Job Manifesto discussion RE: Summoner

[Razushu]

Vision
Mystics who conjure avatars to fight by their sides, then sit back and enjoy the show while paying close attention to their MP as their minions deliver devastating blows to adversaries and provide aid to allies

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.

Example Adjustments

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.

So it seems SE has decided how it wants Summoner to be played, and where they're planning to take it. It's fairly clear that SE wants us to rely on our avatars, while we manage our MP. As such topics of discussion like, SMN melee, spirits, and buffing the master(in any way) are probably going to get ignored(and not just because they tend to turn into flame wars). An ignored thread gets us nowhere.

With that in mind, I would like to start a discussion, in hopes of it providing feedback to SE and maybe getting some from them. I'd like to leave the bickering out of this thread in hopes of building a thread that SE may actually read and respond to. WE all know this job needs a buff, and I'm hoping the people who come here love the job as much as me, and as such will help me start a reasonable discourse.

What I want to discuss is, Summoner present and future in line with SE's vision for the job. I would like it if this discussion was civil, thought out and productive, mainly concerning buffs to avatars and concerning avatars(as this seems to be the focus of any upcoming update to SMN).

SE has given us a great starting point, by proclaiming a desire to fix Blood Pact delay. However while this could be the biggest concern for Summoners, there are still things like Ward potency and Avatar DPS that could use addressing. Feel free to suggest or critique anything that comes to mind in this regard, but keep in mind the goal here is to be heard by SE. So please no off topic flaming or posts, and please no SE bashing here.

If you want to discuss melee or spirits, take it somewhere else, SE doesn't seem to be interested in them right now. And as it stands there's enough threads concerning them.

My apologies for the Wall o' Text introduction.

Tl'DR - Discussion about SMN in line with SE's vison in hopes of them reading/responding. Please leave other avenues of thought to be explored in the other threads it's already happening in.

And now on with the Discussion.

SE is finally addressing the Blood Pact delay issue, they seem to have learned from past missteps in buffing SMN. Since going past 75 cap SE have been quite kind to SMN, and as such it's looking like the upcoming update will be a genuine buff to us. Plus new avatars(bonus!). I'm hoping the Blood Pact delay ability is a stance, that gives a 25% reduction in delay that adds 25% to the cost of the Blood Pact. I would also like to see an adjustment to ward potency, they have fallen further behind since 75 cap.

SQUARE ENIX's replies:


First off, thanks for all the opinions thus far, and we wanted to let you know that we passed them to the supervisor in charge of the upcoming changes and had him take a look.

Please understand that we cannot answer all of your questions in one post and some answers may be vague, because this is all content that is still under development.

Please bear with us as we will continue posting about this and other jobs!

※I believe there are a lot of players who are interested in the effects and duration of “Blood Pact” so I plan on addressing it in the follow-up post. (I understand that some of you may be disappointed about this, but please be a little patient!)


Please provide specific details on the effects of “a new ability that expends an additional amount of MP to shorten the recast time for blood pacts.”
For example, we are thinking about something like, “reset the recast time by expending a set amount of MP.” As we have stated in the threads for other jobs, this is just one example.

There is a possibility of the effects being changed drastically, so please keep posting your feedback.


I would like Blood Pacts to be changed to the charge format.
This would drastically change the operation of Blood Pacts, so we have no plans of making this change. We plan on adjusting the timing of Blood Pacts by adding an ability that shortens the recast time.


Is it possible to interlock the avatar’s attacks with the summoner’s weapon skills (as in Wyvern’s breath)?
Being able to issue commands to avatars is a unique advantage for summoners, so it is best to initiate avatar attacks through the summoner’s commands.


I would like the pet command “Stay” to be added.
We have no plans to add the “Stay” command outside of beastmasters.


I would like unique stats added to each avatar, such as increased attack for Ifrit and increased evasion for Garuda.
By implementing different stats for each avatar, we are afraid certain avatars will be selected disproportionately frequently and the variance of avatars will be limited. There is a possibility of being able to alter the stats of avatars by equipping gear, but basically we would like avatars to be chosen based on their elements.

I would like En/Spike effects added to avatars.
This might be good. We will think about this.


I would like the elemental resistances that avatars have to been given to party members.
This is pretty similar to Avatar’s Favor. What about adding this effect through merit points?


Any possibility you can enhance the Evoker’s Ring?
If you have to surpass a challenging quest, then we will look into it. Simply just enhancing it would be a bit hard to justify.


Let summoners use the weapon skills for staff that can only be used by specific jobs/support jobs.
We understand how you feel. We received similar requests for other jobs/weapon skills and we will be looking into it.


We got a chance to speak to the main summoner himself on the topic of Blood Pacts.

• MP Consumption

The MP cost for Blood Pact: Ward abilities are set rather high because the effects they grant are AoE; however, they are designed to elicit a higher level of benefit when used to support a party.

• Effect duration

As we’re sure you’re aware, depending on the level of your summoning skill, various enhancement bonuses are added to your Blood Pacts. These bonuses make it so ultimately you will see a very noticeable difference in effect duration when compared to other magic spells and abilities. If your skill isn’t fully leveled and you feel that the duration is too short, we recommend raising it up as you will experience quite a significant increase. With the upcoming level cap increase we will be extending the effect duration even further.

• Effect

In regards to magic/abilities that elicit a similar effect to Blood Pacts, we believe that Blood Pacts have significantly high stats, effect duration included. However, with the level cap increase from 75 to 90, these stats have increased further and we would like to look into adjusting the areas where the balance is off. Please continue let us know your feedback especially for the Blood Pacts you feel need adjustments.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

They forgot to add the new melee abilities people have been asking for.

Even if it was triple the cost and only a 25% reduction in recast, the bloddpact idea is gold.

[Korpg]

Not only am I looking forward for the new ability and the new avatars, I'm also looking forward to the new blood pacts.

We all know that Ramuh will get his final BP:W come 91, but what about actual damaging BPs? Merited BPs are great, but we can use a little more damage both inside and outside of Abyssea.

[Razushu]

They forgot to add the new melee abilities people have been asking for.

Even if it was triple the cost and only a 25% reduction in recast, the bloddpact idea is gold.

Honestly I'm hoping the keep on the current course, and what ever the ability is will be at a reasonable cost.

[Razushu]

Not only am I looking forward for the new ability and the new avatars, I'm also looking forward to the new blood pacts.

We all know that Ramuh will get his final BP:W come 91, but what about actual damaging BPs? Merited BPs are great, but we can use a little more damage both inside and outside of Abyssea.

Depending on how the new ability performs, new Rages might be able to wait a little more. Probably get new Rages at 95, but 2-3 Predator Claws a minute might help us hold out a little longer for them.

[Leonlionheart]

Not only am I looking forward for the new ability and the new avatars, I'm also looking forward to the new blood pacts.

We all know that Ramuh will get his final BP:W come 91, but what about actual damaging BPs? Merited BPs are great, but we can use a little more damage both inside and outside of Abyssea.

I think, and this is a long LONG shot, that they should have final tier BP's that don't comply with BP Rage or BP Ward.

Longer Recast on this one category, but having it separated would be awesome.

[Razushu]

I think, and this is a long LONG shot, that they should have final tier BP's that don't comply with BP Rage or BP Ward.

Longer Recast on this one category, but having it separated would be awesome.

That would be great, something that worked like an Astral Flow Pact on a 5(possibly) minute timer.

[Leonlionheart]

That would be great, something that worked like an Astral Flow Pact on a 5(possibly) minute timer.

I don't think you could call that OP.

Also making another Haste that stacks with Haste(Spell) is hard to argue with... BRD is the only other one (Other than DRG 2hour and items) that has one.

[Razushu]

I don't think you could call that OP.

Also making another Haste that stacks with Haste(Spell) is hard to argue with... BRD is the only other one (Other than DRG 2hour and items) that has one.

Why stop at haste they could change, the effects of our Blood Pacts from magical, to a new category, spereate from everything else.

[Feliciaa]

More unique buffs to smn would be a great start. Even killing the negative effects on avatar favor and extending the range would help make it a more wanted job.

Smn has some really decent favors and buffs but they are either really weak for 90s or not linked with garuda.

[Leonlionheart]

Why stop at haste they could change, the effects of our Blood Pacts from magical, to a new category, spereate from everything else.

Well Haste will always cap at 80%, and if that's true you're basically only giving like 2.46% JA haste if you have a competent BRD and /SAM on real DD jobs. Not to mention that DRK only needs the minimum versions of March anyway.

If it's Magic Haste(Above 13%) Then your BRD can quit March I for Minuet V

[Razushu]

Well Haste will always cap at 80%, and if that's true you're basically only giving like 2.46% JA haste if you have a competent BRD and /SAM on real DD jobs. Not to mention that DRK only needs the minimum versions of March anyway.

If it's Magic Haste(Above 13%) Then your BRD can quit March I for Minuet V

Part of the reason I'd like a similar change applied to other SMN buffs that won't stack with similar effects from other sources, they could work similar to the way favor buff work. So haste wouldn't be our only buff, in these cases.

It would just be nice, so we're not stepping on the toes of other buffs, like helping cap haste on top of WHM and BRD.

[Leonlionheart]

Part of the reason I'd like a similar change applied to other SMN buffs that won't stack with similar effects from other sources, they could work similar to the way favor buff work. So haste wouldn't be our only buff, in these cases.

So Warcry can stack with Warcry.

And Phalanx with Phalanx?

[Korpg]

I would love to see Haste/Hastaga II come into play.

Even if they don't make them stackable, make them ~25% and that would be great for everyone.

[Korpg]

So Warcry can stack with Warcry.

And Phalanx with Phalanx?

That would make SMN more desirable for party play.

[Razushu]

So Warcry can stack with Warcry.

And Phalanx with Phalanx?

Why not, might have balance issues with some of them, but stuff like Phalanx is 1/2 so it wouldn't be OP to have them stack.

[Leonlionheart]

I would love to see Haste/Hastaga II come into play.

Even if they don't make them stackable, make them ~25% and that would be great for everyone.

Hastega II, 25%. K. I would actually consider SMN if that happened.

JA Haste from Ramuh would work too (So you can keep Ramuh's Favor on).

Also: I wouldn't mind stacking Phalanx.

SMN is really underwhelming as it is now, when you consider allllll of this stuff...

[Tarage]

I'm going to go ahead and add the three AI bugs that I posted in the Summoner forum. These really need to be fixed.


1. Avatar aggression is very badly handled. There are many times where I have run up to an enemy, used my attack macro, and had my lagging behind Avatar simply float up to me and do nothing. Not to mention that because of the cool down, I have to twiddle my thumbs before I can say "Hey, Avatar, go attack that thing like I asked you to the first time." This is HIGHLY annoying and should be fixed.

2. Another problem with aggression is the behavior an Avatar displays when attacking a monster showing aggression towards a player. All too often in situations where there are multiple slept enemies I have had my avatar go and attack one of them. I can spam the retreat command, but it ignores me to the point where I have to unsummon and resummon. If I tell an Avatar not to attack, it should not attack until I tell it otherwise.

3. Let me start off by saying thank you for fixing the problem of mobs being out of range when using a blood pact attack. However, the problem still rears it's head when a mob dies before the avatar can finish their attack. If this occurs, the timer should be reset. I shouldn't have to stand and wait another 45 seconds because my avatar took too long to attack and now the mob is dead. This is silly.

[Korpg]

I'm going to go ahead and add to your 3 "bugs":


1. Wait until your avatar catches up to you before hitting Assault? It is not that hard.

2. This is not a problem, this is a shining example as to why SMNs are so great at what they do. Having the avatar attack a mob that has aggression towards you is the pinnacle of kiting. Otherwise we would be endangering ourselves to have to hit assault each time we resummon an avatar.

3. Ok, you got one problem right. 1/3 "problems" isn't that bad, but isn't that great either.

Only 1 thing needs to be fixed, you probably have not been a SMN that long by the looks of it. Besides, what slept mob would have hate on you anyway?

[Tarage]

And ignore the rebuttal I made. Fine.

I won't requote what I said in the other thread, but I will paraphrase.

1. Pathing is a big problem and avatars can sometimes be quite a ways behind you. Not having your avatar attack what you want it to attack is a problem.

2. As I said in the other thread, I have had Diabolos out for giving favor to mages in an Einherjar party. If I cure ANY of the mages, especially the ones that sleep mobs, my avatar will start attacking the slept mobs. This happens because as soon as I get hate on a mob, the AI makes it attack, even if it's asleep. This is a problem. Make it a 'stay' command or something.

[Korpg]

I left the rebuttal there because frankly, I didn't see it until after I moved my quote up there.

Plus, that is an interesting conversation on that other thread, so if anyone wants to comment, they can comment there.

[Tarage]

That's fair. The only reason I moved it here was because I felt this had the best chance of being seen, since it doesn't look like the job forums get SE responses.

[Korpg]

Which is why most of the problems in this game gets addressed in the General Discussion.

[Razushu]

They do actually read the job forums, it's just Summoner topics tend to get bogged down with discussion on topics, that SE either feels SMN shouldn't get or don't need fixing, like melee and spirits. Plus some Summoners get very heated when discussing these things. I distinctly remember one post get modded because the poster was saying devs stay hidden because people should want to kill them.

Tweaks to pathing would be nice, but not really game changing.

[Tarage]

Tweaks to pathing would be nice, but not really game changing.

That's where you're wrong. Tweaking pathing isn't just 'Hey, let's code the AI to not be stupid. 5 lines right guys?' No, this would require SE to go to EVERY MAP and add new nodes to the mesh. I'm assuming they are using A*, because you are insane if you don't use A*. The problem isn't with the algorithm, and it's insane to ask SE to completely revamp the navigation mesh. It is both feasible and rational to remove the distance restriction on Assault, just like it is to add a 'Stay' command and fix the cooldown issue with mobs dieing. That's all I'm saying.

[Leonlionheart]

That's where you're wrong. Tweaking pathing isn't just 'Hey, let's code the AI to not be stupid. 5 lines right guys?' No, this would require SE to go to EVERY MAP and add new nodes to the mesh. I'm assuming they are using A*, because you are insane if you don't use A*. The problem isn't with the algorithm, and it's insane to ask SE to completely revamp the navigation mesh. It is both feasible and rational to remove the distance restriction on Assault, just like it is to add a 'Stay' command and fix the cooldown issue with mobs dieing. That's all I'm saying.

I gotta say, I agree with this guy. No reason neither of those fixes can't be added, and they wouldn't change anything but "ease of access"

[Malamasala]

They do actually read the job forums, it's just Summoner topics tend to get bogged down with discussion on topics, that SE either feels SMN shouldn't get or don't need fixing, like melee and spirits.

It is more like they do not reply. We've already had at least 3 topics about improving ward potency, and neither got any replies and in the end they just spun off about melee SMNs. There is no actual reason why they'd reply to this thread instead of the previous ones, except that maybe they want us to stop pestering them soon.

I like how the ward system often focus on defense. It makes SMN the ultimate protector job. What I dislike is the poor performance.

* 10% Defense bonus! Yea, cool! Oh wait, people only had 170 defense and I added 17? Not so cool.
* -15 phalanx reduction! Great! Oh wait, is it up to -35 from normal phalanx that PLDs, RDMs and SCH/RDMs got? Not so cool.
* MDB. Everyone needs MDB these days. But oh wait, depends on time of day.
* Shock spikes! Terrific, now the monsters will get stunned on attacking.... uhm 0.001 seconds stun or is it even working? That isn't very fair when monsters stun you for like 1-2 seconds.
* Hastega, this will come in handy. Oh, it doesn't stack, so I guess it is better to save my BP timer and let WHMs haste. (Would be the thing people said, if there were any wards worth using instead)

Favors enhance my opinion that Summoner are quite focused on protection. While it again is very badly done.

* Fenrir got magic evasion! That is useful, now to combine it with... oh... the MDB pact is on Diabolos doh! Means I'll lose all my magic evasion potency every time I need new MDB. And even more often if I need to apply other wards.
* Garuda got evasion! That isn't so bad either... but uhm, mainly for evasion tanks, not so much the general party.
* Titan got defense! Man so much defense he adds! However, in FFXI, defense doesn't do anything.


The job really needs small tweaks. Like favors effect remaining 1 minute after avatar is gone, so you can swap back and forth and get a ward in while you still keep the old favor potency. Potency increase on wards so they really do something. I think Summoners really could be WHMs best friend in reducing damage taken to a party, if things were adjusted in a way that made wards matter more.



PS. I think it is silly that Fenrirs BCNM dispel attack is distance 30' and our pets dispel is distance 3'. Also I think it is silly that Nightmare from BCNM does 25+ damage a tick, and you can't be woken, but Nightmare from pets do 1 damage a tick and you wake up from damage. I'd rather see Fenrirs dispel staying like 30' and being an amazing AOE debuffer, instead of a "almost never worth using" debuffer. I also think Nightmare should do 25+ damage a tick, but still wake mobs up when hit by attacks.

[Korpg]

That's where you're wrong. Tweaking pathing isn't just 'Hey, let's code the AI to not be stupid. 5 lines right guys?' No, this would require SE to go to EVERY MAP and add new nodes to the mesh. I'm assuming they are using A*, because you are insane if you don't use A*. The problem isn't with the algorithm, and it's insane to ask SE to completely revamp the navigation mesh. It is both feasible and rational to remove the distance restriction on Assault, just like it is to add a 'Stay' command and fix the cooldown issue with mobs dieing. That's all I'm saying.

Pathing tweaking is not a major issue they need to be looking at, and adding a Stay command would be nice, but could get in the way of the avatar's programming of saving your rump. Cooldown issues is a problem though.

[Razushu]

It is more like they do not reply. We've already had at least 3 topics about improving ward potency, and neither got any replies and in the end they just spun off about melee SMNs. There is no actual reason why they'd reply to this thread instead of the previous ones, except that maybe they want us to stop pestering them soon.

I like how the ward system often focus on defense. It makes SMN the ultimate protector job. What I dislike is the poor performance.

* 10% Defense bonus! Yea, cool! Oh wait, people only had 170 defense and I added 17? Not so cool.
* -15 phalanx reduction! Great! Oh wait, is it up to -35 from normal phalanx that PLDs, RDMs and SCH/RDMs got? Not so cool.
* MDB. Everyone needs MDB these days. But oh wait, depends on time of day.
* Shock spikes! Terrific, now the monsters will get stunned on attacking.... uhm 0.001 seconds stun or is it even working? That isn't very fair when monsters stun you for like 1-2 seconds.
* Hastega, this will come in handy. Oh, it doesn't stack, so I guess it is better to save my BP timer and let WHMs haste. (Would be the thing people said, if there were any wards worth using instead)

Favors enhance my opinion that Summoner are quite focused on protection. While it again is very badly done.

* Fenrir got magic evasion! That is useful, now to combine it with... oh... the MDB pact is on Diabolos doh! Means I'll lose all my magic evasion potency every time I need new MDB. And even more often if I need to apply other wards.
* Garuda got evasion! That isn't so bad either... but uhm, mainly for evasion tanks, not so much the general party.
* Titan got defense! Man so much defense he adds! However, in FFXI, defense doesn't do anything.


The job really needs small tweaks. Like favors effect remaining 1 minute after avatar is gone, so you can swap back and forth and get a ward in while you still keep the old favor potency. Potency increase on wards so they really do something. I think Summoners really could be WHMs best friend in reducing damage taken to a party, if things were adjusted in a way that made wards matter more.



PS. I think it is silly that Fenrirs BCNM dispel attack is distance 30' and our pets dispel is distance 3'. Also I think it is silly that Nightmare from BCNM does 25+ damage a tick, and you can't be woken, but Nightmare from pets do 1 damage a tick and you wake up from damage. I'd rather see Fenrirs dispel staying like 30' and being an amazing AOE debuffer, instead of a "almost never worth using" debuffer. I also think Nightmare should do 25+ damage a tick, but still wake mobs up when hit by attacks.

I totally agree with what you say in this post, and I would love to see a fix to Favor to make it worth using.

As for the bolded, I'm hoping that this thread won't get bogged down with bickering over melee or spirits, as well as leaving out futile avenues of thought like complaining about lack of response. I started this thread with the idea that maybe for once we could present a united front and drop all the in fighting. This is why I'm hoping they'll answer this thread.

Trying to limit the discussion to SE's vision of Summoner seems the best way to A) give some feedback to them on changes they'll be implementing, and B) get some feedback from them which will hopefully improve their standing with certain members of the SMN community.

[Alkar]

In general most Wards need buffing. I still don't understand why SMN has weaker version of spells and need to use more MPs to apply them (Earthen Ward vs Accession> Stoneskin for example).
Considering the master can't really do anything outside of casting a few cures, powering up the pets doesn't really seem that broken to me.

