On Summoner's New "Ability" and avatars.

[Korpg]

A new ability that expends an additional amount of MP to shorten the recast time for blood pacts.

With this new ability, can you not make the cost more than the reward? +10 perp cost for -10 BP recast would suck. Something to the tune of +2 perp cost for -10 BP recast (+1 for every -5 BP recast) would be great.

Also, another thing, can you make sure that this will not be included in the cap? Meaning that with -15 BP recast gear, and this new ability (assuming the above stats), the total recast is 35 seconds, instead of the capped 45 seconds it is currently at.

We all would love the new avatars to not be Astral Flow exclusive also please. Something that can whack a mob and do a blood pact would be awesome, thanks.

[Elexia]

Actually, Atomos is the PERFECT candidate for Astral Flow only. If you recall the history of Atomos on the summon end, it tends to be one of those "demi" type of damage dealers just like we have with Diabolos kind of.

[Korpg]

Actually, Atomos is the PERFECT candidate for Astral Flow only. If you recall the history of Atomos on the summon end, it tends to be one of those "demi" type of damage dealers just like we have with Diabolos kind of.

With these game mechanics, having Atomos as a 2hr avatar would keep that avatar from being used....period.

Knowing SE, they would make the 2hr about the same as Ruinous Omen does. 1-5% total damage for all your mp....

[Kimara]

I really hope that they make them "out and about" Avatars rather than 2hr ones.

[CrystalWeapon]

With this new ability, can you not make the cost more than the reward? +10 perp cost for -10 BP recast would suck. Something to the tune of +2 perp cost for -10 BP recast (+1 for every -5 BP recast) would be great.

Also, another thing, can you make sure that this will not be included in the cap? Meaning that with -15 BP recast gear, and this new ability (assuming the above stats), the total recast is 35 seconds, instead of the capped 45 seconds it is currently at.

We all would love the new avatars to not be Astral Flow exclusive also please. Something that can whack a mob and do a blood pact would be awesome, thanks.

The way it's worded sounds more like you activate said ability and each blood pact will take a bit more mp to use in return for a shorter recast timmer. I don't read it as increasing your perpetuation cost as long as it's active. I could be wrong though, the way they word things they could be interpreted many different ways.

[Inafking]

No more of this 2hr BS. Give us something that we can keep out or don't bother trolling us to complete missions.

[Bubeeky]

what if they made atomos like a portable maw or something? that would be pretty nifty imo lol

[Chronofantasy]

Mwuhaha, those two new avatars will force smns to complete WotG missions now. This won't place me as one of the only people in that low percentage that completed the storyline anymore. Watch one of the requirements be to have WotG completed before you can do the quests in the past to summon Atomos and Cait Sith.

I can't quite imagine Atomos as being a roaming avatar with extra abilities by your side, but Cait Sith seems like he can walk by your side with some BPs.

[Alkar]

I don't think Cait Sith will be 2hr only, it wouldn't make much sense considering the storyline and moveset (assuming they use the same moves shown in one of the missions). Atomos so far only has a move to absorb stats from you and give them all to Cait Sith so unless the two are linked we're probably getting 2 normal avatars.
That is if these changes go through.

[Olor]

Yeah 2hr summons are lamezors.

[Zyeriis]

Oh dear...god....ANYTHING but Cait Sith please. Also, wrong forum.

Edit:
Cait Sith: the new reason to not invite Summoners for anything.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

There's fairly good odds that both new avatars will be astral flow only.

[Razushu]

Chances are Cait will be a regular avatar and Atomos will be a 2hour.

Although it'd be awesome if Atomos was a transport avatar, with BP: wards that teleport us and our party to one of the maws(wotG and Abyssea).

[Karbuncle]

There's fairly good odds that both new avatars will be astral flow only.

If they are just kinda shows SE is so out of touch with their playebase its laughable. But i personally don't think either will be 2hour only.

i could see maybe Atomos being 2hr only, But I don't see Cait Sith being that way. They haven't mentioned anything related to AF yet so Its good knews for me.

for the BP Timer ability, To me it sounds like what someone else said "Bloodpacts will cost a bit more MP but timer will be reduced". So long as it doesn't nerf their attack Im cool.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

But if you've seen the Cait Sith, what could they realy acomplish as an avatar. I say;
Atomos = New Odin.
Cait Sith = New Alexander.

