Woe to ye Summoner! (Mostly not a Cait Sith, Atomos rant thread)

[Xerius]

The path that a Summoner walks is a path of solitude. Especially, in this day-and-age where most Summoners are dealing out more damage than a lot of their pets. For a job that deals in "forbidden arcane magic" it sure does feel like we've been receiving the short end of the stick, I'm just going to point out a few painfully obvious design flaws with the job and it's gear options with the vaguest of hopes that someone from the development team will take the time to read it and maybe have a change of heart and show my most beloved job some mercy.

1. Perpetuation Cost- Out of every flaw with Summoner this one has always perplexed me the most. Why in Altana's great name, would the job that is most reliant upon it's pets be penalized so harshly for having them out. None of the other pet jobs lose anything for having any of their pets out and why should Summoner? All of our abilities cost boat-loads of MP anyway and have an incredibly restricting timer attached to them. The other pet jobs can bring something to the table without a pet out but what can a Summoner bring to the table? Cure IV?
   
2. Satchets - I'm not sure who thought up this nugget of wisdom but please send them to Mordion Gaol for at least a month for it. Thanks to these, we can now say, Goodbye to any stat enhancing gear that may be useful to us for our ammo slot, like Strobilus or the Hedgehog Bomb. Nope now we just get to use our Satchets which bring our avatars up to the barely competent level. The only other job that really has a restriction like this is Puppetmaster but that's something that they've always had to live with.
   
3. To Leave Out or Not to Leave Out the Avatar, that is the question - Seriously, Square Enix, I'm getting mixed signals here. Artifact Armor hints that I should use my avatars sparringly. Relic Armor seems to hint that I should keep my avatars out. Empyrean Armor seems to hint that I should leave my avatars out full-time. Seekers of Adoulin gear seems to hint that I should bring my avatars out for spike damage. Avatar's Favor seem to hint that I should leave my avatars out. Perpetuation cost seems to hint that I shouldn't leave my avatars out. See how getting rid of Perpetuation cost would just relieve all of us Summoners from this headache.
   
4. Odin and Alexander - These were great when they first came out. Odin was just Odin and requires no further explanation and Alexander gave alliances a reason to bring Summoners to events. So, thank you for making content that was so difficult to clear that you almost NEEDED a Perfect Defense to clear it and then instead of adjusting the difficulty YOU set, instead you decided that Summoners and Scholars were to blame and nerfed our one saving-grace into oblivion.

In conclusion: Haven't we Summoners suffered enough? Can you please just release Cait Sith and Atomos so we can have a few minutes of bliss before we skulk back into the shadows with our Summoners Horn's tucked neatly between our legs in defeat?

[FaeQueenCory]

Gonna split this up to better answer some concerns you have.

The path that a Summoner walks is a path of solitude. Especially, in this day-and-age where most Summoners are dealing out more damage than a lot of their pets. For a job that deals in "forbidden arcane magic" it sure does feel like we've been receiving the short end of the stick, I'm just going to point out a few painfully obvious design flaws with the job and it's gear options with the vaguest of hopes that someone from the development team will take the time to read it and maybe have a change of heart and show my most beloved job some mercy.

LOL the problem of gear has been an issue... for ever. SMN rarely gets any gear that's actually useful (I am ignoring the AFs because all jobs get them) and when we do... we get macro-only pieces.
While we should get.... something.... I for one am glad that we've actually gotten good things from Adoulin.
Sure, it's macro-only MAB stuff... but... +120MAB... That's more love than SMN has gotten in years.
That's more MAB than a lot of the BLM/RDM/SCH staves too. (I know, MAB has deminishing returns so +120 is more for a SMN than for those, and they get +Mdmg too.... but the point still remains that SMN is getting quite a bit of love from Adoulin gear.... Just not the crazy love that physical DD gets... but when have we ever?)

Also.... I highly doubt any smn is out damaging their avatars... in terms of just AA, yes. that is more than believable.
But I don't think you're dropping 3-4k WSs every 45s.

