Can we have a Light Spirit adjustment soon? [Archive]

Malamasala

06-25-2011, 07:38 AM

It is pretty silly that Summoners for 10 years straight have used subjobs for healing instead of their 100% focused healing pet.

A few changes that could be done:

1) Let it cast cure V or curaga IV even if someone has a lot of HP left. I'd say cure everyone below 70% HP, instead of the current, everyone below 30%.
2) Prioritize healing over protect/shell/haste/regen
3) Give it regen III. It makes no sense to have WHM spells, but not the regen line.
4) Expand cure range. Make it heal from 25 distance. (Currently it can't see very far, so it won't heal from safe distance like other healers)

I'm fine with the current restrictions on casting time (every 20ish seconds won't make a main healer, but it will make a decent assistant healer). I'm also fine with it only casting on players it can "see". And it would be a fair balance factor that it might just heal someone else than the tank, if they are in the line of sight. WHMs would be in no threat, while Light spirits would be a great tool. Instead of it's current pitiful state where you mostly just use it to heal up after an alliance being wiped out and raised and unweakened.

Tsukino_Kaji

06-25-2011, 10:21 AM

I would aply a lot of the same reasoning to NPCs if I could actualy. lol
I honestly never see anyone using spirits for anything other then syphon as they rarely ever do what you want. They should gives Vs to the rest of the elemtnats too. If some puppet can do it, why not sometihng that's an exemplar of the element? Dark elemental? Did it ever do anything to begin with?

Alhanelem

06-25-2011, 04:40 PM

Light spirit can have a healying intelligence adjustment when puppets and NPCs get their healing intelligence adjustment.

Expand cure range. Make it heal from 25 distance. No player can cast spells from that range.

If you're trying to use light spirit to cure, you're doing it wrong. Spell casting delay is too long. Light spirit's three advantages are:

-Can cast curaga spells on other parties in an alliance (Players can't do that)
-Can give you pro/shell IV when you only have access to II
-Can cast Banish IV, not that it's any good

If you want to heal on summoner, sub WHM, and have carbuncle out with Favor.

Malamasala

06-25-2011, 05:34 PM

Light spirit can have a healying intelligence adjustment when puppets and NPCs get their healing intelligence adjustment.

Except puppet and NPC healing is far beyond Light Spirit in intelligence already. This is like saying DRK shouldn't get any new crit WS unless WAR gets one. A Puppet will heal you, unless you are debuffed, every single time you got a light maneuver up. A Light Spirit will only heal you if they can see you and you are closer than all other hurt people and below 30% HP.

No player can cast spells from that range.

I just know stuff like Cerberus paralyze is 20, and WHMs cure from outside it, so I picked a random number higher than 20. I just mean the same cure distance a WHM has really.

If you're trying to use light spirit to cure, you're doing it wrong. Spell casting delay is too long.

You need to treat main healing and healing differently. I accept that spell casting delay is too long for main healing, but think that with fixed intelligence it would work wonders as backup healing.

If you want to heal on summoner, sub WHM, and have carbuncle out with Favor.

That is the thing I don't want. Fuck subjob being better than a main job. Imagine DRK/WAR with a subjob G Axe WS doing more damage than any G Sword or Scythe WS. The game shouldn't work this way. And if it should, I want WHMs to require RDM sub to get cure spells. Insanity for everyone, or sanity to spirits.

Aver

06-25-2011, 06:58 PM

Except puppet and NPC healing is far beyond Light Spirit in intelligence already. This is like saying DRK shouldn't get any new crit WS unless WAR gets one. A Puppet will heal you, unless you are debuffed, every single time you got a light maneuver up. A Light Spirit will only heal you if they can see you and you are closer than all other hurt people and below 30% HP.

I just know stuff like Cerberus paralyze is 20, and WHMs cure from outside it, so I picked a random number higher than 20. I just mean the same cure distance a WHM has really.

You need to treat main healing and healing differently. I accept that spell casting delay is too long for main healing, but think that with fixed intelligence it would work wonders as backup healing.

That is the thing I don't want. Fuck subjob being better than a main job. Imagine DRK/WAR with a subjob G Axe WS doing more damage than any G Sword or Scythe WS. The game shouldn't work this way. And if it should, I want WHMs to require RDM sub to get cure spells. Insanity for everyone, or sanity to spirits.

I don't think you understand what a whm is.

Alhanelem

06-26-2011, 01:00 AM

I just know stuff like Cerberus paralyze is 20, and WHMs cure from outside it,You can cast from farther away on large monsters because of their size. But Cure distance is the same no matter what you're fighting (Most spells are within 21 or 22, cures very slightly less) Distance tools calculate to the center of the mob, but the game allows you to cast on large mobs if you can reach their collision radius (roughly), rather than their center.

