Summoner update ~ new job ability "sacrifice"

[Razushu]

RDM is expected to cast spells, SMNs are expected to trigger BPs. The question if melee is good or not, is the same question as if you are constantly rotating avatars or not. For all intents and purposes, a SMN is a weak DRK. Of course that is nothing to be proud of, but don't lump it together with WHM, SCH, BLM, BRD.

Why shouldn't it be lumped together with WHM, SCH, BLM, BRD we share one quite important thing with them LACK OF MELEE TRAITS if by weak DRK you mean nothing like a DRK remotely then yes i agree with you.

[Razushu]

Recently (within the last week), I have meleed:

still wondering who is letting you melee? And if everything in your groups melee?

Exp/skillup parties
Abyssea alliances

nice try but weak ass mobs are generally picked for this type of thing.

Abyssea NM farming
Nyzul, including all bosses
Atomos fight
Fenrir fight (just avoid the 2hr)
VNMs both inside and outside Abyssea

fair enough but you're still placing yourself in danger to contribute more and keep your avatar out when you can do the same thing backline i.e contribute more give party buffs we lots of avatars and some of the have useful buffs and refresh and -perp gear solves MP very easily and if your solo meleeing causes all kinds of problems if you need to resummon

Magian trials

again easy prey is what people shoot for here anyway so if your solo or lowman on these things everybodies probably meleeing

Where you see "a few exceptions," I am out there meleeing everything any other DD would melee. And just to skunk the anti-melee crowd a little more, I did get 1-shot last night by a NM mage. For 5 minutes in a weakened state, I played as strong as a non-melee. That's the other way to interpret your advice: treat *every* minute like you just got pwned.

Yes you do melee but it's weak melee SMN melee is weak as hell you've posted your TP gear and you don't use Att or Acc just haste and -emnity so you're only going to be hitting around as hard as I would just faster and when you see that big ol' 0 dmg on myrkr you're not really contributing that much to the group with melee. Any group would benefit more from extra buffs cycled from avatar than they are gonna get from your melee.
What do you BP in weapon wise do you swap it and sacrifice your TP or just skip the weapon swap and slightly gimp your BP to save TP for Myrkr?
Of course you got one-shot your up front on the softest job in the game it's gonna happen, what about when you take damage but don't die?
Any melee worth it's spot will take hate atleast once in a group unless things are very strictly controlled who heals you?
Is the WHM wasting their MP on you or are you wasting melee strikes on stopping to heal yourself?

[Malamasala]

Why shouldn't it be lumped together with WHM, SCH, BLM, BRD we share one quite important thing with them LACK OF MELEE TRAITS if by weak DRK you mean nothing like a DRK remotely then yes i agree with you.

You can't lump them together because Summoners don't cast magic every single second. That is like saying PLD and DRK is the same job group because both wear the same armors, have MP and melee monsters.

A melee SMN and a melee DRK are played on the surface identical. Engage, melee, do not stop and cast long slow spells. Naturally the jobs differ on closer inspection, like pacts, pets, dark magic, staffs, scythes, etc. But you can't exactly compare two jobs in FFXI and ever end up saying "yea, they are the same job".

Melee SMN can also be compared to melee BLUs, except BLUs actually casts more spells than DRKs do or SMNs do. BLU is actually a better job to lump up with WHM and the crowd. Even if it has one or two traits it gained from spell sets.

[Malamasala]

Any group would benefit more from extra buffs cycled from avatar than they are gonna get from your melee.

I'd just want to point out that there are plenty of group combinations that wouldn't benefit more from buffs. It is up to the party leader to be sane enough to make parties that work with a Summoner. Just how you can't just pick random jobs for a COR party.

I personally tend to end up in mage/mule/leftover parties. These usually only benefit from like 1 ward, or there are 2 people benefitting from hastega and 2 people benefitting from MAB and I just say "screw this, I'm not putting 50 MP per person to make them deal slightly more damage." Either you give me 4+ people wanting buffs, or I'm going to rage only.