1. Perpetuation Cost- Out of every flaw with Summoner this one has always perplexed me the most. Why in Altana's great name, would the job that is most reliant upon it's pets be penalized so harshly for having them out. None of the other pet jobs lose anything for having any of their pets out and why should Summoner? All of our abilities cost boat-loads of MP anyway and have an incredibly restricting timer attached to them. The other pet jobs can bring something to the table without a pet out but what can a Summoner bring to the table? Cure IV?

Given how insanely easy to cap -perp cost....
like... you have to try hard to not cap it for Carbuncle... not that the little Sephiroth is any good.... but still.
You get a free -7 from the empy+2 body and feet (still the best idle gear for those slots... it's why we're EXTRA squishy now) and a single Magian stave (which you don't even need the full 99 version) can cap the remaining perp cost down to one.
So... There really isn't any problem with perp cost... it's just a unique job thing that keeps SMN different than BST.
Sure you have to work a little bit for the +3 refresh... but you have to work a little bit to get any job geared well.

1. Satchets - I'm not sure who thought up this nugget of wisdom but please send them to Mordion Gaol for at least a month for it. Thanks to these, we can now say, Goodbye to any stat enhancing gear that may be useful to us for our ammo slot, like Strobilus or the Hedgehog Bomb. Nope now we just get to use our Satchets which bring our avatars up to the barely competent level. The only other job that really has a restriction like this is Puppetmaster but that's something that they've always had to live with.

OMG.... Yes....
When the Sachets happened.... I was really happy because.... they remembered us for once...
But... the point of the matter is....
BST and DRG's pets are boosted by their main hand weapon....
An item that gives insane bonuses to the player (and to the BST pet in the case of those axes)... while SMN.... get nothing.
No MP.
No skill. (600 Alexander... why can't you exist.)
No nothing.
It would be sooooooo much better if the sachets actually DID something else... like everyone else's gear.
But SMN has never and probably never will be getting anything like that...
At least we got something... :/

1. To Leave Out or Not to Leave Out the Avatar, that is the question - Seriously, Square Enix, I'm getting mixed signals here. Artifact Armor hints that I should use my avatars sparringly. Relic Armor seems to hint that I should keep my avatars out. Empyrean Armor seems to hint that I should leave my avatars out full-time. Seekers of Adoulin gear seems to hint that I should bring my avatars out for spike damage. Avatar's Favor seem to hint that I should leave my avatars out. Perpetuation cost seems to hint that I shouldn't leave my avatars out. See how getting rid of Perpetuation cost would just relieve all of us Summoners from this headache.

This is not even a thing.
The problem that SMN used to have was that the AF1 is designed for how SE thought SMN should be played:
You poop an avatar, use a BP, release.
Basically: Classic FF summoning magic.
The problem was... much like NIN... SE had no idea how ppl would actually PLAY the job.
And this is why the Relic set gives actually useful bonuses (also, the AF1+1 too remedied a LOT of the dumbness in the initial design of the AF1 set... making it much more useful to the 75 smn.)
So this whole issue of how to play the smn isn't a thing at all.
You keep your avatar out, and depending on the situation (eg SMN in VW, you sit with the BLMs and your pt's WHM with diabolos w/ favor up) you use favor, but generally favor isn't ever useful. (though I have found carby's favor is more useful... than he is... :/ )
The Relic and Empy sets give bonuses for how the players showed SE how the job is played.
So, just ignore the AF1... it was a mistake on the dev's part... They wanted to capture the classic FF smn feeling... but this was their first MMO, and didn't know how pets like Avatars work in that setting.

1. Odin and Alexander - These were great when they first came out. Odin was just Odin and requires no further explanation and Alexander gave alliances a reason to bring Summoners to events. So, thank you for making content that was so difficult to clear that you almost NEEDED a Perfect Defense to clear it and then instead of adjusting the difficulty YOU set, instead you decided that Summoners and Scholars were to blame and nerfed our one saving-grace into oblivion.

Bolded is only true for SMN. SCH is sitting just fine... even with the embrava nerf.
But the Alexander nerf.... "you can get the old potency back with 600+ skill!"
Square.... there's not that much summoning magic skill items in the game...
T_T
BUT they have kept true to their word about no longer making stuff that *needs* PD to be completable.... Adoulin NMs are easier with it... I guess... but you don't NEED PD to be able to beat them.