Korpg

06-26-2011, 01:53 AM

Why are you concerned with spirits when Blood Pacts are the most pressing matter for Summoner?

Alhanelem

06-26-2011, 04:55 AM

Except puppet and NPC healing is far beyond Light Spirit in intelligence already.No, it's not. It's only far beyond light spirit in spell repertoire. They are all equally stupid. Your Light Spirit can't cast silence, so there's no problem of silence being cast on mobs that don't cast spells instead of something you actually wanted it to cast. NPCs have the same problem of casting stuff you don't want them to cast.

Malamasala

06-26-2011, 08:18 AM

No, it's not. It's only far beyond light spirit in spell repertoire. They are all equally stupid. Your Light Spirit can't cast silence, so there's no problem of silence being cast on mobs that don't cast spells instead of something you actually wanted it to cast. NPCs have the same problem of casting stuff you don't want them to cast.

This is more of a semantics question. They are in fact smarter HEALERS, since they favor cures earlier than < 30% HP. But I won't disagree that they are not perfect due to their habits of casting other incorrect spells.

Why are you concerned with spirits when Blood Pacts are the most pressing matter for Summoner?

I'm just working on the parts of Summoner that needs attention in the order I encountered them. Spirits was the first thing I found lacking on Summoner. (Since you got them at level 1)

Since I'm a sane person, I also believe in lifting spirits out as an issue on behalf of all other people who have a slightly twisted mindset. The group of people that say "I don't use spirits because they suck, thus spirits need no updates". It is kind of an uphill battle doing them a favor like this, while they don't grasp that I am doing them a favor.

wildsprite

06-26-2011, 09:41 AM

personally I would love to see all of the spirits get higher intelligence and better spell sets...such as buff spells for the other 7 spirits rather than just Light Spirit...but alas I don't see SE actually changing the Spirits, I think they were initially given to SMN so they would have something else to cast beside Carbuncle if they didn't have any other Avatars to cast

Luvbunny

06-26-2011, 10:57 AM

Yeah this is like beating up a dead horse, SE has no clue what to do with SMN job. They have been to slow to change, too lazy to adjust the job and generally do absolutely nothing "much" when it comes to pet based job. I do wish they read this thread, and have a change of heart. We should keep beating the dead horse until the developer do something about SMN job.

Alhanelem

06-26-2011, 01:34 PM

I'm just working on the parts of Summoner that needs attention in the order I encountered them. Spirits don't need attention. They need to be ignored so that summoner will get updates that make them better instead of updates that make something crappy less crappy.

Leonlionheart

06-26-2011, 02:39 PM

wildsprite

06-26-2011, 02:49 PM

Alhanelem

06-26-2011, 03:18 PM

Cura has its uses. Cura II, while more efficient, doesn't get used because Cura is cheaper and is usually used to wake your party from sleep. That said, when boosted up it's actually a pretty potent AoE cure. It just got mostly passed up for no particular reason.

Some people just don't appreciate niche things like that.

(Edit: never finished post lol)

Greatguardian

06-26-2011, 03:21 PM

Alhanelem

06-26-2011, 03:42 PM

PUP-PUPKiss my behind. PUP is a mid tier DD and has some handy alternate uses and is a great soloer.

Greatguardian

06-26-2011, 04:00 PM

Kiss my behind. PUP is a mid tier DD and has some handy alternate uses and is a great soloer.

You really need to stop personally associating yourself with the jobs you play. You get so unreasonably defensive it's not even funny.

Alhanelem

06-26-2011, 04:39 PM

You really need to stop personally associating yourself with the jobs you play.The people attacking perfectly reasonable jobs need to stop doing it. Then I won't have anything to defend.

PUP isn't LOL anymore, and most people have realized that, but obviously a few still haven't.

Greatguardian

06-26-2011, 04:50 PM

Oh I have no issue with PUP. It's fairly solidly mid-tier. But that doesn't mean you need to raise your blood pressure every time someone makes fun of it, or Summoner, or whatever else you play. It's not good for you, and it's not constructive at all.

Kensagaku

06-26-2011, 04:54 PM

Let's not fight about this, it's not necessary. You are being a bit overdefensive, though people are still stuck in the lolpup mindset. Anyway. I don't think Spirits need much an upgrade, really. They've got their advantages too as it is.

For one, to be able to summon a pet to take hate off of you from aggro or a mob that you're kiting in maybe a second is useful. SMNs should have low-to-no hate from using just BPs (Is it so hard to macro in a bit of emnity- gear in the non-BP Delay- slots at the start of a BP?) so 1-2 hits and now they're smacking a spirit, giving said SMN time to get enough distance and summon a real avatar to do damage. Saved my rear end more than once.

For another, the fact is that they're great for suddenly giving your MP a huge jumpstart. I personally, with gear that's still a WIP, get ~450 MP on average from one Siphon. That's a huge boost to get instantly, and even every five minutes that's still very useful.

