Beastmaster Class in 99 Nights in the Forest — 400 Diamonds, Five Wolves, and the Steak Bill That Comes With Them

The Beastmaster is the only class in 99 Nights in the Forest that does not give you a weapon. It gives you a button.

For 400 Diamonds you start each run with a Good Taming Flute and 3 Steak in your sack, you can summon a tamed wolf for 3 Steak a pop, and you can hold five pets instead of the default two. Everything else the class is known for follows from those three lines.

That makes it the most economic class in the game, not the most combat one. A Brawler hands you damage you can feel on the first swing. The Beastmaster hands you a pack that eats Steak to stay out, and every source we checked agrees the class is powerful while quietly disagreeing about whether it belongs in your Diamond budget at all.

Last verified: 2026-10-03.

Beastmaster Class at a Glance

Cost400 DiamondsStarting kit1× Good Taming Flute (Level 1) + 3 SteakTypeSummoner / pet armyPet cap5, from Level 1Level-up requirement5,000 damage with pets or summons + 50 wolf summons, then 15,000 + 150Added inClasses MK III, alongside Undead and Necromancer — date disputed (see below)WeaknessThe pack is a food cost that resets every runBest atSolo clears, Stronghold runs, anything that lasts more than a nightWeakest atRuns where you cannot find Steak, and the first minutes of any run

It arrived in the same patch as Undead and the Necromancer, and the three read like a set: one class pays you for being revived, one for owning the dead, one for owning animals. Only the Beastmaster has to be fed.

What You Are Buying

Cost: 400 Diamonds, from the Class Shop. That figure is not in dispute anywhere we looked — five independent guides and both wiki pages we use publish 400, and no source we found quotes a sale price.

Starting kit: one Good Taming Flute (Level 1) and 3 Steak.

The starter flute is the part players underestimate. Taming normally begins with an Old Flute, and the taming guide walks through what upgrading costs. The Beastmaster simply starts one tier up and starts with the currency the class spends. One guide describes it as skipping an entire taming level, and on the published numbers that reading is hard to argue with.

When it arrived is unsettled, and the Beastmaster inherits the same problem as its two siblings. One guide puts Classes MK III on 11 October 2025; the Undead page records the same split, with two other sources saying 10 November 2025. We flag it rather than pick the tidier date.

The Level 1 Perk: Three Things, One Button

In practice the loop is: hold a taming flute in your hands and have 3 Steak in your sack, then press the summon control. Two of the sources we consulted describe it that way — the flute has to be held, not merely owned, and the Steak is consumed per summon. The summon button itself shows how many Steak you currently have toward the next wolf, which is the cleanest in-game confirmation that the cost is real.

Two things about this are genuinely unclear in the published record, and we are not going to flatten them into a mechanic:

Whether the wolf you summon has to be a wolf you already tamed. Most sources write the perk as summon tamed wolves, which reads as though a previously tamed animal is required. Two others describe the class as spawning a tamed wolf outright while you hold a flute and Steak. Those are different loops — one is a shortcut for players who already own a pack, the other is a self-contained summon class. No source resolves it, so test it in your own run before you plan a route around either reading.

Whether tamed and summoned animals share the five slots. The cap is published as five pets, and the summons are pets. Whether a Wolf you tamed by hand and a Wolf you summoned with Steak count together is not stated by anyone.

How the Pack Behaves in a Fight

The single most useful thing to know, and the thing most tier lists leave out: your wolves do not charge everything. The published behaviour is that summons attack enemies that you have already hit or that attack you. That is not a limitation, it is the class's core technique — it is why every guide pairs the Beastmaster with a high-ammo weapon such as the Rifle, the Kunai or the Revolver, and why one guide recommends the Riot Shield instead when ammo is the scarce resource.

Shoot a target once to mark it, step back, and let the pack finish it. Ammo stretches enormously, and the Cultist Stronghold is the run where that matters most.

Two single-source caveats, recorded rather than used as fact:

The whistle may not work upstairs. One wiki page states the whistle — the tool that recalls your summons — does not teleport them on the second floor of the Stronghold because of a bug, and advises carrying Steak up and summoning there instead. One source, and it is the kind of detail that is easy to fake in a guide.

