FFXIV Beastmaster Guide: How to Unlock and Master the Patch 7.56 Limited Job
FFXIV Beastmaster Guide: How to Unlock and Master the Patch 7.56 Limited Job
Patch 7.56 added Beastmaster, a limited melee DPS job capped at level 50, built entirely around capturing wild beasts and fighting alongside them. It plays nothing like a standard job: instead of a fixed action bar, you forge pacts with up to 50 beasts, assign three to battlehorns, and swap between them mid-fight. Here’s how the capture system, combo system, and gearing all fit together, plus the fastest way to level it. For the full unlock questline and patch details, see Icy Veins’ Beastmaster guide.
How Beastmaster Works: Capturing Beasts
You unlock Beastmaster with the quest Strangers in the Wood, which requires a level 50 Disciple of War or Magic. From there, capturing follows a two-step process: use Gauge from 30 yalms away to check your capture probability against a target, then close to within 10 yalms and use Capture to mark it with Interest Captured for 120 seconds before defeating it. Successfully capturing overworld enemies and instanced-duty monsters is how you build your roster of up to 50 beasts, each assigned a Kinship type that determines what it does in Beast Mode.
The Combo System: Colors, Kinships, and Universality
Beastmaster’s four instinctual weaponskills are color-coded — Red (Rampant), Blue (Durant), Yellow (Eldritch), and Green (Volant) — and pairing them creates escalating combo tiers. Repeating the same color chains baseline combos (Instinctual). Specific adjacent pairs, like green into red or blue into yellow, trigger Sunstrider or Moonstalker states (Intentional). Chaining opposite states together activates Universality, the job’s highest-damage finisher. Completing a combo with your own instinctual skill builds Mastered Instinct stacks, while using a beast’s learned skill grants Natural Instinct stacks that restore your gauges.
Using Borrow swaps your Beast Mode actions based on the active beast’s Kinship: Beastkin grants 25% physical damage reduction, Vilekin gives 100% block rate for 15 seconds, Wavekin fires a 350-potency ranged water attack, Soulkin lets you interrupt for up to 1,000 potency on a successful cast, and Ashkin cleanses debuffs while healing 10% of your HP. Building a beast roster that covers multiple Kinships gives you utility for almost any encounter.
Gearing and Stat Priority
Beastmaster is a Disciple of War using Strength as its primary stat. It wears Striking-type armor (shared with Monk and Samurai) and Slaying-type accessories (shared with several other melee DPS jobs), wielding a one-handed axe with an off-hand shield. Its level 50 job-specific gear set is upgradeable and grants bonus stats exclusively inside the Crucible of the Unbroken, so it’s worth holding onto rather than vendoring once you hit the level cap.
The Crucible of the Unbroken
Unlocked at level 30, the Crucible of the Unbroken is Beastmaster’s solo endgame activity. You assemble a roster of up to 10 beasts, bring 3 into a run, and fight across a branching board — with the twist that your familiars actually have HP here and can be defeated, unlike in overworld content. Clearing boards earns Faded and Bright Remnants of Resilience, which you trade to the Kornago merchant for Kornago Gourds (instant beast pacts) or Beastmaster-specific gear. Familiars gain ranked progression up to rank 25 inside the Crucible, with each rank improving their combat stats. Difficulty escalates from First to Third Degree, with Third Degree runs qualifying for competitive rankings.
Fastest Way to Level Beastmaster to 50
Unlike Blue Mage, Beastmaster gets no experience bonus for defeating enemies out in the open world — all your leveling speed comes from FATEs, which award significantly boosted experience. The fastest route is coordinated group power-leveling through Dawntrail zones using collection FATEs, which can be farmed for their full duration, rather than boss FATEs that end quickly. From level 22 onward, using Borrow with a Wavekin beast and then Quelling Wave is more efficient for tagging enemies in a group than the standard 10-yalm Capture, since Quelling Wave reaches out to 30 yalms.
Keep Your Subscription Active for the Rest of Dawntrail
With more Dawntrail content still to come on the road to the Evercold expansion, now’s a good time to make sure your FFXIV subscription and Mog Station wallet won’t lapse mid-patch. Top up with a Steam Wallet Code (Global) if you play through Steam, or browse our full Steam gift card selection for every region we carry.