I don't disagree that I wish the AI was smarter, especially on the healing. My Light Spirit seems to favor Haste for god knows what reason. Sitting there waiting for a Pro/Shell IV, I get a Haste, and then a Regen. By the time I get my buffs I've spent more MP than a WHM or RDM casting the spells on me first. However, I don't think it needs as much of an overhaul as you make it out to be. Honestly, I don't think Spirits need to be used much period, or at all. I'd honestly rather Elemental Siphon took from an Avatar than a spirit that gets no use.

As someone said, it's not worth making trash less trashy but still trash when you can give them an improvement.

Leonlionheart

06-26-2011, 06:50 PM

The people attacking perfectly reasonable jobs need to stop doing it. Then I won't have anything to defend.

PUP isn't LOL anymore, and most people have realized that, but obviously a few still haven't.

PUP isn't LOL, when you have Verethragna. At that point it's just another TP burn job that can utilize it's pet's TP too.

Still doesn't even compare with MNK WAR NIN though, considering Impetus makes VS almost twice as good. Although with Verethragna it can compare with DRK SAM RNG BST in abyssea I suppose.

If you don't have Vere, it's still pretty LOL. Not as much as it used to be since the skill update, but... Is it better than WAR? no. MNK? no. NIN? no. SAM? no. DRK? no. BLU? no. DNC? no. THF? no. DRG? no. How does that not make it LOL in terms of DD? Coolbeans though for other reasons than simple DD, but hybrid jobs just don't get the job done like dedicated ones do.

Malamasala

06-26-2011, 07:06 PM

For one, to be able to summon a pet to take hate off of you from aggro or a mob that you're kiting in maybe a second is useful. SMNs should have low-to-no hate from using just BPs (Is it so hard to macro in a bit of emnity- gear in the non-BP Delay- slots at the start of a BP?) so 1-2 hits and now they're smacking a spirit, giving said SMN time to get enough distance and summon a real avatar to do damage. Saved my rear end more than once.

Well, it is both pro and con all over spirits. While I admit to using it for killing the NM chigoe, I must also say that each time I did lose my avatar to a well placed firega III early, I was so worried my spirit would cause the chigoe to lose hate and walk back.

But I must also say that is the only time I've used spirits (outside of fun) the last 5 years. I don't need them to protect me from aggro, I have carbuncle guarding me on travels.

Malamasala

06-26-2011, 07:10 PM

Spirits don't need attention. They need to be ignored so that summoner will get updates that make them better instead of updates that make something crappy less crappy.

Your way of thinking is flawed.

I think wards are crappy as is... so thinking like you, I'd say "don't work on wards, they suck".
I think most rages except predator claws and heavenly strike are borderline useless... so SE shouldn't work on rage pacts.
I think spirits are worthless... so they shouldn't work on spirits.
I think our melee abilities are subpar... so they shouldn't give us any melee abilities.

Overall, your attitude says that SE shouldn't do anything, except make predator claws and heavenly strike god mode and do massive damage so the job gets better, while only enhancing what is good with it.

I'm sure you don't mean that, but that is exactly what you said. Don't update anything that isn't used by everyone in every merit and HNM party.

Malamasala

06-26-2011, 07:22 PM

I don't understand why so many ppl give a damn about spirits. At best they were a scapegoat if you need to quickly cast something to get out of agro in dunes...

I mean it's not like other jobs don't get fairly useless spells/abilities.
WAR-Defender (we even get merits for it!)
MNK-Footwork
BLM-Escape
WHM-Cura(come on, who really uses this reliably?)
PUP-PUP
etc, etc, etc.

Why do SMNs think they are so special all of a sudden that their useless stuff needs fixed instead of everyone elses D:

You are listing individual JAs and Traits and comparing it to having 8 pets with 5+ spells each as useless? You need to compare to some job that has 40 useless things.

Examples:

WAR - They can use all weapons, but only G Axe is worth using for damage.
DRK - They have a full list of elemental nukes, but don't use these. Also absorb line spells.

And I also must point out that I've never said any other job, like WAR, can't sit and complain that the only weapon they use is G.Axe and they'd want Sword and Axe and Club to be stronger. You can go make threads about that if you want to.

There are some jobs that are misunderstood to have a lot of useless things though.

BLM - Has a ton of spells that are useless.

WRONG. It has tier based spells. The useless ones are just outdated in general. You can't expect Stone I to rock so hard (pun intended) at 90 that you don't need any other spells.

BRD - Has a ton of songs that are useless.

WRONG. You are limited to two songs, that is why you have a lot of unused ones. You can't say you'd never use paeon if you had 100 songs active. Look at WHM and you'll see them toss up barparalyze and such, because it doesn't take a "buff slot" for them. The songs themselves are good, the system might be a bit less designed for them.

