May Update Dissapointment

[Zeargi]

Greetings,

As a follow-up in regard to upcoming summoner adjustments, we are planning to make changes to Apogee in a future version update.

We’re currently in the midst of looking into change the way this ability works so that when used it would reset the cool down timers of Blood Pact: Rage and Blood Pact: Ward. However, we’d like to hear your feedback on whether there are any issues with this.

Please also understand that there may be the possibility that when testing it turns out that it will be unable to make this change.

1.) Do you mean that we can use basically 4 Blood Pacts (2 Wards, 2 Rages) in rapid succession and that way it would be used after to then reset cool down?
2.) If that's the case, does that mean the x2 MP cost is going to be removed?

Also, While a change like this is still good, it doesn't help with the potency of our Wards. Which is what most people are asking about. Our Attack Strength is pretty good ATM with some decent time put into it.

[Fae]

Did anyone, ever use Pacifying Ruby constantly? i think i myself have used it twice. once to see how it looks and a 2nd on accident

I used it on Hidhaegg on a BLU, while a THF was using TA on the PLD (which keeps being terror'd that fight). It did help, to the tune of like 1-2 skillchains more before the BLU would take hate and then have to turtle up or die but it seems for something I have to spam every 30 seconds to make that little difference it should have a boost.

Greetings,

As a follow-up in regard to upcoming summoner adjustments, we are planning to make changes to Apogee in a future version update.

We’re currently in the midst of looking into change the way this ability works so that when used it would reset the cool down timers of Blood Pact: Rage and Blood Pact: Ward. However, we’d like to hear your feedback on whether there are any issues with this.

Please also understand that there may be the possibility that when testing it turns out that it will be unable to make this change.

I am very happy to hear SMN adjustments are on the table! This is how I feel about this adjustment:

Uses could be found for it, as it gives us one more pact per apogee if we plan carefully but it also is limiting in that it doesn't help us say put on more wards sooner or do longer attack chains. It just lets us get more use out of wards in a battle situation where we'd favor rage over ward. Already doing Tumult Curator with a SMN in the party along with BRD and COR rotating buffs too, we reach the cap of max displayable buffs (especially since fenrir's takes soooo many slots), which lead to confusion and inability to determine when important buffs were going to fall off. I believe we and other SMN strongly feel that rather than the amount of buffs we can put on mid battle going up (or not sacrificing as much damage to apply the same number of buffs) our buffs should be more meaningful given that it takes so much time and often mana cost to put one on in the first place especially if you look at other mage jobs. To me our wards should be either unique or strong party wide versions of existing spells to constitute the cost of being able to apply less in a given duration. To me this was the original function and purpose of wards, just many have not kept up with the times at all. 13 damage reduction phalanx was meaningful at one point, but now that any mage with enhancing skill can reach 35 damage reduction, it is not useful to ever cast it (and I don't, I actually get more of using it as SMN with RDM sub and enhancing gear than using phalanx). SCH or a mage with SCH subjob can out do almost all our wards based on their spells, in shorter time. Phalanx AoE 35 damage reduction vs Diabolos 13. We get enfire, enthunder, ice spikes and shock spikes. RDM/SCH or SCH/RDM can accession these... and every other element, and I'm pretty sure at greater potency. What's worse, is that even though they can do that, they rarely do because they aren't valued. Endrain is a great ward, when the moon phase is right but Enaspir is very niche in use. Player stoneskin can reach 475 HP, but Titan's Earthen Ward is stuck at much worse values (still 248 if reports are to be believed which means it never kept going up with ilvl and is stuck at 99, much like healing wards and if that's the case with it, Ifrit's Warcry is probably in the same situation). I could go on but you get the idea, our wards are far behind and even what some of them do isn't valued enough to be cast by jobs that can both put it on the party faster and with higher potency. All that leaves a lot of SMN wards take both a high cost of time and have less meaningful effects, even compared to non support jobs, just other mages who sub sch for the aoe effect. It's not like our solo ability is great either, without 1 hours our dmg solo is painfully slow vs content Ifrit won't work on, and being so cornered into using a niche few pacts is I think the main problem. Out of all our cool toys I usually only use Haste 2, Earthern Armor, Flaming Crush, Volt Strike, Shock Squall, and occassionally TP Bonus, Warcry, and Enfire or Endrain if time. If doing bcnm runs for example, I won't get that entire list off. Our -25 Evasion down on thing's like Shiva's ward just don't make sense, why so little? During the right phase of moon Fenrir does more and it's not respectable either, not when Feint can put 250 evasion down, and distract 3 over 100, and again, any mage with rdm sub can put -35 evasion down distract, our wards for having a huge cast time are also very impotent. It makes them tend to not be used except for the ones most useful, which are usually the same ones which leads to less interesting play decisions and a lot of dead pacts.