[Razushu]

You can't lump them together because Summoners don't cast magic every single second. That is like saying PLD and DRK is the same job group because both wear the same armors, have MP and melee monsters.

A melee SMN and a melee DRK are played on the surface identical. Engage, melee, do not stop and cast long slow spells. Naturally the jobs differ on closer inspection, like pacts, pets, dark magic, staffs, scythes, etc. But you can't exactly compare two jobs in FFXI and ever end up saying "yea, they are the same job".

Melee SMN can also be compared to melee BLUs, except BLUs actually casts more spells than DRKs do or SMNs do. BLU is actually a better job to lump up with WHM and the crowd. Even if it has one or two traits it gained from spell sets.

SMN is far more easily lumped in with WHM, BLM, SCH and BRD than DRK. The only comparision we have with DRK is that there's groups of people that find us useless. We share nothing with DRK other than the Game we inhabit. They have the good native WS, good melee traits, good melee abilities and they even have a trait that gives them TP from casting. Now point to that list and show me how they're the same.

Please tell me your not trying to imply SMN has more reason to be up front than BLU. Again BLU gets good native WS, good melee traits(depending on what they set), good melee abilities. Which leaves them more comparable to DRK than SMN ever could be. Even WHM trounces SMN as a DD they also get good native WS and now with Afflatus Misery + Auspice they get Enlight and Subtle Blow plus an acc bonus when they miss with it active. Not to mention they can Dual wield thier main weapon type further increasing both thier DoT and WS frequency if they have and OAT weapon off hand or a K.Club. Now before you say if they're meleeing they're not performing their main job role, neither is SMN seeing as it's a DD/Support class if your meleeing your not rotating avatar's/buffs your just performing 1/2 a SMNs role.

[Razushu]

I'd just want to point out that there are plenty of group combinations that wouldn't benefit more from buffs. It is up to the party leader to be sane enough to make parties that work with a Summoner. Just how you can't just pick random jobs for a COR party.

I personally tend to end up in mage/mule/leftover parties. These usually only benefit from like 1 ward, or there are 2 people benefitting from hastega and 2 people benefitting from MAB and I just say "screw this, I'm not putting 50 MP per person to make them deal slightly more damage." Either you give me 4+ people wanting buffs, or I'm going to rage only.

If your in that kind of party as part of an alliance as a SMN that's a waste of a SMN. 50mp isn't alot why not spend it it's not like mp is hard to come by nowadays anyway

[Dallas]

when you see that big ol' 0 dmg on myrkr

I see a big ol' 1500mp on Myrkr. Right after that, I see 900 damage from crits. Know your weapons! (know your mobs too, nothing fought by abyssea alliances are EP @ 90)

I don't wear all the acc/att gear because I deal insane damage that Garuda can't match. I own the gear, I'm just too smart to wear it. I don't use my levelled /SAM either.

You see, your problem is you are trying to invent a scenario that doesn't exist. If I were the 7th wheel in a pt full of bandwagon jobs pimped to the ears, they'd just break down the pt and make an alliance. I'm also pimped to the ears.

There is no situation that throwing an extra SMN, especially one that isn't afraid to bring everything at the NM, is a bad thing. I am one of those SMN.

My melee weapon is better than most people carry. If everyone is meleeing, I'm meleeing. Whenever we proc red, I am triggering aftermath and zerging. Whatever the BLM and RDM sleeps, I'll go TP on. I still die less than everyone else.

This train took off 6 years ago. You can't uninvent melee SMN, you can only catch up.

[Razushu]

I see a big ol' 1500mp on Myrkr. Right after that, I see 900 damage from crits.

In Abyssea show me that outside Abyssea, everyone can do that kind of damage in abyssea I can do 700+ Full swings with gimped staff skill and a Fay crozier. 1500mp? nice, serious but do you need all that well maybe you do. I don't because I have a perp/refresh set that saves me 280mp a minute with Garuda out.