And even here I won't stalk people and claim they can not ask for BRD to have 2 offensive buffs and 2 defensive buffs on each player. Go ahead and make the threads if you want to use more songs.

Sometimes it feels like people seek my approval to complain about things they think is unfair, just because I complain about my things.

DebbieGibson

06-26-2011, 10:29 PM

I wish SE would come down harder on thread creation. An official suggestion thread would be nice to have.

Korpg

06-26-2011, 10:53 PM

Your way of thinking is flawed.

Because he doesn't think like you?

Korpg

06-26-2011, 11:01 PM

You are listing individual JAs and Traits and comparing it to having 8 pets with 5+ spells each as useless? You need to compare to some job that has 40 useless things.

Examples:

WAR - They can use all weapons, but only G Axe is worth using for damage.
DRK - They have a full list of elemental nukes, but don't use these. Also absorb line spells.

And I also must point out that I've never said any other job, like WAR, can't sit and complain that the only weapon they use is G.Axe and they'd want Sword and Axe and Club to be stronger. You can go make threads about that if you want to.

There are some jobs that are misunderstood to have a lot of useless things though.

BLM - Has a ton of spells that are useless.

WRONG. It has tier based spells. The useless ones are just outdated in general. You can't expect Stone I to rock so hard (pun intended) at 90 that you don't need any other spells.

BRD - Has a ton of songs that are useless.

WRONG. You are limited to two songs, that is why you have a lot of unused ones. You can't say you'd never use paeon if you had 100 songs active. Look at WHM and you'll see them toss up barparalyze and such, because it doesn't take a "buff slot" for them. The songs themselves are good, the system might be a bit less designed for them.

And even here I won't stalk people and claim they can not ask for BRD to have 2 offensive buffs and 2 defensive buffs on each player. Go ahead and make the threads if you want to use more songs.

Sometimes it feels like people seek my approval to complain about things they think is unfair, just because I complain about my things.

WAR- Has ~66% of all possible red procs (possibly more, I didn't divide by the number of WAR red procs by total procs) and ~60% of all possible blue procs (if you include them all) Plus, what self-respecting WAR wouldn't use the weapon it has the greatest skill at?
DRK- Just because it has MP doesn't mean it needs it. Drain/Drain II/Aspir/Stun are a DRK's best spells. Explain why they would need to nuke in T3 spells that doesn't do more than 500 damage on a well geared RDM? (who, btw, has MAB trait)

BLM-My Stone I does ~650 damage, what does your Stone I do?

BRD-They do have a lot of useless songs, but can still be useful in certain situations. Any good BRD isn't limited to 2 songs anyway. Any great BRD can have 3 songs on one person.

And I don't know of anyone who seeks your approval in anything.

dzero

06-27-2011, 09:01 AM

I think if spirits stay how they are and have no role in the job, then either sell them cheap from an NPC or make them castable from level 1 without having to get them from some BCNM etc. Then at least they'll be presented in a way where they are the basic things a summoner has before avatars.

Right now if a new player chooses summoner to be their first main then by the time they get all their spirits they'll have better summons in the form of avatars which make spirits near-obsolete. It's a little backwards. And yes players can start SMN with all avatars, but that hierarchy is still not there. Spirits just don't fit in anywhere in the job.

If spirits are going to be bad, at least present them in a way where they're supposed to be bad...

(Or lower their perpetuation cost perhaps...?)

EDIT: This thing about elemental syphon... Having a JA which requires you to summon a useless pet which you're only going to dismiss straight away anyway is a bit of a disjointed concept regardless of whether the MP boost is handy. Make a system that works, don't just throw some nifty JA in. It looks tacky.

Alhanelem

06-27-2011, 09:46 AM

PUP isn't LOL, when you have Verethragna.<insert job here> isn't LOL when you have <insert empyrean weapon here>.

PUP doesn't have to have an empyrean weapon any more than any other job does.

Korpg

06-27-2011, 10:01 AM

<insert job here> isn't LOL when you have <insert empyrean weapon here>.

Except SMN.

Alhanelem

06-27-2011, 10:05 AM

Let's keep that in the 1100 post thread dedicated to the topic, k thanks.

Korpg

06-27-2011, 10:32 AM

But it is true! And you know it!

Alhanelem

06-27-2011, 10:42 AM

Yes, it's true that it should be kept in that thread. Now stop trolling.

Korpg

06-27-2011, 11:40 AM

Sorry, a weapon that requires a job to be what it is not is a lolweapon.

Leonlionheart

06-27-2011, 01:50 PM

<insert job here> isn't LOL when you have <insert empyrean weapon here>.

PUP doesn't have to have an empyrean weapon any more than any other job does.

