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Beastmasters in Parties 
With a pet, Beastmasters do amazing Damage Per Second. But the problem is they take a hit in the exp department no matter what. But even if the Beastmaster doesn't want to charm a pet, they still make decent tanks. Not the best, but not horrible by any means. They can wear great armor, so their defense should be high enough so they don't take major damage. With a WAR sub, they will have even better defense, but WAR is pretty much needed to tank. The only real trouble is keeping hate. BSTs dont create that much hate with their damage, since they only use 1 handed axes, but provoke can keep the mobs on them. A real bonus from a BST tank though are the "-- Killer" job traits. Assuming your party is going after anything that is effected by any of the BSTs traits, there is a chance that the mob will not be able to attack the BST. It'll look something like this.... "So and so was intimidated by Whats his face". This pretty much acts like a shield block and negates all the damage since the mob can't attack. About ffxi gil

Role of the Beastmaster 
The role of a BST, is to kill stuff. This can either be done alone or in a group. Alone, the main role of a BST is to tame monsters, and have them fight for him/her. Other then that, what else they do is determined by their sub job. Most of the BST skills are related to melee and charming monsters.

Now, to clarify how the BST effects exp in a group. If the BST charms anything below Tough, the only exp affected is the BSTs, and its still the basic 30% cut that BSTs should be used to. But if a BST charms a Tough or higher, the pet acts as a member of the party, and since its at a higher lvl, it cuts the whole parties exp. About sell ffxi gil

Why the Beastmaster is the best solo job 
Charm has been somewhat proven to be based on CHR. So why wouldnt a BRD/BST or WHM/BST be just as good at soloing as a BST since they have CHR on par with a BST? Well try assisting your pet in melee combat with a BRD or WHM. You can't buff your pet with songs or spells, so really the only thing you can do is melee attack, debuff the enemy, and use your pet skills. Not only do you get your pet skills a lot later with BST as a sub, but your melee damage is going to suck. Not to mention, if you get the hate, you wont be able to take many hits, since BRDs and WHMs don't have armor on par with a BST.

Any other job doesn't seem to have the CHR to charm effectively even with a BST sub, so no one can really argue that the BST is the best solo job out there.