Summoning magic skill-ups and the rate of which we are getting them.

[Mirage]

Hello community representatives and developers.

Would it be possible for you to look into the rate at which summoning magic skills up? Currently, there is a small chance of getting a skillup when casting the summoning spell, and when performing a blood pact. However, both of these actions are extremely far in-between compared to how fast you generally perform other actions that generate skill-ups for their respective skills.

Consider this: During regular gameplay, A summoner summons an avatar, perform the two blood pacts available, then wait 45 seconds until the next time they can do two actions that have a chance of skilling up their magic. During regular gameplay, this is two chances (not guaranteed) of getting a skill-up, which again is less than 1.0 skill points. In the same time, other mages have cast probably something like a dozen spells, all with a chance to get skillups for every cast. A melee attacker has had a chance to skill up their weapon even more often than the other mages again. Especially dualwielding attackers, they would be seeing perhaps 20-30 chances to acquire skillups with their weapons in the same time a summoner has had two chances.

Why does it have to be like this? Please explain to me why summoning magic must be so slow compared to other magic skills (and combat skills). Is there a reason for this? Would it disrupt balance if summoners could realistically cap their summoning skill during normal gameplay within a few weeks of normal summoner-play, instead of having to cease normal gaming for an extremely long time just to perform a summoning/release macro for days, maybe weeks? Do you seriously think the players think this is fun?

I think it is completely reasonable to let there be a slight chance of summoning magic increasing every time your avatar performs a melee attack, as well as a much bigger chance of skillups happening when you perform pet commands. Not just bloodpact rage/ward, but also assault and retreat.

Basically, every other magic skill has seen an increase of how fast you can skill it up, except summoning magic, which still remains extremely slow compared to almost every battle related skill in the game. All I ask for is for summoning magic skill rate to be lifted to the level of most other skills in the game.

If the developers disagree with this, I would very much like to know the reasoning behind why they disagree.

Thank you.

[Lilia]

smn magic skill up is not slow,
maybe when you only cast, cast and cast.....

Fight NMs or high mobs then you have a good chance for skillups.
besieged is a good place too

[Mirage]

It is slow for me regardless of if I cast and cast over again, or use BPs as often as possible on enemies around my own level.

[Sargent]

Best way to do skill up is to pull out Diabolos or Ramuh and spam magic based pacts targetting the mob, i.e. Thunderstorm/Shock Squall or Night Terror/Somnolance. These are guaranteed to hit the mob and will guarantee a skillup chance. As was said, the higher level the mob, the more chance of skilling up, I found Gustav Tunnel very effective for this after the level caps, just spam on the large worms/turtles in the basement.

[Karbuncle]

I've been doing as you said, For months now, My Summoning magic was capped at level 75, 80, 85, and got behind around 90~99, Now its sitting probably a good 40 From capped or so, and is CRAWLING. I regularly do VW on SMN, Which as you people may know, Means I'm generally fighting enemies level 100+.

I pull out diabolos and Spam Somnolonce > Night Terror the entire fight.. and I've gone up very very very little. Its like having to skill up Enhancing, But only being able to cast a spell once every ~23 Seconds on Average (45s BP Timer, 2 chances per).

I personally would just like, and be happy with, some Confirmation those Magic Skill up Rings, Earrings, and Food work on Bloodpacts as well as the initial summoning, or is some spaghetti code screwing us over on that.

But Regardless, I agree with the OP. As it is, Its not a terrible skill to cap, But its difficulty is compounded by the restrictions placed on our BP Timers.

[Arcon]

It is, by a very large margin, the absolutely worst skill to cap in the game. Only Guard and Parrying used to be worse, but now they got a make-over and this and Enhancing are left behind. Enhancing can at least be skilled quickly during certain events like Besieged, where you can Chainspell buff a General, and even if you're just spamming buffs on yourself you can at least choose Barspells, which are pretty fast to cast.

All skills go up faster if used on NPCs, which is why any kind of offensive magic (including Healing Magic) is very easy and quick to cap. The problem with Summoning Magic is, while it can be used offensively, it's limited by a 45/2 second recast time and by having mobs available to use it on every time the timer is up. That is a huge drawback compared to any other skill. Even skilling Enhancing on yourself is faster than spamming BPs because the rate of skill increase is strictly limited by their timers.

I skilled almost every skill to cap on three characters, and now doing it on a fourth, and Summoning Magic was the only skill I gave up on because it was just too terrible and I couldn't do that to myself again, no matter how much my blue-number-OCD will make me uncomfortable because of it. This definitely should be addressed, there's no reason for why one skill should be singled out over all others.

[Cabalabob]

It may be hard to skill up but it's also pretty useless, it doesn't effect BP acc, attack or anything to do with potency. All it does is increase buff duration which doesn't really matter cause you're skilling up and wanting to be using stuff more anyway, and elemental siphon, which if you have a decent summoning magic set and reasonable skill you should be getting enough out of it already.

Way I capped my summoning magic was, when in a party to summon an avatar use an offensive BP, release the avatar, summon a different avatar use a ward pact release the avatar summon a different avatar(by which time rage was back up) and repeat.

When solo I'd find a soloable NM e.g Bugul Noz or Sisyphus. And I'd use good old fashion kiting method. I found I was skillin up without even noticing it and was capped in no time.

[Arcon]

It may be hard to skill up but it's also pretty useless, it doesn't effect BP acc, attack or anything to do with potency.

It actually does affect both physical and magical accuracy, in fact it's the only thing that affects it aside from certain gear and merits.

All it does is increase buff duration which doesn't really matter cause you're skilling up and wanting to be using stuff more anyway, [..]

I don't understand this sentence. How does buff duration not matter? 6min20s AoE Haste is not important? Some buffs wear off after 1min (like Inferno Howl) which is nothing, it's so little it can't be used to buff before a fight starts, because by the time everyone uses their JAs and engages it's already half worn-off.

[..] and elemental siphon, which if you have a decent summoning magic set and reasonable skill you should be getting enough out of it already.

What is "enough"? 150 MP? Because with low Summoning Magic skill, that's all you'll get. With capped skill and good gear you'll easily get the 500 MP range. That's a massive difference right there. And unlike Blood Pacts, for which skill bonus caps at 500, the Elemental Siphon bonus from skill is uncapped.

[Mirage]

Yeah, you can never have too much MP. Maybe in abyssea, but the game is no longer just abyssea.

[Secondplanet]

I've never had a problem getting my summon magic to cap. Play the job, have fun with it and it will be capped in no time at all. Now only if SE would take the cap off damage output and we can all be happy summoners.... with out cait sith >.<