[Razushu]

In general most Wards need buffing. I still don't understand why SMN has weaker version of spells and need to use more MPs to apply them (Earthen Ward vs Accession> Stoneskin for example).
Considering the master can't really do anything outside of casting a few cures, powering up the pets doesn't really seem that broken to me.

They've buffed the durations to reasonable levels, which make me feel like potency might be next. I'm hoping they do because buffs tend to be a big part of why we're accepted in parties, aside from niche things like a NM tha needs to be killed with utmost safety.

[Soundwave]

Ideas to Elemental Siphon

-While an avatar is out, allow Elemental Siphon to work 1/2 MP back with avatars.
-While an avatar is out, allow Elemental Siphon to act like Astra Flow: Odin/Alexander/Atomos when summoning a spirit to accumulate MP or collect MP over time.

[Tarage]

Ideas to Elemental Siphon

-While an avatar is out, allow Elemental Siphon to work 1/2 MP back with avatars.
-While an avatar is out, allow Elemental Siphon to act like Astra Flow: Odin/Alexander/Atomos when summoning a spirit to accumulate MP or collect MP over time.

...What? Elemental Siphon is fine the way it is. Adding it to avatars is silly, and I don't even begin to understand what your second idea was. Astral flow?

[Neonii]

...What? Elemental Siphon is fine the way it is. Adding it to avatars is silly, and I don't even begin to understand what your second idea was. Astral flow?

Oh I don't know I think he just needs to go into more details of what he means. Soundwave maybe a little more detail into what exactly you mean?

[Malamasala]

I read it as two different ideas. Either 50% MP return from having an avatar summoned, or it works like Odin/Alex and using elemental siphon automatically calls the correct day/weather spirit, grabs MP, then releases it, even if you got an avatar summoned.

[Urteil]

Can well these threads that don't have official replies get some love from the Dev Team with information.


Thaaaanks.

[Soundwave]

I read it as two different ideas. Either 50% MP return from having an avatar summoned, or it works like Odin/Alex and using elemental siphon automatically calls the correct day/weather spirit, grabs MP, then releases it, even if you got an avatar summoned.

Correct, Its just an idea for better solo play. The idea came from SE of course how they want us to "Management" our MP.


-While an avatar is out, allow Elemental Siphon to work 1/2 MP back with avatars.

Summon an avatar pick a fight with a mob, do a few BP:R...use Elemental Siphon, and drain MP from the avatar to transfer to the summoner.



-While an avatar is out, allow Elemental Siphon to act like Astra Flow: Odin/Alexander/Atomos when summoning a spirit to accumulate MP or collect MP over time.

Summon an avatar pick a fight with a mob, do a few BP:R...use Elemental Siphon, a spirit will automatically come out and give you your MP over time or maybe instantly and will release on its own.

If this will be considered, I know this is not ground breaking...however, it won't hinder how Elemental Siphon works in the way we use it now.

P.S. sorry for the lack of details

[Malamasala]

Can well these threads that don't have official replies get some love from the Dev Team with information.


Thaaaanks.

They seem to (slowly) be going through each job with some feedback to our questions. They replied to SCH in the big thread, because there was no small thread for it. I'd assume that they'll get to this thread in time. (Unless the info we got on cait sith and atomos was the only info they could give us)

[Tarage]

The first one doesn't make sense because we already have Avatar Favor, which works in conjunction with 'weakening' our avatar. The second is just lazy. I have a macro that summons the spirit, changes my gear to siphon gear, siphons, changes my gear back, and releases, all in ONE macro. And no, I am not using windower or third party tools.

[Neonii]

The first one doesn't make sense because we already have Avatar Favor, which works in conjunction with 'weakening' our avatar. The second is just lazy. I have a macro that summons the spirit, changes my gear to siphon gear, siphons, changes my gear back, and releases, all in ONE macro. And no, I am not using windower or third party tools.

I think that with tweaks it may be interesting. Imma have to think on this n digest it.

[Sargent]

Only thing I care about...

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

Can we have more information on how this JA will work? How much MP will this consume for how much of a shorter recast time?

[Malamasala]

I just hope SE thinks that JA through. There are so many things they can do wrong.

1. Limited to 1 BP only... it will be like if BLMs had to wait 10 years to get Elemental Seal suddenly, claiming "it will fix the job so it can nuke harder".
- The only way to get this JA to do what it should do, is to give an effect that lasts multiple pacts.

2. Tack on a too high cost for too little gain. We already have 100 MP cost on mana cede, which is extreme. We also have 25% damage loss on favors, which again is extreme. One could almost fear SE is going to take 100 MP and reduce timer by 5 seconds with the JA.
- Instead the way it functions should be based on time reduced. Like say 5 MP per second you use the pact too early. That means 20 seconds early = 100 MP cost. 40 seconds early (after waiting only 5 seconds from last pact) it would cost 200 MP.

3. Some kind of roll-ja, that has 5 seconds recast, and each time we use it we reduce timer with 5 seconds and lose 50 MP.
- Apart from again showing a too high MP cost, this would just be annoying when we have to spam a new JA to reduce our desired amount of blood pact delay. It simply will not work with a JA that we need to press dozens of times. (Even if I want a more active job)

I also think it is already a bit unfair that SE pretty much says "Hey SAM, here have 10% haste on a JA" and then goes "Oh SMN, if you want 10 seconds reduction to your attacks, you'll have to pay MP for it.". I don't see why SAM, WAR, DRK, DRG and all other melee jobs keep getting "only bonus JA" while SMN always gets "Penalty JA". If I didn't know better, I'd say SMN is more about sacrifice something to gain something, than DRK ever was.

[Soundwave]

The first one doesn't make sense because we already have Avatar Favor, which works in conjunction with 'weakening' our avatar. The second is just lazy. I have a macro that summons the spirit, changes my gear to siphon gear, siphons, changes my gear back, and releases, all in ONE macro. And no, I am not using windower or third party tools.

The first one I never mentioned Avatars Favor. The goal with the first one is to reflect the idea of MP management. While an avatar is out, without hindering its use of how we use ES as of now. I only stated get 1/2 MP back just for a ball park figure and the fact I think it may be a bit imba if we can have an avatar out and ES for full MP...its just an idea for your quoted "lazy"

however, the only MP management things we have are ES and Blood Boon. I didn't think it would be to far fetch to see more of this MP management situations going on.

In regards to Avatars favor, yes they need to ungimp the -stats to avatars...its very unnecessary

As for the 2nd one is mainly for solo play and it very much mirrors my idea from the first. Sure the skill for this is less difficult to the player to execute, but I don't find it any harder than what we normally do for Siphon....if a player is having a hard time switching between Avatar/spirit for ES then we have a problem.

I think you could of left out the "I have a macro for this" I would hope you do have macros for ES. So the easy response to this is "I have one as well.?" Hotdog I don't use widower as well?

[Malamasala]

In regards to Avatars favor, yes they need to ungimp the -stats to avatars...its very unnecessary


Yea, it shouldn't give -stats. Instead there should be another mode you can activate for +stats for dealing more damage, but not getting the favors bonus and -perpetuation.

[Tarage]

The hell. Do you people seriously not understand what Avatar's favor does?

It's a stance. It's a tradeoff. You trade getting a benefit of an aura and less MP spent on the avatar for a weaker avatar. If you take away the weaker avatar part, then the whole thing becomes pointless. Everyone would just have Avatar's Favor on the entire time.

I swear you people have never heard of balance before in your lives. Why don't you give Avatar's siphon? Because then spirits would be even more pointless than they were before. Why don't you take away the negatives of favor? Because then no one would ever not use favor.

Stop spouting vomit from your mouths for a second and realize what balance is.

[Soundwave]

It's a stance. It's a tradeoff..

Indeed it is, with the current gear as of now Avatars Favor side effects are irreverent to MP Refresh for a summoner...so in my eyes.....

"Whats the point of -Status effects"

When we all know that it is for a "Stance trade off." The game has moved on and it needs to have "some" type of update to please the player base.

Please step off your high horse, and take a breath and respond with more respectful post, if you don't agree just say it, don't have to get all nasty as stated in from the OP.

[Rearden]

And Korpg ruins another thread.

[Tarage]

Indeed it is, with the current gear as of now Avatars Favor side effects are irreverent to MP Refresh for a summoner...so in my eyes.....

"Whats the point of -Status effects"

When we all know that it is for a "Stance trade off." The game has moved on and it needs to have "some" type of update to please the player base.

Please step off your high horse, and take a breath and respond with more respectful post, if you don't agree just say it, don't have to get all nasty as stated in from the OP.

Even if the -mp is irrelevant, the stat boosts are not. It's not a high horse, it's common sense. If you can't understand the concept of 'sacrifice one thing to get another', then you don't know anything about game design.

And clearly you don't.

[Soundwave]

the stat boosts are not.

Your just grasping at straws man, as for game design why not take your criticism/comments...start your own company and make your own perfect game?

Anyways

[Tarage]

Your just grasping at straws man, as for game design why not take your criticism/comments...start your own company and make your own perfect game?

Anyways

Because risk reward is grasping at straws. Tradeoffs are grasping at straws.

Hell, let's look at it your way. Let's get rid of the negatives on it. But why stop there? Let's get rid of perp cost all together under favor. Let's set the BP recast time to 0. Let's give avatars +200 stats.

I don't care how many times I need to say this: You have no idea how game design works. You have no idea what balance is. You have horrible ideas.

And for the record, your "go start your own company" is pathetic. One does not need to publish a 'perfect' game to be able to understand one. Much like a film critic need not have directed. Keep amusing me though.

[Soundwave]

Hell, let's look at it your way. Let's get rid of the negatives on it. But why stop there? Let's get rid of perp cost all together under favor. Let's set the BP recast time to 0. Let's give avatars +200 stats..

Now your just getting a bit ridiculousness, your just another internet tough guy.

[Neonii]

Indeed it is, with the current gear as of now Avatars Favor side effects are irreverent to MP Refresh for a summoner...so in my eyes.....

"Whats the point of -Status effects"

When we all know that it is for a "Stance trade off." The game has moved on and it needs to have "some" type of update to please the player base.

Please step off your high horse, and take a breath and respond with more respectful post, if you don't agree just say it, don't have to get all nasty as stated in from the OP.

I agree with being more respectful. IMO it's not ok to be disrespectful to someone because they don't agree with you. Your ideas are interesting you don't need to make it personal. Also, I find it hard to take someone serious who spends so much time saying other folks don't understand the game or how it works. I would be more likely to try out something someone who "don't know the game than someone talking down to others all the time". Maybe folks don't mean any harm but some of us don't like it. Remember that old saying you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

[Soundwave]

Mewing Lullaby, Any thoughts for TP drain on mobs....will SE gimp it or drain all TP?

I really interested in what people are thinking of Cait Sith current abilities, that will soon be used in battle.

P.S. Thanks Neonii:cool:

[Tarage]

Now your just getting a bit ridiculousness, your just another internet tough guy.

I'm making as much sense as you do.

Explain to me why people would choose to not use Avatar's Favor full time if you took away the negatives.

And Neonii, I'm not here to be nice or make friends. I'm here to try to talk some sense into the people who are flooding SE with questions and suggestions that they should be beat in the head for. Yeah, I'm not nice, but I sure as hell am right.

[Soundwave]

I'm making as much sense as you do.

Explain to me why people would choose to not use Avatar's Favor full time if you took away the negatives.

Sorry man, I'm done with Avatars favor. Thanks though.

Any thoughts on Mewing Lullaby?

[Tarage]

Sorry man, I'm done with Avatars favor. Thanks though.

Any thoughts on Mewing Lullaby?

Glad to know you gave up.

[Soundwave]

I'm trying not to fight with you in case you did not notice? So please be mature...give it a rest.

[Neonii]

I'm making as much sense as you do.

Explain to me why people would choose to not use Avatar's Favor full time if you took away the negatives.

And Neonii, I'm not here to be nice or make friends. I'm here to try to talk some sense into the people who are flooding SE with questions and suggestions that they should be beat in the head for. Yeah, I'm not nice, but I sure as hell am right.

I'm not trying to be the thought police. However, I believe in manners and respecting others ideas even if I don't agree with them. Maybe it's just me.

[Soundwave]

Sure I agree, some people sprout ideas and that is how the ball gets rolling. The idea does not have to be 100% solid. which you quoted "I do not know anything about game balance", of course I don't I'm no programer. I don't know how to make a perfect game world.

I'm a customer and I would hope they welcome all ideas...does not mean they need to listen to what exactly have to say.

[Neonii]

Sure I agree, some people sprout ideas and that is how the ball gets rolling. The idea does not have to be 100% solid. which you quoted "I do not know anything about game balance", of course I don't I'm no programer. I don't know how to make a perfect game world.

I'm a customer and I would hope they welcome all ideas...does not mean they need to listen to what exactly have to say.

Hum maybe they should remove favor altogether and let it be a native trait. I don't see why smn should not have something overpowered=p. ;)

[Soundwave]

I just want my CAT! I wanna see what she can do! haha!

[Covenant]

In my own post in the summoner job section on updating avatars and spirits lvl 1~ 99, I mention what I thought was the truly amazing thing about a summoner's avatar when compared to blackmages and redmages.

What WAS truly amazing about avatar was their access to elemental nukes(tier II and IV) nearly 10 or more lvls earlier then blackmages. Also, their wards to -aga things like enthunder and spikes. More specifically, ALL avatar received these elemental nukes at the same time. So while everyone is anticipating Ramuh's new bloodpact, I personally wish to see a tier VI nuke for ALL avatar at lvl 99. Or, at the very least a Ancient Magic ~aga.

[Tarage]

Sadly, since Avatars don't have BLM skill, their nukes are horribly underpowered.

[Malamasala]

Sadly, since Avatars don't have BLM skill, their nukes are horribly underpowered.

They are BLMs, and have the same traits as a BLM. The potency of for example 75 merit pacts is same as 75 merit AM. The difference is that SE gives BLM unlimited MAB armors. The good old 15% or whatever damage bonus elemental staffs is also hard to compete with on avatars.

BLM and SMN naked would probably deal similar damage. If that is any valid example.

[Soundwave]

Glad that Avatars don't have BLM's skills, being able to reach high steady damage without almost no effort even with gear is great; there is a fine selection of MAB gear to increase that damage.

I'm just referring to 75 pacts.

[Neonii]

I just want my CAT! I wanna see what she can do! haha!

What he said. I have to admit I am intrigued about what she will actually look like floating behind the summoner. Maybe we will do a double take when we first see her with a mithra summoner. I keep can picture her walking around with the smn more like a fellow graphic than floating in the air. Either way should be interesting. Anyway back to the topic.

[Soundwave]

Posting this here as well in hopes SE does not screw up the new SMN JA for recast timers.

Please give this some thought SE in the quote below, thank you.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/11635-Job-Adjustments-Manifesto-%28SMN%29/page3

few questions are good...the whole thing is a bit weak though.....I'm surprised nothing was said about spirits, even though I don't care to much for them, however I'd like to see an adjustment...whether we get that or not It won't hurt us as a job.


If it resets the BP timers...the MP used better take a balanced portion from the time that's left from your recast timer.

Just an Exampleeeeeeessss:

I would like to see the new JA work along these examples

Timer - Blood Pact: Rage 60 Seconds left/ Use new JA/ 60*2=120 MP
Timer - Blood Pact: Rage 50 Seconds left/ Use new JA/ 50*2=100 MP
Timer - Blood Pact: Rage 40 Seconds left/ Use new JA/ 40*2=80 MP
Timer - Blood Pact: Rage 30 Seconds left/ Use new JA/ 30*2=60 MP
Timer - Blood Pact: Rage 20 Seconds left/ Use new JA/ 20*2=40 MP
Timer - Blood Pact: Rage 10 Seconds left/ Use new JA/ 10*2=20 MP

Yes Please

I would not want the new JA to work like this

Timer - Blood Pact: Rage 60 Seconds left/ Use new JA/ Fixed MP 100
Timer - Blood Pact: Rage 50 Seconds left/ Use new JA/ Fixed MP 100
Timer - Blood Pact: Rage 40 Seconds left/ Use new JA/ Fixed MP 100
Timer - Blood Pact: Rage 30 Seconds left/ Use new JA/ Fixed MP 100
Timer - Blood Pact: Rage 20 Seconds left/ Use new JA/ Fixed MP 100
Timer - Blood Pact: Rage 10 Seconds left/ Use new JA/ Fixed MP 100

No Thanks

Will be total crap if it is only a fixed amount of MP, this will feel along the lines of when BP's used to activate when a mob ran out of range. The penalty will be x amount of MP lost if you activate the new JA when the recast is like @ 2 seconds left by accident. I hope this is not the case.

I'm not looking for people to flame this example "Its only an example." I'm looking for collaboration in the right direction for this JA.

[Razushu]

Posting this here as well in hopes SE does not screw up the new SMN JA for recast timers.

Please give this some thought SE in the quote below, thank you.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/11635-Job-Adjustments-Manifesto-%28SMN%29/page3

few questions are good...the whole thing is a bit weak though.....I'm surprised nothing was said about spirits, even though I don't care to much for them, however I'd like to see an adjustment...whether we get that or not It won't hurt us as a job.



I'm not looking for people to flame this example "Its only an example." I'm looking for collaboration in the right direction for this JA.

The ability working from a fixed fee is a terrible idea, unless it's a fixed reduction to delay. Like a stance that when active grants -15 sec BP delay for an increase of 30-50MP per BP.

I like your yes please example, and it fits in really well with SE's stated vision of managing our MP.

[Korpg]

The ability working from a fixed fee is a terrible idea, unless it's a fixed reduction to delay. Like a stance that when active grants -15 sec BP delay for an increase of 30-50MP per BP.

I like your yes please example, and it fits in really well with SE's stated vision of managing our MP.

I have a feeling it will be like Avatar's Favor that it costs MP per tick to lower the BP down.

[Razushu]

I have a feeling it will be like Avatar's Favor that it costs MP per tick to lower the BP down.

As long as -perp gear could counter it, I'd be ok with that.

[Camate]

First off, thanks for all the opinions thus far, and we wanted to let you know that we passed them to the supervisor in charge of the upcoming changes and had him take a look.

Please understand that we cannot answer all of your questions in one post and some answers may be vague, because this is all content that is still under development.

Please bear with us as we will continue posting about this and other jobs!

※I believe there are a lot of players who are interested in the effects and duration of “Blood Pact” so I plan on addressing it in the follow-up post. (I understand that some of you may be disappointed about this, but please be a little patient!)


Please provide specific details on the effects of “a new ability that expends an additional amount of MP to shorten the recast time for blood pacts.”

For example, we are thinking about something like, “reset the recast time by expending a set amount of MP.” As we have stated in the threads for other jobs, this is just one example.

There is a possibility of the effects being changed drastically, so please keep posting your feedback.


I would like Blood Pacts to be changed to the charge format.

This would drastically change the operation of Blood Pacts, so we have no plans of making this change. We plan on adjusting the timing of Blood Pacts by adding an ability that shortens the recast time.


Is it possible to interlock the avatar’s attacks with the summoner’s weapon skills (as in Wyvern’s breath)?

Being able to issue commands to avatars is a unique advantage for summoners, so it is best to initiate avatar attacks through the summoner’s commands.


I would like the pet command “Stay” to be added.

We have no plans to add the “Stay” command outside of beastmasters.


I would like unique stats added to each avatar, such as increased attack for Ifrit and increased evasion for Garuda.

By implementing different stats for each avatar, we are afraid certain avatars will be selected disproportionately frequently and the variance of avatars will be limited. There is a possibility of being able to alter the stats of avatars by equipping gear, but basically we would like avatars to be chosen based on their elements.


I would like En/Spike effects added to avatars.

This might be good. We will think about this.


I would like the elemental resistances that avatars have to been given to party members.

This is pretty similar to Avatar’s Favor. What about adding this effect through merit points?


Any possibility you can enhance the Evoker’s Ring?

If you have to surpass a challenging quest, then we will look into it. Simply just enhancing it would be a bit hard to justify.


Let summoners use the weapon skills for staff that can only be used by specific jobs/support jobs.

We understand how you feel. We received similar requests for other jobs/weapon skills and we will be looking into it.

[Karbuncle]

If you have to surpass a challenging quest, then we will look into it. Simply just enhancing it would be a bit hard to justify.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/10669-Evoker-s-Ring-upgrade-Quests-included.-BONUS-ITEMS!

You're welcome D:

(And thank you :) )

[Razushu]

Thanks for the info Camate, some of what you said is intriguing. I think we'll all be patient a little longer after your post. Looking forward to more detail on the new BP delay ability.

[Tarage]

Please PLEASE fix these three things about Avatar AI.