In conclusion: Haven't we Summoners suffered enough? Can you please just release Cait Sith and Atomos so we can have a few minutes of bliss before we skulk back into the shadows with our Summoners Caller's (fixed) Horn's tucked neatly between our legs in defeat?

I'd rather wait for them to actually be good and polished before they release a crappy avatar.
Isn't one carbuncle enough?

Adoulin is the priority now. It's only 60-70% implemented and then needs to be refined before we'll get the resources for Cait Sith.
Unless they got the one guy who's making all this SMN gear in Adoulin making Her by him/herself... But even then... Don't expect anything until after Adoulin is 100%

[Xerius]

Gonna split this up to better answer some concerns you have.

I understand a lot of what you're saying but one point I think you missed in some of your criticism is how a lot of these problems overlap. For instance having 600 Summoning Magic cap but at the same time the problem of needing the avatar perp cost - gear. Of course you can macro this stuff but we'll quickly run into a RDM-esque situation of only having a few slots available unless of course they put +summoning magic on one of the staves instead of +staff and +parry (I mean come on guys). While everyone else is throwing on new gear and macroing in a few pieces of Empyrean gear Summoner (and Puppetmaster) are stuck still pretty much full-timing their Empyrean gear because the new gear offers us nothing except MP.

I see that we agree on a lot of points and hopefully now that they've announced that more JSE is going to come out SMN will get some love. I guess I'm just tired of my most beloved job being an after-thought in all new content. :'(

[Babekeke]

While everyone else is throwing on new gear and macroing in a few pieces of Empyrean gear Summoner (and Puppetmaster) are stuck still pretty much full-timing their Empyrean gear because the new gear offers us nothing except MP.

New bodies with 2 MP refresh should be the standard idle gear now. There's some nice fast cast gear out there now. Delve head and Skirmish feet are great for MAB during merit BPs.

Uffrat +1 can get -5 perp with just a +1 stone augment!

If you have money to burn you can even get +100-125 pet: attack augmented on the full Hagondes set!

[FaeQueenCory]

I understand a lot of what you're saying but one point I think you missed in some of your criticism is how a lot of these problems overlap. For instance having 600 Summoning Magic cap but at the same time the problem of needing the avatar perp cost - gear. Of course you can macro this stuff but we'll quickly run into a RDM-esque situation of only having a few slots available unless of course they put +summoning magic on one of the staves instead of +staff and +parry (I mean come on guys). While everyone else is throwing on new gear and macroing in a few pieces of Empyrean gear Summoner (and Puppetmaster) are stuck still pretty much full-timing their Empyrean gear because the new gear offers us nothing except MP.

See... no. That's not an overlap.
-perp can be capped in 3 pieces: staff, caller body, caller feet.
And 600 skill is ALEXANDER ONLY.
No one else has any real benefit from it that isn't marginal.
There just isn't any reason to ever fulltime your alexander gear.... and I honestly have no idea why you ever want to. (And races come into play too, ifrits +4 skill ring.... I'm elvaan... I need that +70mp from either a Bifrost or from Saoma much more than I need +4 skill all the time, so for me I have slightly less skill than a taru, mithra, or hume... who can get away with not needing 70mp. Though now with that new cape.... I don't NEED the 70mp as much.... but it's my personal preference that I'd rather have a taru-sized MP pool for smn rather than the entirely unnoticeable benefit from +4 skill. If it was something like +8 or +10... then you'd see a little boost... but anything <5, so long as you have a lot everywhere else, isn't going to boost you all that much.)
You fulltime -perp and macro in +dmg stuff... And you have a whole set to get the largest skill you can get for Alexander.
So you're looking at 3 sets of gear:
idle/-perp
BP
Alexander

An idle and -perp set has a lot of overlap and imo, not worth the extra space for having ALL the +refresh gear you can get a hold of.
BP set is for +dmg stuff.... not -bp timer. That's a dead thing of the past. You are 3s from cap from a single 99 magian staff alone... and smn bracer+2 give you -4... that's 1s wasted. And since you should be idling in the magian staff and smn bracer.... there's no need for a -bp timer macro anymore. Maybe if they ever raise the timer cap to -30... then you'll need a couple more pieces for that again... but now? no. 2 pieces. pretty much fulltimed. you're good to go.
Alexander is the only gear set where you NEED 600 skill. I think with just caller's set +2, summoner's bracers, evoker's ring, new cape/astute, vox grip, merits, and max skill.... you're pushing 500/over. (I can't remember... it's been so long since I've actually looked at my smn skill.... been capped for FOREVER.)
Sure the extra acc/Macc is nice..... but it's so small... you don't need that extra skill for anyone except alexander... not even for favor do you need 600!