[Leonlionheart]

I don't think Atomos would really fit into the "out and about" avatar world honestly. Maybe when you summon him you can only do blood pacts? Having him, or any other avatar honestly, be "2h only" is ridiculous. Honestly with his history in FF he'd be a giant floating mouth. Kind of ugly to attack things, but it could be done... Cait Sith on the other hand would be pretty cool to have running around with you.

[azjazo]

Would be interesting that the ability could work like "boost" say, you use the ability once and drains you 50 mp and gives you a +1 flag, you can stack these like "boost" to say +3 (150 mp spend), said boost should be able to be recasted almost intsantly

Then when you use a BP it consumes all those BPBoost to reduce the recast time, based on SMN skill (not over cap but pure skill) plus the difference in the BP cost and the mp spent from boosting.

not to trow exact numbers but say a bp cost 60 mp, and you boost it one time, thus spending 110 mp, almost twice as much as the original bp cost, then the reduction on recast time will be significant, maybe half the time plus some seconds less from smn skill

But boost that on a BP that cost 150 mp, and you are only boosting 33% of the cost this getting a lesser reduction in bprecast

this way, would make more dinamic to "store" boost before a battle, in between BPs, or while the NM is in a stance that absorbs X or Y type of damage but making the SMN spend more MP if you want to get mor dps

And would be more useful the ward pacts that nobody uses because its a waste of bp recast timer.

[Soundwave]

A new ability that expends an additional amount of MP to shorten the recast time for blood pacts.
Introducing the avatars Cait Sith and Atomos.

This new ability please allow it to function in possibly two ways

1.) When in use, drain the summoners MP depending on avatar that is out.

2.) When a selected BP is in use allow a selected amount of MP to be drained instead of a fixed number.

Thank you for more avatas however, plz no 2 hour only Atomos/Cait Sith I beg you.....

Thanks for the road map, looking forward to this.

[Worldwise]

Yeah like a baby Atomos lol!

[Karbuncle]

But if you've seen the Cait Sith, what could they realy acomplish as an avatar. I say;
Atomos = New Odin.
Cait Sith = New Alexander.

I don't really like the concept of 2 new avatars i use once per 2hours. What possible buffs could they give to make them relevant?

Even if it was say, Regain+10 or something from Cait... Woopie doo? DNC is getting a Regain ability (according to this) and COR already has one, so does SCH, which they can use freely.

I'm thinking too small probably, But PD and 1-hit KO and/or massive amounts of Damage seem rather... Fitting for 2hour abilities.

Both Cait Sith and Atomos have Combat forms IIRC, including a large (Semi-large) Array of TP moves. Its not entirely far-fetched we could see them as full-fledged avatars. Atomos However, I do agree feels more like a 2hour.

But if it is i'll be disappointed. It wasn't that bad having AF BP's tied to 2hour, but having entire avatars tied to it was kinda stretching it, but the concept was okay, giving us 4 avatars tied to it now is overkill and borderline useless crap. 1 BP out of 4 every 2hours is probably the most uselessly restricting thing i can think of in FFXI >_>

[Airget]

That would suck if they made the two new avatars work in unison regardless of what they did. I mean looking at the atomos page on wiki I noticed
Soul Vacuum: AoE All stats down.
Soul Infusion: Grants drained stats to Cait Sith Ceithir

I hope they aren't thinking of doing something like "Summon Atomos he comes out absorbs the stats that unsummons" then you taget a player and summon cait sith which infuses stats to the players lol.

What I do see working is having Atomos as a 2hr that would drain the mobs stats. Then basically you have 1 2hr that acts as a shield, 1 with a chance to instant kill, and one that enfeebles a mobs fighting capabilities. It would make sense.

For Cait Sith it does have a decent move set to make it a perp cost avatar.
Regal Scratch: Single target dmg
Divine Favor: Full Erase
Mewing Lullaby:AOE sleep and tp loss
Eerie Eye: Gaze amensia/silence
Level ? Holy

The above abilities would add some flavor to the SMN's capabilities while some abilities may be accessed through other avatars I would imagine something like the full erase one being very potent. Giving SMN the ability to amnesia a mob would give them a unique edge over other jobs.

Anyways, I'm surprised they made no mention of the elementals. I wonder if they are just gonna rely on the JA they gave to make them useful or if they are just hiding the changes they have planned for it lol.

[Ravenmore]

If they do pull the 2hour card again least make one perp avatar. If they go 2hour for both and the MP cost/recast will still be the cap of 45 sec they would have been better off not even saying anything or doing it.

[Paksenarrion]

don't bother trolling us to complete missions.