1. Avatars should not ever auto attack sleeping mobs.
2. Avatars should have a larger radius in which a Summoner can use the Assault command and not have the Avatar not listen.
3. If a Blood Pact is used on a mob and it dies before the Blood Pact can go off, please reset the Blood Pact timer.

That's all I ask.

[Korpg]

Please PLEASE fix these three things about Avatar AI.

1. Avatars should not ever auto attack sleeping mobs.
2. Avatars should have a larger radius in which a Summoner can use the Assault command and not have the Avatar not listen.
3. If a Blood Pact is used on a mob and it dies before the Blood Pact can go off, please reset the Blood Pact timer.

That's all I ask.

Please please please PLEASE ignore the first one of the 3 listed here.

[Soundwave]

※I believe there are a lot of players who are interested in the effects and duration of “Blood Pact” so I plan on addressing it in the follow-up post. (I understand that some of you may be disappointed about this, but please be a little patient!)

I was not expecting a follow up, I'm very thank for for this when it comes.

Thank you for the info so far.


I would like the elemental resistances that avatars have to been given to party members.
This is pretty similar to Avatar’s Favor. What about adding this effect through merit points?

I like this idea, please make it possible when/if upgraded though merits it does all avatars and not a single avatar.

I feel that this is only group 1 Category worthy and would make group 3 category seem like just icing on the cake for summoner, if that's what your referring to.

Examplessssss

Group 1 (Upgrade to 15 Total)
Avatar Phys. Accuracy
Avatar Physical Attack
Avatar Mag. Accuracy
Avatar Magical Attack
Elemental MP Cost
**New** Avatar Favor Elemental Resist

Group 2
Meteor Strike
Heavenly Strike
Wind Blade
Geocrush
Thunderstorm
Grand Fall

Group 3
Something new?!

or........

Group 1
Avatar Phys. Accuracy
Avatar Physical Attack
Avatar Mag. Accuracy
Avatar Magical Attack
Elemental MP Cost

Group 2
Meteor Strike
Heavenly Strike
Wind Blade
Geocrush
Thunderstorm
Grand Fall

Group 3
**New** Avatar Favor Elemental Resist

[Dallas]

We understand how you feel. We received similar requests for other jobs/weapon skills and we will be looking into it.

Deathga win! LOL. Did anyone re-suggest AOE BPs? Does a SMN no good to get WS that target more mobs than the pet...

[Alhanelem]

If you have to surpass a challenging quest, then we will look into it.I like this idea. In this case though, I would rather it be a shorter but somewhat harder quest (compared to the original).


This would drastically change the operation of Blood Pacts, so we have no plans of making this change.
Does the dev team realize how weak the summons are overall? A summoner that puts on some "melee" gear with a good weapon can easily outdamage the avatars right now. This shouldn't happen. The avatars should be strong enough that no summoner should feel like they have to do that.

I really don't see how adding say, a 2 charge system would drastically change the operation of blood pacts. If you have 2 charges each with the usual recast, you're not using more blood pacts, you're just using them with better timing. I ilke the idea of more ways to reduce the delay, but I hope SE realizes- FFXI is much "faster" than it was years ago. 1 min (reducable to 45 sec) between abilities is now an eternity in this game.

[Imakun]

By implementing different stats for each avatar, we are afraid certain avatars will be selected disproportionately frequently and the variance of avatars will be limited. There is a possibility of being able to alter the stats of avatars by equipping gear, but basically we would like avatars to be chosen based on their elements.

You have to know that this never happens anyway. Elemental properties of the Avatars don't matter outside of what? Merit Blood Pacts?
Even when fighting monsters that have specific elemental attacks/resistance we basically just use Garuda for Predator Claws or Shiva for Heavenly Strike (since everything on Vana'diel seems to hate ice but very few exceptions).
If you want us to use ALL of our Avatars give us a reason to. Add elemental resistance auras when they're out, enhance their resistance against their opposite element, give them unique abilities based on their element.
And no, Avatar's Favor is not what we're looking for. Considering the radius of the Favor, the need for the Avatar to stay close to the mob to execute a rage BP AND the negative effects it has on the Avatar's strenght.. it's just a free -Perpetuation tool for kiting.


This is pretty similar to Avatar’s Favor. What about adding this effect through merit points?

Just don't make it part of Avatar's Favor >>;


I would like En/Spike effects added to avatars.

Good but again don't make it part of Avatar's Favor.


If you have to surpass a challenging quest, then we will look into it. Simply just enhancing it would be a bit hard to justify.

I'd gladly take that. I loved all the quests involving Summoner!

[Kegsay]

For example, we are thinking about something like, “reset the recast time by expending a set amount of MP.” As we have stated in the threads for other jobs, this is just one example.

There is a possibility of the effects being changed drastically, so please keep posting your feedback.

Since the devs have stated clearly they don't want for whatever reason to do a charge system (which I personally feel is absolutely required in the age of FFXI post-75), then this ability will need to be used exceptionally frequently. As such, what are the ideas for the recast time of this mp->bp delay ability? Furthermore, SE must understand that the lack of a being able to reduce the BP time to below 45 seconds is the single biggest hindrance to this job as a whole, so this ability MUST be relatively powerful.

There is no mention of the level this JA would be obtained, nor what the ratio of mp:bp- would be. I personally feel that BP time is a fundamental flaw in SMN mechanics, so this JA should be introduced early, such as Level 50 (the first level which cannot be obtained using /SMN).

The MP requirement is not listed either, I can't imagine you would be happy letting a Level 50 expend 100MP to reset, as well as a Level 90 expend 100MP, but whatever scaling system is used it has to be extremely reasonable.

In summary, the level of the ability must be low (e.g. 50) , since BP time is a fundamental flaw in the Summoner job. The ratio of time:mp must be reasonable (at maximum 100 MP, so I figure 2MP:1sec). The recast time must be non-existent, it should be ready for the next time I want to BP. Remember, the whole idea behind this is speed which a long recast timer would destroy this potentially good JA.

[Malamasala]

By implementing different stats for each avatar, we are afraid certain avatars will be selected disproportionately frequently and the variance of avatars will be limited. There is a possibility of being able to alter the stats of avatars by equipping gear, but basically we would like avatars to be chosen based on their elements.

I've been saying this since forever. Can't express how happy I am that SE at least thinks this far ahead in their designs and don't just take anything said on the forums as a good idea.


We understand how you feel. We received similar requests for other jobs/weapon skills and we will be looking into it.

Please do. Summoner is the job that uses staffs more than any other jobs in melee situations and it makes no sense to leave them out of the weaponskill selection. Best would be if you also re-worked old WSes into generating MP, since that is 50% of the reason to use any weaponskill on clubs or staffs.


For example, we are thinking about something like, “reset the recast time by expending a set amount of MP.” As we have stated in the threads for other jobs, this is just one example.

There is a possibility of the effects being changed drastically, so please keep posting your feedback.

The global timer system is fundamentally flawed and needs a do-over. This can be achieved with a properly designed "stance" like Hasso. Hasso for example improves your main stuff, while weakens things you barely use (magic casting).

Job ability
name: Avatar's Ritual
recast: 5 min
duration: 30 min
effect: During Avatar's Ritual you can activate pacts at any time, for an additional MP cost. Does not work together with Avatar's Favor. MP cost for pre-emptive pacts will be: base pact cost * (60 - time remaining on recast)

This solves almost everything.
A) Not stuck with yet another recast on the new ability, because it is a stance.
B) The whole issue of "global timer" is removed completely, making SMN as free as all other jobs, for a price.
C) It allows us to use many of our weaker pacts to apply blind, gravity, poison for minimal costs.
D) It allows more high level pacts to be used, but not too many too fast.

Before this ability:
- Predator claws -> wait 45 seconds -> Predator claws -> wait 45 seconds -> Predator claws
After this ability:
- Predator claws -> summon fenrir -> crescent fang -> lunar cry -> summon leviathan -> Tail whip -> Spinning Dive -> summon titan...

The change is so large, that you might as well advertise it as "New job added: Conjurer" in the update notes and get 5000 new players pick up Summoner just to experience the smooth new way to play it.


Alternative, much worse version.

Job Ability
Name: Focused Mind
Recast: 10 min
Effect: Grants 5 "pact charges" for 200 MP. Each charge lets you BP before the timer is ready, but adds another 60(45) seconds to it.

This basically lets you do 5 BPs in a row for 200 MP, with the terrible effect that you'll have to wait 5 minutes instead of 1 until you can BP again.

Before:
- Predator claws -> wait 45 seconds -> Predator claws -> wait 45 seconds -> Predator claws
After:
- Predator claws -> Predator claws -> Predator claws -> Predator claws -> Predator claws -> wait 225 seconds

Basically it just allows you to spam more of the same, and sort of "zerg" monsters, but it won't make you use older pacts for utility because you've already paid a set MP and now want as much "bang for the buck" as possible.


And finally just to show what we do not want. The "this is probably what SE is thinking" idea.

Job ability
Name: Blood Sacrifice
Recast: 1 min
Effect: For 100 MP you can remove 15 seconds from your BP timer.

Before:
Predator claws -> wait 45 -> Predator claws -> wait 45 -> Predator claws
After:
Predator claws -> wait 30 -> Predator claws -> wait 45 -> Predator claws -> say "God, 100 MP for 15 seconds every second BP is not worth it. I'm going to ignore this ability the rest of my life"

That is roughly what we Summoners fear will happen, and our own opinions on the result.



PS. I'm not using mana cede at all, because 100 MP is not proportional to the damage increase.
PPS. I'm not using avatar's favor at all, because the -2/3 perpetuation and favor effects do not make up for the 25% damage penalty.
PPPS. A rank summoning magic and a "over the cap only" system has made our A-skill only matter for Elemental Siphon. The rest is gear focus only.
PPPPS. I'm not using spirits either, due to the randomness (more like favor DoTs over nukes) and the spell timer reset on assault.

I'm just crossing my fingers that your next addition to SMN will not end up useless due to too high costs for too little return.

[Crossarius]

I've been saying this since forever. Can't express how happy I am that SE at least thinks this far ahead in their designs and don't just take anything said on the forums as a good idea.



Please do. Summoner is the job that uses staffs more than any other jobs in melee situations and it makes no sense to leave them out of the weaponskill selection. Best would be if you also re-worked old WSes into generating MP, since that is 50% of the reason to use any weaponskill on clubs or staffs.



The global timer system is fundamentally flawed and needs a do-over. This can be achieved with a properly designed "stance" like Hasso. Hasso for example improves your main stuff, while weakens things you barely use (magic casting).

Job ability
name: Avatar's Ritual
recast: 5 min
duration: 30 min
effect: During Avatar's Ritual you can activate pacts at any time, for an additional MP cost. Does not work together with Avatar's Favor. MP cost for pre-emptive pacts will be: base pact cost * (60 - time remaining on recast)

This solves almost everything.
A) Not stuck with yet another recast on the new ability, because it is a stance.
B) The whole issue of "global timer" is removed completely, making SMN as free as all other jobs, for a price.
C) It allows us to use many of our weaker pacts to apply blind, gravity, poison for minimal costs.
D) It allows more high level pacts to be used, but not too many too fast.

Before this ability:
- Predator claws -> wait 45 seconds -> Predator claws -> wait 45 seconds -> Predator claws
After this ability:
- Predator claws -> summon fenrir -> crescent fang -> lunar cry -> summon leviathan -> Tail whip -> Spinning Dive -> summon titan...

The change is so large, that you might as well advertise it as "New job added: Conjurer" in the update notes and get 5000 new players pick up Summoner just to experience the smooth new way to play it.


Alternative, much worse version.

Job Ability
Name: Focused Mind
Recast: 10 min
Effect: Grants 5 "pact charges" for 200 MP. Each charge lets you BP before the timer is ready, but adds another 60(45) seconds to it.

This basically lets you do 5 BPs in a row for 200 MP, with the terrible effect that you'll have to wait 5 minutes instead of 1 until you can BP again.

Before:
- Predator claws -> wait 45 seconds -> Predator claws -> wait 45 seconds -> Predator claws
After:
- Predator claws -> Predator claws -> Predator claws -> Predator claws -> Predator claws -> wait 225 seconds

Basically it just allows you to spam more of the same, and sort of "zerg" monsters, but it won't make you use older pacts for utility because you've already paid a set MP and now want as much "bang for the buck" as possible.


And finally just to show what we do not want. The "this is probably what SE is thinking" idea.

Job ability
Name: Blood Sacrifice
Recast: 1 min
Effect: For 100 MP you can remove 15 seconds from your BP timer.

Before:
Predator claws -> wait 45 -> Predator claws -> wait 45 -> Predator claws
After:
Predator claws -> wait 30 -> Predator claws -> wait 45 -> Predator claws -> say "God, 100 MP for 15 seconds every second BP is not worth it. I'm going to ignore this ability the rest of my life"

That is roughly what we Summoners fear will happen, and our own opinions on the result.



PS. I'm not using mana cede at all, because 100 MP is not proportional to the damage increase.
PPS. I'm not using avatar's favor at all, because the -2/3 perpetuation and favor effects do not make up for the 25% damage penalty.
PPPS. A rank summoning magic and a "over the cap only" system has made our A-skill only matter for Elemental Siphon. The rest is gear focus only.
PPPPS. I'm not using spirits either, due to the randomness (more like favor DoTs over nukes) and the spell timer reset on assault.

I'm just crossing my fingers that your next addition to SMN will not end up useless due to too high costs for too little return.

This a thousand and one times! Read that SE and introduce the first Idea "Avatar's Ritual" just like that.

[Karbuncle]

I like this idea. In this case though, I would rather it be a shorter but somewhat harder quest (compared to the original).


Aww... Thats no fun!

Long interesting quests with difficult battles at the end are the cornerstone of FF! Plus i think the longest thing about the old Evoker's ring quest was the walking, outside of that it was pretty quick/simple.

[Razushu]

Aww... Thats no fun!

Long interesting quests with difficult battles at the end are the cornerstone of FF! Plus i think the longest thing about the old Evoker's ring quest was the walking, outside of that it was pretty quick/simple.

Yeah I loved doing my Evoker's Ring quest I did it with a friend, we duo'ed most of it, It's one of my fondest memories on SMN lol.

[Genoxd]

Job ability
name: Avatar's Ritual
recast: 5 min
duration: 30 min
effect: During Avatar's Ritual you can activate pacts at any time, for an additional MP cost. Does not work together with Avatar's Favor. MP cost for pre-emptive pacts will be: base pact cost * (60 - time remaining on recast)

This solves almost everything.
A) Not stuck with yet another recast on the new ability, because it is a stance.
B) The whole issue of "global timer" is removed completely, making SMN as free as all other jobs, for a price.
C) It allows us to use many of our weaker pacts to apply blind, gravity, poison for minimal costs.
D) It allows more high level pacts to be used, but not too many too fast.

Before this ability:
- Predator claws -> wait 45 seconds -> Predator claws -> wait 45 seconds -> Predator claws
After this ability:
- Predator claws -> summon fenrir -> crescent fang -> lunar cry -> summon leviathan -> Tail whip -> Spinning Dive -> summon titan...

Um.....you need to learn to do math...
You realize Base MP cost * (60- time remaining on recast) means that the longer you wait after a BP the more MP it costs.

60 - 30 = 30 that means 100 MP BP now costs 3000 MP.

60 - 10 = 50, 100 * 50 = 5000 MP....

this also means you're spending less MP if you BP right away, but sadly BP recast starts when you hit the ability and avatars take 5 or so seconds to activate it. So, if you're wearing BP recast gear that means the recast is @ 40sec

100 * (60-40) = 2000 MP...... how are you planning to that many BPs when they cost this much MP?

[Yinnyth]

By implementing different stats for each avatar, we are afraid certain avatars will be selected disproportionately frequently and the variance of avatars will be limited.

Forgive my ignorance, but doesn't that happen already? Can't remember the last time I've seen a SMN pull out carby or fenrir. Titan pretty much only comes out for defensive reasons, and in most situations where the smn is attempting to deal damage I overwhelmingly see garuda (or to a lesser extent sometimes leviathan or shiva). Diabolos has a use as SMN immitating BRD, though I doubt that's any career SMN's favored role. Where's Ifrit and Ramuh in all of this? And even more lowly than Ifrit and Ramuh are the elemental spirits which just get summoned to siphon MP out of them.

[Karbuncle]

Well, Depending on what you're fighting, Leviathan, Shiva, and Garuda are the 3 main ones.

Titan's "Geocrush" is still nothing to scoff off, its the only lv.75 Bloodpact with An Added Effect, and its stun. its really nice fully merited.

All 75 BP's are same strength, its just some default to whats generally thought to be "The best", Frankly Shiva's 75 wins in Abyssea due to beyond, but outside People chose Shiva to 5/5 because Ice is generally thought to be "best" because it has very few mobs that resist it.

Still on mobs like Ironclads, You'd use Leviathan because they're weaker to water. I think their goal is to not make 1 Avatar far better in terms of that.

I mean, Flaming Crush, Chaotic Strike and Predator claws all have the same potential, its just PC usually comes out better because im pretty sure its Slashing damage, and more often than not Slashing damage gets a boost (unless you're fighting Skeletons, in which case Flaming Crush rocks).

Anyway, I see what they're saying, And i also see it generally happens already to some extent..

[Neonii]

Aww... Thats no fun!

Long interesting quests with difficult battles at the end are the cornerstone of FF! Plus i think the longest thing about the old Evoker's ring quest was the walking, outside of that it was pretty quick/simple.

Just make it something I can solo (crosses fingers).

[Tarage]

Please please please PLEASE ignore the first one of the 3 listed here.

Please ignore Korpg. There have been lengthy discussions with him from numerous people and no one agrees with him that having an avatar auto attack a slept mob is a good thing.

I'll repeat my requests.

1. Avatars should not ever auto attack sleeping mobs.
2. Avatars should have a larger radius in which a Summoner can use the Assault command and not have the Avatar not listen.
3. If a Blood Pact is used on a mob and it dies before the Blood Pact can go off, please reset the Blood Pact timer.

That's all I ask.

[Kegsay]

Job ability
name: Avatar's Ritual
recast: 5 min
duration: 30 min
effect: During Avatar's Ritual you can activate pacts at any time, for an additional MP cost. Does not work together with Avatar's Favor. MP cost for pre-emptive pacts will be: base pact cost * (60 - time remaining on recast)

This solves almost everything.
A) Not stuck with yet another recast on the new ability, because it is a stance.
B) The whole issue of "global timer" is removed completely, making SMN as free as all other jobs, for a price.
C) It allows us to use many of our weaker pacts to apply blind, gravity, poison for minimal costs.
D) It allows more high level pacts to be used, but not too many too fast.


Agreed, this sounds excellent.

[Razushu]

Please ignore Korpg. There have been lengthy discussions with him from numerous people and no one agrees with him that having an avatar auto attack a slept mob is a good thing.

I'll repeat my requests.

1. Avatars should not ever auto attack sleeping mobs.
2. Avatars should have a larger radius in which a Summoner can use the Assault command and not have the Avatar not listen.
3. If a Blood Pact is used on a mob and it dies before the Blood Pact can go off, please reset the Blood Pact timer.

That's all I ask.

In all honesty, aside from 3. none of these have ever posed a problem to me.

1. If an Avatar is out, I'll either have it on a mob already, or I'll use it to heal the BLM.

2. Maybe they could adjust it to spell casting distance for fairness sake.

3. Can be a pain, especially in Abyssea.

[Tarage]

None of them are a huge problem, but minor fixes are far more likely to be implemented than "GIVE IS BAHAMUT".

[Pyrobunny]

i wish they would make odin better so far most dmg ive done is 750 on a glavoid makes me sad

[Sparthos]

Odin is only viable at the start of NMs anyway.

[Korpg]

Please ignore Korpg. There have been lengthy discussions with him from numerous people and no one agrees with him that having an avatar auto attack a slept mob is a good thing.

I'll repeat my requests.

1. Avatars should not ever auto attack sleeping mobs.
2. Avatars should have a larger radius in which a Summoner can use the Assault command and not have the Avatar not listen.
3. If a Blood Pact is used on a mob and it dies before the Blood Pact can go off, please reset the Blood Pact timer.

That's all I ask.

Please ignore Tarage, he thinks he knows something about SMN, but he doesn't understand the simple concept of "hate list" and how it affects avatars.

[Soundwave]

Please ignore Tarage, he thinks he knows something about SMN, but he doesn't understand the simple concept of "hate list" and how it affects avatars.

Maybe not so much simple concept but more narrow minded...no offense to him.

However I did come from a Linkshell where people were constantly yelled at because avatars where hitting slept mobs etc. So I think I missed why this would be a bad idea?

[Korpg]

Maybe not so much simple concept but more narrow minded...no offense to him.

However I did come from a Linkshell where people were constantly yelled at because avatars where hitting slept mobs etc. So I think I missed why this would be a bad idea?

