Final Fantasy XIV’s new Beastmaster limited job explained

Final Fantasy XIV’s new limited job, Beastmaster, was officially unveiled at Tokyo Fan Fest this weekend. Here’s a deeper look at just what the new job will feature.

Final Fantasy XIV is often praised by its fans for incorporating a lot of unique community features into an MMO. From deep dungeon crawls to large-scale crafting content, there’s a style of play for everyone in FFXIV.

Now with Dawntrail on the horizon, one of the game’s popular features, the limited job system, will be getting an upgrade in the form of a new job for players to sink their teeth into.

Announced at Fan Fest Tokyo, the new limited job, Beastmaster, will arrive during the Dawntrail post-patch cycles. Giving players the chance to live out their Pokémon dreams on Hydaelyn.

Unlike the main jobs in FFXIV, limited jobs don’t reach the game’s level cap. Instead, they cap out 10 levels below max. The game’s current limited job, Blue Mage, usually receives a level boost in an expansion’s post-patches. With the Endwalker post-patches bringing its level cap up to 80.

According to the game’s producer, Naoki Yoshida, fans can expect to see Beastmaster later in the Dawntrail 7.X patch cycle, rather than on the expansion’s launch.

Judging from the teasers, it looks like the new job shares notable similarities with the Beastmaster class from Final Fantasy V and XI, but just how they’ll capture and control the game’s mobs to use them in combat is anyone’s guess right now.

Still, we do know some things thanks to its status as a “limited job”.

FXXIV’s current limited job, Blue Mage, is one of the game’s most powerful jobs. Its gimmick is much like the abilities of the Blue Mage in other Final Fantasy titles learning and using spells from the game’s monsters — including bosses. With such a high power level to account for, players running Blue Mage are subject to some restrictions, to ensure gameplay remains balanced for everyone.

As a limited job, we can expect Beastmaster to face the same restrictions. Meaning players will be unable to use the job for any Main Scenario Quests, to queue for Duty Roulettes. Limited jobs can’t be played in PvP or deep dungeons either.

However, players can go into dungeons or trials with pre-made groups, as well as with unrestricted parties — that’s groups that are usually considered too small to queue for the content.  

Over the years since its release, FFXIV players have used the Blue Mage limited job to achieve some pretty impressive feats. Like solo-clearing some of the game’s toughest content and making millions of in-game currency in a matter of hours. So, while Beastmaster won’t be a main job, it’s sure to provide plenty of fun.