Wouldn't make any sense for Atomos to join you before the end. Cait Sith, sure, but she seemed a bit preoccupied with finding the Champions of the Dawn throughout.

Also, as the Avatar of Time, Atomos should totally give capped Haste (not just one type or the other, all of the types lumped together. I forgot the percentage.) and terror all the mobs.

Overpowered? Yes. Do I care? Not a bit!

[Luciola]

Ajout d’une aptitude permettant de réduire le délai d’utilisation des pactes de sang en échange de l’utilisation de plus de MP.

Just thought I would share the translation from the French site.
It says:
Adding an ability that reduces the Blood Pact delay in exchange of an higher MP cost.

Really sounds like it'll cost more to use the Blood Pact and not perpetuation cost.
Hope that helps clarify a little. The translation between the languages usually helps get more info as some explain it differently.

[Korpg]

Just thought I would share the translation from the French site.
It says:
Adding an ability that reduces the Blood Pact delay in exchange of an higher MP cost.

Really sounds like it'll cost more to use the Blood Pact and not perpetuation cost.
Hope that helps clarify a little. The translation between the languages usually helps get more info as some explain it differently.

Still could be perp cost. Since higher MP cost usually means either/or.

[Vagrua]

No more of this 2hr BS. Give us something that we can keep out or don't bother trolling us to complete missions.

You do realize that you had to finish ToAU to obtain Alexander and Odin? It would only make sense to have to finish WoTG missions in order to obtain these new avatars coming out or at least be pretty far on the missions to know all about Cait Sith and Atomos.

[RabidSquirrel]

A new ability that expends an additional amount of MP to shorten the recast time for blood pacts.

This sounds like a single use ability which consumes a set amount of MP to reduce the recast time for your next blood pact. I really hope that's not how it will work. I'd be fine with an ability that you activate that is, when active, shortens the recast time on blood pacts and makes each blood pact cost an additional percentage of MP. I'd also hope that the ability can last indefinitely (duration timer is longer than the recast timer). And from this description, I highly doubt it's referring to perpetuation cost as the method of expending additional MP.

[Zyeriis]

This sounds like a single use ability which consumes a set amount of MP to reduce the recast time for your next blood pact. I really hope that's not how it will work. I'd be fine with an ability that you activate that is, when active, shortens the recast time on blood pacts and makes each blood pact cost an additional percentage of MP. I'd also hope that the ability can last indefinitely (duration timer is longer than the recast timer). And from this description, I highly doubt it's referring to perpetuation cost as the method of expending additional MP.

Honestly, that sounds more like Penury/Celerity but for summoning. At least thats another possibility.

[Neonii]

The way it's worded sounds more like you activate said ability and each blood pact will take a bit more mp to use in return for a shorter recast timmer. I don't read it as increasing your perpetuation cost as long as it's active. I could be wrong though, the way they word things they could be interpreted many different ways.

I so hope you are right I will be keeping my fingers crossed.

[InfamousDS]

Atomos: Yea, definitely a 2hour SMN. Maws never move, ever. Atomos "avatar form" is the cavernous maws in my eyes. We already have a Buff and DD 2hr sink, he might as well be a debuff.

Cait Sith: Light-Based avatar, rounding out the list of perpetuated avatars. 2-2-Elementals over 2-1-Elementals. A great reason to make a perp- magian staff for Light, as delay-10 by itself isn't enough incentive. Carbuncle also favors weak magical pacts and support wards over physical pacts, and Cait Sith could be the opposite with potent physical pacts and offensive wards. Give it the same perp cost as Diabolos (Fenrir is the inexpensive Dark-based). I would run around all day every day with a Cait Sith out, I like their character models.

Also, anyone recall the wiki april fool's joke 2-3 years ago? They posted an "update" that said we would be getting these, so let's hope they aren't joke avatars....

[Zyeriis]

Also, anyone recall the wiki april fool's joke 2-3 years ago? They posted an "update" that said we would be getting these, so let's hope they aren't joke avatars....
Oh I most definitely hope that they're making a joke by saying Cait Sith is going to be an avatar. I have NEVER been able to stand that waste of space (I hate, detest, despise, want to murder every single aspect of that thing) in any Final Fantasy game (played them all). I found it so god awful that they put Cait Sith into WotG in the first place, and was the worst part of the story. Yes, even worse than Mayakov The Lisp.

Also, spoiler, you have been warned.

