For those who want to know, this al came from this thread found here:

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/jobs.html?fjob=8&mid=1108643243191405065

Many at times, people would post about how BST would do in Ballista and
how to perform at the top level (or lvl), and thus this came streaming
out. Enjoy.

Table of Contents:

[00001] : What is Ballista?
[10001]: Types of Ballista
[20001]: Items in Ballista
[00002]: BST Role in Ballista
[00003]: Who to Watch out for
[00004]: Pets, The Other White Meat
[00005]: Gear Recommendations
[10005]: lvl30 Cap
[20005]: lvl40 Cap
[30005]: lvl50 Cap
[40005]: lvl60 Cap
[50005]: Unlimited
[00006]: Tips and Tricks/FAQ

…………………………………………………………………….
What is Ballista?
[00001]
…………………………………………………………………….

Ballista, as per the Square-Enix story, is a game that the Knight of San d’Oria
used for training purposes. The point of the game is to score as many points as
possible. You score points by throwing little rocks call Petras at goals known
as Rooks. However, you cannot score unless you have Gate Breach status which is
done by taking down a member of the enemy force. So, how do you aquire the
Petras? By quarrying, which will be talked about in later sections. (Crtl+F
and type 00006 to jump there). A match of Ballista last for 24hrs Vana’diel
Time.

…………………………………………………………………….
Type of Ballista
[10001]
…………………………………………………………………….

In Ballista, there’s two differnt type of formatts and two differnt varities
to these. I’m using a little differnt wording than what SE used to describe
these types of matches. Here’s a list of what matchs and special rules there
are:

All or Nothing: A single match of Ballista is played. At the end of the
match, the team with the highest number of Petras scored wins the match.

Best of Three: The entire match is broken up to “sets.” Each set is
played for 7hrs Vana’diel time. At the end of the set, all players HP and MP
will be restored, and the score is reset. The team with the highest score at
the end of the set, then they are awarded a set point. On the thrid set, if
a team wins the set, and has a highest scorer for that set, they will get
two set points.

Normal Items Allowed: Any item that you bought from the AH, NPC or
gained through quest are allowed.

Normal Items Restricted: Items brought from outside of Ballista are not
allowed to be used. Execptions to this: Pet food, Pet Jugs, and ammo. Items
found from quarrying and gained through Ballsita points can be used as
normal.

…………………………………………………………………….
Items in Ballista
[20001]
…………………………………………………………………….

During your quest for Petras, you’ll come across some items that are called
“Temporary Items”. These items are on your person for the length of the match.
After the match is over with, you will lose these items. Items can be held
for later use in the match, or used right away. Remember though, you can
only hold one of each type the of Temporary Items. For example, you cannot
hold 2 Temporary X-Potions. Without further ado, here is a list of all the
known items, at least those that I have came across, in Ballsita. Feel free
to post what other items can be found during the matches, and their effects.
I’ll post how much HP and MP they give if the item boost/restore HP and MP
as I can.

Container of Carnal Inscense: Nulls all physical dmg for a limited time.
Container Of Celestial Incense: Nulls all range dmg for a limited time.
Container Of Spiritual Incense: Nulls all magic dmg (not status effects) for
a limited time.
Vial Of Drachenessence: restores wyvern’s HP. (really, if you get this, just
throw it out.)
Poison Potion: Inflicts poison status on you.
Echo Drops: Cures silence
Eye Drops: Cures Blind
Potion: Restores little bit of HP
Hi-Potion: Restores some HP
X-Potion: Restores a lot of HP
Ether: Restores little MP.
Hi-Ether: Restores some MP
Pro-Ether: Restores a lot of MP
Bottle of Body Boost: Increases max HP temporarily. (remainder of match?)
Bottle Of Mana Boost: Increases max MP temporarily. (remainder of match?)
Dose Of Baraero Ointment: Grants baraero for a limited time.
Dose Of Barblizzard Ointment: Grants barblizzard for a limited time.
Dose Of Barfire Ointment: Grants barfire for a limited time.
Dose Of Barstone Ointment: Grants barstone for a limited time.
Dose Of Barthunder Ointment: Grants barthunder for a limited time.
Dose Of Barwater Ointment: Grants barwater for a limited time.

