant for parties. Too bad only 1 of them is actually usable. I thought the Critter Champs were a team of heroes rather than my college work team because that is what it feels like. Bear does all of the work, Cat and Hawk occasionally aid but is not by much and Leopard slacks all day and then steals the credit. Marvelous.
Cat: Easily the only animal other than Bear worth investing in. Party buffs all around as long as you are the leader, 30% holy symbol, a heal and a revive. Its basically Bishop light… which also means it is better to get a Bishop if you want any support. Cat is also the proud owner of one of the only two active buffs BT has in all of her skill list, Meow Card. This buff is actually decent, giving either more ATT, more DEF or more Attack Speed. You can later get Golden Meow Card which gives all of the buffs in the same card. The problem? The DEF card is useless and you cannot pick which buff you will get. If you want to max out BT's damage you need to be lucky enough to get a red card all the time. Not only that but it is a skill that only Cat has, which means you have to change to Cat (which if you were in Bear mode, and lets be honest you were in Bear mode, causes you to lose a lot of max HP) just to get a random 2 minute long buff.
Leopard: The worst of the bunch. Only worth until around level 120, after that is a reset SP and never use it again. The idea is that you can damage, hit many enemies at the time and move like many other mobing stances or mobing heavy warriors. Its actually very similar to Zero, you would use Leopard to mob and Bear to boss. The problem? Leopard is so weak. Thats a trend with BTs, the lackluster damage and the squishiness of anything but Bear mode. Leopard will barely damage enemies, specially high end mobs. Not only that but because of how attacking works you will be directly thrown into the enemies themselves, taking additional damage.
Hawk: The most fun there is in this class but also the second worst animal to use. Hawk is meant to be your mobile stance allowing you to fly and jump across the map while you bomb enemies with baby bird bombers. The problem it has is the same as Leopard, lacking damage and health. The damage is even worse than Leopard. Perhaps the idea was to have most of the damage being bleeding and critical, something that Hawk got a lot of, but the actual % of damage is way, way too low to be any viable. The only reason why Hawk gets any points is because of its utility skills. Eka Express which works the same way as a Bishop's Door, the double flash jump, glider, fly and Regroup which pulls any party members to your map.
But wait, Bear also has issues: This is your main bossing stance and the only animal worth using. He gets lot's of damage, a 100% critical rate, can leave flames on the ground that deals constant damage, can hit enemies above you, summon a melee turret. It also has the highest damage, DEF and HP of all animals. What is Bear's problem then? Its mobility is non existent. Bear attacks by doing 3 punches and then Furious Swipe, a spammable flurry of attacks. That is your main attack move and it leaves you rooted to the ground. You need to do the 3 punches before doing Furious Swipe which translates to essentially a 3 second wind up… from which you cannot move at all. Fishy Slap does about the same damage as Furious Swipes and has not startup time but it also leaves you planted on the ground. The only other moves which sort of lets you have control of the field is Majestic Trumpet and Li'l Fort which require you to position the enemy in their range. Oh, and Majestic Trumpet gets reflected so if you are fighting a boss that reflects like Arkarium, Hilla, Horntail and such consider yourself done. Perhaps the worst is Table Flip, the highest amount of lines in BT is also close to 8 seconds of animation with a 1 minute cooldown, and during the animation you are not immune to enemies. So you are locked in one place until the animation ends, by that time you are probably dead.
The hypers
There is hyper passives for each animal but again only Bear's is worth it as it is a buff to Furious Swipe, the only good thing BT has going for her. The other are boosts to 3 Point Pounce, Defensive Formation and Friend Blaster. I've never used 3 Point Pounce but from research it seems it is an awful move and I don't want to waste any SP on Leopard at this point. Defensive Formation barely does any damage and attacking with Hawk is sub optimal in the first place. Finally Friend Launcher. Why? Friend Launcher is there just to have an attack on Cat but it barely does any damage, mostly because it is not meant to do damage in the first place.