WHM DD, still LOL.
BLM Melee DD, still LOL.
RDM Melee DD, still LOL. Yes, even Almace can't make up for RDM's lack of DD capabilities when compared to other Emp users.
SMN Melee DD, still LOL.
SCH Melee DD, still LOL.

You still haven't answered the question though; what is PUP better than in terms of Melee DD? Actual DPS?

The only thing I can see PUP being better than, is if it had a DNC w/ 5/5 Haste Samba, Haste spell, and March+4 x2 (Or SV March). In which case it would only really be better than Mages, RNG and COR DDs.

Tsukino_Kaji

06-27-2011, 03:49 PM

BRD-They do have a lot of useless songs, but can still be useful in certain situations. Any good BRD isn't limited to 2 songs anyway. Any great BRD can have 3 songs on one person.That is not the mark of a great brd, it's only a sign that a person had time to finish an instrumant trial.

Yarly

06-27-2011, 03:50 PM

No.

1234567890

Alhanelem

06-27-2011, 03:57 PM

WHM DD, still LOL.
BLM Melee DD, still LOL.
RDM Melee DD, still LOL. Yes, even Almace can't make up for RDM's lack of DD capabilities when compared to other Emp users.
SMN Melee DD, still LOL.
SCH Melee DD, still LOL.

You still haven't answered the question though; what is PUP better than in terms of Melee DD? Actual DPS?

The only thing I can see PUP being better than, is if it had a DNC w/ 5/5 Haste Samba, Haste spell, and March+4 x2 (Or SV March). In which case it would only really be better than Mages, RNG and COR DDs.
PUP > DRK RNG COR BRD all mages; PUP is on the same level with DDs below the top tier, e.g. MNK WAR and whoever else you put up there.

You clearly haven't played with a good PUP if you think they're barely better than mages. PUP is no longer LOL, plain and simple. Most of the playerbase recognizes this. It is rare to see people going around saying LOLPUP randomly anymore. Good PUPs are for the most part respected. You have Victory Smite with either vereth or WoE+2, and you have tactical switch, and when your TS is down, the new automaton weapon skills are a vast improvement, the ranged one is on par with VS used by PUP and barrage turbine ups sharpshot's total a bit more (shame it doesn't work with the other frames anymore). PUP's not numero uno by any means, but it can play with the big boys now.

Tsukino_Kaji

06-27-2011, 03:59 PM

Pup will always be lol regardless of how much dmg it can put uot. It's just it's place in the universe.
And I've seen top tier pups, they can do rediculous damage as other jobs can.

Covenant

06-27-2011, 09:45 PM

I don't work for SquareEnix so I don't know what the roles planned for ALL spirits when compared to avatars. However, when playing a summoner up to lvl 80, my own personal wish was a division of utility. What I mean is, I always felt the "role" of spirits was as a nuking pet gear to specific elemental types. While an avatar would be the tank/melee role.

It is this poor nuking capabilities...I think, that gets summoner mad with spirits. Debuffs are important. But not. In the same sense as straight nuke or cure is. With an "average build" spirits fail horribly to cast nuke enough time to warrant the perspiration cost. Even with an elite, all summon skill build Summoners can get the casting cycle down to 22ish secs but the elemental fails to cast a nuke and will always debuff first.

I don't get where people say NPC are dumb and automatons are dumb. For 95% of things both cure and buff appropriately. The other 5% requires just better planning. Spirits are the opposite. They cast inappropriately 95% of the time. Why? Because of so called "casting cycles".

Finuve

06-27-2011, 11:18 PM

dzero

06-28-2011, 12:02 AM

Well maybe if spirits had some sort of function, such as having low MP cost so that summoners could have a pet out while main healing (during the period that avatar perpetuation cost is still high before end-game gear) and then sending an avatar out to go all-out with damage and utilisation of blood pacts.

This is just one idea. The point is that with the right idea they may be able to play some role. Obviously in their current state we can't see why anyone would want to use them. Well, that's the point really. Why are they there if they have no role?

And it matters for summoners because spirits are unique to summoners, are somewhat difficult to obtain and are one of the two lines of summoning magic the job has. Dark Knights and elemental nukes are different because they're not job-exclusive or job-defining spells for DRK. Those spells work properly for other jobs. And really, that and similar problems for other jobs are the problems of said jobs. Balance in mind, yes, but not to the point where we close down discussion for individual jobs.

Again, if spirits aren't going to be improved then at least sell them cheap from NPCs so they're something for new summoners who don't have avatars to play around with. Then there would be a proper summon hierarchy. We'd know that they're for newbie summoners who can't summon avatars yet, so we wouldn't care so much that they're bad.

I think the issue I have with them is more about overall job design. I'm not too interested in spirits being made to compete with avatars or be incredibly useful, but having spirits there for no purpose makes SMN look like an unfinished job with a few implemented concepts that failed, were never cleared up and were forgotten about.