You fight a Cait Sith and Atomos, at the same time, at one point during WotG. Atomos is incapable of moving, it just sits in the middle of the tiny arena and fires stuff from what I remember. I can say with 95% (5% shaved off due to it being SE we're talking about) certainty that Atomos will be a 2 hour summon based on this alone. The only other option would to make...it unable to move, so you would only be able to attack if the enemy is near Atomos while he's out, which I highly doubt will happen.

[Raxiaz]

I don't have SMN leveled.

But I am glad to see new avatars coming to it.

I'm really hoping that Atomos is an interesting summon to have out. If it debuffed the mob and gave the buffs to party members, that would be interesting to have, as a perp avatar. And the aforementioned Cait Sith ideas from Airget are conceptually nice.


For Cait Sith it does have a decent move set to make it a perp cost avatar.
Regal Scratch: Single target dmg
Divine Favor: Full Erase
Mewing Lullaby:AOE sleep and tp loss
Eerie Eye: Gaze amensia/silence
Level ? Holy

I'm hoping that they are both independent and can function outside of Astral Flow. But this is only my 2 cents.

[Bhujerba]

inb4 3 years for the new avatars...
well I hope they give you something better than you expected, I'm not a summoner, but a pet job advocator!

SE have a case of Petjobphobia, so expect the worse.

[Runespider]

No more of this 2hr BS. Give us something that we can keep out or don't bother trolling us to complete missions.

They will be 2 hour summons, we all know that.

[Razushu]

They will be 2 hour summons, we all know that.

sssshhhhhhhuuusssshhhhh! You might give them ideas lol.

Please SE all I want is a new fulltime-able pet

[Korpg]

For all you guys who say that Atomos is a 2hr only avatar because s/he doesn't move, lets not forget:

Alexander didn't move until he turned prime mode.

So, saying that Atomos is a 2hr only because he doesn't move isn't a valid excuse.

[Covenant]

Wait for the "numbers" for the bloodpact delay. If NOT tied to cap, then no matter how "cheap" say -10 sec. Will still drop us to a 35 or so recast. That's pretty fast.

I like the idea of Caitsith/atoms combo(though, it sounded as they were separate) avatars. Namely, having caithsith as a "regular" avatar, while Atomos would be the 2 hr kind. As far as keeping them a combo/2 hr kind. I can totally imagine the "ultimate enfeebler" 2 hr move. Decreased HP/MP, decreased resistance, decreased stat on any mob including NM would be quite powerful especially of duration is "long". Landing additional spells and enfeeb alone, not to mentioned increased melee damage could comparably equally Odin's or Alexanders moves.

[Neisan_Quetz]

For all you guys who say that Atomos is a 2hr only avatar because s/he doesn't move, lets not forget:

Alexander didn't move until he turned prime mode.

So, saying that Atomos is a 2hr only because he doesn't move isn't a valid excuse.

And Alexander is 2hour only...

[Soundwave]

I know this is a long shot but....Is it possible to tell us the direction the Avatars are heading as well?

From the sound of it, nobody wants another Odin/Alexander type avatars we want to control them please.

[Malamasala]

A new ability that expends an additional amount of MP to shorten the recast time for blood pacts.

This either needs to be 30 seconds recast (so you can use it on pretty much ALL pacts) or a trait. It will be completely useless if it is another Mana Cede. I'm not paying 100 MP to shave off 10 seconds on my BP timer each 5 minutes.

I'd rather have it drain 5 MP per second left on the timer and work as a trait.

14 seconds left on timer? BP anyway, pact costs 60 MP more than it would have cost if I had waited. This way you can spam how much you want, assuming you can pay the cost. Capping out at about 200ish MP extra to nullify the delay. Not something you can afford to do constantly.

Summoners do not need ANOTHER job ability that they have to wait on to play their job. Pact timers are already a pain in the ass to wait for, and having to sit and wait on your "Double pact" JA to deal your "comparable" damage to other classes will just turn the job from "Once a minute" to "Once every 5 min" job.


PLEASE look at other jobs when making new content to SMN. You didn't give BRD a 15 min JA to apply songs to single targets, now don't go and make SMN have to wait 5+ minutes to apply blind to a monster because you were too obsessed on putting Eclipse Bite and Moonlit Charge on the same timer 2004.

[Soundwave]

We intend to make it easier for avatars to wreak havoc upon enemies, but also emphasize how vital the act of managing the source of their magical powers is to summoners.

This part actually explains more about the JA, sound to me it will be of low recast, just have to wait a bit longer, really curious on how this JA will function, I hope to cost of this is not to high vs the reward....