If avatars just have the tendency of whacking mobs that the SMN doesn't have any hate on, then yeah, there would be a problem.

[Soundwave]

If avatars just have the tendency of whacking mobs that the SMN doesn't have any hate on, then yeah, there would be a problem.

oh ok I see your pov now, thanks:cool:

[Dallas]

If avatars just have the tendency of whacking mobs that the SMN doesn't have any hate on, then yeah, there would be a problem.

Any hate? The SMN has to be at the top of the hate list... The only SMN doing that is me, and I'm usually doing it on purpose.

Yes, the auto-attack sleeping mobs is a big lie. Only happens solo, with Shiva or Diabolos. Tarage has been using assault... lol.

[Korpg]

Any hate? The SMN has to be at the top of the hate list... The only SMN doing that is me, and I'm usually doing it on purpose.

Yes, the auto-attack sleeping mobs is a big lie. Only happens solo, with Shiva or Diabolos. Tarage has been using assault... lol.

Dallas, did you even read any of that? You have accused me of lack of reading comprehension and yet, time and time again, you prove that you yourself can't read anything at all.

[Tarage]

You both are wrong, and trolls.

Fix the problem.

[Malamasala]

Um.....you need to learn to do math...
You realize Base MP cost * (60- time remaining on recast) means that the longer you wait after a BP the more MP it costs.

60 - 30 = 30 that means 100 MP BP now costs 3000 MP.

60 - 10 = 50, 100 * 50 = 5000 MP....

this also means you're spending less MP if you BP right away, but sadly BP recast starts when you hit the ability and avatars take 5 or so seconds to activate it. So, if you're wearing BP recast gear that means the recast is @ 40sec

100 * (60-40) = 2000 MP...... how are you planning to that many BPs when they cost this much MP?

I might have lost something in my calculations there. It sounds like the formula might look more like (60 - (60 - timer))/60.

At least I think that one gives * 1 at timer = 60 sec left and * 0 when timer is 0 seconds left. I.e. double cost at max time and no additional cost at ready time.

[Dallas]

Dallas, did you even read any of that?
I don't *read* you, pretty much... ever. It's for the best. I can agree with the WAR and still send him berserking with every post, so everything is still working as planned.

Tarage, whatever you are doing with your pets that give them the freedom to attack random stuff, STOP IT. It's you, not the pet.

[Korpg]

Thank you Dallas for agreeing with me about Tarage.

[Tarage]

Trolls agreeing with trolls. Meanwhile everyone else disagrees with you. Go away.

[Razushu]

You realise you have a thread devoted to fighting with each other over this already don't you guys?


For example, we are thinking about something like, “reset the recast time by expending a set amount of MP.” As we have stated in the threads for other jobs, this is just one example.

There is a possibility of the effects being changed drastically, so please keep posting your feedback.

Please don't make it fixed cost, it's a terrible idea, unless the cost is reasonable and the delay reduction is both fixed and sizeable. A good way to do it would be a stance that would add 10% to the cost of a Bloodpact for a minus -15 second delay reduction that breaks cap.

The ability doesn't need to cost much for the sake of balance, as we'll already be spending sizable amounts of MP to activate a Blood Pact. So we would have to manage our MP already, under my example a Summoner using Predator Claws to DD would use 361MP per minute just on these. In fact making this ability free and relying on the cost of the Bloodpact alone would force us to manage our MP, seeing as no one only spams Preadator claws in a group.

An Example with my example idea:

Lets say you're DD/support in a group keeping Crimson Howl, Hastega & Ecliptic Howl/Growl up fulltime while using Rages. Thats 289MP every time you renew the cycle, lets say for argument sake this need to be done every 3 minutes(because Crimson Howl's duration is this) you will use 7 rages inside this cycle Preadator Claws, Eclispe Bite X2, Flaming Crush, then Predator Claws X3 in a 3 minute span using 1142MP. Thats a total of 1431MP expended every three minutes, which is far more than enough to "emphasize how vital the act of managing the source of their magical powers is to summoners."

[Kit_Katz]

By implementing different stats for each avatar, we are afraid certain avatars will be selected disproportionately frequently and the variance of avatars will be limited. There is a possibility of being able to alter the stats of avatars by equipping gear, but basically we would like avatars to be chosen based on their elements.


The devs clearly do not play the game right?

I like the idea of "picking an avatar based on its element" but that has long since not been the case in real play for quite literally almost all SMN. The elemental atribute of each avatar was never profound enough to merit this in the 1st place so I think what is being requested most is to make it actually worthwhile to use any avatar other than Garuda.

It may be prudent for you to inform the Devs that as it stands the most viable (Read: almost exclusively used) avatar has been Garuda for years, regardless of her wind elemental affinity. Plain and simple she dose the most DMG and does so the most consistently. This has been noted by many people and there have been remarkably well done tests regarding this issue by players. Garuda is the best and there is little sign of that changing. This is of course in the realm of physical Blood Pacts, magical Merit Blood Pacts are more comparable between avatars but due to the limit of how much you can merit each, the new found freedom between avatars is diminished to the usual standard (Garuda + Shiva, and maybs some Leviathan here and there).

So to modify the original request maybe just make them stand apart more and make them useable compared to Garuda? That of course does not mean depower Garuda to match the rest of her less desirable brethren, but to power up the others in unique ways. The "Stun" effect on Titan's Merit BP was a start, but it sadly has much too long of a charge up time to stun anything relevant, even -ga II spells, and most everything I use it on seems to resist the Stun.

Even something as simple as changing the damage type dealt between avatars would go a long way towards the Dev's ideal of a sort of "avatar based on situation" style. Very reasonable things like giving Titan more HP or Def to match his Favor and of course Garuda maybe some evasion would really help not hinder the current landscape for SMN.

So I think the issue may not be about diverging from the Ideal the Dev team sees in their head, but that the Dev team is mistaken on the actual landscape they have presented for a SMN to use. It just does not work as an avatar by situation game, it works as a "Garuda for everything that doesn't resist Physical DMG" game, then use her Merit BP & if that doesn't work oh well. It's just a misunderstanding is all :D, so just inform them of how SMN actually functions in game rather than on paper and in simple stripped down "test servers" that it may be used on at your end.

[Malamasala]

The devs clearly do not play the game right?

I could say the same about you. Their stance on not making Titan the tank, Shiva the nuker, Ifrit the physical attack etc. is very sound, since you'd probably end up just using the physical attacker for everything anyway.

If anything they need to make pacts more similar, instead of different, so that predator claws or rush do the same damage. And to support using different avatars, they should instead be elemental based at the end, with +25% damage bonus if the monster is weak to the current avatar element. Kind of like piercing, blunt and such bonuses, but magical.

[Karbuncle]

I could say the same about you. Their stance on not making Titan the tank, Shiva the nuker, Ifrit the physical attack etc. is very sound, since you'd probably end up just using the physical attacker for everything anyway.

If anything they need to make pacts more similar, instead of different, so that predator claws or rush do the same damage. And to support using different avatars, they should instead be elemental based at the end, with +25% damage bonus if the monster is weak to the current avatar element. Kind of like piercing, blunt and such bonuses, but magical.

I ............................ Agree ?!

Adding Enspells/Spikes for Avatars, as well as a "Bonus" to BP Damage if using the Element > Then the Enemy is not a bad idea (I added enspell/spikes, cause they said they were considering this)

[Korpg]

What they really need to add is the ability to absorb the elements cast on them. I mean, if easy NMs have that ability, why can't avatars? You wouldn't have Leviathan fight a mob who absorbs water magic, is super weak against thunder magic, but casts only water magic if Thunderstorm would always do more damage than Spinning Dive. More consistent damage too.

[Hayward]

I like the idea of adding En-element/Spikes as long as it is an inherent part of the avatar and not dependent on using a JA. The idea of avatars absorbing like elements (Titan absorbing Stone magic, for example) would also be great, even better if this were an aura effect for fellow party members.

I'm still a bit leery of this new ability to shorten BP timers, but Camate's description sounds like the developers are going in a reasonable direction. I'm also glad that they are looking into addressing the issue of Summoners not having access to every Staff weapon skill. There really isn't much logic to White Mages having exclusive native access to Cataclysm when Staff isn't even their best Weapon (Same issue could also apply to Hexa Strike, but that's a WHM-PLD issue).

[Soundwave]

What they really need to add is the ability to absorb the elements cast on them. I mean, if easy NMs have that ability, why can't avatars? You wouldn't have Leviathan fight a mob who absorbs water magic, is super weak against thunder magic, but casts only water magic if Thunderstorm would always do more damage than Spinning Dive. More consistent damage too.

Sounds interesting, I think they won't do it by the sound of the amount of work involved maybe?

[Korpg]

Sounds interesting, I think they won't do it by the sound of the amount of work involved maybe?

Probably not, but you never know.

[Tarage]

Reposting this here in hopes that it is seen by the development staff or their liaisons.

Let me state again the three fixes I would like to see implemented in pet AI and why I feel they are important.

1. Avatars should not auto-attack sleeping, bound, or petrified mobs. Yes, I know this is a modification on what I first said, but it's the same concept. In hectic situations it is very hard to keep off the top of the hate list, and sometimes we need to be able to have our avatars not attack things. Please do not get rid of auto-attack all together, just fix it so that it doesn't happen on sleeping, bound, and petrified mobs.

2. Please extend the radius for being able to use the assault command. No, I do not mean being able to assault from further distances away from mobs, I mean that if my avatar is 30 yalms away from me, and I tell it to attack something, I want it to attack something, not ignore my command and come to me. Having your avatar not attack a mob and at the same time having the cooldown timer not reset is very annoying and can be deadly.

3. We were very grateful when you fixed the issue where if a mob was too far away from a bloodpact, the bloodpact timer was reset. Please apply this same fix to when a mob dies before a bloodpact goes off. It's very annoying to do an attack, or even worse a ward, and have the mob die and the avatar just stand there as if nothing happened, still stuck in the 'preparing' animation. This applies to puppets, wyvern, and beastmaster pets.

I know there has been a lot of confusion surrounding the debate of these three issues, specifically the first, but there is a clear consensus that people would like this fixed. Please look into it.

And my fellow forum posters, if you like these ideas, please show your support for them. Or, if you think they can be improved, please offer improvements. Thank you.

[Razushu]

Reposting this here in hopes that it is seen by the development staff or their liaisons.

Let me state again the three fixes I would like to see implemented in pet AI and why I feel they are important.

1. Avatars should not auto-attack sleeping, bound, or petrified mobs. Yes, I know this is a modification on what I first said, but it's the same concept. In hectic situations it is very hard to keep off the top of the hate list, and sometimes we need to be able to have our avatars not attack things. Please do not get rid of auto-attack all together, just fix it so that it doesn't happen on sleeping, bound, and petrified mobs.

2. Please extend the radius for being able to use the assault command. No, I do not mean being able to assault from further distances away from mobs, I mean that if my avatar is 30 yalms away from me, and I tell it to attack something, I want it to attack something, not ignore my command and come to me. Having your avatar not attack a mob and at the same time having the cooldown timer not reset is very annoying and can be deadly.

3. We were very grateful when you fixed the issue where if a mob was too far away from a bloodpact, the bloodpact timer was reset. Please apply this same fix to when a mob dies before a bloodpact goes off. It's very annoying to do an attack, or even worse a ward, and have the mob die and the avatar just stand there as if nothing happened, still stuck in the 'preparing' animation. This applies to puppets, wyvern, and beastmaster pets.

I know there has been a lot of confusion surrounding the debate of these three issues, specifically the first, but there is a clear consensus that people would like this fixed. Please look into it.

And my fellow forum posters, if you like these ideas, please show your support for them. Or, if you think they can be improved, please offer improvements. Thank you.

OK this has been posted in two forums, we know the arguments for and against. So theres no need to continue this debate, SE will have read your requests and peoples argument against them. Aside from 3. none of these are "needed", but they would be nice, and your position has been well presented. Let's please move on with other topics before, this thread gets bogged down in cyclical debate.

I've been thinking would it be posible to give Avatars sub jobs, Like if they counted all Avatar melee attacks as H2H(I know Ramuh has a staff, but meh why not), could they make our Avatars BLM/MNK? What do others think of this, and would it be hard to implement?

[Korpg]

OK this has been posted in two forums, we know the arguments for and against. So theres no need to continue this debate, SE will have read your requests and peoples argument against them. Aside from 3. none of these are "needed", but they would be nice, and your position has been well presented. Let's please move on with other topics before, this thread gets bogged down in cyclical debate.


Actually, he has posted his "problem" in 5 different threads, in hopes of gimping SMNs everywhere.

[Malamasala]

Sounds interesting, I think they won't do it by the sound of the amount of work involved maybe?

More like work wasted, since the original avatars absorb magic, but our pets were gimped by changing the code to not absorb damage. If they returned our avatars to normal, they'd just have done double work for nothing.

Though I always wonder why they spend so much time making useless modifications. Like Nightmare had to be modded from about 25 damage per tick to 1 damage per tick, because 25 damage on a 800 HP player is fair, but 25 damage on a 4000 HP monster is "unbalanced". I mean, you could get like 200 exp per hour solo with that kind of attack!

Honestly, sometimes I wonder what kind of doomsday propaganda people are spreading over at SE's office that make them fear giving anything useful to SMN.

[Razushu]

More like work wasted, since the original avatars absorb magic, but our pets were gimped by changing the code to not absorb damage. If they returned our avatars to normal, they'd just have done double work for nothing.

Though I always wonder why they spend so much time making useless modifications. Like Nightmare had to be modded from about 25 damage per tick to 1 damage per tick, because 25 damage on a 800 HP player is fair, but 25 damage on a 4000 HP monster is "unbalanced". I mean, you could get like 200 exp per hour solo with that kind of attack!

Honestly, sometimes I wonder what kind of doomsday propaganda people are spreading over at SE's office that make them fear giving anything useful to SMN.

Hopefully they've realised boosting Summoner won't unbalance the game already, they seem to be treating us much better in the last few months. I'm optimistic that there's a buff to Ward potency coming soon(ish), and Nightmare will be included. SE seems to have figured out SMN was in a very bad way, and have started fixing us. I hope they've finally understood our Ward buffs are considered useless unless they grant an at least similar effect to BRD and COR buffs, fixing the duration problem was a great start.

[Tarage]

See how he keeps following me? And it isn't a matter of "sides both for and against", it's a matter of "sides for or partially for and one against".

[Soundwave]

I think a lot more than just him follow this thread alone;)

Though your ideas are posted in many threads, I'm sure SE has read your post in one of the five threads, they don't respond to everybody...

[Korpg]

Hopefully they've realised boosting Summoner won't unbalance the game already, they seem to be treating us much better in the last few months. I'm optimistic that there's a buff to Ward potency coming soon(ish), and Nightmare will be included. SE seems to have figured out SMN was in a very bad way, and have started fixing us. I hope they've finally understood our Ward buffs are considered useless unless they grant an at least similar effect to BRD and COR buffs, fixing the duration problem was a great start.

I think they are going to improve the buffs to better standards since both Bard and Corsair has better buffs than us. Maybe improve the haste % from Hastaga or increase the stats/debuffs from almost all of Fenrir's BPs

[Espionis]

Well after playing summoner 6 years ago, then quitting, i finally started back playing again. upon my return I had to start fresh, while remember old gameplay and learning about all the new things added. And i have recently reached 90 smn and come to notice something in abyssea. Summoner is not able to Proc colors for NMs in abyssea thru avatar blood pacts, and i think allowing this would add to summoner's usefulness in abyssea groups. If possible to allow avatar Blood Pacts to proc the colors necesary for NMs or even allow the right lights needed in abyssea areas. I feel the Blood Pacts should function on same par as Spells from lets say a BLM or a WS from a Melee for abyssea battles.

[Razushu]

Well after playing summoner 6 years ago, then quitting, i finally started back playing again. upon my return I had to start fresh, while remember old gameplay and learning about all the new things added. And i have recently reached 90 smn and come to notice something in abyssea. Summoner is not able to Proc colors for NMs in abyssea thru avatar blood pacts, and i think allowing this would add to summoner's usefulness in abyssea groups. If possible to allow avatar Blood Pacts to proc the colors necesary for NMs or even allow the right lights needed in abyssea areas. I feel the Blood Pacts should function on same par as Spells from lets say a BLM or a WS from a Melee for abyssea battles.

While it would be nice to get some procs on SMN, it's not that big an issue. If I feel like seal farming on SMN, I'll either solo(if I'm bored with an afternoon to waste:D), or organize a run myself and /sh for a NIN, a BLM and a WHM.

[Malamasala]

I think they are going to improve the buffs to better standards since both Bard and Corsair has better buffs than us. Maybe improve the haste % from Hastaga or increase the stats/debuffs from almost all of Fenrir's BPs

I've already given up on them long ago. I just keep saying they should be fixed because they should, not because I think they will be.

Still highly annoyed at how SE had gotten letters from me over years and then they add Corsair, sees nobody uses it for support in 2 months, and just buff the potency of all rolls...

2 months of being unpopular and they got a buff. SMN at the time being at 4 years, and got nothing. I honestly believe a Summoner killed the CEO's wife or something. I've never seen anything being treated worse than SMN. (But admittedly I've not seen starving children in africa or jews at concentration camps)

[Korpg]

I've already given up on them long ago. I just keep saying they should be fixed because they should, not because I think they will be.

Still highly annoyed at how SE had gotten letters from me over years and then they add Corsair, sees nobody uses it for support in 2 months, and just buff the potency of all rolls...

2 months of being unpopular and they got a buff. SMN at the time being at 4 years, and got nothing. I honestly believe a Summoner killed the CEO's wife or something. I've never seen anything being treated worse than SMN. (But admittedly I've not seen starving children in africa or jews at concentration camps)

Stop being so negative. SMN has been forgotten before, but not now. SMN's roll has been a lot different than what you want, but that doesn't mean that everyone plays the same as you, or have the same opinions as you.

I think SMN is fine as it is, and improvements are just that, improvements.

[Camate]

We got a chance to speak to the main summoner himself on the topic of Blood Pacts.

• MP Consumption

The MP cost for Blood Pact: Ward abilities are set rather high because the effects they grant are AoE; however, they are designed to elicit a higher level of benefit when used to support a party.

• Effect duration

As we’re sure you’re aware, depending on the level of your summoning skill, various enhancement bonuses are added to your Blood Pacts. These bonuses make it so ultimately you will see a very noticeable difference in effect duration when compared to other magic spells and abilities. If your skill isn’t fully leveled and you feel that the duration is too short, we recommend raising it up as you will experience quite a significant increase. With the upcoming level cap increase we will be extending the effect duration even further.

• Effect

In regards to magic/abilities that elicit a similar effect to Blood Pacts, we believe that Blood Pacts have significantly high stats, effect duration included. However, with the level cap increase from 75 to 90, these stats have increased further and we would like to look into adjusting the areas where the balance is off. Please continue let us know your feedback especially for the Blood Pacts you feel need adjustments.

[Alhanelem]

The effects of the blood pacts themselves are less of a problem compared to the blood pact timers. No other job is as heavily restricted by a recast timer as summoner. In today's metagame, even the minimum blood pact recast is like an eternity. It wasn't quite as bad at 75 (though still a problem), but as the levels have increased, the problem has grown more severe.

A few Ward issues though:
Ifrit's Crimson Howl (Warcry) is the shortest buff in the SMN arsenal, and considering its effect isn't that potent, its duration should either be increased significantly, or/and be its own distinct status effect and allow it to stack with Warrior's Warcry effect.

Titan's Earthen Ward: Inferior to Stoneskin, so no one wants you to use it. If a white mage is present, this also often prevents the stoneskin benefit from Cure from taking place.

[Panthera]

We got a chance to speak to the main summoner himself on the topic of Blood Pacts.

If your skill isn’t fully leveled and you feel that the duration is too short, we recommend raising it up as you will experience quite a significant increase. With the upcoming level cap increase we will be extending the effect duration even further.

That's fair, but raising Summoning Magic Skill is no easy task. Other jobs can spam away very quickly, sometimes on a mob that's safely sleeping. Combat skills like Hand-to-Hand or Katana level quickly because the player can attack twice on one round, and either can get skillups. Summoner cannot do this, as Blood Pact has a lengthy timer that cannot be circumvented. Standing around Summoning and Releasing for hours on end is just not the height of stimulating game-play. Can this be made easier and faster?


Please continue let us know your feedback especially for the Blood Pacts you feel need adjustments.

Ifrit's Crimson Howl could use a boost. Summoner is just not my go-to job for buffing a party, other than certain obvious moves. Crimson Howl should be a substantial Attack bonus like Minuet or Chaos Roll.