Wolves can miss the big ones. The same family of pages reports that wolves and Alpha Wolves rarely connect with Mammoths and Hellephant because of their hitboxes. If a pack feels weak against a Mammoth, that may be the reason rather than your positioning. See The Mammoth for why the pets cannot reach it.

Pets heal with Steak. One guide says feeding your wolves Steak restores their health quickly. We found no second source, but it is consistent with the class's food theme.

Perks by Level

LevelPerkRequirement to reach it1****Summon tamed wolves for 3 Steak, start with 3 Steak, keep up to 5 petsUnlocked on purchase2****Your wolves run much faster while attackingDamage with pets or summons: 5,000; summon wolves: 50; 3The first wolf you summon becomes an Alpha WolfDamage with pets or summons: 15,000; summon wolves: 150

Two levels of detail sit inside that table.

Level 2 is a chase perk, not a damage perk. Faster wolves do not hit harder; they close the gap and keep aggro on whatever you marked. Against slow targets like the Bear it reads as a damage upgrade, against cultists it reads as crowd control.

Level 3 is a start-of-run perk. It is not a permanent Alpha Wolf in your sack — it is the first wolf you summon each run turning into an Alpha Wolf. If you summon five wolves, only the first is upgraded. One guide calls it a headstart worth the whole class, and the wording supports that: at Level 3 your first minutes look like a run you are winning, and your fiftieth minute looks like Level 2 plus four wolves.

The Arithmetic Nobody Publishes

Here is the number the class actually runs on, and it is our multiplication of published figures rather than a sourced claim.

Each summon costs 3 Steak. A full five-wolf wave is therefore 15 Steak. The Level 2 counter asks for 50 summons — about 150 Steak of summon cost. The Level 3 counter asks for 150 summons — around 450 Steak, before you count the Steak you spend healing a pack that took a beating.

And the pet food page records that a wolf drops 1 Steak, with Bears and Alpha Wolves as the heavier farms. So the class is not free power; it is a Steak pipeline that you re-open every run, because pets do not carry between runs.

That single fact is the whole argument for and against the Beastmaster. A run that spends forty minutes finding Steak is a run where you are paying 400 Diamonds for a class that goes quiet. A run that passes a wolf pack on the way to the Stronghold is a run where 400 Diamonds bought the strongest companion economy in the game.

Beastmaster vs Zookeeper

The two taming classes are the cheapest way to compare, because one of them is a discount version of the other's idea.

The trade is clean, and it is not only price. The Zookeeper perks are all about taming — faster flute XP, more slots, shorter tames. The Beastmaster's perks are all about fighting with what you already own. If you want to learn the taming system, 70 Diamonds buys a gentler version. If you want a pack in the field on night one, only the 400-Diamond class does that.

Both sides of that comparison are published: one guide lists the Zookeeper as low-impact on its tier data while ranking the Beastmaster in the top group, and another source specifically lists the Zookeeper as outclassed by the Beastmaster. We report the split rather than declare a winner.

Where It Sits in the Tier Lists

An October 2026 tier list that weights late nights and solo play puts the Beastmaster in A, above Brawler and Lumberjack and below Cyborg, Vampire, Necromancer and Fire Bandit. A separate taming tracker names it the best dedicated animal class and the Zookeeper the learning pick. The same October tier list puts the Zookeeper in C — the cheapest taming class and the weakest one at the same time.

That is the honest read of this class: it is not the best class in the game, it is the best class at its own job. Every list that ranks it below the top puts it against weapon classes. Every guide that plays the class puts it first among animal builds, and the Best Pet page reaches the same conclusion from the other direction — five slots, faster attacks, and a Wolf from the start.

Where Sources Disagree

The Level 3 summon counter is published two ways. Every source we checked gives 150 wolf summons for Level 3, and one September 2026 tier list gives 50. The 50 reading would make Level 2 and Level 3 identical, and requirements do not usually repeat, so it reads as a copy error — but we leave the number as published rather than silently correcting it.

