SMN adjustments....seriously?

[leorez]

i know most of the adjustments they have been posting havent been amazing so far, but at least they have been useful and direct (changes to skills themselves and then changes to merits for balance)

...really...merits for the elements....thats it? does anyone give even the slightest crap about the elements? They are just there to suck MP from...

its been so many years and yet SE still doesnt even know what the hell they want to do with SMN. Thanks for the troll SE.

[Runespider]

Balance must be preserved!

[Dreamin]

Agreed. SMN among all the playerbase has been trolled by SE BIG TIME.

Would love to know how many SMN even merit that at all (and actually uses it). I know that there are 'some' but it certainly isn't a large number among those players who jump on SMN on any regular basis.

[Clou777]

only a noob smn would merit this because they dont have any avatars at lv99 after an abyssea party... totally pointless

[Avelonia]

New Blood Pact Rages, our promised Cait-Sith/Atomos, and exploring the possibility of Phoenix/Bahamut is what you should be focusing on. Not this junk ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;

[cidbahamut]

does anyone give even the slightest crap about the elements? They are just there to suck MP from...

In before Mellowy.

[Urteil]

I thought the DRK/PLD updates couldn't be topped.


But I was proven wrong, SE never fails to disappoint!

[Dallas]

I have 4 merits left in spirit perp costs. It all gets down to the fundamental stat of SMN: mp. Let's
see what they do to the spirits themselves, then determine the value. Less cost = better gear choice.

[leorez]

if they could at least let us have some minor control over the spirits, then this might be worth while, but pure randomness, high prep cost and zero control make them a joke.

they will continue to be a source of MP suction lol. Even if i could have one out w/ no prep cost, id still never use it because of the other reasons.

and no, 99% of summons put merits into the acc/macc attack/mattack slots.

[Edyth]

With massive summoning magic skill over the cap (me, and any other career SMN), meriting Avatar Accuracy is questionable at best.

Avatar Magic Accuracy is a silly merit category, and summoning magic skill affects magic accuracy so much that you shouldn't have any merits in that. 0/5, no questions.

Avatar Magic Attack should be 5/5, no questions.

That leaves Avatar Attack and Elemental MP Cost. Attack damage is quite random and the boost is insignifcant. I used the Royal Redingote with avatar attack +15 for a while (which is approximately equivalent to having it fully merited), and the difference is so minor that it's impossible to notice without looking for it and giving it the benefit of the doubt. After that experience, 0/5 for sure.

So, Elemental MP Cost. If you're a serious SMN, and you solo things like Splitting Heirs (4 orc NMs at once) or other very strong NMs, last thing you need is the hate spike from hitting release. So, my little spirit does get some action. He fights after I siphon, unless he just totally ****s it up somehow. There have also been a few lengthy, drawn-out battles where, after the entire party is hurting and has exhausted all sources of MP, I resort to using one of my spirits instead of resting (lowmanning the Voidwatch Taurus in Sauromugue Champaign S, for example), because they still nuke for 0 MP cost to me. Finally, I don't use any refresh Atma on SMN in Abyssea too often (I tend to use RR/VV/Ducal Guard), so when I'm soloing and try to proc yellow, it's helpful that my spirits don't waste my MP.

So, with avatar attack being insignificant and magic acc/physical acc being boosted so much by skill, I chose to do something that can only be done with merits: I made the spirits usable.

EDIT: Now, just having 2 merits in Eemental MP cost will give -6 perp, which is better than what 5/5 merits gave. So my plan is to retract 3 merits from Elemental MP cost and put them into avatar physical accuracy, because I literally have no recollection of a merit BP every being resisted, and my debuff wards stick better than BLM and RDM debuffs (because most of those players have less enfeebling skill than I have summoning skill), so magic accuracy is unnecessary.