Fenrir's Ecliptic Howl could use a boost as well. This move should be like Madrigal or Hunter's Roll. The problem with the move is that the minimum values are too low to be useful. I'm fine with it being tied to moon phase... but during Full and New Moon, the bonuses should be huge.

Could the speed of Hastega be tied to summoning magic skill? I'm going to bet that Red Mage is gonna get Haste II sooner or later, and it would be nice if Summoner could keep up.

[Soundwave]

We got a chance to speak to the main summoner himself on the topic of Blood Pacts.

• MP Consumption

The MP cost for Blood Pact: Ward abilities are set rather high because the effects they grant are AoE; however, they are designed to elicit a higher level of benefit when used to support a party.

• Effect duration

As we’re sure you’re aware, depending on the level of your summoning skill, various enhancement bonuses are added to your Blood Pacts. These bonuses make it so ultimately you will see a very noticeable difference in effect duration when compared to other magic spells and abilities. If your skill isn’t fully leveled and you feel that the duration is too short, we recommend raising it up as you will experience quite a significant increase. With the upcoming level cap increase we will be extending the effect duration even further.

• Effect

In regards to magic/abilities that elicit a similar effect to Blood Pacts, we believe that Blood Pacts have significantly high stats, effect duration included. However, with the level cap increase from 75 to 90, these stats have increased further and we would like to look into adjusting the areas where the balance is off. Please continue let us know your feedback especially for the Blood Pacts you feel need adjustments.

• MP Consumption

I never saw a issue with MP, I believe this weighs a bigger scale from the summoners play style, I find that summoners in a support party only try to use Rage pacts as well and then they complain that they are running low on mp. Just because we are versatile does not mean we can split both ends unless we have the MP support from Refresh etc. to back that up.

• Effect duration/• Effect

Being a veteran summoner/HNMLS/been playing since release date. Its obvious summoning skill is hard to level even after new skill raise adjustment. I'm confident that many summoner's on here are very close to cap for level 90 or are already at the cap, I would believe that many of the complaints are legitimate due to effect duration being so low....

-Warcry: Extend the duration or make it scale correctly with a warriors warcry job ability.
-Glittering Ruby: Allow the summoner to chose which attribute to increase based off of type of party you are in possible?
-Noctoshield: Please increase duration/%damage taken off.

• Other

New JA that allows the summoner to change the moon phase/time of day for themselves only....for Fenrir/Diabolos to avoid being so random, to give better incentive for support.
(Or allow the JA to give maximum effect.)

And last...

Allow a system message to be displayed when an Avatar effect on the mob has worn off. Its a pain guessing when the effect wears off, when you try to re-apply it and just waste MP(Well....wasting BP timer is more like it.) to see the effect resist you. I understand this is because the effect is from the avatar and not from the player it does not say this...however this should be considered. Much like the system message when a player triggers a ! his/her name is displayed.

[Airget]

The effects of the blood pacts themselves are less of a problem compared to the blood pact timers. No other job is as heavily restricted by a recast timer as summoner. In today's metagame, even the minimum blood pact recast is like an eternity. It wasn't quite as bad at 75 (though still a problem), but as the levels have increased, the problem has grown more severe.

A few Ward issues though:
Ifrit's Crimson Howl (Warcry) is the shortest buff in the SMN arsenal, and considering its effect isn't that potent, its duration should either be increased significantly, or/and be its own distinct status effect and allow it to stack with Warrior's Warcry effect.

Titan's Earthen Ward: Inferior to Stoneskin, so no one wants you to use it. If a white mage is present, this also often prevents the stoneskin benefit from Cure from taking place.

I think I see what you're getting at, where perhaps instead of a static 1min recast for each BP used perhaps they could consider the recast be based on the BP used rather then always make it a 1min recast. Perhaps warcry could be 30 secs with stoneskin being 45 secs or something to that effect. But of course BP- gear would still effect those timers so if you had -15 BP gear those two would be 15 and 30 second recast on wards.

As for BP Rage though I think those should remain as a static 1min recast since they are basically 1min TP moves in essence, so in that case I think the only thing that should effect that timer would be the -BP gear. Though for BP Ward I think SMN would see some benefits if they give unique timers based on each enhancement used.

[Nala]

im not really a summoner myself but this is one idea ive always had on the skilling up issues, in addition to gaining skill from pacts and the action of summoning why cant SMN gain magic skill while thier pet melees? i could be wrong but that might help a bit perhaps? sorry if the idea itself isn't as appealing to actual smn's >.<

[Mightyg]

I think perhaps the avatars spells like shiva's blizzard IV could be put on another blood pact job ability as well. This would give the summoner one additional, but limited damage option. Assuming they add tier V spells to the avatars, I think a 1 min cooldown "Blood Pact: Invocation" would go a long way in having summoners keep up with their mage counterparts.

[Kraggy]

If your skill isn’t fully leveled and you feel that the duration is too short, we recommend raising it up as you will experience quite a significant increase.
How about providing a VIABLE way to raise SMN skill while actually PLAYING the game, rather than sitting outside Al Zahbi/Port Jeuno/nameyourMHofchoice and using a bot to summon/rest while you're AFK at work/school/whatever?

Seriously, leveling SMN skill is a joke and a PITA at the same time.

[Crossarius]

What annoys me the most when thinking about SMN Skill is the fact, that SMN is the only Job that becomes weakened everytime it levels up.
With bonus effects coming from skill OVER the cap, with every new lvl you gain, you lose your bonus as you now have less skill over the cap until you cap it again.
This design just doesn't make sense and I think it was the more lazy solution to make the skill more useful in any way.

Can't we just have fixed potency tiered to actual skill lvls rather than skill over the cap? So having much additional skill results in higher potency but lvling up doesn't weaken any of your buffs. 19 other Jobs have it that way.

Though I like that they are looking into buffs that don't seem balanced anymore.
Titan's Stoneskin should be tiered to smn skill not block an always fixed amount.
BLU got the emptyness SPell that gives 7-8 Blink Shadows. Why not improve on Garuda's Aerial Armor and make it superior to the single self-target Spell and give it more blink shadows too?

Also I agree with Soundwave that BP:wards that depend on day/moon phases are too weak even with full bonus from the moon/day. Hitting a 11 on a COR Roll is much easier (albeit semi-random) and gives much better buffs than hitting the most potent moon/day phase which is not as easy and you have not way to control that.

[Kenthedeviant]

We got a chance to speak to the main summoner himself on the topic of Blood Pacts.

• Effect

In regards to magic/abilities that elicit a similar effect to Blood Pacts, we believe that Blood Pacts have significantly high stats, effect duration included. However, with the level cap increase from 75 to 90, these stats have increased further and we would like to look into adjusting the areas where the balance is off. Please continue let us know your feedback especially for the Blood Pacts you feel need adjustments.

Again, this is a very cryptic statement, but are you implying that some blood pacts are now TOO powerful and need to be lowered? If so, I'd like to say that this is INSANITY because of the fact that virtually any DD can COMPLETELY outdamage us in a matter of seconds due to crippling recast timers on our blood pacts. Even with IDEAL atmas that allow us to deal ONE bp with impressive dmg, a BLM can cast two spells of different element in a row without pause for twice the damage our BP did, while we're waiting 60 second for our timer to even be ready again. Now, I'm not saying that we should nerf BLM (or any other DD for that matter) but the reality is that no matter how "powerful" a BP has become, it simply is not even in the same LEAGUE as other DD jobs witht he proper atma equipped because of long recast timers, so lowering their effect would be RIDICULOUS. Anyway, I realize that SE is planning to give us the new job ability to spend MP to lower recast timers "once" per use at the cost of MP, but I'm assuming that this will probably be a 5-10 minute recast timer itself, meaning that we get ONE extra BP every 5-10min (assuming MP permits this as well). Well, on a 10min timer, and a 60 sec BP timer, this means only a 10% increase in BP use. A 10% increase in BP use means only 10% more dmg overall, which still doesnt even get us CLOSE to being in the same league as other DD's, making this new job ability relatively useless, and this is STILL considering we have the MP to allow constant use of this ability.

[Razushu]

We got a chance to speak to the main summoner himself on the topic of Blood Pacts.

• MP Consumption

The MP cost for Blood Pact: Ward abilities are set rather high because the effects they grant are AoE; however, they are designed to elicit a higher level of benefit when used to support a party.

COR and BRD's buffs are free, AoE too, and stronger to boot.


• Effect duration

As we’re sure you’re aware, depending on the level of your summoning skill, various enhancement bonuses are added to your Blood Pacts. These bonuses make it so ultimately you will see a very noticeable difference in effect duration when compared to other magic spells and abilities. If your skill isn’t fully leveled and you feel that the duration is too short, we recommend raising it up as you will experience quite a significant increase. With the upcoming level cap increase we will be extending the effect duration even further.

Could we get some kind of uniformity in duration, buffs last 3~5 minutes, after the skill bonus is applied which can make it a pain to keep a cycle up.


• Effect

In regards to magic/abilities that elicit a similar effect to Blood Pacts, we believe that Blood Pacts have significantly high stats, effect duration included. However, with the level cap increase from 75 to 90, these stats have increased further and we would like to look into adjusting the areas where the balance is off. Please continue let us know your feedback especially for the Blood Pacts you feel need adjustments.

Our buffs can last only nearly as long as BRD and COR buffs, cost us MP and are much weaker in most cases. Some of our Wards need to be scaled up according to level(Noctoshield, Frost Armor, Earthen Ward etc.), they see less use in parties because of this.

[Raksha]

Again, this is a very cryptic statement, but are you implying that some blood pacts are now TOO powerful and need to be lowered? If so, I'd like to say that this is INSANITY because of the fact that virtually any DD can COMPLETELY outdamage us in a matter of seconds due to crippling recast timers on our blood pacts. Even with IDEAL atmas that allow us to deal ONE bp with impressive dmg, a BLM can cast two spells of different element in a row without pause for twice the damage our BP did, while we're waiting 60 second for our timer to even be ready again. Now, I'm not saying that we should nerf BLM (or any other DD for that matter) but the reality is that no matter how "powerful" a BP has become, it simply is not even in the same LEAGUE as other DD jobs witht he proper atma equipped because of long recast timers, so lowering their effect would be RIDICULOUS. Anyway, I realize that SE is planning to give us the new job ability to spend MP to lower recast timers "once" per use at the cost of MP, but I'm assuming that this will probably be a 5-10 minute recast timer itself, meaning that we get ONE extra BP every 5-10min (assuming MP permits this as well). Well, on a 10min timer, and a 60 sec BP timer, this means only a 10% increase in BP use. A 10% increase in BP use means only 10% more dmg overall, which still doesnt even get us CLOSE to being in the same league as other DD's, making this new job ability relatively useless, and this is STILL considering we have the MP to allow constant use of this ability.


No they are saying that magic/abilities that do the same things as blood pacts are overpowered, so they are looking at adjusting the bloodpacts. That's how I read it, but I agree it isnt worded well.

[Malamasala]

The MP cost for Blood Pact: Ward abilities are set rather high because the effects they grant are AoE; however, they are designed to elicit a higher level of benefit when used to support a party.

It seems to me that the developer is slightly out of touch with reality. He seem to consider Wards a "Summoner buff" that is expensive when used solo, but cheap when used in a party. Pretty much like we have stoneskin as a spell, but on a third party character. Following this logic he thinks Summoners should pay MP for wards. After all WHM and BLM and RDM and all pay for their spells.

However, the player base look at these things as support abilities, not spells. We think of it as a Bards song, or a Corsairs roll, and feel unfairly treated when they get them free and we have to pay MP.

The solution to this is either:
A) Put wards on the summoner himself, not on the avatars. This will make us accept them as spells, and accept MP costs.
B) Keep wards on avatars, reduce costs to match that of a BRD or COR using support abilities.


In regards to magic/abilities that elicit a similar effect to Blood Pacts, we believe that Blood Pacts have significantly high stats, effect duration included. However, with the level cap increase from 75 to 90, these stats have increased further and we would like to look into adjusting the areas where the balance is off. Please continue let us know your feedback especially for the Blood Pacts you feel need adjustments.

I'd like to point out that the reason avatars are stronger than other jobs, is because we don't get any armors or songs or rolls to enhance them. While it is true my avatar deals like 800 damage naked, and a WAR would never match it, you have to be aware that they just get super buffed and end up doing 500% the damage of an avatar in the end.

The following pacts need a boost though:

Lunar Cry: Can't have buffs depend on moon phase. While "clever" it simply means you have abilities that are useless for hours if not days in real life. Just imagine yourself that your WAR can't do fell cleave because today is Thursday, but come Friday he can use it again.

Lunar Roar: Needs bigger range (you can hardly hit 2 monsters back to back).

Ecliptic Growl: Same as Lunar Cry.

Ecliptic Howl: Same as Lunar Cry.

Crimson Howl: 8% attack for 30 seconds is too weak/short. Try 10% for 15 min or 25% for 1 min.

Flaming Crush: Deals less damage than all other avatars, unless the monster has zero fire resistance.

Rock Buster: Binds target... on a melee ability... completely useless. Swap it around to slow or something and put Bind on one of the ranged attacks.

Earthen Armor: Make it say when it reduces damage. Some !! message like "resist!! monster X's attack was absorbed partly by Y's Earthen Armor"

Slowga: Pointless pact. It would be better to replace this with another name and have it deal AOE damage + slow.

Tidal Roar: Almost perfect, but since it isn't called "Attack down" it might as well do some additional damage.

Aerial Armor: Make it 3 Ninjutsu shadows instead of white magic shadows. This would allow it to help people subbing NIN and also give guaranteed instead of 50% evasion.

Frost Armor: Damage should raise with level. At 95 these should do at least 50 damage.

Sleepga: This should have sleep II priority since it lasts so long. In other words, it should overwrite lullaby and sleep. Range needs to be longer, since 5 distance is terrible compared to BLMs 20 distance. (Range on pact, not range of AOE effect). Should also be ICE based, and the single ice based sleep spell in the game.

Rush: Should be slightly stronger. It is silly that hitting all 5 slaps only results in same damage as a Titan hitting once.

Shock Strike: Should have no ready animation. Just instant stun attack.

Rolling Thunder: Should scale with level. About Ifrit's enfire damage at Ifrit's enfire ward level.

Lightning Armor: Should stun 1 second and do scaled damage. 50ish around level 90-95.

Nightmare: Should have a 25 HP DoT effect, but attacks should wake a sleeping monster.

Noctoshield: Needs to scale with level. At 90 it should be at least -30 damage taken, and I say at least.

DreamShroud: Not based on time of day. While again it is really clever and witty, it is as bad as saying a COR can only roll 11 at midnight. It just doesn't work.

Night Terror: x2 damage multiplier on slept enemies.

Further most jobs would benefit from some Thunderspark like abilities to deal damage in AOE and debuffs. I already suggested some for Levi from his old wards.

And I think that is the "only" adjustments needed to pacts. Hardly any at all, is it?

[Vagrua]

I'm not sure if this was thrown out the window, but I remember reading about an idea of all blood pacts having their own separate timers being scaled down from low level bps having lower recast timers than higher ones. This or something similar to the charge system that BST has with Ready commands sounds nice to me.

As for summoning magic skill up, I remember reading somewhere that they were gonna make it easier to skill up in the coming updates. My memory could be off though. x_x

[Razushu]

I'm not sure if this was thrown out the window, but I remember reading about an idea of all blood pacts having their own separate timers being scaled down from low level bps having lower recast timers than higher ones. This or something similar to the charge system that BST has with Ready commands sounds nice to me.

As for summoning magic skill up, I remember reading somewhere that they were gonna make it easier to skill up in the coming updates. My memory could be off though. x_x

Was it something similar to my idea? I posted this in the Summoner forums.


Fix Blood Pact delay system

The current BP delay system is crippling SMN, we rely completely on 2 recasts for everything which is unique to the class.

A great way to help fix SMN would be to give us a BP delay system broken up by level as well as rage/ward. In most cases Avatar's get 1 ward and 1 rage in a 10 level range i.e. level 20-29. some of these are still nice at level 75+ but are useless because of shared time with other pacts. Seperated timer's could be applied to each of these(still global across avatars though) to these with lower level pact's having shorter recast Possibly like so:

Pacts gained lower than lvl10 recast 10 seconds

Pacts gained at 10-19 recast 20 seconds

Pacts gained at 20-29 recast 20 seconds

Pacts gained at 30-39 recast 30 seconds

Pacts gained at 40-49 recast 40 seconds

Pacts gained at 50-59 recast 50 seconds

Pacts gained at 60-69 recast 60 seconds

Pacts gained at 70-79 recast 60 seconds

Pacts gained at 80-89 recast 70 seconds

Pacts gained at 90-99 recast 80 seconds

BP delay could be reworked like so: minimum recast=tier cost x.75(rounded up where applicable)

ex. a rage gained at level 23(burning strike) would have a max reduction of -5 secs.

This would enable us to get use out of some of our lower pacts without sacrificing our high level pacts while preventing us from spamming them.

I think they did I got for 80-90 skillcap fairly easily, it definitely wasn't the soul shatering experience capping skill at 75 was, but then again I went from lvl85-90 fighting various NMs in Abyssea so that may have contributed to my ease.

[Orson]

im not really a summoner myself but this is one idea ive always had on the skilling up issues, in addition to gaining skill from pacts and the action of summoning why cant SMN gain magic skill while thier pet melees? i could be wrong but that might help a bit perhaps? sorry if the idea itself isn't as appealing to actual smn's >.<

This makes a lot of sense to me. Avatar melee attacks and BPs should give skill ups.

[Malamasala]

Personally I got to 90 from 85 and gained about 3 skill. Then it was simply a few skill now and then over the months and about 3-4 months later it was capped through normal use. It just sucks that those 3-4 months you are "weakened" due to skill only counting over cap, not total count.

My staff is still uncapped though, and I usually only get some 0.5 per night I do some engaging. Think I'm like 7 off cap.

[Soundwave]

This makes a lot of sense to me. Avatar melee attacks and BPs should give skill ups.

Avatar BP's give skill up as well now. I would like to see melee attack give skill ups but because its called "summoning magic" I don't think they will go that way with it....would be nice.....

I can't find update notes to the update for smn when we got skill per BP can anybody find?

[Razushu]

Personally I got to 90 from 85 and gained about 3 skill. Then it was simply a few skill now and then over the months and about 3-4 months later it was capped through normal use. It just sucks that those 3-4 months you are "weakened" due to skill only counting over cap, not total count.

My staff is still uncapped though, and I usually only get some 0.5 per night I do some engaging. Think I'm like 7 off cap.

How did you level from 85-90? If you don't mind me asking, because I capped it fairly easily took about a month of my usual play time(2-3hrs a night) to cap my skills 85-90.

[Malamasala]

Don't remember the details. Quick running out to new Abyssea zones I think, killing pots in Grauberg for uhm, I actually don't know why we did it, but that is what we did. Got to about 88 before I went to bed I think. Then something similar the following day up to 90. Basically just melee the pots with my SMN and staff while clicking off Mountain Busters I believe.

Then the skills came in now and then during +2 upgrade item farming and such. But you know the drill. Trigger first, then kill fast, and during kill fast you get off like 3 BPs at most.

One could assume my skill would go slightly faster if I spammed wards, but I tend to not use them when not needed.


Avatar BP's give skill up as well now. I would like to see melee attack give skill ups but because its called "summoning magic" I don't think they will go that way with it....would be nice.....

I think it would make sense if you got sporadic skill ups while under avatar's favor though. Since you constantly use your skill to enhance the aura effect. Best part would be parking outside Jeuno and getting free skillups all night.

[Dallas]

Hmmm. Same schooling, different year. SMN was designed for groups. Perhaps you guys shouldn't focus on skillups and let SE know why no one wants you in a group...

The moment you are invited is the moment you start getting skillups.

[Korpg]

Personally I got to 90 from 85 and gained about 3 skill. Then it was simply a few skill now and then over the months and about 3-4 months later it was capped through normal use. It just sucks that those 3-4 months you are "weakened" due to skill only counting over cap, not total count.

My staff is still uncapped though, and I usually only get some 0.5 per night I do some engaging. Think I'm like 7 off cap.

My SMN magic skill took about a week to do, it is amazing how much skillups you gain from soloing T mobs and NMs.

My staff skill is capped also, mainly because of WAR though. Blunt procs really help with the skillups. Can get about 1~2 skill just from finding blunt and red at the same time.

[Korpg]

Hmmm. Same schooling, different year. SMN was designed for groups. Perhaps you guys shouldn't focus on skillups and let SE know why no one wants you in a group...

The moment you are invited is the moment you start getting skillups.

Let us know when you get invited to one.

[Dallas]

Don't involve yourself with SMN business, K. SMN skill and buffs are not related to war or DG.