…………………………………………………………………….
Beastmasters Role in Ballista
[00002]
…………………………………………………………………….

Beastmasters (hench forth refered too as BST) in Ballista play a very
interesting role in Ballista. Our main objective is to obtained Gate Breach
status and score Petras. Along with this, we are to fly (or provide, which
ever term you like) distraction and cause general chaos to break out in the
ranks of the enemy. This is done by well timed pet usage. A mage cannot cast
spells if they are running. A bard cannot sing if they are running also. A
melee with a ninja sub will have his shadows stripped much faster with the pet
attacking them, causing them to cast more often and take more damage. We also
provide support, depending on subjob by waking team members who are asleep.
We must work with the team and not do our own thing, even though we can.

When you enter into your first Ballista match, throw everything that you
learned out the window. Ballista is a whole new beast (pun!) all together.
You will be fighting other people and not stupid mobs. There is no such
thing as hate in the terms of how we understand it with mobs. Sure, the DRK
over there that you called a little girl and that a WHM can do more dmg just
by looking at something will hate your guts, but he will not forget about
you for a moment to attack your pet like mobs do.

You must remember, if you fly solo in Ballista, 9 out of 10 times you will
be ganged up on and killed. This is the first rookie mistake. Stay with
your team at all cost. If you are going scouting, communicate that with
the team. You are your team as your team is you. All for one and one for
all.

…………………………………………………………………….
Who to Watch out for
[00003]
…………………………………………………………………….

We BST have a sense that nothing can stop us once we get moving. This is true
to some extent. There are jobs though that can stop us in our tracks just as
fast as we can them. While none of these jobs are impossible to deal with,
they can seem that way.

Blackmage [BLM]: BLM have the highest damage output there is along with great
crowd control. Sleep will drive you nuts. You’ll have to wake up your pet if
it is asleep or wait till it wakes up on it’s own. They are also sneaky
little buggers by sneaking up on you while you are distracted and casting
their most powerful spells, which, can be very deadly.

Ranger [RNG]: Sleep bolts, Blood bolts Shadowstich, Eagle Eye Shot, Barrage,
Side Winder. Need I say more? At lower lvls, lvl30 for example, they aren’t
as deadly. I’ve eaten many Eagle Eye Shots in my lvl30 Ballista days. They
just don’t have the range accuratecy and attack gear to make it a one hit
kill. Rangers tend to deal with you at a distance, stopping you before you
get close enough to even think about hitting them.

Redmage [RDM]: The jack of all trades shine through Ballista like no other.
With the power of sleeping, curing, nuking, debuffing, they can be damn near
impossible to kill. Stoneskin, Blink, and Phalanx will drive you mad, and
when do you think that you got them down to their last leg, they can cure
themselves back up to damn near full.

Bards [BRD]: If there is one job that I hate the most in Ballista, it’s the
BRD. As weak as they maybe on the attack side, they can stop a team cold with
their sleep songs. It’s without a doubt, one of the most damaging jobs in
Ballista.

…………………………………………………………………….
Pets, The Other White Meat
[00004]
…………………………………………………………………….

This is our bread and butter. We are nothing without our pets. Since in
Ballista, we cannot charm the feral mobs that are out there (as cool as that
would be), we must rely on the pets that we always have; the juggies.

Fish Broth lvl23 Carb Familiar: Attacks: Big Claw, Bubble Shower, Bubble
Curtain. The good ol’ crab. Very high defense for its lvl. The down side, very
low attack damage and isn’t very good at killing things.

Fish Oil Broth lvl23 CouierCarrie: HQ (high quality) crab broth. Same thing as
the normal crab, but higher defense and higher attack. It’s an uncapped pet so
it will lvl up with you are you get higher in lvls. She has the downsides of
the normal crabs plus the fact that she is fairly expensive to buy, appx 20k a
stack on Asura.