The active hypers also have problems. Group Bear Blaster has the same issue as Table Flip, overly long animation that plants you on the ground until it ends without any form of protection. The damage it does is only ok, but it is a 90 second cooldown so it is barely worth it for the amount of time it wastes.
The only thing good of the hyper skills is Team Roar. 30 second invincibility with a 30% damage boost that the party is able to receive is excellent. Suddenly you can do all of the Bear's attacks without any issue because you won't be damaged… but it is a 5 minute cooldown. Great, the only thing that fixes almost all of BT's problem can only be used in 5 minutes intervals and only for 30 seconds. Hope your range is high enough to kill all the bosses in under 30 seconds my friends.
The problem with the bugs
Beast Tamer is perhaps the buggiest class in GMS. The only other character I've heard that has been plagued with very bad bugs is Jett, which coincidentally is another non-KMS class. There are two main bugs that affect BT deeply, and the worst part is that they have been present and known for well over 4 years. These are the “Death Bug” and the “Card Bug”. Both of which I know that still exist because lo and behold I got both of them today. Happy Friday the 13th.
The Death Bug occurs when a BT dies. There is a chance that on death the respawn window will not appear, forcing a relog. This means all the progress on bosses that I would have up to that point is gone. What causes it is still a mystery but the most likely culprit is Bear Revive, which revives the player if they die. So, if that is the case that means that I have to manually deactivate that skill every time and lose on my investment to get it, investment that is also necessary to get all of the Bear skills.
The other bug, the Card Bug occurs on Cat Mode when using the card buff. On rare occassions it might just happen that our character will lock up, unable to change animals or attack, or do pretty much anything else. This as well is only fixed with a relog. So now I can't use the saving grace that is Bear Revive nor can I use the only buff that is actually usable. This severely decreases any bossing potential BT has as now I cannot depend on my own buffs or passives to help.
Another minor issue is that the Hawk's main attack, Formation Attack, stutters. It's like having rapid fire starting and stopping every second. Its annoying to have your main attack be bugged. “But wait!” I hear you ask, “Didn't you say Hawk is useless in damage?”. It is, I don't use it for damage, but here is the thing. This class haven't been touched in any way for 4 years, something broke during some update at some point in time. However, like everything that isn't KMS content, there is no fix coming soon.
Here is a class with severe issues, both in gameplay and in bugs, that haven't been touched for 4 years. Sure we get events for Beast Tamers every now and then when the class is available but that is pointless when the class is almost unplayable in the current meta. If you can't boss, if you can't solo and cannot provide to a party then what is the point of having you?
The problem with creation
Despite BT's being the broken mess they are, for some reason they are the only class that is creation locked. We used to have this for “Legends” type characters, basically anything that wasn't Explorer, Cygnus or Resistance. Now we don't have to wait for creation events to create the characters we want… except for Beast Tamer. So not only is BT broken but it is also unavailable. Why? So people won't notice the mess that she is? I mean Jett is still available and they aren't in a better condition last time I checked. In fact BT is often open for creation at least once every year. Again, why? If the class is so broken then why make them only available certain times of the year? Why don't you fix it first instead?
So it is late where I am. I have taken my time writing this and I could go on with ideas on how to fix this class like how it is awful you can't max out all animals and more but this is getting close to 3 pages long, its been a long rant. In the end I just want this class to be fixed. If they took their time actually bringing this class and then giving them 5th job and hyper support it means they at least know the class exist, which only makes it more grating that the bugs and general problems the class has have yet to be fixed.
It feels like they don't care. People don't play this class as they play other more popular classes so why bother? Well the reason is because this class is barely open for creation and for the people who do dive in they only find a broken mess. People won't play this class because it isn't fun to suddenly lose to a boss because dying is glitched only with her, because your buff might stop you from playing and because 3/4ths of this class are useless.
Does this means I will give up on my main? Well, no. This is the class I find the most fun to play and I will probably get her first to 250 if I ever get to stick with this game for that long. My only wish at this point is to see it fixed, they need it.
