Blood Pact Enhancement Stats Explained

[Karbuncle]

I mean, Avatar's Favor needs to have a con, otherwise we would all keep it up 100% of the time, right?

I think the con would be, in most normal situations, You're going to have to chose 1 buff, Which forces you to keep out 1 Avatar, Which limits your BP Options, and You have to "Charge" The buff, And your Pet can be killed, meaning your buff goes away and you have to start from square one...

There's already plenty of horrific restrictions on Avatar's favor, The NErf to pet damage was uneeded :|

[Zhronne]

I think the con would be, in most normal situations, You're going to have to chose 1 buff, Which forces you to keep out 1 Avatar, Which limits your BP Options, and You have to "Charge" The buff, And your Pet can be killed, meaning your buff goes away and you have to start from square one...

There's already plenty of horrific restrictions on Avatar's favor, The NErf to pet damage was uneeded :|

A point of view I hadn't considered, but it's pretty valid.
Yeah, probably no reason to keep the avatar nerf.
Altough tbh I'd be more happy with 20 yalms range and avatar nerf, rather than no nerf and silly 10 yalms.

Maybe we should open a new thread but let me try to sum up Avatar's Favour

1. Reduces Perpetuation cost by -4 (at level 99)
2. Potency of the buffs goes up with normal tics, caps at ~1min 15secs
3. Doesn't work on pets (avatars included)
4. Range is 10yalms around Avatar
5. Reduces Avatar's MAB by 20 and Avatar's attack by ??

From this point of view, for a buff that's mainly meant to offer a "buffing stance", the biggest limit I see is the silly 10yalms range. On some mobs (a lot?) it's not even enough to reach all melee DDs if you keep your avatar engaged (because of hit box etc).
Yeah of course, DDs could "stack" on the avatar, but we all know that's not realistically going to happen.

My personal thoughts on the other parts are the following:

• Reduced Perpetuation - Nice thing, but with all the -perp gear I have I would easily live without. I mean it's nice to have but it doesn't really have a huge impact on me
• Reduced Mab - On lv99 content mobs you can see the difference. It's not huge maybe, but it's clearly there. On lower level content mobs it's not really a huge difference imho. Maybe because on some mobs you have a "surplus" of MAB? I dunno, someone maybe could explain the math out for me but on some lower level mobs I usually get almost identical BP results with AF up.
• Reduced attack - I don't have a huge experience with physical BPs. Wasn't playing SMN back in the old lv75 PredatorClaws spam. But doesn't accuracy have a bigger impact than attack on PC? Well... I guess it depends on the amount of -att we get. If it's like -50 it would probably make a big difference

[nyheen]

i do like the idea of some kinda Charge system for the blood pack or.
least have each blood pack it own timer or lower time. Garuda example claw, Aero II etc, should not be sharing the same time for lvl 70 ones+ ^^;

[Jerbob]

With regards to Avatar's Favour - Is it not still true that the potency of the effect resets to half every time you use a blood pact? That was always a pretty killer concept for me. Depending on frequency of Ward usage and, as you all say, how often the avatar is defeated, the avatar's favour effect is going to be much weaker in practice than it is in theory, again limiting the usefulness. This is before having to restrict yourself to a single avatar...

I personally find the job ability to be atrociously designed. It's obvious that SE were trying to address the common complaint of not being able to keep avatars out in parties (though at level 50 it was really a bit late), but clearly the nerfbat swinging machine was set to overdrive when avatar's favour was created. I mean, really? A job ability which basically requires you to sit AFK in order to get the full effect...?

They need to separate the idea of an "aura buff" and the aim of making low level parties easier for summoners to work properly in. For the latter, just let Summoners rest when the avatar is summoned - problem solved. Now the perpetuation reduction bonus can be removed for avatar's favour, giving us a bit more wriggle room for something like this:

• Extended range of aura so that back line jobs can be affected by an avatar in a combat position
• Full power aura effect on all party members in range
• Blood Pact use no longer reduces potency
• Perpetuation cost no longer reduced
• No penalty to Blood Pact: Rage use
• Avatar's Favour effect is automatically removed if a different avatar is summoned

This allows back-line favour avatars to still participate in combat (increased aura radius), prevents the favour effect from decaying (also solving the avatar death >> weak favour issue), removes blood pact penaties but as a concequence locks the favour effect to your current avatar. Seeing as how the job ability is on a five minute timer I think this is fair.

Of course this immediately favours (no pun intended) avatars with useful wards and passable rage pacts that have a powerful aura - I'm thinking Ifrit and to a lesser extent maybe Ramuh with Shock Squall's introduction - but considering that most summoners are already boring and subscribe to the GARUDA ALL THE THINGS "style" of play this may not be a huge change.