Alchemist’s Water lvl23 Homunculus: Headbutt, Scream, Leaf-Dagger: This one is
rumoured to also use breath attacks. I have never seen these attacks, so they
are still rumours to me. He is, to my knowledge, uncapped and will do double
attack, triple attack, counter, and guard against an opponet. Over all weak
defense and weak attack, but very low attack delay make him very promising.
One downside though: expensive. 6k a single jug on Asura last time I checked.

Carrot Broth lvl23 Hare Familiar: Whirl Claw, Dust Storm, Foot Kick: Decent
attack with low defense. His attack time is low, which is nice, but over all
a little weak. He can do more harm than good for your team by using Whirl
Claw at the wrong time and thus, wakes everyone up from sleeping.
Cheap though.

Herbal Broth lvl23 Sheep Familiar: Sheep Charge, Rage, Sheep Song. Another
alright jug, but not the best. The AoE sleep is nice, but the odds of it going
off are slim to none. More than likely it’ll do Rage which will lower defense
and increase attack. If a player knows what is going on, this is the perfect
time to kill off the sheep.

Meat Broth lvl28 Tiger Familiar: Razor Claw, Razor Fang, Roar, Cyclone Claw.
This bad daddy is one thing and one thing only: Full out attack. Screw
worrying about the damage you take, if the other guy is dead before you,
who cares? Roar is an AoE paralys attack which lands a good amount of times.
Razor Claw and Razor Fang are the big guns though, they are high damage
attacks with a slight differnce. Razor Fang is one target, Razor Claw is line
of sight. What this means is that if the enemy is lined up pretty close to
being right behind each other, they both will get hit. Cyclone Claw is like
the other claw/fang attacks, but is a short range AoE. This pet is also the
fastest pet out there and will chase down someone without giving a second
thought about it.

Humus lvl28 Flowerpot Bill: See Homunculus. Not as strong as Alchemist Water,
but a lot cheaper.

Bug Broth lvl33 Fly Familiar: Curse Sphere, Venom. Remember these guys from
the dunes? That’s pretty much what you get, but scaled up a bit. Curse Sphere
is nice, but there’s better pets out there. Venom is line of sight which can
be great. It has low defense though.

Carrion Broth lvl33 Lizard Familiar: Baleful Gaze, Venom Breath, Secertion,
Tail Blow, Fire Breath. High defense and high HP, but over all slow. It’s
attacks are a little weak from time to time. Baleful Gaze is the best thing
that it has going for him. This attack will petrify an enemy for a period of
time. Venom breath is a short range line of sight posion attack, Secertion
is an Eva bonus for himself, Tail Blow causes short term stun, and Fire
Breath is a short range AoE fire attack.

Seedbed Soil lvl33 Fungar Familiar: Dark Spore, Silence Gas, Spore, Quesy
Shroom, Dance Shroom. This is by far one of the better jugs out there.
Dark Spore and Silence Gas are HP based so they can do massive damage in
one try while always inflicting status effect of either blind or silence.
Spore, Quesy Shroom and Dance shroom all cause paralysis to varying degree.
High defense, high HP, decent attack make this jug worth having. Plus, it’s
appx 7k a stack in Kahzam!

Tree Sap lvl38 Beetle Familiar: I have never used these since they are
never on the AH. So, I cannot pass judgement. Very high defense though,
with an AoE evasion down attack.

Famous Carrot Broth lvl43 Keeneared Steffi: See Carrot Broth. A little
tougher, but not by much.

Singing Herbal Broth lvl43 Lullaby Melodia: See Herbal Broth. A little
tougher, but not by much.

Warm Meat Broth lvl51 Sabe Siravarde: See Meat Broth. A nice upgrade. I
suggest use him in lvl60 cap at most.

Rich Humus lvl51 Flowerpot Ben: See Humus. A slight upgrade.

Cold Carrion Broth lvl53 Coldblood Como: See Carrion Broth. A minor upgrade.

Quadav Broth lvl53 Shellbust Orob: See bug broth. A minor upgrade.

Scarlet Sap lvl63 Panzer Galahad: Never used it, can’t pass judgement.
One thing though, expensive!

