Thread: Suggestions to increase the current state of Summoner for Lv.99

I don't think we'll get an actual acknowledgment, either, but a part of me still holds on to hope. If we can get one solid location for all our hopes and ideas it might get a bit more notice, so here goes...

I said it in another thread and I'll go ahead and say it here: I wholeheartedly second the need for changes to the potency of older Wards, and for a change in our BP delay timer. From where I stand, these are the two biggest things holding back Summoner. There are other little things, yes, but these are the two biggest.

For Wards: Anyone subbing Scholar (even, say, a Thief) can give a better AoE Stoneskin and Blink than I can provide from my main job. Both RDM/SCH and SCH/RDM can give an AoE Phalanx (Accession MP Cost: 42) that easily knocks off over 30 damage, but Noctoshield (MP Cost: 92) is stuck at only 13 damage negated. This is not right. We need a potency boost.

For BP Delay: Let's face it, melees have gotten faster than ever these days. Thanks to all the haste and Store TP options out there, it is not hard for them to bust out a solid Weapon Skill at least every 30 seconds. And yet we're stuck back at 45. Cut back on the restriction to -BP delay, allowing us to hit -30 seconds, and suddenly our damage will start to shoot back up to respectable levels. We'll still be outclassed at overall DoT, but our spike damage will be on par with everyone else. Easing up on the -BP delay will also allow us to offer both buffing support and curing support a little easier, too.

Goodness knows, it might also have us actually switching avatars more often, helping to justify that recent, oh-so-awesome change to Avatar recast.

Our Spirits could use some love, too. Until Elemental Siphon came along, I only ever used these as emergency monster distraction devices. Now, they're just disposable batteries. A change to their AI and an ability to choose a spell off of their list to force-ably cast might do the trick.

Avatar's Favor is just loaded with problems. A good place to start looking to make it more usable is to remove the aura potency reset that happens when you use a Blood Pact. I understood that the trade off for the aura was a decrease in damage, but to then set it so that trying to do anything resets the aura? Really now, SE, we might start to get the idea that you all just don't like us at this rate.

There are a couple of other things, but anything else is just nitpicking small stuff. Not that they don't need looking at, but I consider Wards and BP delay the most important, with Spirits and Favor right behind them.

I think your option #2 will be flat out denied because of how SE has said JA timers work in the past. This is why on many jobs, new JAs share timers. There apparently isn't the room to account for all the separate JAs and that's why they are shared.

SMN, through bloodpacts, has two JA timers. One for Rage, one for Ward. They would have to completely rework things to be able to separate all bloodpact timers.

Not to say I wouldn't love separate timers, because I would. Yet this is why they would not.

I'm glad the split it up into two pacts, for that reason of having to wait a whole minute, but that's just me coming from the PS2 release with smn main most my ffxi career. However, I completely agree the new bps to lvl 99 are worthless, they should have given us better options, and smn used to be more about mp, but now with MM and actually useful gear (remember austere... only like 1 or 2 ava perp-), I think it's safe to say now we are more concerned about the blood pacts. WHY SE WHY DID YOU GIVE US AN ENASPIR... and most of the up to 99 bps are pretty much wards, why didn't we get any rages.

Originally Posted by Sargent

To be fair to them, the Lv.82~92 Wards are useful. Even Soothing Ruby is useful as a sort of Esuna+1. 95+ pacts are incredibly bad, however.


We got 3 rages. They had the damage equivilant to Lv.65 Blood Pact Rages. The point is our damage source now is exactly the same as it was at 75. Same speed too, the only thing that's increased since is the damage per pact. While Summoner was never a replacement for a DD, it was still capable of fairly decent DoT in comparison at 75 and now it isn't.

eh true, that's just how useless they were >.> I forgot what they did, but yes the soothing ruby was a good one, and then again they did give us Alex... but now they're gimping him, and before fell cleave, Odin was the way to go

They first need to remove the -15 cap on bp gear delay, my standard gear set has over -15 and it bothers me I went through all the work to get the perpet/bp timer staffs and the 2 staffs Im missing are not even needed since I up'd my gear. If I wouldnt have put so much work into them I would /toss them and get a chat staff. But my luck is then they would come out with another trial that would give them a worthwhile trait and I would have to redo them all.

They also need to make smn magic skill worthwhile. I hate that my capped/merited and geared 500+ smn magic skill does the same dmg as my roomies who burned his up and is sitting at 100 skill.

A reduction in BP timers would be wonderful 45 seconds is way too long considering the low damage output. I do not forsee SE doing anything about it tho

Originally Posted by Sargent

To be fair to them, the Lv.82~92 Wards are useful. Even Soothing Ruby is useful as a sort of Esuna+1. 95+ pacts are incredibly bad, however

With that blasted 45 second timer we have, its a pain to choose between which type of support we give - status removal or HP restoration. Soothing Ruby does one; Spring Water does both. Guess which one gets more use from me?



Now, Inferno Howl and Fleet Wind on the other hand... Those have easily become two of my favorite Wards to use. Its just a shame they ruined the trend of decent Wards by having the last two be an unreliable Samba and a targeted Dispel (because Altana knows I've never seen it land death, even it you manage to get the blasted mob to sleep first).