Summoner ~ Updating Avatars & Elemental Spirits. Blood pacts, wards, and spell list.

[Razushu]

Nice avatar Raz

I know it turned even better than I expected, and I had really high expectations. King does great work.

[Malamasala]

abuff to them would be pointless in this case, because you would be still spending more MP for a weaker pet that's now slightly better.

Spirits are actually cheaper than avatars in the long run. The slightly higher perp do usually not reach up to the cost of pacts. So you'd be spending less MP, for less damage, if they were fixed. Now it is less MP for no damage, which seems a bit extreme.

[Razushu]

Spirits are actually cheaper than avatars in the long run. The slightly higher perp do usually not reach up to the cost of pacts. So you'd be spending less MP, for less damage, if they were fixed. Now it is less MP for no damage, which seems a bit extreme.

They still deal damage(it's not great), but they do. In all honesty I can't understand why you want a buff to them, they're ugly, cost an extra 5MP per tick, and we have perfectly good avatars to rely on. SE is never going to buff them to near the level of an avatars power and utility, so any buff to them would still leave them being used a fraction of the time. Barring some kind of hipster SMN community starting up, wearing stuff like the gambison and wool hat saying things like "I preferred SMN when Blood pacts weren't divided" and using them just because no one else does.

[Malamasala]

SE is never going to buff them to near the level of an avatars power and utility, so any buff to them would still leave them being used a fraction of the time.

Avatars and Spirits are different enough that you could have similar potency and not end up using only one type. You are kind of arguing that we can't have blunt damage rival slashing damage, because then why would anyone use slashing?

Avatars are great for buffs, debuffs, and physical damage as well as MBs for additional damage. Leaving spirits as the generic nuking tool when you just want to deal elemental damage for a low MP cost seems fine with me. If they got -ga spells as well, they'd be our tool for battling multiple enemies as well, adding yet another option for SMNs.

I think that apart from maybe enspells or DA, avatars do not really need any more damage updates. They are so trivial to finish that SE shouldn't need to spend more than a weekend getting that done. Spirits on the other hand is something they could invest all that spare time they have on. (Instead of playing mahjong)

[Razushu]

Avatars and Spirits are different enough that you could have similar potency and not end up using only one type. You are kind of arguing that we can't have blunt damage rival slashing damage, because then why would anyone use slashing?

Avatars are great for buffs, debuffs, and physical damage as well as MBs for additional damage. Leaving spirits as the generic nuking tool when you just want to deal elemental damage for a low MP cost seems fine with me. If they got -ga spells as well, they'd be our tool for battling multiple enemies as well, adding yet another option for SMNs.

I think that apart from maybe enspells or DA, avatars do not really need any more damage updates. They are so trivial to finish that SE shouldn't need to spend more than a weekend getting that done. Spirits on the other hand is something they could invest all that spare time they have on. (Instead of playing mahjong)

No I'm arguing that we have great pets, that we can use all the time(that could still do with some love), and these pets should be focused on over the spirits. What on earth would be the point of giving them a boost to similar potency to that of the avatars? SE could spend months doing that, and SMN would still be in the exact same position it was when they started just with more pets.

Avatar's could use a big update on their DPS(naked BLM melee isn't cutting it). Buffing the spirits would be like giving PUP throwing, pretty much useless.

As it stands we have pets for:

Physical Damage(Avatars)

Magical Damage(Avatars)

Buffs/Debuffs(Avatars)

MP management(Spirits)

Pet usage distribution is fine the way it is we have 9 awesome looking, useful pets to pick from as is. SE would never buff spirits to the same or near level of Avatars(because they're Gods), so spending any time buffing them would be a waste.

[Sasaraixx]

I agree with Razushu in that what he says make sense. Other than responding to aggro and using siphon, there are no situations where you would use a spirit over an avatar. Well, none that I can think of at least. (Yes, you can use your spirit to proc yellow in Abyssea, but that is really situational and unless you are soloing, I'd hope you'd have another mage there for yellow procs.)

Nonetheless, there is still a part of me that wants them to get a buff lol. It is irrational and I have no justification for it Our avatars are our bread and butter and they still need some work. I would not want SE to take time away from working on them to work on a way to make spirits useful. That would take a serious amount of time in my opinion.

It would be an entirely hollow buff, but I would like all spirits to get Elemental Celerity traits, MAB bonus traits and serious MACC buffs. That wouldn't take long to implement at all. This wouldn't have us pick them over avatars and it would fix their design problem, but for some reason it still kind of makes me happy. I know it's ridiculous

[Sasaraixx]

And as for this thread, I am not a fan of any of the OP's suggestions for avatars (No disrespect meant.) I just don't see the benefit in giving the avatars ward pacts for spells that other jobs can use more efficiently than us. And giving avatars the one of the few unique spells that SCH has would be a slap in the face, and wholly unnecessary in my mind. But more importantly, I don't see how any of those changes would help fix the job.