Sun Water lvl75 Amigo Sabotender: Not lvl 75 yet, but very expensive. Good
if you want to show off what you have. 1000 Needles is nice, but in a big
Ballista match, it’ll get dilluted quickly.

…………………………………………………………………….
Gear Recommendations
[00005]
…………………………………………………………………….

One thing before reading this. The following is just a suggestion on what
gear will make you perform at the best possible gear wise. Nothing more.
If you cannot afford certain gear, don’t fret, you’ll still be able to
kick butt and take names. What this if for, is to show you what would be
the absolute best. Gear will also vary with how you like to play. I
typically get hit more often with spells and such, so I look to get as
much VIT as possible and the best defense rating on my gear. You could go
for nothing but evasion gear and go for never getting hit

[10005]
lvl30 Cap(highly recommend you stay away from this I’ll explain later)
Pet: Tiger Familiar
Pet Food: Any
Back: Nomad’s Mantle/Night Cape
Body: Centurion’s Scale Mail
Feet: Centurion’s Greaves/Leaping Boots
Rings: Archer’s Ring/Bowyer Ring
Gloves: Royal Squire’s Mufflers
Head: Mercenary Captain’s Headgear/Empy Hairpin
Legs: Mercenary Captain’s Hose/Centurion’s Cuisses
Neck: Tiger Stole/Beast Whistle/Buburimu Gorget
Sheild: Bastokan Targe/Republic Targe/Lantern Shield
Waist: Brave Belt/Warrior’s Belt
Weapon: Military Pick

You can sub various peices of RSE here if you want. The reason I say stay
away from this one is b/c you can’t release your pet. If someone kills your
pet, then they will get Gate Breach status, and you’ll have to kill them
before they can score. Because of this, we are very limited in how effective
we can be in the match. Why the godawful Buburimu Gorget? You see that +10
Dark def? That’ll save your butt more often b/c sleep is a dark spell.
The pet food is to wake up your pet from being slept.

[20005]
lvl40 Cap:
Pet: Tiger Familiar, Fungar Familiar
Pet Food: Any pet food.
Back: Nomad’s Mantle/Nigh Cape
Body: Royal Squire’s Chainmail
Feet: San d’Orian Sollerets/Leaping Boots/Cuir Highboots
Rings: Archer’s Ring/Bowyer Ring/Puissance Ring/Verve Ring/Aegis Ring
Hands: San d’Orian Mufflers/Ogygos’s Bracelets
Head: Purple Ribbon/Cuir Bandana/San d’Orian Helm/Empy Hairpin
Legs: Royal Squire’s Breeches
Neck: Buburimu Gorget/Medieval Collar
Shield: Balance Buckler
Waiste: Survival Belt/Warrior’s Belt
Weapon: Barbaroi Axe/Combat Caster’s Axe/Warrior’s Axe

This is where we start to shine. We can now release our pets for confusion
tactics as well as have gear equal to a DRK or a WAR at the same lvl. The
reason you want to shy away from the sniper rings is the Dark-10 really
hurts in Ballista for reasons stated above. You can use RSE body depending
on the race, but at this lvl, players start to hit a little harder, and
thus, you need to be able to take the hits just as well as you can dish
them. You could also go for total EVA, but, I usally like to run in guns
ablazin’.

[30005]
Lvl 50 Cap:
Pet: Fungar (i’ll explain later)
Pet Food: Any
Back: Jaeger Mantle/Bat Cape
Body: Brigandine Armor/Royal Squire’s Chainmail +1/Gaudy Harness/Royal
Squire’s Chainmail
Feet: Royal Knight’s Sollerets/Leaping Boots
Ring: Phalanx Ring/Archer’s Ring/Bowyer Ring/Puissance Ring/Verve Ring/
Aegis Ring
Hands: Royal Knight’s Mufflers/Spiked Finger Gauntlets
Head: Blue Ribbon/Shock Mask/Empy Hairpin/Valkyrie’s Mask/Walkure Mask
Legs: Darksteel Codpiece/Royal Squire’s Breeches +1/Steel Cuisses
Neck: Storm Gorget(???)/Royal Knight Army Collar/Moon Amulet
Shield: Balance Buckler/Royal Squire’s Shield +1
Waist: Life Belt/Any of the RSE Belts/Swordbelt
Weapon: Viking Axe/Barbaroi Axe