With regards to ward pacts - I definitely disagree with the "less party members >> stronger effect" and single target ideas. Ward potency needs to be increased across the board, in accordance with skill level, for all the effects introduced below lv75 (excluding Hastega). As has been stated in this thread, I can cast a stronger Stoneskin (and even a stronger Phalanx) at level 99 from my subjob than avatars can provide. That's a little bit embarrasing. In particular:

• Earthen Ward
• Noctoshield
• Dream Shroud (increased skill also "caps" effect potency reduction by time of day)
• Ecliptic Howl and Growl (as above but for moon phase)
• Rolling Thunder and Lightning Armour
• Frost Armour
• Shining and Glittering Ruby

In addition, Fenrir's new pact (the name escapes me) and Pavor Nocturnus are simply atrocious and need complete reworking.

[Zhronne]

With regards to Avatar's Favour - Is it not still true that the potency of the effect resets to half every time you use a blood pact?

Uhm... Quoting wikipedia:

The bonus is dependent on two factors: The time since the last Favor reset, and Summoning Magic skill.
Determining the time that Favor has been active is based upon the lowest time of the following three conditions:
1) Activating Avatar's Favor
2) Summoning an Avatar
3) Any Blood Pact.

Honestly it's the first time I read about it. Before I read it on Wiki I thought you were just giving wrong information, while instead it seems you are right...
Well yes, this is the main issue of the whole concept then, definitely, more than anything else.
Especially seeing as the initial values are pretty weak usually.
Meh...


I agree with everything else that you said.
Avatar's favour is a JA that was clearly planned when the game had quite different standards from nowadays (and tbh, it sucked even by those days' standards).
We should open a new thread and start spreading news about it in the community, hoping for a Community Manager to notice it and post some official information about our concerns.

But I agree imho in an order of importance theese are the things they should be working for SMN:

1. Fix/Rehaul Avatar's Favor
2. Fix the already mentioned BPs, they need to be rehauled/scalebetter
3. Work on the new avatars BPs, 2hrs and all the rest of what we said, including a possible increase of the -BP recast time cap (at least 40 seconds please? 30 would be the optimum)

[Mirage]

Would something like -20 accuracy be a decent tradeoff for avatar's favor? Idk, just throwing things out here.

[Zhronne]

A decent tradeoff for what? There already is a malus for avatars and it's currently -20mab and -?? attack. You suggest adding another -20 accuracy? Why? For what purpose? We're talking about making this JA better, not even worse than it already is >_>

[SpankWustler]

Scaling buff potency by the number of party members was a very weird request. Similarly, making any of Summoner's buffs single-target would be weird because of the huge recasts the job has. I feel all funny inside saying this, but I'm with the Development Bros 100% for just keeping Bloodpact: Wards as traditional AoEs.

Right now, Summoner is probably in the best place a pet job has ever been since people learned how to actually damage monsters.

Although, 95% of that usefulness comes from Perfect Defense and Shock Squall and maybe Earthen Armor in a group environment. In a solo or small pet-group environment, it's time to revisit 2006 with a Blood Pact: Rage every 45 seconds and buffs not even in it.

So even though the job is much more useful now, nothing has really changed about Summoner being barely affected by equipment compared to most jobs; and the mechanics behind Avatar's Favor, which seem relevant when talking about Summoner buffs, are still as weird and off-putting as somebody's grandpa in butt-less rubber pants.

[Mirage]

A decent tradeoff for what? There already is a malus for avatars and it's currently -20mab and -?? attack. You suggest adding another -20 accuracy? Why? For what purpose? We're talking about making this JA better, not even worse than it already is >_>

Instead of the damage reduction, silly.

[Dantedmc]

I mean, Avatar's Favor needs to have a con, otherwise we would all keep it up 100% of the time, right?

Why? look at afflatus: solace, no cons at all. I honestly feel AF should have just been a JT instead of JA (with no penalties of course). I think SMN needs a few changes to work better in a party.

General
-Lower the BP Cap to 12 seconds (-80%) in line with Fast Cast, Haste, and Recast caps
-Increase Avatar melee damage and possibly BP damage
-Enhance many of the ward BPs' potency

Favor Related
-Remove the negative penalties from avatar's favor
-Remove the charge up from favor, the favor should always be at full potency. My reasoning for is that it's one buff not 2+ like brd and cor.
-Change Titan's favor to pdt
-Change Fenrir' favor to mdt or mdb
-Increase the potency of Carby's favor and possibly Shiva's Favor

New Stances
-One new stance that increases BP damage
-One new stance that enhances Avatar's Favors in some way

I feel like these changes would further enhances SMN's roles as a buffer and magic DD.