As I also said in my previous post, Siphon does not equal a role for spirits. It's just a nice gimmick JA thrown in there. I may as well be summoning my pet rock for an MP boost.

It may not be a top priority issue in the scheme of things, but that doesn't mean things can't be changed somewhere down the line.

Korpg

06-28-2011, 12:49 AM

That is not the mark of a great brd, it's only a sign that a person had time to finish an instrumant trial.

How many Bards do you know that has an emp harp? Having one is a mark of an accomplishment because not only are they one of the very few to take it to 90, but also spent enough time to get that harp also. I respect any Bards doing that, because that will be the absolute last thing I would do in this game, short of overall quitting.

Korpg

06-28-2011, 12:54 AM

As I also said in my previous post, Siphon does not equal a role for spirits. It's just a nice gimmick JA thrown in there. I may as well be summoning my pet rock for an MP boost.

I don't know about that. With the best gear you can get for Siphon, you can rock out as much as 552 MP from an Elemental Siphon (granted, day/weather bonus implied).

dzero

06-28-2011, 01:07 AM

I don't know about that. With the best gear you can get for Siphon, you can rock out as much as 552 MP from an Elemental Siphon (granted, day/weather bonus implied).

Oh yeah I totally get that the MP boost is good, what I was saying is more that it's function is gimmicky, i.e. summon useless pet, hit MP boost macro, dismiss useless pet and never let it see the light of day again.

It's a good JA that's meant to make a bad line of summons useful, but really the only useful thing is the JA. Hence I may as well summon my pet rock and hit Siphon for all I care.

Malamasala

06-28-2011, 03:32 AM

It is nice to see that dzero gets it.

I still cant for the life of me fathom why summoners even would want to summon spirits, I mean come on they're fricking spirits let them sit and be useless.

If SE can waste time on fishing, hot and cold, chocobo racing, pankration, synergy, they can surely fix spirits too. All those things are useless and yet get attention. I don't even see people complain about them, and yet someone must be asking for those updates.

wildsprite

06-28-2011, 03:55 AM

I got an idea, how about asking SE to make it so we can actually control the spirits rather than having them be random and mostly useless

Zumi

06-28-2011, 04:22 AM

Spirits are mostly useless because you don't have direct control over them in an actual fight where healing actually matters no way could a smn main heal with a spirit.

wildsprite

06-28-2011, 04:25 AM

Spirits are mostly useless because you don't have direct control over them in an actual fight where healing actually matters no way could a smn main heal with a spirit.
exactly, we know for the most part what the spirits have for spell sets....but we cant tell them what to do, giving us the ability to tell the spirits what to do would change them from mostly useless to something kinda nice

note: that actually might not be true, they use their spells so randomly we might never see some of them

Soundwave

06-28-2011, 04:25 AM

Soooo elemental siphon is for noobs/medi core players...? Is that what I'm getting?

wildsprite

06-28-2011, 04:31 AM

nah, elemental syphon is a pretty nice feature, but it doesn't change the fact we still have no control over the spirits, they are totally random, unlike the Avatars which are supposed to be small portions of gods and you have control of, at least with Pup you can do suggestions

dzero

06-28-2011, 04:33 AM

The problem with being able to control spirits is that you'd just be hitting Quake and other Ancient Magic all the time for nothing other than the perpetuation cost.

Spirits costing less than avatars to keep out while keeping their spells random could be somewhat of an improvement, as long as this isn't exploited in anyway for cheap ancient magic spells.

wildsprite

06-28-2011, 04:35 AM

the spirits AM spells are not all that great, it relies almost entirely on summoning magic skill and it will never be as good as BLM with full MAB sets so if someone wants to be moronic and try that then they will just be being foolish

thats kinda like trying to use the elemental IV spells from the Avatars, those spells rely on your summoning magic skill and TP, and overall are sucky except in certain situations and those situations are very few and far between

dzero

06-28-2011, 04:38 AM

I think the uncontrollable nature of the spirits is the main thing which differentiates them from avatars and which needs to stay there so that they don't become more useful than avatars. I know I'd rather be using Light Spirit than Carbuncle if I could directly command it to use Cures, Haste, etc.

Edit: At least I'd use spirits situationally if they cost less than avatars to keep out.

Sparthos

06-28-2011, 04:41 AM

Only thing SE could do is make the spirits more DPS oriented (faster attack speed/stronger attacks) than avatars in order to complement avatars emphasis on the big sparkles of instant high damage attacks.

Allow the SMN to pick what spell they want cast from a list when the pet has TP.

Malamasala

06-28-2011, 06:49 AM

the spirits AM spells are not all that great, it relies almost entirely on summoning magic skill and it will never be as good as BLM with full MAB sets so if someone wants to be moronic and try that then they will just be being foolish

That isn't how they work. Trust me that when you have 50 skill over cap, and you still get resists on stuff BLMs land nukes on with 20 skill over cap, it is something different. I'd bet my money on spirits having their own BLM level worth of elemental skill, worthy of a DC elemental. So about 5 skill less than a naked and unmerited BLM.