I see that we agree on a lot of points and hopefully now that they've announced that more JSE is going to come out SMN will get some love. I guess I'm just tired of my most beloved job being an after-thought in all new content. :'(

LoL I suppose I am not put off by a lack of worthwhile full-time gear... because that's how smn has ALWAYS been.
11yrs of getting 0 good gear... while every other job is getting 10-30 pieces each.
And when we do get the once-in-a-while piece of good gear.... it's macro-only lol
This has always been a thing with smn... so it's not like we became an afterthought... we were never a thought to begin with.

New bodies with 2 MP refresh should be the standard idle gear now. There's some nice fast cast gear out there now. Delve head and Skirmish feet are great for MAB during merit BPs.

Uffrat +1 can get -5 perp with just a +1 stone augment!

If you have money to burn you can even get +100-125 pet: attack augmented on the full Hagondes set!

bleh. Uffrat with -perp? why bother... just make magian staves to idle in and (almost) cap your BP timer in one piece.

And I sort of agree with you about any of the refresh bodies from Adoulin (I'm pretty sure even the first bayld body has +2mp refresh). [hot damn that +6mp refresh! Not that you really need that... but it's really nice.]
But I disagree you you about them idling with an avatar out, idling in the Caller Doublet will be better. (13-15mp, -7 from Caller's hand and feet, that leaves 6-8... so -1 from evoker ring... you're still left with 5 for Fenrir and 7 for everyone else. So Magian Stave -perp is still the best for that sweet -6perp and -12bpdelay.)
But that's just my preference: +3mp refresh. all the time. one more free inventory slot.

And one more thought, Xerius:
Please.... Please.... PLEASE tell me that your are not full empy... PLEASE tell me that you are using the Summoner's Bracers... Because the AF3+2 hands..... Just are awful. They're not even worth using with the HQ elemental staves/Chatoyant.
Because this:

is infinitely better 100% of the time than this:

-3 def, -8mp, and a normal mana cede....
in exchange for +15skill, -4bptimer....
There is no comparison.

[Babekeke]

bleh. Uffrat with -perp? why bother... just make magian staves to idle in and (almost) cap your BP timer in one Eight pieces. (1 for each element)

Fixed.
And this is why I would prefer Uffrat with -perp on it. You can use Uffrat for Magic BPs and for Avatar Perp, Soulscourge for Melee BPs, and Yaskomo's for BP Ward enfeebs. Now throw away 8 staves for plenty of inv space. You can cap BP timer in 3-4 pieces of Relic +2.

And I sort of agree with you about any of the refresh bodies from Adoulin (I'm pretty sure even the first bayld body has +2mp refresh). [hot damn that +6mp refresh! Not that you really need that... but it's really nice.]
But I disagree you you about them idling with an avatar out, idling in the Caller Doublet will be better.

Sorry, I just said for idling. Not idling with avatar out. If my avatar is out, I'm not idling, as far as I'm concerned.

(13-15mp, -7 from Caller's hand and feet, that leaves 6-8... so -1 from evoker ring... you're still left with 5 for Fenrir and 7 for everyone else. So Magian Stave -perp is still the best for that sweet -6perp and -12bpdelay.)
But that's just my preference: +3mp refresh. all the time. one more free inventory slot.[/QUOTE]

Staves are -7 perp, not -6. And they still only work for 1 avatar.

[Calatilla]

Because this:


is infinitely better 100% of the time than this:

-3 def, -8mp, and a normal mana cede....
in exchange for +15skill, -4bptimer....
There is no comparison.