[Razushu]

Guys please we finally have a thread SE is definitely listening to. Try not to derail with pointless bickering. For the sake of Summoners everywhere, take it somewhere else.

[Dallas]

SE is welcome to ignore
anything I say to K. It rarely involves Smn.

[Razushu]

SE is welcome to ignore anything I say to K. It rarely involves Smn.

Maybe they will maybe they won't but can't you try to say it to him in a different thread, if the reps start having to wade through a flame war they'll stop bothering to read the real suggestions here.

[Dallas]

Believe me, if I could convince him to seek acceptance from other WAR, you'd be levelling staff, raz.

[Korpg]

Dallas, we had a good thread going until you came here, then, BAM, you screw everything up.

[Pyrobunny]

my staff needs work but my summoning magic is capped i soloed it all the way to 75 back in the day so i never had a problem with it not at cap.

a good way to skill up at 90 is use the ducal guard, mounted champ, and MM atma and go fight IC's
other smn solo friendly NM's are great for skill ups also but IC's are the best

on another note SE please give smn all the staff ws or make wands that are as good as the trial staves.

[Razushu]

Believe me, if I could convince him to seek acceptance from other WAR, you'd be levelling staff, raz.

Trying to derail the one Summoner thread SE is noticeably paying attention to? WTH man, you've honestly just convinced me you don't have SMN leveled, this thread is our current best shot at voicing our problems/fears and requests for Summoner. You must either hate SMN or are just afraid that if they actually fix this jobit will make your playstyle look even weaker than it does when compared to real DDs.

Please, I'm asking nicely. If you want to troll, flame, push your agenda take it to a different thread you'll be just as heard in the general job adjustments thread without doing any damage to Summoner.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

This is pretty similar to Avatar’s Favor. What about adding this effect through merit points?Unless the effect can go over 100 points, it wont be worth the merits. It would be better off being bart of avatar's favor and an effect based on skill level.

[Dallas]

Raz, best shot at being heard? Seriously, do you know anything about Mala? If there is anything wrong with SMN, Mala has said it more times than you have posts. SE has heard all complaints a thousand times, in at least 2 different languages, on a dozen forums, at a dozen conventions, in countless interviews, and likely in every "job update" board meeting.

SE has also told us many times that we are a GROUP JOB. By design, our wards are expensive. By design, we were allowed to buff NPCs in Campaign. We asked for better AOE ranges, they didn't flinch at giving it to us.

I disagree with Mala. Some things, like spirits, were never meant for a competent end-game SMN to continue using. What we do have is powerful, for a hybrid job. We are an moderate DD, moderate buffer, moderate healer, all wrapped up in one. We are designed to have a limited 3-part role in a party.

Most SMN take the job halfway. Presumably you aren't the healer, so lets say you are buffing 4 other DD (the most you can hope to buff as SMN). If you and your pet attacked as well, you'd be buffing 6 DD, not 4. 50% more buffing potential, twice the damage. Not good enough? Assault generates pettp, which can be used for AOE cures. Garuda caps at 507HP on an off day, 248, I believe, is at 0 pettp. /SCH can buff that as well. 50% more buffing, double damage, double healing. Not good enough? Get to this level, then we'll talk.

SE isn't going to find a band-aid to fix SMN. It's not broken, it's slow. It's not even that slow...

And to answer my own question: Why do SMN not get invited to groups? Because every other job gets a steady supply of gear that improves damage/buffs/cures. SMN gets a steady supply of gear that improves MP sustainment. MP doesn't actually *do* anything. It doesn't cure faster. It doesn't kill faster. Put it on a slow job, on a player who would rather use the subjob, and you have a subpar subjob, not a SMN. There's no benefit to inviting a /WHM. In short, players failed SMN.

I know you want to control the content that SE reads. Maybe somehow you think if SE doesn't see melee, they won't know about melee. Too late. They won't be uninventing Myrkr, and it won't magically get harder to obtain. Those complaints about Spirit Taker that led to Myrkr? That was probably Mala or me, and we would have submitted those changes 4-5 years ago.

You should get used to the idea that SE has had a plan in place for years. You are allowed to offer opinions, but it's very possible you are too late to make any difference. Stop worrying about what I have to say and how SE might react. I told SE long before you even knew about me.

[Razushu]

Raz, best shot at being heard? Seriously, do you know anything about Mala? If there is anything wrong with SMN, Mala has said it more times than you have posts. SE has heard all complaints a thousand times, in at least 2 different languages, on a dozen forums, at a dozen conventions, in countless interviews, and likely in every "job update" board meeting.

No offense meant to Mala, but they tends to do it in a very negative, or aggressive way, I'm not saying I can't see why just that if I had to read threads all day in work I'd skim these kinds at best. They are very, very vocal when it comes to criticising SE, and it's employees, again likely to get skimmed. Mala also asks for things SE clearly has not intention of changing/feels works as well as it should, and asks as if they feel these are desperately needed fixes. So far this thread has been well thought out and on topic(Mala's posts included), which fyi is the future of SMN, in line with SE's vision(as SE are more likely to listen to these types of requests/Qs)


SE has also told us many times that we are a GROUP JOB. By design, our wards are expensive. By design, we were allowed to buff NPCs in Campaign. We asked for better AOE ranges, they didn't flinch at giving it to us.

They have started to enhance our buffs, the duration boost was a GREAT start.



I disagree with Mala. Some things, like spirits, were never meant for a competent end-game SMN to continue using. What we do have is powerful, for a hybrid job. We are an moderate DD, moderate buffer, moderate healer, all wrapped up in one. We are designed to have a limited 3-part role in a party.

I completely agree with you here, they've given us a boost to our buffing, and our healing is still fine Avatar + subjob we make a fine support healer. The only thing still suffering is our DD, and the upcoming update should hopefully fix this.


Most SMN take the job halfway. Presumably you aren't the healer, so lets say you are buffing 4 other DD (the most you can hope to buff as SMN). If you and your pet attacked as well, you'd be buffing 6 DD, not 4. 50% more buffing potential, twice the damage. Not good enough? Assault generates pettp, which can be used for AOE cures. Garuda caps at 507HP on an off day, 248, I believe, is at 0 pettp. /SCH can buff that as well. 50% more buffing, double damage, double healing. Not good enough? Get to this level, then we'll talk.

I almost thought you were going to make a post without the added completely baseless arrogance, almost.

I've buffed 5 DD before, /WHM I can still keep a party alive outside Abyssea on my own. The pet will be attacking anyway, and will only recieve it's own buffs. That math only works if you and your Avatar are each doing the same as a WAR, a SMN does 1/4 of the damage of a WAR(when recieving the same buffs), so avatar aside a SMN meleeing along the 4 WARs is only adding 1/16th to the total damage party. Carby gives a better AoE cure 388HP baseline, relying on Garuda's TP to give decent cures is ok if they're once off, but if you need those cures on a regular basis it's not always going to be at 300%TP. /SCH is great if you know cures are going to be covered, and -nas will be heavily needed or are in a mage party. Not to brag but as a SMN/WHM I can deal nice spike damage, buff and main heal a party(outside Abyssea) indefinitely, no resting, so I can safely say I'm playing at a high level already.



SE isn't going to find a band-aid to fix SMN. It's not broken, it's slow. It's not even that slow...

We're a spike damage dealer that is hampered by a 45second timer, fix the timer fix the damage.


And to answer my own question: Why do SMN not get invited to groups? Because every other job gets a steady supply of gear that improves damage/buffs/cures. SMN gets a steady supply of gear that improves MP sustainment. MP doesn't actually *do* anything. It doesn't cure faster. It doesn't kill faster. Put it on a slow job, on a player who would rather use the subjob, and you have a subpar subjob, not a SMN. There's no benefit to inviting a /WHM. In short, players failed SMN.

My SMN is always accepted to parties, only thing I'm regularly left out of is seal parties. We get BP delay -, enhances avatar : atk & acc, pet :MAB, summoning magic skill +, and gear that enhances various traits& abilities. These alll enhance our damage/cures/buffs, these help us buff better, cure more, cure faster & killer faster. No SMN is relying on /WHM, we use /XXX to enhance our usefullness and expand our role in a party not replace it. If a SMN goes to a group as just a /WHM they fail as a player just as much as a SMN going just a /SAM to a party.



I know you want to control the content that SE reads. Maybe somehow you think if SE doesn't see melee, they won't know about melee. Too late. They won't be uninventing Myrkr, and it won't magically get harder to obtain. Those complaints about Spirit Taker that led to Myrkr? That was probably Mala or me, and we would have submitted those changes 4-5 years ago.

I'm not trying to control what SE read I just want a thread they'll actually read(been pretty successful so far), I know SE knows about melee mages, they're the ones who added the gear that lets you do it.



You should get used to the idea that SE has had a plan in place for years. You are allowed to offer opinions, but it's very possible you are too late to make any difference. Stop worrying about what I have to say and how SE might react. I told SE long before you even knew about me.

I'm well aware SE has a plan already for SMN, I said so in the OP. The purpose of this thread is to discuss what they're doing atm, and where they're taking it, in line with that plan(read my OP), so that we can give suggestions and provide feedback on what adjustments we do/don't like.

To do this we need a thread the comm. reps will actually read and look over, not just another flame war. Feel free to post here you'll be welcome, but please try to keep in line with the OP and for the most part everyone elses posts. It's been working so far, they're definitely paying attention.

Threads like this are our best bet to be heard by SE, other jobs are all pretty unified on what they want( and even when they're not they mostly still want things in line with what SE is planning), SMN doesn't have that we have Hyrbrid SMNs, backline SMNs, melee SMNs, solo-only SMNs, spirit SMNs, even people who just like to flame SMNs. For once we are providing a relatively unified front for SE to see, and it's working. So please join us in trying to be heard, help us push SMN forward(we can only do this if we have SE's ear), or kindly step aside, there's plenty of threads already full of SMN infighting.

[Dallas]

Raz, no one believes for a second you aren't trying to control the discussion. You attack me in every thread even though you know I have already seen everything you have to offer. You even started this thread assuming melee was off limits. Now you want me to keep in. line. LOL

If the only way you will be civil is if people agree with you, turn your computer off.

[Malamasala]

I disagree with Mala. Some things, like spirits, were never meant for a competent end-game SMN to continue using.

The basic problem with spirits is that they have ZERO use.

- Skill up? Release recast is same delay as the summoning time of an avatar, so you can't summon spirits faster than avatars.
- Aggro help? Carbuncle is given to you for free and he'll guard you your whole life.
etc.

There is a single use out of spirits, and it is Elemental Siphon. Now the follow up question is why SE had this gigantic gap between spirits addition and Siphon when they had no other purpose.

A theory one could make is that Spirits were added due to level 60 avatar battles and it would be "hard" to level to 60 with just carbuncle. Counter argument for this is that if spirits doesn't do better than carbuncle, why would they somehow make the game easier?

I can only think of one single valid argument for why spirits were added. For carbuncle only users to level summoning skill between level 1 and 60 when they get new avatars. That is the ONLY use you can get out of spirits, and after the level 20 avatar battles addition, it is changed to level 1-20 summoning skill up sessions.

If you think there are other alternatives, you are just fooling yourself. (Well there are other alternatives, they are just super specific. Like if your carbuncle gets -ga III:ed on summon and you are too close to the monster to summon an avatar, then a spirit is a faster summon so you can run further away and release and summon a real avatar)

[Razushu]

Raz, no one believes for a second you aren't trying to control the discussion. You attack me in every thread even though you know I have already seen everything you have to offer. You even started this thread assuming melee was off limits. Now you want me to keep in. line. LOL

If the only way you will be civil is if people agree with you, turn your computer off.

You burst into threads, flame, insult posters, derail, fling the word "gimp" round like a monkey flinging poo. I've pretty much ignored you for the last week+. How's that Glass house treating you? You attack me more often than I attack you, in fairness. I don't really even attack you, I disagree with you, granted in a coarser tongue than I give anyone else, but you kinda rub me the wrong way.

I'm civil 90% of the time, unless I'm dealing with, well you. Not trying to control any discussion, merely set up a place where people who wanted to talk about where SE is taking SMN in future updates. Funny thing is you offer nothing but arrogant spiel in return, all I offer are viewpionts based on my experience as a SMN.

I started this thread in line with SE's vision which doesn't include melee(spirits got left out too), not to exclude anyone(theres plenty of threads for these topics already, in fact I'm active in some of them too), but to get large numbers of Summoners talking about the same topics, and on the same page. Anyone with sense can see that, it's why this thread has been responded to twice, and why it's been going strong for 15+ pages.

Aside from against you my arguments are generally quite civil(or try to be). To anyone else that feel I have been rude, or impolite in a post to them, I apologize.

[Razushu]

The basic problem with spirits is that they have ZERO use.

- Skill up? Release recast is same delay as the summoning time of an avatar, so you can't summon spirits faster than avatars.
- Aggro help? Carbuncle is given to you for free and he'll guard you your whole life.
etc.

There is a single use out of spirits, and it is Elemental Siphon. Now the follow up question is why SE had this gigantic gap between spirits addition and Siphon when they had no other purpose.

A theory one could make is that Spirits were added due to level 60 avatar battles and it would be "hard" to level to 60 with just carbuncle. Counter argument for this is that if spirits doesn't do better than carbuncle, why would they somehow make the game easier?

I can only think of one single valid argument for why spirits were added. For carbuncle only users to level summoning skill between level 1 and 60 when they get new avatars. That is the ONLY use you can get out of spirits, and after the level 20 avatar battles addition, it is changed to level 1-20 summoning skill up sessions.

If you think there are other alternatives, you are just fooling yourself. (Well there are other alternatives, they are just super specific. Like if your carbuncle gets -ga III:ed on summon and you are too close to the monster to summon an avatar, then a spirit is a faster summon so you can run further away and release and summon a real avatar)

They're better for skill up due to their 1 second cast time, they can be spammed faster than Avatar. This the same reason they make good aggro pets, we all get caught short sometimes.

[Razushu]

We got a chance to speak to the main summoner himself on the topic of Blood Pacts.

• MP Consumption

The MP cost for Blood Pact: Ward abilities are set rather high because the effects they grant are AoE; however, they are designed to elicit a higher level of benefit when used to support a party.

• Effect duration

As we’re sure you’re aware, depending on the level of your summoning skill, various enhancement bonuses are added to your Blood Pacts. These bonuses make it so ultimately you will see a very noticeable difference in effect duration when compared to other magic spells and abilities. If your skill isn’t fully leveled and you feel that the duration is too short, we recommend raising it up as you will experience quite a significant increase. With the upcoming level cap increase we will be extending the effect duration even further.

• Effect

In regards to magic/abilities that elicit a similar effect to Blood Pacts, we believe that Blood Pacts have significantly high stats, effect duration included. However, with the level cap increase from 75 to 90, these stats have increased further and we would like to look into adjusting the areas where the balance is off. Please continue let us know your feedback especially for the Blood Pacts you feel need adjustments.

Is there any plans to boost the melee powers of our Avatars? As it is they have the melee strength of a naked BLM using H2H. This would be fine if we could buff them, but we can't. They could use some love in the melee department, so maybe they could beat an Easy Prey one on one, umm..... easily.

[Dallas]

Raz, Raz, it's you. No one is insulted at the thought that a guy 80+ levels under cap is Gimp but you. Since you made sure I will never care about you, stop crying. Level your staff skill if you don't like it, but please, get lost when we do discuss skills you refuse to use.

[Korpg]

SMN gets a steady supply of gear that improves MP sustainment. MP doesn't actually *do* anything. It doesn't cure faster. It doesn't kill faster. Put it on a slow job, on a player who would rather use the subjob, and you have a subpar subjob, not a SMN. There's no benefit to inviting a /WHM. In short, players failed SMN.


SMN's gear for MP sustainment because, guess what, that keeps our avatars out, our main source of damage, our main source of buffs, and our main ability as a job. Avatars are what differentiates ourselves from a silenced BLM swinging a staff. Which is what any melee SMN is, a perma-silenced BLM swinging a staff.

But I will have to agree with you, players have failed SMN. Both those who are sub healers only, and those who are melee happy.

[Korpg]

Raz, Raz, it's you. No one is insulted at the thought that a guy 80+ levels under cap is Gimp but you. Since you made sure I will never care about you, stop crying. Level your staff skill if you don't like it, but please, get lost when we do discuss skills you refuse to use.

Your first post was an insult to SMNs everywhere. Everywhere you go, you proclaim yourself as the savior of SMNs everywhere, and your backer Mala comes in and chimes his opinion about how great you are.

Just do us all a favor and stop posting.

[Dallas]

What is it going to be, K? Are you willing to bet your favorite obsession on greater colibri?

[Korpg]

Show your numbers, real numbers, not your fuzzy math and maybe people might still believe you.

Or are you going to continue stating you can beat an Ukon WAR?

[Rakshaka]

We got a chance to speak to the main summoner himself on the topic of Blood Pacts.

• MP Consumption

The MP cost for Blood Pact: Ward abilities are set rather high because the effects they grant are AoE; however, they are designed to elicit a higher level of benefit when used to support a party.

• Effect duration

As we’re sure you’re aware, depending on the level of your summoning skill, various enhancement bonuses are added to your Blood Pacts. These bonuses make it so ultimately you will see a very noticeable difference in effect duration when compared to other magic spells and abilities. If your skill isn’t fully leveled and you feel that the duration is too short, we recommend raising it up as you will experience quite a significant increase. With the upcoming level cap increase we will be extending the effect duration even further.

• Effect

In regards to magic/abilities that elicit a similar effect to Blood Pacts, we believe that Blood Pacts have significantly high stats, effect duration included. However, with the level cap increase from 75 to 90, these stats have increased further and we would like to look into adjusting the areas where the balance is off. Please continue let us know your feedback especially for the Blood Pacts you feel need adjustments.

I would have liked to put together a whole compilation of blood pacts and how balanced I think they are, but I don't think there's enough time to do that before the version update. I'll focus on the bloodpact wards that I believe need to be buffed in order to make them useful across the level ranges.

MP Consumption:
I consider the mp cost of wards to be sufficient. They should cost a lot of mp because they're aoe and most of them have long durations. I believe that's what summoner is supposed to represent; a powerful mage that has incredible abilities that cost more mana than regular spells.

Effect Duration:
The effect duration increase has been wonderful for summoner. Previously we were only able to keep very few buffs on ourselves at any one time. Now we're able to keep a reasonable number of buffs active at any one time. However, there is still a problem with effect duration.

Crimson Howl: this has the shortest duration of any blood pact. Because the duration is so short, it requires more blood pacts over time to keep active 100%. These blood pacts could be better spent on other buffs to STR, accuracy, -evasion on target mobs, etc. The effect duration for this ability should be increased.

Effect:
Your statement about many pacts becoming stronger over the level range of 75 to 90 is incorrect. Some blood pacts were increasing by level until 75 when they stopped. Others have had static potency this entire time. Static potency is ok if the buff itself is percentage based, i.e. haste, shining ruby, crimson howl. Where this becomes a problem is when the buffs have static potency, and they provide a flat amount of improvement over level ranges where the flat amount becomes steadily weaker in comparison. An example would be that noctoshield is more useful at 75 than at 90 because at level 75 (assuming you're fighting a lvl 75 monster) you're mitigating a higher percentage of received damage than at level 90 (assuming you're fighting a lvl 90 monster) because the monsters do more damage.

Glittering Ruby: This ability as it is today is not useful. There is no situation in which you would seriously use this. It randomly buffs one stat, which gradually decreases. The chances that you would boost a useful stat for any one job are at best 3/7. This ability should be modified; instead of boosting one random stat, 2-3 random stats should be boosted. This would give you a decent chance that the stat you're trying to boost would actually be boosted.

Rolling Thunder:
This ability is significantly weaker than Ifrit's Inferno Howl. The duration of Rolling Thunder is about twice as long as Inferno Howl, but it only does about 1/3 of the damage of Inferno Howl.

Ecliptic Growl and Ecliptic Howl
As far as I know, the buffs from these have been static through all levels.

Noctoshield:
The buff from this increased with level up to level 75, after which it has remained static

[Soundwave]

I agree with Raz, I also enjoy his posts they are very sound to me.

also I think raz does not have enough "likes" for his posts as well.

I've always had mixed feeling as to "why" others don't "invite" a summoner to do selected things. I believe that every job is a tool in the box, and unfortunately at the current time summoner is just not the right tool for the job.

[Moonbaq]

Umm... Yea They Gave Us New Abilities .. But They REALLY Need To Fix Skill Ups !!!! Major Thing About Smn Is Skill Ups Why Cant They Be More Frequent? Can Take 1hour+ To Get 1 Skill Up or Even A .2 Skill Up. All I Ask Is That They Fix Summon Skill To Where It Raises Quicker Like Blue Magic Or Enhancing. Its Driving Me Nuts Getting Little Skill In Long Amounts Of Times, When I Can Be Using The Time For SOmething More Benefitial

[Korpg]

inb4caplettersmeananything

Skillups are easy to get, just go to a EM+ mob and start spamming BPs.