Instead, I would simply suggest the follow:

Enhancing Buff
1) Make avatar's favor a trait, and not a job ability. (No one uses it aside from the -perp, and that isn't necessary anymore because of gear.) Remove the negative effect to the avatar and let the avatars have the effect as well. (It would make them more unique as well.) In the event that a player may not want to favor, it can be removed manually. The potency of some wards may need to be adjusted.
2) Tweak the duration and potency of some ward pacts.
3) Split enhancing and healing ward pacts into a separate category.

Damage Buff
1) Give avatars innate double attack (and Fenrir triple attack)
2) Raise avatar melee damage
3) Lower -BP timer cap (coming in the future it seems)
4) Reduce melee delay or really raise #2
5) Give avatars a high degree of Subtle Blow

Tanking Buff
1) Give SMNs a JA that allows avatars to take damage for the SMN
2) Allow avatars to occassionally absorb damage of their own element
(3) Wholly unnecessary but storywise, it would be nice if avatars got a unique intimidation effect against humanoids or other gods perhaps.

Healing Buff
1) Increase potency of all healing blood pacts

(Astral Flow)
Aside from Odin and Alexander, outside of Abyssea the 2hr has becaome lackluster because our 70 and 75 pacts outdamage them. Lower levels it was great for certain NM/BC fights but this is a new game. Perfect Defense is a 2hour worthy ability. Is Earthen Fury? I'm not so sure anymore. This is definitely not a pressing issue but it might be worth addressing once we hit lv99 and see where we stand. A change to a familiar type 2 hour, while retaining the exclusive BP and 0 perp cost might be an idea. Again, this is just a personal peeve of mine and not at all a necessity.

[Covenant]

Aside from all avatars 2 hours being AOE damage(the normal avatars) they should be more potent, but not much more.

Why fix the spirits, if no one uses them? This should be read differently. They should be updated cause no one uses them.

I'm strictly speaking in earlier level now when, SE gave Summoners abilities before other jobs. The avatars were extremely underutilized due to limit Bloodpacts only(PRE-wards). It was my personally firm belief that spirtis and avatars where meant to be utilized both. Much like a blue mages physical/elemental split of spells, avatars were "supposed" to be physical, whole elementals were elemental.

I only offered the spirit "tank" cause regular random elemental are physically resistant. If old school summoning was then a 1-2step of bloodback and dismissal. Then what would a summoner do per 1 min timer? The answer was quick summon the spirit to get off a debuff and rare nuke. This set up the whole melee(avatar)/nuke(spirit) idea in my mind.

Current day Vanadiel. Most Avatars have access to BOTH physical strikes(+1k) and nukes(+1k) while spirits are locked at lvl 75 casting. Meaning that in a 5 min period an avatar could conceivable do +6k while spirtis will do +300 melee damage and if your lucky a lot of enfeebs and maybe 1 nuke. And if your really really lucky an AM type. Is it any wonder why no one use spirits?
I support either buffing the melee/tanking capabilities of spirits and/or increasing "good" spell use. If SE would boost nothing more than a spirits defense for tanking to really strong level past any avatars abilities to do so, can you doubly most Summoners would switch to spirit tanking?...Even if everything else, including casting was kept the same?

Finally about Summoners stealing other jobs abilities. This concept is so contrary to Vanadiel in today's game. Most jobs share at least 1 ability with other, even discounting sub jobs. To say that the "Gods" of elemental cannot tap any and all abilities of their elemental is ridiculous to say the least. Storms, song, nukes, job abilities all have a basis in the specific elements. It's like saying, the atom should be removed from the element.
As with anything summoner, most abilities with regular duration are limited(I'm not talking past cap). To say, scholar "storms" are intrinsic to their game style is a outright lie. Most scholars I've played with hardly cast those spells, rather going for the outright damage/nuke output rather than party buffs.

Storms, enspell 1 and 2, bar spells, and a bards resistance up and down songs are used so rarely in "normal" game play. Letting a summoner have access to specific abilities at specific lvls(remember lvl 1 through 99), will hardly eliminate the need for jobs that "can do it better".

[Sasaraixx]

I'm ignoring the portion regarding spirits as I've already explained why I don't think the dev team should spend time working on them at the moment. Our avatars should be addressed first.

To say, scholar "storms" are intrinsic to their game style is a outright lie. Most scholars I've played with hardly cast those spells, rather going for the outright damage/nuke output rather than party buffs.

Please show me where in my post I said that storm spells are intrinsic to their game style. Don't change my words to try to make a better argument for yourself. I mentioned that those spells are one of the only unique spells the job has, which is true. (I was actually talking about helix spells, as most of the storm spells are already available via /SCH). And as an aside, if any SCH is nuking you can be very sure that they WILL be using storm spells. And even if what you said is true, which it isn't, why would you want spells that no one uses? It sounds more like you want them simply because we don't have them and our avatars should be masters of their elements. I don't see thought on how they would work towards improving the job. Adding them to our blood pact list would do nothing to help the current state of SMN and that is what I am concerned with.

Storms, enspell 1 and 2, bar spells, and a bards resistance up and down songs are used so rarely in "normal" game play. Letting a summoner have access to specific abilities at specific lvls(remember lvl 1 through 99), will hardly eliminate the need for jobs that "can do it better".