For the adjustment itself I'm for it, if it's not the only thing in store. If it's a pick or choose thing though, I much rather would have at least some of our pacts scale with summoning skill because right now there is no way to enhance them, meanwhile mages get more skill, tons of fastcast and ability to put on tons of spell quickly, and more gear that enhances spells like stoneskin, and we are stuck in the past. If SMN had native skill in other magic schools, which they don't, they could at least use some of these on themselves. But they can't and defeats the point of having a lot of the wards in the first place. Even Aerial armor which I like, BLU gets a blink with many more blinks on it. It is not wonder so many BLU RME being made and jobs mastered, it really is stacked right now, and it isn't even used in the hardest endgame fights for aeonics. There always seems to be 8 or less people playing summoner at any given time on my server, there's even more WAR on all the time now. There's a few jobs less played than SMN but not many so I think SE would do well to give it help. The amount of work that goes into a good SMN is huge and it's much easier to gear a BLM, SCH or GEO in todays world than put that much effort into something unless you really care for and love it, and most the people here commenting outside people popping in because they want their jobs looked at instead, are dedicated summoner players that love summoner which imho is the right people to ask about the job because they not only will be most affected but have insights based on more knowledge. That said I don't pretend to speak for everyone, just myself. I thank SE very much for listening to us and I hope some of our suggestions make it into the game, thank you for making such an interesting and fun job to play and taking a look at the job balance.

[Zeargi]

Nice wall of text. Ifrit's and a war's warcry give the same attack bonus, only Ifrit's lasts much longer and has a smaller cool down. Accession takes stratagems. When you are /sch you get a stratagem every 2 minutes, aka 4 times the cooldown of a bloodpact. Even if you are a main job sch with the gift for stratagem cool down gem recharge time is 3 seconds longer that ward recharge time, with the added bonus of not having separate timer for offensive stratagems. Occultation is self target, and no blu is going to blow a 10 minute cooldown to aoe shadows. A better example would be using accession with blink but that only gives 2 shadows instead of 4. If I was to take a gander over why feint has a higher evasion down than Diamond Storm, It's probably because feint degrades over time, only lasts 30 seconds, has a recast timer of 2 minutes, and isn't AoE.

You are basically complaining that you aren't better than every job at everything all the time.

True to some extent, but there are still some things that need to be addressed.

Even if Feint fades over time, Diamond Storm is gained at Level 90. So both Feint and Distract II, which are Lv. 75 and 85, respectively, offer a -50 to evasion. So, it's not out of the realm of reasonableness to ask for -35 or even -40 to evasion. And while I agree that no BLU would use Diffusion on Occultation, most SMN also wouldn't waste the time on Aerial Armor either; as most things strip shadows/blink (Which ours is only 3, not 4). SMN shouldn't surpass another job outside the the effects that are ours alone, which are few, but we should most definitely be a viable substitute for something missing.

[Ulth]

True to some extent, but there are still some things that need to be addressed.

Even if Feint fades over time, Diamond Storm is gained at Level 90. So both Feint and Distract II, which are Lv. 75 and 85, respectively, offer a -50 to evasion. So, it's not out of the realm of reasonableness to ask for -35 or even -40 to evasion. And while I agree that no BLU would use Diffusion on Occultation, most SMN also wouldn't waste the time on Aerial Armor either; as most things strip shadows/blink (Which ours is only 3, not 4). SMN shouldn't surpass another job outside the the effects that are ours alone, which are few, but we should most definitely be a viable substitute for something missing.