Relic +2 hands are giving you nothing unless using a BP, and the same can be said for AF3+2 hands when you're already capped on -perp. So saying AF2+2 are 100% superior is false. Fulltiming either piece with an avatar out is the same.

[Xerius]

And one more thought, Xerius:
Please.... Please.... PLEASE tell me that your are not full empy... PLEASE tell me that you are using the Summoner's Bracers... Because the AF3+2 hands..... Just are awful. They're not even worth using with the HQ elemental staves/Chatoyant.
Because this:

is infinitely better 100% of the time than this:

-3 def, -8mp, and a normal mana cede....
in exchange for +15skill, -4bptimer....
There is no comparison.

Of course I'm not full-time empy. If you're full-time anything on SMN you're probably playing the job wrong. Although how the Relic +2 is better than the Empy +2, is beyond me. The relic is a much better macro piece for blood pacts than it is for full-timing. That Summoning Magic +/Recast - isn't doing anything for you if your avatar is just auto-attacking and after that long winded speech about how Summoning Magic + gear is

ALEXANDER ONLY

it sure is an interesting analogy to make.

[Edyth]

[*]Satchets - I'm not sure who thought up this nugget of wisdom but please send them to Mordion Gaol for at least a month for it. Thanks to these, we can now say, Goodbye to any stat enhancing gear that may be useful to us for our ammo slot, like Strobilus or the Hedgehog Bomb. Nope now we just get to use our Satchets which bring our avatars up to the barely competent level. The only other job that really has a restriction like this is Puppetmaster but that's something that they've always had to live with.

+70 to all avatar stats is better than +30 MP. You lost all credibility. Go away.

Relic +2 hands are giving you nothing unless using a BP, and the same can be said for AF3+2 hands when you're already capped on -perp. So saying AF2+2 are 100% superior is false. Fulltiming either piece with an avatar out is the same.

1. Most of SMN's gear does nothing anyway when not using a blood pact anyway unless it's perpetuation, refresh, or pet damage reduction.
2. It gives physical accuracy, but so does empyrean +2.
3. It gives 15 summoning skill, which is worth 7 points of physical accuracy.
4. The way the gloves are calculated (http://www.ffxiah.com/item/11118/call-bracers-2) means they are usually -1 or so perp.
5. Your argument amounts to: it's folly to call the empyrean +2 gloves useless, but you also call them useless if your perp is capped, and you admit that relic +2 is useful during blood pacts. So...you supported the argument you were trying to dismiss: the fact that relic +2 is substantially better.
If you're using Ifrit with Inferno Howl with Dashavatara for assault damage like you should, assault is damn decent damage, making the relic gloves better. Your empyrean +2 gloves are better for MP once per game week or in fortunate weather, yes, but if you choose your avatar based on that, you're probably missing out on something, most likely damage-dealing potential. If you have to pick one pair of gloves or the other, it's relic +2 hands down. They're not situational. They're worth full-timing. And unless you're hitting 2-3 macros for every blood pact, some delay slots have to give, and it's nice to have at least one slot with full-time BP delay reduction.

TL;DR:
Due to the very narrow window of usefulness for empyrean +2 gloves and the fact that it necessitates multiple macros for each blood pact use due to the need to minimize BP timer and it requires you to carry around a second pair of gloves anyway (most likely relic +2), relic gloves +2 are far superior. If you don't mind the inconvenience, then empyrean +2 gloves are nice to have, but they're not necessary. Also, if you have a magian staff or Nirvana, you have no use for empyrean +2 gloves. However, every SMN has a use for relic +2 gloves.

Edit:
Oh yeah, Mana Cede boost is on the +2 gloves. That's a far more valid use for them. Sadly, I don't have the inventory space to lug those things around just for that.

[Xerius]

+70 to all avatar stats is better than +30 MP. You lost all credibility. Go away.

This obviously completely went over your head so let me explain it out word for word. Obviously, +70 stats is better than 30 MP I wouldn't dream of arguing against that. I'm arguing about having my ammo slot locked out when all of the other pet jobs, bar-PUP, have their pet's stat increases are derived from the ilvl of the item in their main hand while still getting stats of their own from the item in their main hand. Hopefully, those words were simple enough for you to understand.