I don't wear all the acc/att gear because I deal insane damage that Garuda can't match. I own the gear, I'm just too smart to wear it. I don't use my levelled /SAM either.

In Abyssea. And if not does that not tell you something about melee SMN? If you can't afford to gear yourself like a DD because you'll die what you have is a pet thats meant to be alone beside the monster. By all means melee if you want but don't try to tell the world that the only way to play SMN is as a faux DD.

You see, your problem is you are trying to invent a scenario that doesn't exist. If I were the 7th wheel in a pt full of bandwagon jobs pimped to the ears, they'd just break down the pt and make an alliance. I'm also pimped to the ears.

There's no amount of pimped to the ears jobs that won't benefit more from buffs than kitten level melee. You're not pimped to the ears, by your own admission you can't gear all out because hate=death for a SMN you can't even make use of /SAM. But then again this is all in abyssea so maybe outside of abyssea you do low enough damage that the mob won't mind being tickled to death by you with hasso up.

There is no situation that throwing an extra SMN, especially one that isn't afraid to bring everything at the NM, is a bad thing. I am one of those SMN.

When I fight an NM I bring everything a SMN excels at to the fight. there are MANY situations where "one of those SMN" is an exceedingly bad thing.

My melee weapon is better than most people carry. If everyone is meleeing, I'm meleeing. Whenever we proc red, I am triggering aftermath and zerging. Whatever the BLM and RDM sleeps, I'll go TP on. I still die less than everyone else.

Of course it is it's an empyrean. Of course if everyones meleeing go for it if I saw a BLM whacking the mob with its staff I might be tempted to. Why are you attacking slept mobs? Of course you do you hide behind the mobs knee and tickle it, I never die in a group, well almost never I can't even remember the last time I died in a group and I still throw my whole self into the fight DD(from avatar), Rage BPs, cycled wards, subheals, removing debuffs and emergency sleeps/kited adds

This train took off 6 years ago. You can't uninvent melee SMN, you can only catch up.

Less a train, more of a tonka ride on tractor for all the pace it has. No one is trying to uninvent it it's there and if you find it fun go for it I melee on EPs all the time, you however are trying to uninvent the flexible style of play that SMN excels at. There's no need to catch up at all, you act like you invented a style of play that saved SMN from the abyss. SMN is fine without meleeing we do fine damage from avatar alone we can buff an entire party and still have enough downtime to back up the party in most ways that pop up.

[Malamasala]

SMN is far more easily lumped in with WHM, BLM, SCH and BRD than DRK.

Why do you insist on listing all things DRK has but not SMN, but then don't do it on the mage jobs?

Like how can you lump SMN with SCH if SCH has so many white mage spells and black mage spells when SMN has zero? If you attemp the "you can sub it" route, I'll just say I could sub DRK and lower the difference to DRK in comparisons.

SMN isn't like any job. But if you walk up and melee, DRK and DRG will be the closest jobs to compare to. If you go hide in the back you are more like a SCH. I happen to be talking about the SMN up front.

Again BLU gets good native WS, good melee traits(depending on what they set), good melee abilities.

That is what the thread is all about. SMN is made for melee based on what we can and can't do, but we do not get any WSes to help us, any armors to help us, or any traits to help is. SMN is like DRK, but they forgot to add anything else than tier 2 nukes to it. (Not saying SMN has tier 2 nukes, saying what we have is about as useful for melee as tier 2 nukes)

[Dallas]

Hey Raz, are you seriously trying to school me with underlevelled staff skill and a Fay Crozier using Full Swing? 700 damage from a WS when I just got done saying my regular melee hits (critical + aftermath) are 900 damage?

I just threw out a single Full Swing and did 1845 damage in Abyssea. The WS neither crits, nor gains the effect of Aftermath. How confident are you that you know what SMN melee potential is?