Interceptor

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

I was playing the Game Boy Advance update of FFVI the other day. I came upon enlisting Shadow for the first time and after a few battles, something struck me about him that I had forgotten.

While he was a Ninja (Ok "Assassin," w/e), he also had a Beastmaster element (Relm was a Pictomancer, not BST). His dog, Interceptor, would randomly "Cover" him and perform a critical counter attack on the enemy. Something similar would also occur with Angelo and Rinoa in FFVIII. Angelo would appear at random performing an attack called "Angelo Rush."

As it stands, BST has no real defensive/counter ability for their pets (with a few exceptions like beetles, crab and fish). Sic is almost purely offensive - either enfeebling of damaging the enemy - and we can't choose what attacks our pets do. This isn't terribly fair to BST considering BLU can just spam enemy magic by choice, if you ask me, seeing as we are Beastmasters.

I think if we can't choose an attack we should at least be able to control the state in which our pet acts. Sic can force us to drag our fights away from other mobs so the pets don't AoE them by chance. And sure, we could just not use Sic at times, but that doesn't allow us to use our pets to their potential. Even in EXP PTs there are mobs that we just let wander untouched which can make using Sic a risk if the jug pet does an AoE. The pet is toast if it tags something else.

My idea is to have a defensive ability called Intercept, which would allow the Pet to randomly cover the BST when the BST takes hate and then deliver a critical counterattack based on its TP. There are times BST will still get hate, in PT or in solo play. If Sic and Intercept were states like Hasso and Seigan were, we'd at least have a means to put TP to use without putting our pets at total risk with Sic.

Additionally, I'd like to see BST get temporary job traits based on the pets they use, not to mention the obvious uncapping of various jugs and more affordable recipies. But those are obvious and oft-discussed.

[Visper]

That could be a pretty cool idea, I guess sort of like how carby protects the smn if he/she gets aggro, carbay attacks. So why wouldn't our pets look out for us, their masters, if we get into trouble.

[Spiritbear]

Sounds like a good idea to me. Now all we have to do is wait for SE to do it. LOL. I'm not seeing that happen anytime soon.

[Raydeus]

I'd rather see SE giving BST the ability to choose which attack the pet will perform with Sic.

Or at least split it into Sic: Rage and Sic: Ward


Edit> Interceptor could be a nice added effect for Familiar though. o.O