I wish SE made their elemental skill as high as your summoning magic though. It would help a lot in avoiding the 120 damage AM nukes on level 100 monsters.

Edit: At least I'd use spirits situationally if they cost less than avatars to keep out.

No you wouldn't. Mine are free, and I gain MP over time thanks to siphon. Still useless because they won't do anything else than suck MP. Nukes? Be happy if you get one 33% of the time. At those times, be happy that it isn't interrupted. When it goes uninterrupted, hope that it won't get a 90% resist and do meager 100 damage.

Example:

Abyssea, Minkin atma, 100% damage reduction bug atma, some MAB atma don't recall which. Light Spirit vs DC bomb. 20 minutes later, bomb has 80% HP left. Light spirit has 100% of course, due to 100% damage reduction, but being invincible and still only do 1% damage a minute, with atmas?

I'm sure using Fire Spirit or so would have been twice as good, and I'd surely done 40% in 20 minutes.

I don't know if I'm asking for too much if I want a DC monster to die in 5 minutes from a spirit. Is it too much to ask? I mean an Ukon WAR kills them in 2 seconds.

dzero

06-28-2011, 07:26 AM

Then by all means, make them stronger. I just think main healing as a SMN would be a lot more fun if you had a Light Spirit out there who actually manages to help you out a little to make up for your not-so-great healing ability. But then, it's not all about Light Spirit is it.

Give Spirits some kind of niche. Allow them to cast decent-powered Enspells on party members, give them unique elemental resistance debuffs, add more abilities and traits which provide an actual synergy with spirits rather than the Siphon route of summoning the spirit merely because that's a prerequisite to the ability and not because you actually want to have spirits active to use these abilities... (If that made sense.)

There are surely plenty of things that could be done with them rather than them sitting around like some unfinished job concept - come on SE, do something with this wasted spell line!

Covenant

06-28-2011, 09:53 AM

Without going into the whole TP strength of avatars, if I had to have guess... originally, SquareEnix thought that "Bloodpacts" would be so powerful and useful that they require a 1min timer for all of them across all avatars to share. They did not give us this "exactly". I say this, because up to lvl 60 Summoners received Tier II and Tier IV nukes before Spirts and blackmages. Usually, they received it nearly 10-20 level before a BLM. Then came along Ancient Magiks and things went to he'll for Summoners.

Back to what I thought was the original division of avatars and spirits. Perhaps SE thought that in-between these really "powerful" Bloodpacts while react timer was down, a summoner could summon a spirits for 1min at a time to get off a few nukes and a few swings. They were given increasing mp perpuation cost do to "free nukes" and increase lvl of nukes. While avatar were pretty much stuck with a few "powerful" Bloodpacts.

Are they powerful and have the kept up with modern Vanadiel? My answer is no. Have the spirit kept to the average nuker role? no, they have not. Should an average player have a very low return, while an exceptional player have a medium return? No, they should not.

My fix of which I posted on Summoners thread is to rewrite and lock in both avatars and spirits. Update the nuking AI and physical damage down effect for spirits. Create new and powerful Bloodpacts and wards for avatars(or create another branch called "blood magic" that allows magic and physical attacks to be on separate timers. Or, seperate weak attacks from multi-strike and merit magics.

Fyreus

06-28-2011, 01:57 PM

I still cant for the life of me fathom why summoners even would want to summon spirits, I mean come on they're fricking spirits let them sit and be useless. Ask for carbuncle to get better curing options if you want something to cure for you.

Asking for useful spirits is like a DRK asking for useful nukes, the rest of the DRK community would berate that DRK for upgrading the wrong part of DRK. DRKs want magic that is supplemental to our meleeing, not nuking

Why would a summoner want to be summoning spirits as opposed to fenrir or garuda or diabolos? Go ask for improvements to blood pacts, new spells for the avatars, something, something that is not lolspirits

For the answer to your question please look at the post above as this person (i believe is the same elvaan anyway) made a full research and conclusion thread on KI and explains how it all works. The main use was for 22sec Thunder IV procs back in the lv75 era provided someone stuck a shock on the mob before hand.

That's pretty powerful.

Many of us simply want to use the forgotten summon path that's been laid out sorta like breath builds on blu or nuke builds on nin.

*edit* many things about many jobs have been forgotten or not properly supported by both players and SE around the time abyssea came out. Sadly the amount of time players spend researching has declined twice as fast. There are many good ideas and role/style changing ideas that are overlooked due to the ingrain mentality that you must use X build or quit or to stop talking about something that won't help abyssea. lol.

