Overview
A Dawntrail ‘limited job’, wielding axe and shield, based around capturing and summoning beasts.
Mechanics
- Fifty beasts are available to start grouped into eight classifications: Beastkin, Vilekin, Cloudkin, Seedkin, Wavekin, Scalekin, Soulkin, and Ashkin.
- Pick up to three beasts to take into a given encounter.
Summoning and Parting
- Each creature’s battlehorn has a summoning cooldown of its own. Summoning a beast swaps out any active beast. These cooldowns will define the major cycles of the class.
- Cooldowns only take effect when in combat, and begin counting down when the beast is dismissed.
- Parting Blow dismisses a beast by executing a powerful AOE.
One with Nature
Each time you summon a beast, you are granted the buff One with Nature. When active, you can consume it to use one of two abilities: either the beast uses a special ability, or you, the Beastmaster, swap in a special ability you can use repeatedly.
In other words, you have a choice every time you summon between a beast’s special ability, and changing your own skill loadout.
Borrow
- Grants the Beastmaster an ability based on the family of the active creature:
| Family | Ability | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Beastkin | Beastskin | |
| Vilekin | Vileskin | |
| Cloudkin | Cloud Skim | |
| Seedkin | Seedsower | |
| Wavekin | Quelling Wave | Instant Ranged Attack, GCD |
| Scalekin | Scaleskin | |
| Soulkin | Soul Crush | Interrupt, 30s CD |
| Ashkin | Scouring Ash |
- The ability remains available even if you change beasts, until you Borrow another.
Tempered Release
- Uses an ability unique to the beast.
- For example, Slimes have the ability Syrup that deals AOE damage and afflicts with Bind+ for 30s.
Instinctive Actions
- Instinctual Skills have an alignment with one of four ‘elements’: Eldritch, Volant, Rampant, and Durant.
- Beastmasters have four instinctual skills, one for each alignment; and each beast has one, called its Trick.
- There are two gauges: one for the beastmaster and one for the beast. Instinctual Skills consume the full gauge bar of its owner.
Combos
- An Instinctual Combo is triggered when a beastmaster instinctual skill and a beast instinctual skill are triggered within a seven-second spans of one another.
- This triggers follow-up damage.
- An Intentional Combo is triggered when an Instinctual Combo follows the clockwise order of alignments on the Beastmaster gauge; in other words, any two in sequence of Eldritch → Volant → Rampant → Durant → Eldritch.
- This amplifies the follow-up damage from a normal combo.
- This gives an additional effect: Sunstrider if starting with Rampant or Eldritch, or Moonstalker if starting with Volant or Durant. The type of the effect is hinted with the light and dark borders of the circle. It is not yet clear what these effects do, beyond signaling that you succeeded in a combo.
Rallies
- Two additional resources are gained during play: Mastered Instinct and Natural Instinct, spent to cast Rally and Rallying Cheer to boost your or your beast’s gauge, respectively. This can be used to chain together combos back-to-back.
Combo Chains
- As you chain together combos, you raise a combo count gauge that further amplifies the damage of combos.
The Crucible of the Unbroken
- Similar to the Masked Carnivale for Blue Mage, this is Beastmaster-specific content.
- The structure is a very basic Slay the Spire branching path.
- All encounters can be previewed before entering, so you can pick your familiars and bring suitable counters for your intended path.
- Beasts acquire experience to rank up, adding additional stats within the Crucible only, up to a maximum of 25. Maxing a beast’s rank unlocks a skin for that beast.
- Each board may have its own limits to how many beasts you can bring. You still select up to three per encounter.
- Progression gives you currency for shops. Items and gear aid progress (healing, restart chances, boosted abilities, etc.).
- Rest sites permit HP and recovery of fallen beasts.
- There are three challenge difficulties per board, with scoring and rankings running in seasons approximately in line with patch releases.
Preview Bestiary
| Caught? | # | Name | Classification | Damage Type | Trick | Tempered Release |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cu Sith | Beastkin | Piercing | Rake (Rampant, Phys. Slashing AOE) | Relentless Rake (6x Phys. Slashing) | |
| 2 | ||||||
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| 4 | Pugil | Wavekin | Water | Screwdriver (Durant, Water AOE) | Water Wall (Magic Vuln. ↓ and Paralysis Resistance AOE) | |
| 5 | ||||||
| 6 | Dodo | Cloudkin | Earth | Fowl Stench (Eldritch, Earth + Blind AOE) | Strut (Earth Res. + Blind Res. AOE) | |
| 7 | Coblyn | Soulkin | Lightning | Bestial Thunder (Eldritch, Lightning) | Vulcanize (Phys. Vuln. ↓ and Poison Resistance AOE) | |
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| 10 | Wespe | Vilekin | Piercing | Sharp Sting (Volant, Phys. Piercing + Poison) | Final String (Phys. Piercing) | |
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| 17 | Slime | Ashkin | Unaspected | Digest (Eldritch, Unaspected, + Beastmaster HP) | Syrup (Unaspected Bind+ AOE) | |
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| 20 | Flying Trap | Seedkin | Ice | Sour Sough (Volant, Wind + KB + Poison AOE) | Necrotic Nectar (Unaspected + Magic Vuln. ↑ AOE) | |
| 21 | Ziz | Scalekin | Ice | Ice Breath (Durant, Ice AOE) | Petribreath (Unaspected + Petrify AOE) | |
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| 30 | Goobbue | Beastkin | Blunt | Beatdown (Rampant, Phys. Blunt AOE) | Moldy Sneeze (Unaspected + Sicken AOE) | |
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| 33 | Coeurl | Beastkin | Lightning | Blaster (Eldritch, Lightning) | Charged Whisker (Lightning + Paralysis + Lightning Res. ↓ AOE) | |
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| 38 | Chimera | Beastkin | Slashing | The Lion’s Breath (Rampant, Fire AOE w/ bonus vs. Deep Freeze) | The Ram’s Voice (Ice + Deep Freeze + Ice Res. ↓ AOE) | |
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| 50 | Behemoth | Beastkin | Lightning | Thunderbolt (Eldritch, Lightning AOE) | Meteor (Fire AOE) |