Okay, so this is where the big boys start to come out. All jobs at this
point have all their abilities that they can use to whomp on you. If you
can afford to the the +1 Brigandine, get it! Over all, you want to max
out your Dark resistance, and a couple of the following: VIT, STR, DEX,
AGI, EVA, ATT. Acc isn’t that big of a deal unless you are going against
a THF or NIN mainly because all PC’s eva suck hardcore. You’re eva should
be capped too, being a BST and all, so more EVA gear means you’ll be harder
to hit. With the VIT gear though, all those nasty magic spells that can get
casted on you will have a higher chance of resistance, thus you’ll live
longer.

For pets at this lvl; you can use Steffie and Melody, but there’s some slight
problems with them. Steffie is very unpredictable in her TP attacks. You’ll
want her to either foot kick or whirl claw, but, she’ll won’t want to do that.
Plus, she has very low HP over all and low ATT. Melody can do an AoE sleep,
but the odds of that going off are slim at best. Most likely she will use the
Sheep Berzerk move and thus, lowering her already low DEF. If people knew the
weakness of pets like this, they’ll attack her all out causing you to either
release her too soon (meaning you’ll be worthless till call beast is up),
use Reward too soon (meaning she will be slept till the reward timer is up).
Fungar continues to grow at this lvl and since most people won’t bother with
him too much, Dark Spore and Silence Gas should hit for full DMG. Not to
mention the other TP attacks work just as well.

[40005]
lvl60 Cap:
Pet: Fungar or Saber.
Pet Food: Any
Gear: Full AF. Sub in Leaping Boots, Empy Hairpin, and Scorp Harness and
Haubergeon if you can afford them.
Rings: Demon’s Ring/Tiger Ring/Grace Ring/Jadeite Ring/Vigor Ring/Archer’s
Ring/Bowyer Ring
Earrigs: Bitter Earring/Assault Earring/Elusive Earring
Back: Republican Army Mantle
Waist: LifeBelt/Speed Belt/Master Belt/Royal Knight’s Belt +1
Neck: Royal Guard’s Collar
Head: Green Ribbon
Weapon: Kabrakan’s Axe

This is where it gets really fun. Sleep will be the biggest bitch you’ll have
to deal with. BLMs will have Sleepga II at this lvl which will cause
headaches. If you want to be slept less, or have sleep not last as long, get
as much Dark resistance as you can. some special notes:

Hauby has a hurtful -10 EVA, this is countered though by the ACC, ATT, and
STR modifiers, BUT IT STILL HURTS. While I suggest all BST get a Hauby for
lvling, I suggest sticking to AF while in these fights. This is also the
only time I’d recommend the Scorp Harness for BST. You’ll be hit a lot less
and you’ll hit more often which is a good thing in Ballista.

Saber is one of the fastest pets out there and he seems to cap at around
this lvl. Razor Claw, Razor Fang, and the AoE paralysis all work to your
favor. On top of that, he can run faster than any PC out there besides a
fleeing one. It is just insane. Double Attack kicks in a lot too with him,
so, sic him on a mage and let him do the rest. Feed him if he falls asleep.

[50005]
Uncapped:
See lvl60 cap:
Execptions:
God Gear
Thick Set
AF2
Nadziak, Juggernaut, Ridill, Tabarzin, Leopard Axe, Woodville’s Axe, Gutter

Now, I don’t have much experince in the uncapped battles, but I can say this;
“wow!” There’s so much that you can do/have at this cap it’s crazy. So many
differnt options. To me, the full God Gear would be the best bet. Again, you
might want to focus on Dark resistance more than anything else, but your
options are limitless. One of my dreams is to get the Gutter and do Onslaught
on someone in Ballista.

…………………………………………………………………….
Tips and Tricks/FAQ
or… How I stopped gettng owned…
[00006]
…………………………………………………………………….