Raxiaz

06-28-2011, 03:08 PM

I blame PS2 limitations.

kingfury

06-29-2011, 02:12 AM

All Malamasala is asking for is creative solutions to the problem. Though I've only lvled SMN to the mid 50's range, I recall the frustrations of yelling at my sluggish Spirits to get with the "Doing" instead of the "Floating". Without having to change the system from the ground up, enhancing methods to their performance seems like the easiest solution. These enhancements can come in a couple of different methods, but the end goal would be the same. I would opt for them being paired together to gain the most effectiveness out of using the Spirits.

Performance Tiers:

If SE wishes to keep the spirits performance random, simply implement Job Trait performance tiers that greatly enhance a spirit's effectiveness on all fronts including Melee damage, Spell potency, Reduced interruption rate, Frequency of casting, and Spell accuracy. Base the performance on Summoning magic skill levels so those with max skill numbers or higher will see drastic improvements in a spirits performance compared to SMNs that have the highest performance tier unlocked but lack the necessary magic skill (ex: An Abyssea Leeched lvl 90 SMN with super low Summoning magic skill levels wouldn't hope to see much changes in a Spirit's performance even though each performance tier was unlocked). If all the right conditions are met, a SMNs Light Spirit would dish out cures at a much more efficient rate to all that need them. Pop out things like Regen 3, and focus less on buffing if summoned during battle. Cure distances could also see improvements based on these tier as well, but that could be something the Devs decide to adjust based on the game mechanics.

New Suggestion methods for Spirits:

Fellow NPCs are great at curing in my personal experience in terms of choosing the right tiers of cure based on how much HP I've lost, and the timing of when to cure so long as you have "Soothing Healer" assigned to them. Spirits could follow a similar suit. PUPs have a nice thing going with being able to suggest what automations "should" be focusing on, so that's the next suggestion.

While maintaining the random factor of a Spirit's behavior to some degree, include new JA's that allow a SMN to suggestively "alter" the performance of a summoned spirit. Once used, for example, a Light Spirit could be suggested to focus on Curative spells at a much higher rate over Enhancing spells. So too could the JA's suggest the use of offensive spells over any thing else so even a Light Spirit would cast Divine magic in the heat of battle at an increased rate.

Possible New Suggestive JA's:
• Soothing Spirit: Bolsters Curative/certain enhancing magic/and status removing spells.
• Raging Spirit: Bolsters Damaging and enfeebling spells.
• Shielding Spirit: Bolsters Protective spells.
• Assaulting Spirit: Bolsters Melee and Defense
I don't believe that simply because a job starts at level 1 with a spell, JA, or WS that it should equate to meaning that it's utterly useless at high levels. It should be in fact the very opposite in my opinion. As skills continue to grow past the 300-400 mark, the effectiveness of those same level 1 tools should see vast improvements in performance. There are some Abilities that remain useful all throughout a jobs career, and spirits should follow the same example. They should be very much apart of a SMNs toolset that partners their effectiveness alongside Avatars instead of shunning them.

Korpg

06-29-2011, 02:22 AM

Time to show off a new sig for this week kingfury?

Malamasala

06-29-2011, 03:30 AM

Possible New Suggestive JA's:
• Soothing Spirit: Bolsters Curative/certain enhancing magic/and status removing spells.
• Raging Spirit: Bolsters Damaging and enfeebling spells.
• Shielding Spirit: Bolsters Protective spells.
• Assaulting Spirit: Bolsters Melee and Defense

I'd suggest a "Casting Spirit" as well, since it is annoying to have them run in to melee always, when sometimes they'll just run in and die or get silenced. It would just make them stop and cast around max distance (like how avatars attack at max distance).

Elvyn

06-29-2011, 03:42 AM

1) Let it cast cure V or curaga IV even if someone has a lot of HP left. I'd say cure everyone below 70% HP, instead of the current, everyone below 30%.
2) Prioritize healing over protect/shell/haste/regen
3) Give it regen III. It makes no sense to have WHM spells, but not the regen line.
4) Expand cure range. Make it heal from 25 distance. (Currently it can't see very far, so it won't heal from safe distance like other healers)

Agreed!! This is something I was going to touch on once I got more familiar with the forum i.e. who I could expect to troll it (Seen a few... some in this thread)
/trollface >...............................>

People seem to have become so obsessed with "Spike DMG" that they only feel more BP's should be added and forsake everything else.. but this isn't the case for SMN, while spike dmg has always been a factor of the job its not the "only" factor that should be considered. People seems to neglect Spirits in general however having spent a great deal of Gill on procuring them and not having any aspect of them altered in a long time I feel it should at-least be up for some minor tweaking.

Also... this is a thread about the "possible" improvements that could be made on the LS, however i see a lot of people "QQing" because the want something else upgraded first... Go start your own thread.