The default pet cap. Our own taming guide and Pet Food pages record 2 by default, 3 as Zookeeper, 5 as Beastmaster, and one guide agrees the Beastmaster adds two to the standard three. That source however calls the standard three, not two. It does not change what the Beastmaster gives you — five — but it does change how impressive five sounds.

Whether the summon needs a tamed wolf first. Covered above; unresolved, and it is the question that decides whether the class is a shortcut or a whole playstyle.

How fast the Level 2 and 3 counters go. One guide claims that farming Alpha Wolves and Bears for Steak, then repeatedly taming and releasing Wolves, completes the summon counter quickly, and that the damage counter tends to finish itself while you work on the other. That is one source's experience, not a measured rate — treat 5,000 and 15,000 as "a few nights" rather than a timer.

A reroll cost. One guide states the Class Shop inventory can be rerolled for 99 Robux after purchase. Single source, and it does not affect the perks above.

Tips That Change How It Feels

Mark, then step back. Shoot the target once and move behind your pack. Wolves only finish what you have touched or what has touched you, so your weapon is a targeting tool now.

Keep Steak on you at all times. Three Steak is one wolf; fifteen is a full wave. The class's power is a function of how much food you carried, not how many Diamonds you spent.

Use the five slots for different jobs. One wolf to mark and soak, a tanky animal in front, and a cheap fast distractor behind. The composition question is answered on Best Pet, which was written for exactly this cap.

Summon your Alpha first at Level 3. Its whole value is being the opening wolf, so spending it last wastes the perk.

Do not run the Beastmaster if your runs are short. The pack resets every run. A five-night run pays the class back in one good raid; a two-night run does not.

Count the Steak before the diamond. If your route does not reliably pass a wolf pack or a Bear, the class's DPS turns into a hunger timer.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• A working pack on night one — Good Flute and 3 Steak, no taming prior to it
• Five pets, three more than anyone else can hold, from Level 1
• Level 3 turns your first wolf into an Alpha Wolf, which is the strongest open most classes buy with an upgrade
• Ammo goes a very long way once you learn the mark-and-step-back loop
• Genuinely solo-friendly: the pack intercepts, so a bad night is survivable alone
• A tier on the October 2026 lists and first place among taming classes in the guides we checked

Cons

• 400 Diamonds for no weapon at all — the worst starting kit of any mid-priced class
• The pack is a per-run food cost, and pets do not carry between runs
• Level 3's Alpha Wolf is the first summon only, not a permanent pet
• The Level 3 summon counter is published as 50 by one source and 150 by everyone else
• Whether you need a tamed wolf to summon is unresolved, which changes the class's whole loop
• Wolves reportedly cannot hit Mammoths and Hellephant reliably — one source
• Ranked below weapon classes on the lists that weight raw combat

FAQ

How much does the Beastmaster cost? 400 Diamonds. Every source agrees.

How many pets can I have? Five, from Level 1. Two by default, three as Zookeeper.

Do I have to tame a wolf first to summon one? The published wording says summon tamed wolves, but two sources describe the class spawning one on the spot while you hold a flute and Steak. Unresolved; test it in your own run.

Do the summons count toward the five-pet cap? Nothing states it. Both read as pets, so we assume they share.

What does Level 2 actually do? Your wolves run much faster while attacking. They do not hit harder.

Is Level 3 worth the grind? It upgrades your first summon of the run into an Alpha Wolf. If you open fights with five wolves, you are spending it on the weakest one.

Beastmaster or Zookeeper? Zookeeper at 70 Diamonds if you want to learn taming; Beastmaster at 400 if you want the animal team to fight on night one.

Do wolves stay with me between runs? No. Pets reset every run, which is why the Steak economy decides whether the class pays off.

Related Pages

• All Classes — where the 400-Diamond tier sits in price order
• Best Class — the shortlist view of this class
• Undead Class — the sibling from the same patch and the same date dispute
• Necromancer Class — the other army, built from corpses
• Taming Guide — the cap table and flute upgrades this class skips
• Best Pet — what to fill five slots with
• Pet Food — every taming ingredient, and where Steak comes from
• The Wolf — the animal you are actually fielding
• The Alpha Wolf — what Level 3 hands you
• Cultist Stronghold — the run this class is built for