[Moonbaq]

inb4caplettersmeananything

Skillups are easy to get, just go to a EM+ mob and start spamming BPs.

Ummm Not So Easy If You Dont Wanna Go Through the Hassel Finding A EM+ Mob
Just Summoning Avatars Over Again. I Just Wanna Skill Up Not Fight

[Tarage]

Please stop capitalizing every first letter Moonbaq.

Skillups are a problem, but a very minor one. With all that is wrong with SMN, I'd like to think this one shouldn't be a focus.

That's all I'll say about it though. If people really want it, I won't complain.

I'd like to see the pet AI fixed too though, even if it's just the minor things I asked for.

[Dallas]

Show your numbers, real numbers, not your fuzzy math and maybe people might still believe you.
Or are you going to continue stating you can beat an Ukon WAR?

You do not get to participate. You get to see what melee SMN was doing in 2006-2007 or you get nothing. You will agree to never again waste anyone's time with your lies or you get nothing. You might as well put me on ignore because soon no one will be talking to you ever.

[Razushu]

I agree with Raz, I also enjoy his posts they are very sound to me.

also I think raz does not have enough "likes" for his posts as well.

I've always had mixed feeling as to "why" others don't "invite" a summoner to do selected things. I believe that every job is a tool in the box, and unfortunately at the current time summoner is just not the right tool for the job.

Thanks man:D.


I think it all comes down to who you play with, I've never really had a problem getting people to invite my SMN to things, except seal farming(damn procs). SMN does fine as a support/DD, not everyone's gonna believe that or be willing to give it a try unfortunately.

[Korpg]

You do not get to participate. You get to see what melee SMN was doing in 2006-2007 or you get nothing. You will agree to never again waste anyone's time with your lies or you get nothing. You might as well put me on ignore because soon no one will be talking to you ever.

A) Because it is still 2006-07, right?
B) You still won't prove anything, so show your real numbers.
C) Where is that parse?

[Moonbaq]

Its the way i type? does it matter? sorry if it does, but i do think its a major issue maybee not the first one but one of them. skill helps accuracy which is important and when your busy leveling its hard to keep capped

[Razushu]

Its the way i type? does it matter? sorry if it does, but i do think its a major issue maybee not the first one but one of them. skill helps accuracy which is important and when your busy leveling its hard to keep capped

I never even noticed it before Tarage pointed it out lol. Summoning magic like most magics, is more of a pain to level, but seriously fighting serious monsters is the best way to level it. Soloing or killing NMs in a group is the best way to level, it takes no time at all compared to summon spamming outside a city(I gave that up at lvl25), it's far too boring. Pick an Avatar with a debuff ward and it will fly up(I spammed Shiva's sleepga when fighting NMs).

I've been playing around with Mangey tailed Marvin for the WHM cape, and I wish I had have found him while trying to skill up lol. Diabolos with Atmas of Vicissitude & Ducal Guard w/Noctoshield makes him kinda immortal, was spamming Night Terror and Somnolence on it.

[Soundwave]

A) Because it is still 2006-07, right?
B) You still won't prove anything, so show your real numbers.
C) Where is that parse?


You might as well put me on ignore because soon no one will be talking to you ever.

D) Hi Korpg!


I never even noticed it before Tarage pointed it out lol. Summoning magic like most magics, is more of a pain to level, but seriously fighting serious monsters is the best way to level it. Soloing or killing NMs in a group is the best way to level, it takes no time at all compared to summon spamming outside a city(I gave that up at lvl25), it's far too boring. Pick an Avatar with a debuff ward and it will fly up(I spammed Shiva's sleepga when fighting NMs).

I've been playing around with Mangey tailed Marvin for the WHM cape, and I wish I had have found him while trying to skill up lol. Diabolos with Atmas of Vicissitude & Ducal Guard w/Noctoshield makes him kinda immortal, was spamming Night Terror and Somnolence on it.

This is great, thanks!, I'm nearly capped but this will cap it tonight for sure!

[Malamasala]

They're better for skill up due to their 1 second cast time, they can be spammed faster than Avatar. This the same reason they make good aggro pets, we all get caught short sometimes.

Dear Raz. For the love of god, read posts before you reply.


Release recast is same delay as the summoning time of an avatar, so you can't summon spirits faster than avatars.

Even if you use spirits that take 1 second to summon, you are 9 seconds away from your NEXT spirit. It doesn't go faster than avatars, and only people who do not think about the release delay are fooled by spirits. It is kind of painful to see people who should know better make these embarrassing mistakes.

Every time I see someone attempt skilling with spirits, I die a little on the inside.

[Leonlionheart]

You might as well put me on ignore because soon no one will be talking to you ever.

Hi Korpg! Whitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhite

[Miera]

You do not get to participate. You get to see what melee SMN was doing in 2006-2007 or you get nothing. You will agree to never again waste anyone's time with your lies or you get nothing. You might as well put me on ignore because soon no one will be talking to you ever.

You're kidding, right?

[Korpg]

I feel the love here


You're kidding, right?

No, he isn't. He has to show you the numbers of his so-called parse showing him beating a melee BRD, a melee RDM, a dagger only COR, a SAM using a GK, and a WHM using staff on merit birds back there. Even then, it was all close together in damage. He doesn't want to see any other job wielding any other weapon because he won't accept the truth at all.

I have screenies of 4-7k Ukon's Fury on NMs that are not weak against slashing damage or has 3x damage received on them (which people like to post their numbers on) which I constantly get. I also have screenies of 17k Ukon's Fury on slashing weak mobs too. But he won't accept that because those weaponskill damage didn't exist in 2006-07.

[Miera]

Melee SMN?! What's this?!? Shenanigans! Back in my day we Summoned Carbuncle and ran screaming for the hills! And if that wasn't enough we'd summon him again and hope that the mob Suicides and took the little radio active Rabbit fox rat with him!

Seriously, A Melee SMN is laughable... 'd never whip out my staff to a mob unless I knew my Avatar would live without me running and hiding to go throw more cannon fodder at it. Why wont people just accept that SMN isn't a job to be going head to head with a mob? Its dumbtarded! We have the Defense of wet toilet paper, we can't even dodge a parked car And why on earth would you want to steal hate from your Avatar? you're meat shield, your protector? We are Mages, I thnk we are more squishy than BRDs and RNGs... Looking back on the thread make me chuckle, reminded me of the thread where one poster actually complained that PUPs get to be Melee jobs and have H2H skills but SMN doesn't and it wasn't fair to the SMNs...

By the way, where are the Screens of this Melee SMN damage, I' curious now.

[Rakshaka]

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y249/Rakshaka/SpiritTaker.jpg

Here's an old spirit taker number I took back in the day. Used to break over 1k with sneak attack tacked on there. It can be efficient too if played correctly. I once outparsed everyone in my dynamis linkshell except for a relic DRK, as SMN/THF.
Melee summoner's something fun that you can do now and again, but it's only really useful under certain circumstances. For instance, if the mobs you're fighitng have AOE damage, don't do it; if you're going to pull hate off of your avatar, dont do it.

I'm not sure if everyone's aware of this, but the point of melee smn is to use spirit taker to replenish your mp quickly, in order to spam BPs nonstop.

I realize most of the proponents of melee summoners on most summoner forums are just trolling. If anyone advocates the use of weaponskills besides spirit taker, they're probably trolling. However, using spirit taker is the fastest way to replenish your mp over time, and if done properly, will allow you to perform many more blood pacts before running out of mana (assuming you ever do run out of mana).

[Razushu]

Dear Raz. For the love of god, read posts before you reply.



Even if you use spirits that take 1 second to summon, you are 9 seconds away from your NEXT spirit. It doesn't go faster than avatars, and only people who do not think about the release delay are fooled by spirits. It is kind of painful to see people who should know better make these embarrassing mistakes.

Every time I see someone attempt skilling with spirits, I die a little on the inside.

Yeah forgot about that sorry, I never skilled up hanging outside a city:D. Even aside from skilling up(Brain fart lol), spirits are fine as they are, Elemental Siphon alone makes them more used than some of our Avatars.

[Neonii]

Ok you guys can derail this thread if you want to but I ask you this, At what point will mods stop responding to it? Please back to topic it gets painful to wade through the same fights on each and every thread . IMO its not fair to the rest of us to impose your fights on us all the time.

Edit: I don't understand what is motivating folks to derail what was a very nice discussion with personal bickering.

[Razushu]

Ok you guys can derail this thread if you want to but I ask you this, At what point will mods stop responding to it? Please back to topic it gets painful to wade through the same fights on each and every thread . IMO its not fair to the rest of us to impose your fights on us all the time.

Edit: I don't understand what is motivating folks to derail what was a very nice discussion with personal bickering.

I couldn't agree more, I'd like us all(myself included) to try and get back on track, and maybe the reps will keep reading this thread.

On that note:

What would you guys think of the level 70 pacts having Skill Chain properties, possibly even some kind of "Chain Affinity"-like ability? Maybe with TP being consumed to provide some kind of special effect, like closing a SC with Predator claws places a debuff of eva-, agi- and/or gravity, whose potency and duration increase linearly with TP consumed.

[Malamasala]

I like not having skill chain properties. I've always ruined level 3 skillchains with my low level pacts when all I wanted to do was debuff the mob. If possible I'd rather they removed the ability completely, but instead separated the pacts on more timers.

PS. Can you really get back on track of the thread by talking about something that was not in the manifest? Aren't you actually just getting as much side-tracked as the spirit and melee SMN posts, except for skillchains in this case? Not that I care, everything related to SMN is on topic.

[Korpg]

I like not having skill chain properties. I've always ruined level 3 skillchains with my low level pacts when all I wanted to do was debuff the mob. If possible I'd rather they removed the ability completely, but instead separated the pacts on more timers.

PS. Can you really get back on track of the thread by talking about something that was not in the manifest? Aren't you actually just getting as much side-tracked as the spirit and melee SMN posts, except for skillchains in this case? Not that I care, everything related to SMN is on topic.

Wait, what situation would you be in where you would break up a skillchain to debuff a mob with a low level BP? What BP were you using, and why?

And why wasn't somebody who was there to debuff (like WHM) not debuffing? You do realize that a WHM's debuffs are more potent and accurate than a SMN's debuffs, right?

[Razushu]

I like not having skill chain properties. I've always ruined level 3 skillchains with my low level pacts when all I wanted to do was debuff the mob. If possible I'd rather they removed the ability completely, but instead separated the pacts on more timers.

PS. Can you really get back on track of the thread by talking about something that was not in the manifest? Aren't you actually just getting as much side-tracked as the spirit and melee SMN posts, except for skillchains in this case? Not that I care, everything related to SMN is on topic.

Then a Chain affinity type ability would be perfect, we would be able to pick and choose when to use it as a SC.

Nice try Mala, but it's about as on topic as you can get:D,


Vision
Mystics who conjure avatars to fight by their sides, then sit back and enjoy the show while paying close attention to their MP as their minions deliver devastating blows to adversaries and provide aid to allies

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.

An ability that Lets a 70 pact close/open a Skill Chain with a debuff added effect fits the bolded text pretty well in my opinion. I didn't mean to offend by trying to hold a focused thread, the focus being Summoner in line with SE's vision. I just wanted to have someplace to discuss things SE may actually consider implementing. A place where the reps didn't have to wade through bickering, flames and requests for stuff the Devs aren't likely to develop(now, if ever).

[Neonii]

Then a Chain affinity type ability would be perfect, we would be able to pick and choose when to use it as a SC.


Nice try Mala, but it's about as on topic as you can get:D,



An ability that Lets a 70 pact close/open a Skill Chain with a debuff added effect fits the bolded text pretty well in my opinion. I didn't mean to offend by trying to hold a focused thread, the focus being Summoner in line with SE's vision. I just wanted to have someplace to discuss things SE may actually consider implementing. A place where the reps didn't have to wade through bickering, flames and requests for stuff the Devs aren't likely to develop(now, if ever).

Quoted for truth! Thank you, Thank you. The SC idea is interesting i"m not sure how I feel about it yet.

[Korpg]

If they do give a "Chain Affinity" to SMNs for BPs, I hope that the level 91+ can do light/darkness often. With their element (Ifrit/Cait Sith/Carbuncle/Garuda/Ramuh for light SC, Fenrir/Diabolos/Titan/Shiva/Leviathan for darkness). Only problem is, we can't magic burst at the same time....

[Malamasala]

Wait, what situation would you be in where you would break up a skillchain to debuff a mob with a low level BP? What BP were you using, and why?

And why wasn't somebody who was there to debuff (like WHM) not debuffing? You do realize that a WHM's debuffs are more potent and accurate than a SMN's debuffs, right?

Tried to remember what it was, and then it came to me.

KS99 Wyrm fight. Interested in SCing and MBing it to never fly (long). Refresh whoring with Diabolos. Use Somnolence since BP:Ward is up. Ruin skillchain. Also, I'm not sure if RDMs gravity all mobs? Even though gravity can never hurt to have on the mob. Unless you ruin the skillchain that is.

[Dallas]

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y249/Rakshaka/SpiritTaker.jpg

Here's an old spirit taker number I took back in the day. Used to break over 1k with sneak attack tacked on there. It can be efficient too if played correctly. I once outparsed everyone in my dynamis linkshell except for a relic DRK, as SMN/THF.
Melee summoner's something fun that you can do now and again, but it's only really useful under certain circumstances. For instance, if the mobs you're fighitng have AOE damage, don't do it; if you're going to pull hate off of your avatar, dont do it.

I'm not sure if everyone's aware of this, but the point of melee smn is to use spirit taker to replenish your mp quickly, in order to spam BPs nonstop.

I realize most of the proponents of melee summoners on most summoner forums are just trolling. If anyone advocates the use of weaponskills besides spirit taker, they're probably trolling. However, using spirit taker is the fastest way to replenish your mp over time, and if done properly, will allow you to perform many more blood pacts before running out of mana (assuming you ever do run out of mana).

Spirit Taker is old-school. Myrkr is where it's at. Cataclysm may someday be survived.

[Rakshaka]

Spirit Taker is old-school. Myrkr is where it's at. Cataclysm may someday be survived.

I assume you're trolling, but in case you're not, Myrkr at 100% TP only restores 20% of your maximum MP. Spirit taker at 100% TP typically restores much more than that. This is assuming that you're fighting mobs that you could be meleeing in the first place. i.e. mobs without aoe/ mobs that you're not going to pull hate on / mobs that don't have nasty TP moves (feeding TP would be bad in this case).

[Korpg]

Tried to remember what it was, and then it came to me.

KS99 Wyrm fight. Interested in SCing and MBing it to never fly (long). Refresh whoring with Diabolos. Use Somnolence since BP:Ward is up. Ruin skillchain. Also, I'm not sure if RDMs gravity all mobs? Even though gravity can never hurt to have on the mob. Unless you ruin the skillchain that is.

Gravity > Somnolence. More accurate and longer lasting if a RDM or BLM/RDM casts it. Besides, you should have used Dream Shroud instead. Unless you already used it, then Ultimate Terror and hope it lands (which it won't). Somnolence does nothing but give out a few HP of damage.

The RDM or BLM/RDM should always cast Gravity on mobs that can be hit with Gravity, which in the case of your Wyrm, it wouldn't land as a BP. Believe it or not, a lot of debuffs (Levi's Slow, Titan's Slow, Diabolos's Gravity, etc) have a low proc rate. And are overwritten by actual spells.

[Korpg]

I assume you're trolling, but in case you're not, Myrkr at 100% TP only restores 20% of your maximum MP. Spirit taker at 100% TP typically restores much more than that. This is assuming that you're fighting mobs that you could be meleeing in the first place. i.e. mobs without aoe/ mobs that you're not going to pull hate on / mobs that don't have nasty TP moves (feeding TP would be bad in this case).

He isn't trolling. He honestly believes, and I quote, "Any SMN should melee on anything a WAR can."

[Tarage]

Why would you want SMN to skill chain? Why?

[Dallas]

Myrkr at 100% TP only restores 20% of your maximum MP. That's why you use a WS macro with +MP. 360MP per 100% TP, ignoring defense/stoneskin/absorb. Myrkr never misses and has no range. It removes negative effects and triggers aftermath. It is far superior to Spirit Taker.

[Korpg]

Why would you want SMN to skill chain? Why?

Why not? Who can say no to extra damage?

[Korpg]

That's why you use a WS macro with +MP. 360MP per 100% TP, ignoring defense/stoneskin/absorb. Myrkr never misses and has no range. It removes negative effects and triggers aftermath. It is far superior to Spirit Taker.

Even with +MP gear, you only have 1800 MP? I don't gear for MP and yet, I have over 2000 MP inside Abyssea.

Also, bolded part shows you have no idea what you are talking about. Myrkr does 0 damage. Of course it will ignore defense, stoneskin, and absorb damage, because it does no damage. Are you still saying that 0 damage WS makes a melee SMN worth it over an extra 2~5k damage when gearing up for magical damage on avatars? Even if you and the avatar crits, you still won't do the extra damage over the 45 seconds in between BPs, the extra damage I do when geared for it.

Also, my 17k Ukko's Fury says hi.

[Leonlionheart]

Pfffft 17k should be a crit hit, not an Ukko's itself! JK THO

I think the only way to get Dallas to not post in a SMN or job thread about lolmeleelolsmnlol is to never post another smn thread ever.

[Razushu]

Why would you want SMN to skill chain? Why?

Not the SMN, the Avatar, and as Korpg said why not? Our BPs used to be able to skill chain, I think we should get that back in some form.

Astral Synergy

Recast 2:00 minutes

Duration 30seconds or next Blood Pact: Rage

The next lvl 70 Blood Pact: Rage can be used in a skill chain. If closing the SC added effect is granted to your attack, consumes Avatar TP and effect's duration* is effected by this. Base duration at 0TP is 30 secs

*Duration increases linearly with TP to a max of 2 minutes. Every 3.33%TP grants 1 sec extra.

[Karbuncle]

Pfffft 17k should be a crit hit, not an Ukko's itself! JK THO

I think the only way to get Dallas to not post in a SMN or job thread about lolmeleelolsmnlol is to never post another smn thread ever.

Or just stop responding to him >_>?

[Pyrobunny]

when i get my empy staff i'm going to go all out and smn/sam everything b/c i can inside and outside of abyssea.... and if i get killed (cause u know how hard it is to get exp) i'll get up and try again... or come /rdm

plus when others die we smn survive

[Razushu]

You know until the bickering started SE was reading this thread. It's probably too late now anyway, I think as far as the reps are concerned this is just another thread not worth wading through to read the useful posts, but can we please try to get back on topic. There's plenty of threads to discuss things like melee and spirits, and we're all discussing those things there as is. Why drag those discussions here?

Can one thread in these forums not degenerate into a flame war, these forums are so we can contribute to the future of our favorite jobs. Why are some people doing their best to derail the one Summoner thread the reps were definitely reading? Please for the sake of SMN as a job class let's all at least pretend to get along, and try to dicuss SMN's future in realistic terms.


Summoner

Vision
Mystics who conjure avatars to fight by their sides, then sit back and enjoy the show while paying close attention to their MP as their minions deliver devastating blows to adversaries and provide aid to allies

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.

Looking at their vision for Summoner any upcoming update is going to focus on us relying on our Avatars completely to do things, so lets try to stick to that train of thought posting here. I'm not saying stop discussing melee and spirits, just that we can and are doing it elsewhere. These topics are unlikely to recive a buff in the near future(if ever), and as such are less likely to be even looked at by the reps, not mentioning the fact that these 2 topics can also be highly incendiary and threads concerning them tend to descend into the kind of shouting match anyone having to read posts as part of their job will just plain avoid.

[Economizer]

Our BPs used to be able to skill chain, I think we should get that back in some form.

They still can, unless something weird changed? I think the problem these days is that most of the physical Blood Pacts that chain either suck, or don't chain well for high damage at higher levels.

I don't think that giving Summoner native access to WS is necessarily the solution to making Summoner melee more viable. It doesn't necessarily feel right from a flavor point of view. First, it removes White Mage from being the melee mage (ignoring Red Mage and Blue Mage, since they melee with non-magey weapons). Second, it just encourages Summoner to weapon skill, not weapon skill with a Blood Pact, which feels more right.

Perhaps giving White Mage's staff weapon skills to Summoner is part of the solution, but better chains and physical blood pacts that make good chains should be a bigger part of the solution. It makes the Summoner work with the summon, and gives Summoner melee a unique feel, instead of being a gimp melee with a pet.