1. What’s the deal with Fungar Familiar?

If you haven’t noticed from some of my ranting in this, here you go:
The reason I suggest Fungar Familiar so much is for the simple fact that he
is cheap. 7k a stack in Kazham, along with being strong. Have fun with other
pets. Honestly, my best Ballista moment was when an “uber” DRK got owned by a
bunny pet. I swear, we all laughed our asses off at him for dying to a bunny
after the trash talking he did.

2. So… any special commands for Ballista?

Yep! There’s three: /quarry, /scout, /sprint.

/quarry lets you dig in the ground for an item, hoping for a petra. Sometimes
you’ll dig up an item, other times a petra, or nothing at all. I’ve noticed
that you get more petras the further away you are from the Rook. I suggest
you macro this

/scout lets you “sense” where the Rook is. This is only available once you
have acquired a petra. It’ll tell you distance and direction. Macro it.

/sprint is just like flee, however, you cannot use /sprinit if you have a
petra. I guess the small pebbles slow you down greatly. This is better for
getting away than anything else, or getting to a battle faster than normal.

3. So I got the Petra, now how do I score?

Easy, locate the Rook by /scouting it. Once located, just click on the
Rook to score a point. However, you can be interrupted by someone
taking action against you by means of spell, or attacking. Also, you
can have as many petras as you want on your persons, but can only score
5 at a time.

4. What’s some good BST macros?

You’ll need pet attack, pet heal, pet sic, call beast, pet leave and reward
macro. set them up how you like. I recommend having them the same as your
normal macros.

Leave is your best friend in Ballista. Simply for the reason that I
stated in the section for the lvl30 cap section. Should you know that
they are owning your pet hardcore, release it so that they won’t get Gate
Breach off of him/her.

5. Subjobs

The subjob topic is a dead horse more or less. Use whatever you feel
comfortable with. Me, I use the WHM sub all the time. This helps me in
waking up other members of my team and can cause pain for my enemies by
casting Silence on their mages.

A BLM is good too for sleep and Bind spells. Drain helps out a lot along
with Aspir, though, they are not as strong. I found this sub by complete
accident by forgetting to change my sub back to WHM before heading out to
Ballista.

NIN is another popular one, but I don’t have the funds to lvl NIN, so
I never bothered. Dual Axes are nice along with Blinking, but you can’t
heal yourself when you need to.

6. Sleep

This is important. Poison Potions will prevent you from being slept! USE
THEM! They are a godsend. You might still be slept though, but it won’t
last as long as normal. This is how you can combat sleep. In a match, it
is wise for the mages to sleep the melees and other mages while you go
after the other teams mages themselves. This will help out greatly by
granting you Gate Breach faster, harassing the mages so they can’t cast
sleep on the entire field and over all, being a MP drain.

7. Stay together.

Cannot stress this enough. You must stay with the group if you expect to
live. Ambushes are just crazy. One moment you are fighting a single
player, the next you got 3 others on you and you are dead. If you get
lucky and join up with other BST on the same team, make a BST squad and
stick together, supporting each other. Send the pets after one target
while you all focus on another. This is the ultimate in harassment since
you are tackling two targets at once, a major pain in the ass.

…………………………………………………………………….
Version History:
…………………………………………………………………….

2/17/2005 v1.0 – Fully posted and checked.

…………………………………………………………………….
Misc Info/Copyright/Contact/Boring Legal Stuff/Credits
…………………………………………………………………….
Contact: fuji2001@hotmail.com

Contact Subject line should include the following:

“BST Ballista Guide”

I’ll try to response as soon as possible, but to be frank, there’s other
things that I have to do in my life, such as playing Ballista.

Copyright:
Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy XI, FFXI, SE, Ballista area all copyrighted and
tradedmarked to Square-Enix. This guide is copyrighted to Robert Zeboski,
aka halo00to14, fuji2001, marion, halo00to17: 2005. Express premission
has been given to the following sites for posting:

www.gamefaqs.com
ffxi.allakhazam.com

No other site may post this guide without express premission from the
author.If you’ve seen this guide on another web site besides the two
listed, please contact me.