It's not just that feint degrades over time, It also can only be up 1/4 of the time. Generally I only use it overwrite evasion up, but even then I think can't overwrite Distract II, but can be overwritten by Distract II, so there is probably evasion boosts it can't overwrite. Anyway what level the abilities were gotten at are irreverent. Thf gets its best ability at level 15, as for distract II they could have picked any arbitrary number over 49, it doesn't matter you are only using that spell at 99. And no, a smn should use Aerial Armor, it lasts 15 minutes, and they are out of range most of the fight anyway. Basically it's just an extra safety net in case something does happen. As for the number of shadows I'm going off what BG wiki says, and it says 3 at low levels otherwise 4. Really the only thing I agree on is Fenrir's moves being based on the moon phase being annoying.

As for what smn should be known for, it should be messing faces up with terrestrial avatars. Personally I think flaming crush needs to be dialed back a smidgen, and the other avatars brought up to that level to give a better representation of all the elements. I also think astral flows are way underpowered considering the lore of final fantasy and those move's history. Maybe that's what the 1200 gift should have been, Improved versions of those moves.

Edit: Also Nirvana 119 III is pointless, make it better.

[Zeargi]

It's not just that feint degrades over time, It also can only be up 1/4 of the time. Generally I only use it overwrite evasion up, but even then I think can't overwrite Distract II, but can be overwritten by Distract II, so there is probably evasion boosts it can't overwrite. Anyway what level the abilities were gotten at are irreverent. Thf gets its best ability at level 15, as for distract II they could have picked any arbitrary number over 49, it doesn't matter you are only using that spell at 99. And no, a smn should use Aerial Armor, it lasts 15 minutes, and they are out of range most of the fight anyway. Basically it's just an extra safety net in case something does happen. As for the number of shadows I'm going off what BG wiki says, and it says 3 at low levels otherwise 4. Really the only thing I agree on is Fenrir's moves being based on the moon phase being annoying.

As for what smn should be known for, it should be messing faces up with terrestrial avatars. Personally I think flaming crush needs to be dialed back a smidgen, and the other avatars brought up to that level to give a better representation of all the elements. I also think astral flows are way underpowered considering the lore of final fantasy and those move's history. Maybe that's what the 1200 gift should have been, Improved versions of those moves.

Edit: Also Nirvana 119 III is pointless, make it better.

Is there some Special SMN magic skill required for it, because the last 15 casting of it has only given me 3 shadows.

[Ulth]

Maybe? It wouldn't surprise me if the wiki was wrong. The information on feint was drastically wrong until September last year when Jeanpaul tested it, you could math it out with some tests if you really want to know.

[Zeargi]

Maybe? It wouldn't surprise me if the wiki was wrong. The information on feint was drastically wrong until September last year when Jeanpaul tested it, you could math it out with some tests if you really want to know.

Jeanpaul has been a boon for the player base both in and out of game. I'm still not sure what I'm missing, though. I've got over 500 skill which is listed as the head source. Maybe there's a piece of armor I'm not using that they are.

[Shirai]

I have no idea where the 3~4 comes from, as far as I am aware Aerial Armor has always been 3 shadows regardless of player or avatar level.
Neither do I remember it being changed.

[Camate]

1.) Do you mean that we can use basically 4 Blood Pacts (2 Wards, 2 Rages) in rapid succession and that way it would be used after to then reset cool down?
2.) If that's the case, does that mean the x2 MP cost is going to be removed?

Also, While a change like this is still good, it doesn't help with the potency of our Wards. Which is what most people are asking about. Our Attack Strength is pretty good ATM with some decent time put into it.

After this change takes place, Apogee would only reset the cool down timer for Blood Pact: Ward and Blood Pact: Rage. In other words, this is a complete redesign of the ability, and it would not be at all like it is at the moment.

So, to answer your question: yes, you will be able to use consequent Ward and Rage abilities by executing each, and then using Apogee. Furthermore we are planning to eliminate the increased MP cost as well.

Let us know your feedback!

[xiozen]

Wow impressive; this should help alleviate many of the issues I've been seeing brought to the fore regarding smn. Thanks for listening SE.