Summoner should be able to make level 3 self Skillchains with a pet (a quick glance of the skillchain calculator indicated this is not currently possible, but the thing is still limited to level 75). This would be a very good start.

[Karbuncle]

Unfortunately SE decided to not give Avatars Level 3 Skillchain properties at 75 because the 70 BP's were apparently too powerful for that kind of thing. It hardly makes sense at this stage of the game though.

Perhaps they will change that? I don't know about you But I'd take being able to do Light/Dark with PC/Rush with the offchance i mess up someones skillchain once in a blue moon, over the loss in potential damage from them not doing t3 Skillchains.

[Economizer]

Unfortunately SE decided to not give Avatars Level 3 Skillchain properties at 75

What really surprised me was that neither the Relic nor Mythic WS allowed a level 3. I was always under the impression that the Mythic WS, at least, was supposed to change up play for a job. For example, White Mage's Mystic Boon makes melee with a Club much, much easier to handle. Why shouldn't Garland of Bliss at the very least, allow a level 3 with a pet?

At this stage in the game, if there isn't already a level 3 skillchain for Summoner, there should be. In my opinion, it would have a much bigger impact on Summoner then merely adding more weapon skills, and would also be usable in party situations where the Summoner might choose the backline for whatever reason, instead of just buffing one part of the class. It is a win for everyone, except people who don't like Summoner, like the Star Sybil. :p

[Razushu]

They still can, unless something weird changed? I think the problem these days is that most of the physical Blood Pacts that chain either suck, or don't chain well for high damage at higher levels.

I don't think that giving Summoner native access to WS is necessarily the solution to making Summoner melee more viable. It doesn't necessarily feel right from a flavor point of view. First, it removes White Mage from being the melee mage (ignoring Red Mage and Blue Mage, since they melee with non-magey weapons). Second, it just encourages Summoner to weapon skill, not weapon skill with a Blood Pact, which feels more right.

Perhaps giving White Mage's staff weapon skills to Summoner is part of the solution, but better chains and physical blood pacts that make good chains should be a bigger part of the solution. It makes the Summoner work with the summon, and gives Summoner melee a unique feel, instead of being a gimp melee with a pet.

Summoner should be able to make level 3 self Skillchains with a pet (a quick glance of the skillchain calculator indicated this is not currently possible, but the thing is still limited to level 75). This would be a very good start.

Yeah the lower level ones can, I'm talking about the LVL70 ones, they're the ones we use to DD now yet they can't SC like the lower level ones. I'd like an ability that works like BLU's or SCH's SC ability, where a Blood Pact can take the place of a WS to close/open a SC.

We can get all the staff WS, we just need a /WHM, WAR, PLD, or MNK to use them, most jobs are in the a similar boat. They said somewhere they'er looking at WS access iirc, so we may see the backliners getting more WS. SMN melee doesn't need a boost it's fine for what it is, a mage meleeing. When talking about SC's I was more talking about party situations, as solo a SMN is probably fighting something a mage is not going to want to melee, let alone a SMN or any other mage if WSing will probably be using Spirit Taker or Myrkr.

SMN melee isn't probably going to get anything that gives it a "unique feel", because it's not a melee, anyway SE said they want us to rely on our Avatars to DD so it's unlikely that they're currently wondering how to improve SMN's(or any of the backline mage's) melee prowess in any way(other than maybe WS granting).

[Razushu]

Unfortunately SE decided to not give Avatars Level 3 Skillchain properties at 75 because the 70 BP's were apparently too powerful for that kind of thing. It hardly makes sense at this stage of the game though.

Perhaps they will change that? I don't know about you But I'd take being able to do Light/Dark with PC/Rush with the offchance i mess up someones skillchain once in a blue moon, over the loss in potential damage from them not doing t3 Skillchains.

Thats why maybe a seperate ability would be the best option, so we would never mess up a SC, we could only participate if we were trying to do it.

[Karbuncle]

Separate Ability might turn off the dev team though, i think it would be more work to make their Skillchain properties latent like BLU Spells. probably really complex.

Though I'm not against it, Just trying for simplest solution and hope for the best :D

[Dallas]

Raz, of the few adjustments se will consider, access to WS 70 levels above you is on the list. Stop feeling you need to control discussion of things above you. It can't be an argument if you aren't there, and let's face it, nothing gets accomplished when you are. Control yourself, because you are part of the problem.

I've already contributed to the solution.

[Razushu]

Separate Ability might turn off the dev team though, i think it would be more work to make their Skillchain properties latent like BLU Spells. probably really complex.

Though I'm not against it, Just trying for simplest solution and hope for the best :D

Just thowing it out there lol. Yeah it probably would be much harder for them to consider than just having them get native SC properties, but hey they gave a similar ability to SCH with their spells.

[Korpg]

Separate Ability might turn off the dev team though, i think it would be more work to make their Skillchain properties latent like BLU Spells. probably really complex.

Though I'm not against it, Just trying for simplest solution and hope for the best :D

It wouldn't be all that complex. Just have the 70 BPs be able to do skillchains of their element (Fragmentation for Chaotic Strike and Predator Claws, Distortion for Rush and Spinning Dive, Fusion for Flaming Crush, and Gravitation for Mountain Buster). Also, the next set of BP:Rs that the avatars get that are physical damage, make them level 3 SC based on their element with the off chance of doing the level 2 SC based on their element.

[Korpg]

Raz, of the few adjustments se will consider, access to WS 70 levels above you is on the list. Stop feeling you need to control discussion of things above you. It can't be an argument if you aren't there, and let's face it, nothing gets accomplished when you are. Control yourself, because you are part of the problem.

I've already contributed to the solution.

I'll contribute to the solution also. You should delete your character cause you are 99% of the SMN's problem.

[Karbuncle]

It wouldn't be all that complex. Just have the 70 BPs be able to do skillchains of their element (Fragmentation for Chaotic Strike and Predator Claws, Distortion for Rush and Spinning Dive, Fusion for Flaming Crush, and Gravitation for Mountain Buster). Also, the next set of BP:Rs that the avatars get that are physical damage, make them level 3 SC based on their element with the off chance of doing the level 2 SC based on their element.

I didn't say giving them Skillchain properties would be complex, I said giving them "Latent" Skillchain properties like Blue Magic spells only being able to skillchain under "Chain Affinity" or their 2hour would be complex.

At the very least more complex than just giving them the skillchain properties...

[Korpg]

I didn't say giving them Skillchain properties would be complex, I said giving them "Latent" Skillchain properties like Blue Magic spells only being able to skillchain under "Chain Affinity" or their 2hour would be complex.

At the very least more complex than just giving them the skillchain properties...

Well, true. Also, it would be just another /ja to macro in. I don't know about you, but I'm finding myself out of space on my macro lines (summoning the avatars take up one line already).

[Malamasala]

Gravity > Somnolence. More accurate and longer lasting if a RDM or BLM/RDM casts it. Besides, you should have used Dream Shroud instead. Unless you already used it, then Ultimate Terror and hope it lands (which it won't). Somnolence does nothing but give out a few HP of damage.

Topics will go much faster the day you remember I'm an expert at the job.

1) I won't tack on Dream Shroud if it is during the day (even if you get like 2 MAB for it)
2) The rest of the time I got it on, so that leaves me minutes of free time to use Somnolence
3) The damage was the only thing I wanted, gravity would have been a bonus
4) Nether Blast BP rage timer was saved for when it took off, which is why I used the ward timer for damage

So in essence, thanks for trying to give me hints, but I usually don't need them. (Only one I need is the trick to do 8k nukes constantly in Abyssea... can't do that)

[Korpg]

When you prove you are an expert, I'll start treating you like one. But you continue to act like a noob, so I'll keep treating you like one.

SMN doesn't debuff, they shouldn't pick a BP because it has an added effect to it. When you realize that, you will do a lot better as a SMN. Rock Throw isn't better than Geocrush.

[Economizer]

SMN doesn't debuff

Because a SMN debuffing would be... a NIGHTMARE!

I'll be here all week.

Anyways, back to what I was saying, I'd honestly prefer skillchains not to be triggered by JA for Summoner. I liked the mechanic where at mid ranged levels a Summoner could skillchain with itself or the party as often as the pet's Blood Pact timer was ready. I feel that changing this doesn't feel right. But who knows, maybe it is a good idea. Balance is hard, especially when you also have to deal with the "feel" of what classes are too.

[Soundwave]

Where is part II?
:confused:

[Razushu]

Where is part II?
:confused:


This was part II

We got a chance to speak to the main summoner himself on the topic of Blood Pacts.

• MP Consumption

The MP cost for Blood Pact: Ward abilities are set rather high because the effects they grant are AoE; however, they are designed to elicit a higher level of benefit when used to support a party.

• Effect duration

As we’re sure you’re aware, depending on the level of your summoning skill, various enhancement bonuses are added to your Blood Pacts. These bonuses make it so ultimately you will see a very noticeable difference in effect duration when compared to other magic spells and abilities. If your skill isn’t fully leveled and you feel that the duration is too short, we recommend raising it up as you will experience quite a significant increase. With the upcoming level cap increase we will be extending the effect duration even further.

• Effect

In regards to magic/abilities that elicit a similar effect to Blood Pacts, we believe that Blood Pacts have significantly high stats, effect duration included. However, with the level cap increase from 75 to 90, these stats have increased further and we would like to look into adjusting the areas where the balance is off. Please continue let us know your feedback especially for the Blood Pacts you feel need adjustments.

and part I for any that missed it


First off, thanks for all the opinions thus far, and we wanted to let you know that we passed them to the supervisor in charge of the upcoming changes and had him take a look.

Please understand that we cannot answer all of your questions in one post and some answers may be vague, because this is all content that is still under development.

Please bear with us as we will continue posting about this and other jobs!

※I believe there are a lot of players who are interested in the effects and duration of “Blood Pact” so I plan on addressing it in the follow-up post. (I understand that some of you may be disappointed about this, but please be a little patient!)


Please provide specific details on the effects of “a new ability that expends an additional amount of MP to shorten the recast time for blood pacts.”
For example, we are thinking about something like, “reset the recast time by expending a set amount of MP.” As we have stated in the threads for other jobs, this is just one example.

There is a possibility of the effects being changed drastically, so please keep posting your feedback.


I would like Blood Pacts to be changed to the charge format.
This would drastically change the operation of Blood Pacts, so we have no plans of making this change. We plan on adjusting the timing of Blood Pacts by adding an ability that shortens the recast time.


Is it possible to interlock the avatar’s attacks with the summoner’s weapon skills (as in Wyvern’s breath)?
Being able to issue commands to avatars is a unique advantage for summoners, so it is best to initiate avatar attacks through the summoner’s commands.


I would like the pet command “Stay” to be added.
We have no plans to add the “Stay” command outside of beastmasters.


I would like unique stats added to each avatar, such as increased attack for Ifrit and increased evasion for Garuda.
By implementing different stats for each avatar, we are afraid certain avatars will be selected disproportionately frequently and the variance of avatars will be limited. There is a possibility of being able to alter the stats of avatars by equipping gear, but basically we would like avatars to be chosen based on their elements.

I would like En/Spike effects added to avatars.
This might be good. We will think about this.


I would like the elemental resistances that avatars have to been given to party members.
This is pretty similar to Avatar’s Favor. What about adding this effect through merit points?


Any possibility you can enhance the Evoker’s Ring?
If you have to surpass a challenging quest, then we will look into it. Simply just enhancing it would be a bit hard to justify.


Let summoners use the weapon skills for staff that can only be used by specific jobs/support jobs.
We understand how you feel. We received similar requests for other jobs/weapon skills and we will be looking into it.

Hopefully there'll be a part III soon.

[Soundwave]

Hehe thanks, I know I've read both of those but he didn't specif it was part II:rolleyes:

So I'm still waiting for it! But I'm sure it was meant to be part II

[Razushu]

Hehe thanks, I know I've read both of those but he didn't specif it was part II:rolleyes:

So I'm still waiting for it! But I'm sure it was meant to be part II

Been about a week since our last update so we should be due one soon /em crosses fingers:)

[Soundwave]

All jobs have had a response as of now?

[Leonlionheart]

All jobs have had a response as of now?

Nothing bout WAR.

Honestly though, if they let WAR alone till 99, it would still probably be the best DD, unfortunately.

I don't think I've read anything about BLM either, nor DNC

[Economizer]

At least when Summoners get their third update, it won't be another class with seven players per server is getting a third update because its users are upset about not being overpowered anymore.

[Malamasala]

When you prove you are an expert, I'll start treating you like one. But you continue to act like a noob, so I'll keep treating you like one.

SMN doesn't debuff, they shouldn't pick a BP because it has an added effect to it. When you realize that, you will do a lot better as a SMN. Rock Throw isn't better than Geocrush.

Don't worry, you aren't the first bad player to call me a noob because you aren't capable of following my way of thinking.

If you ever want to try and reach my level, just go into everything with an open mind. (Up to yourself if you want to read that as an invite to noobness or expertise)

[Neonii]

When you prove you are an expert, I'll start treating you like one. But you continue to act like a noob, so I'll keep treating you like one.

SMN doesn't debuff, they shouldn't pick a BP because it has an added effect to it. When you realize that, you will do a lot better as a SMN. Rock Throw isn't better than Geocrush.

If it works for him so be it. At some point you folks will have to agree to disagree. Meanwhile can we get back to discussion the smn job vision?

[Razushu]

If it works for him so be it. At some point you folks will have to agree to disagree. Meanwhile can we get back to discussion the smn job vision?

God I hope so lol, the reps posted a few replies in other threads recently so maybe we'll see some more info soon.

[Leonlionheart]

Don't worry, you aren't the first bad player to call me a noob because you aren't capable of following my way of thinking.

If you ever want to try and reach my level, just go into everything with an open mind. (Up to yourself if you want to read that as an invite to noobness or expertise)

Malamasala: "MY WAY IS BETTER THAN YOURS"
Korpg: "MY WAY IS THE CORRECT WAY AND HERE IS WHY"
Dallas: "I THINK THAT I'M JUST AWESOME"
Malamasala: "MY WAY IS BETTER THAN YOURS"
Korpg: "MY WAY IS THE CORRECT WAY AND HERE IS WHY"
Dallas: "I THINK THAT I'M JUST AWESOME"
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
is the brunt of this thread, and every SMN thread. Occasionally people will chime in to tell Dallas how stupid he is, and Raz will definitely be involved in the discussion. When it comes to SMN, there is no other topic.

[Korpg]

Leon, you forgot something to my quotes.

"MY WAY IS THE CORRECT WAY AND HERE IS WHY."

I always provide proof when I state something, unless it is common knowledge, then no proof is needed.

[Korpg]

Don't worry, you aren't the first bad player to call me a noob because you aren't capable of following my way of thinking.

If you ever want to try and reach my level, just go into everything with an open mind. (Up to yourself if you want to read that as an invite to noobness or expertise)

When I need a WHM, I'll invite a WHM, not a SMN. When I need a melee, I'll invite a melee, not a SMN. When I need a kiter, I'll invite a SMN, not a WHM or DD. It is a simple as that.

Why invite a SMN to do a WHM's job when a WHM can do the job better?
Why invite a SMN to do a melee's job when a melee can do the job a whole hell of a lot better?
Why invite a WHM or melee to kite when a SMN (should) do the job better? Although some THFs and RDMs can kite pretty well, some mistakes can be made or the area to kite is too small for a person to kite effectively except for a SMN.

Besides, you aren't showing your "expertise" when all you do is complain how spirits are worthless and should be upgraded to avatar level. Most people would think that is being noobish. Expertise is not in the eye of the beholder, it is in the eyes of society.

[Secondplanet]

Korpg i see you on these forum especially since i am a summoner. I do agree at some points you have a valid view on things but i do not see you as a great summoner and hear the opposite of your self impression from more people then i can count on Asura.

I don't mean to pick on you but your views on summoner are very narrow and lack more then i can begin to mention, you go on about solo'ing NM's, it isn't that hard to solo anything as summoner. What you and other lack is imagination. Summoner is a job the no way to write a how to manual on, It is up to the player to learn how to play it and for every player that way is different. So you saying that you way is right in any shape or form shows the lack of experience you have with online games.

Summoners do get a bad hand when i comes to updates but that is what makes us stronger and better, we have to work with what we got and we always pull through with no problems. Yes it would be nice to even out all of the avatars so not everyone is running around with garuda (in my opinion she's overused and everyone thinks she the be all end all) but in respect to the other avatars they get effects on their attacks at times that can play a huge way in your favor.

Go ahead and rip on me all you want, i'm not here to prove to anyone nor do i care what others say about my view.

Summoner is the job that is limited by the players imagination.

[Korpg]

Korpg i see you on these forum especially since i am a summoner. I do agree at some points you have a valid view on things but i do not see you as a great summoner and hear the opposite of your self impression from more people then i can count on Asura.

Out of all those people who think negatively about me, how many of them actually see me play? How many of them base their opinion of me from a forum or from second-hand information? You see the difference?


I don't mean to pick on you but your views on summoner are very narrow and lack more then i can begin to mention, you go on about solo'ing NM's, it isn't that hard to solo anything as summoner. What you and other lack is imagination. Summoner is a job the no way to write a how to manual on, It is up to the player to learn how to play it and for every player that way is different. So you saying that you way is right in any shape or form shows the lack of experience you have with online games.

You might have a point if we could have picked one job and forever be that one job for our gaming lives. However, since it is so easy to level on this game now, people can have many different jobs to suit many different types of fights. SMN is not a job that excels at one "main" role, but is a job that excels at a sub role. Why should anyone come as SMN if they are not needed to come as a SMN? For the few people who stick with one job for the rest of their lives, it sucks for them to find a role when that role is filled up, they should adapt instead of staying monochrome in life.


Summoners do get a bad hand when i comes to updates but that is what makes us stronger and better, we have to work with what we got and we always pull through with no problems. Yes it would be nice to even out all of the avatars so not everyone is running around with garuda (in my opinion she's overused and everyone thinks she the be all end all) but in respect to the other avatars they get effects on their attacks at times that can play a huge way in your favor.

That is what separates the people who don't know anything about SMN and those who excel at it. I don't use Garuda exclusively, I don't have any one avatar I use exclusively. I pick my avatar based on the type of fight I'm doing and the type of damage I need to do, not because one looks better than another or one set of moves does great damage on something else.


Go ahead and rip on me all you want, i'm not here to prove to anyone nor do i care what others say about my view.

Summoner is the job that is limited by the players imagination.

Very true.

[Leonlionheart]

Leon, you forgot something to my quotes.

"MY WAY IS THE CORRECT WAY AND HERE IS WHY."

I always provide proof when I state something, unless it is common knowledge, then no proof is needed.

K edited. . _ .

[Korpg]

K edited. . _ .

Thanks : D

[Razushu]

Rerail attempt post No.3... maybe it's 4

Does anyone else think this new ability to lower BP delay should be free to use? We already spend MP to use the BP anyway, if we use 2 Predator Claws a minute it would cost us 328MP p/min which would cause us to run out of MP soon enough anyway before we added Wards, causing us to have to manage our MP without needing an additional cost to force it.

[Korpg]

It should be without an additional cost, for the same reason of what you said.

[Dallas]

I agree with my quote, LLH. Hard to argue that any of you care that you are half as effective as me, and to be honest, I enjoy the joke. I don't need to prove anything the the willfully gimp.

[Razushu]

That didn't last long >.<

[Leonlionheart]

This time, I think I'll ignore it.

I don't think it should cost MP, but maybe HP? Or maybe Avatar recast time?

Like using the ability "shares" a timer with Avatar spells. Shares as in when you use it, it puts the avatar recast up to 30 seconds or something, which would really go along with SE's idea of SMN.

[Razushu]

This time, I think I'll ignore it.

I don't think it should cost MP, but maybe HP? Or maybe Avatar recast time?

Like using the ability "shares" a timer with Avatar spells. Shares as in when you use it, it puts the avatar recast up to 30 seconds or something, which would really go along with SE's idea of SMN.

That would be interesting, I always felt our BPs should involve using our HP in someway.

Avatar recast would be ok, can see it having a negative impact on the user but not completely crippling either.

[Leonlionheart]

You'd just have to think about your situation, and probably only end up using it directly after casting an avatar to make sure you don't experience any downtime. So, balance wise it's not that great of an idea, but at least it's something to go off of.

[Razushu]

You'd just have to think about your situation, and probably only end up using it directly after casting an avatar to make sure you don't experience any downtime. So, balance wise it's not that great of an idea, but at least it's something to go off of.

Maybe it be a cumulative effect of 15~seconds, use it 3 times recast is 75 seconds.

[Leonlionheart]

Maybe it be a cumulative effect of 15~seconds, use it 3 times recast is 75 seconds.

It could be really cool, and a lot more in depth than simple MP cost: 100, BP Recast -15