Same here. Why are you pushing for spells rarely used in normal game play that can already be cast quicker, more often, party wide and likely for higher potency by other jobs? And again you are stating something that I clearly did not say. No where in my post did I state that adding these abilities would "eliminate the need for jobs that can do it better." If you are going to respond, please respond to points that I actually made or there really isn't any point having a discussion.

The addition of these abilities would add no *valuable* utility to the job. We already have forms of enspell 1 and 2 spells for specific elements and no one uses them. Will adding them for all elements change that? I highly doubt it. Bar spells and carols are great, but given that future adjustments are being planned for lv99 content, when will you as a SMN find yourself in a situation where bar spells are necessary and you are not in a party with a WHM, RDM, SCH or BRD? You could make this ward stack with bar spells or carols to increase overall resistance and that could have some usage, but it does nothing to help the current state of the job. It's just a superficial addition where most of us want fundamental changes.

[Razushu]

Aside from all avatars 2 hours being AOE damage(the normal avatars) they should be more potent, but not much more.

Why fix the spirits, if no one uses them? This should be read differently. They should be updated cause no one uses them.

I'm strictly speaking in earlier level now when, SE gave Summoners abilities before other jobs. The avatars were extremely underutilized due to limit Bloodpacts only(PRE-wards). It was my personally firm belief that spirtis and avatars where meant to be utilized both. Much like a blue mages physical/elemental split of spells, avatars were "supposed" to be physical, whole elementals were elemental.

I only offered the spirit "tank" cause regular random elemental are physically resistant. If old school summoning was then a 1-2step of bloodback and dismissal. Then what would a summoner do per 1 min timer? The answer was quick summon the spirit to get off a debuff and rare nuke. This set up the whole melee(avatar)/nuke(spirit) idea in my mind.

Current day Vanadiel. Most Avatars have access to BOTH physical strikes(+1k) and nukes(+1k) while spirits are locked at lvl 75 casting. Meaning that in a 5 min period an avatar could conceivable do +6k while spirtis will do +300 melee damage and if your lucky a lot of enfeebs and maybe 1 nuke. And if your really really lucky an AM type. Is it any wonder why no one use spirits?
I support either buffing the melee/tanking capabilities of spirits and/or increasing "good" spell use. If SE would boost nothing more than a spirits defense for tanking to really strong level past any avatars abilities to do so, can you doubly most Summoners would switch to spirit tanking?...Even if everything else, including casting was kept the same?

Finally about Summoners stealing other jobs abilities. This concept is so contrary to Vanadiel in today's game. Most jobs share at least 1 ability with other, even discounting sub jobs. To say that the "Gods" of elemental cannot tap any and all abilities of their elemental is ridiculous to say the least. Storms, song, nukes, job abilities all have a basis in the specific elements. It's like saying, the atom should be removed from the element.
As with anything summoner, most abilities with regular duration are limited(I'm not talking past cap). To say, scholar "storms" are intrinsic to their game style is a outright lie. Most scholars I've played with hardly cast those spells, rather going for the outright damage/nuke output rather than party buffs.

Storms, enspell 1 and 2, bar spells, and a bards resistance up and down songs are used so rarely in "normal" game play. Letting a summoner have access to specific abilities at specific lvls(remember lvl 1 through 99), will hardly eliminate the need for jobs that "can do it better".

The more accurate way to read it would be, why buff pets no one uses, when we already have better pets that could do with a buff. Spirits weak as they are were most likely meant for use below level 20. Avatars always had the Tier IIs and IVs which covered magic damage too. Avatars were meant to do what we needed and spirits were meant to hold us over until we got them.

To be honest spirits are fine they see much more use than Leviathan. Avatars need some tweaking, because atm there imbablanced with each other, want physical damage? use Garuda(sometimes Ramuh). Want buffs? use Fenrir and Garuda(generally). Want magical damage? Use Shiva. That leaves us with a couple of our avatars seeing general - situatuional uses, and the rest gathering dust. Avatars should be the priority by far, they are by far the most useful by design(arguably).

Spirits get the same -50% PDT that avatars get already. Wouldn't it be better(more useful), if instead of buffing spirits in a tanking capacity, they added a boost to avatar tanking instead? Spirits never saw much use from level 1 upwards, until Elemental Siphon(which is a fine use and more than justifies their existence enough). Any buff to spirits would only be a side grade. Even if they buffed spirits to be tanked, Avatars do much more damage anyway and are disposable. It would change very little(possibly in kites where you don't have room to kite??), and again avatars need a boost too anyway.


If the only reason people want them buffed is because they exist(which is silly, we don't need them we already have much better pets), then I 'd suggest we get rid of them all together and change Elemental Siphon to Astral Siphon.

Every buff we have lasts about 3 minutes now, they only really need a potency buff. Although a really nice change to them would be, if they changed the category from magic to avatar(and maybe change it so that people can have a max. of 4 applied to them at once). This way they would stack with buffs from magical sources.