Being a Summoner can be disheartening these days :/

[Herby]

This is probably a Rant Post, but I really have to say how I feel about SMN these days.

SMN has and will always have a special place in my Heart, but I can't ignore this feeling of being an unwanted Job in Vana'diel not only by the Community but SE themselves.

SMN has so much Potential but every good thing has like 3 drawbacks.
Avatar's Favor for example, gives 1 pretty nifty buff (the perp cost -3 isn't needed nowadays) and you lose offensive power (that's fine actually if that would've been the only thing), you have to wait MINUTES to get the buff tp full potential and on top of that you'll reset the buff potency when you do any Blood Pact. That's beyond broken but enough about this, i'm always getting back to this one apparently...

The thing I wanted to talk about today is that SMN almost always gets shafted when it comes to updates: we were promised Cait Sith LAST SUMMER. Well we all know how that panned out.

The Enmity Adjustments while necessary for melee classes absolutely broke SMN solo play. Everything EM and above doesn't seem to be interested in my avatar after about 20-30 seconds, even though i used a 2k+ dmg Blood Pact and I didn't even do anything else than that BP while SE seems to be fine with this since they only reduce the enmity generated by casting avatars in the upcoming "enmity fix".

I am truly sad that a Job with this much Potential gets neglected to this degree and that I am not able to enjoy this Job anymore because of this.

And although I know that this plead will be neglected again:

PLEASE, SE, change something about SMN. Either fix the solo situation, or make them DESIRABLE for more party situations. Give them something of their Uniqueness back ;/

[Randnum]

I guess all anyone else can do is 'like' for even more support on the matter.

With my limited knowledge, I can only say that mechanics wise, I don't know why Blood Pact Delay has a cap, or at least not that cap. I can also say that I don't understand why Avatar's Favor potency would be reset by Blood Pacts when the avatar is weaker anyway.

I doubt they'll change the enmity system overly (beyond what's planned) so I hope career SMN manage to find some really good -enmity builds that don't cripple them. It's not a full solution, though, so this all stands. I hope enough people can agree on simple changes that can be put on the test server(?) so something can happen.

[Sargent]

It was bad enough that Summoner only got used for PD, which then got nerfed (which tbh I'm glad about, nothing quite as bad as coming to an event just for your 1hr), but then they completely wrecked any chance of solo play with the enmity adjustment. So now you got a job which doesn't get invited to endgame besides ADL/Odin II (only for a 1hr ability) and can't solo anything worth a damn due to it being the squishiest job in the game with a pet that can no longer hold hate. I hope SE fix the Enmity issue at the very least, but the job itself is way overdue adjustments.

With my limited knowledge, I can only say that mechanics wise, I don't know why Blood Pact Delay has a cap, or at least not that cap.
It's effectively the 25% Haste cap for Summoner. Only mages can now nuke with 40% off their recast with max Fast Cast (before Haste etc), plus they're not affected by a universal timer, and hardly any spells have a base recast of one minute, let alone offensive spells. SE are really behind with the times when it comes to the job as a whole and seriously need to rethink it at this stage.

[Areayea]

/cry, nirvana vs skrimish weapon ; ; but they are messing SMN up agian, usually when it gets this bad they'll do something to buff us... so I hope they fix the emnity/give us cait sith X.X

[Pebe]

Lowering the enmity of the summoning of the avatar may alleviate some of the problem. That is to say if the static enmity you get from summoning was lowered a lot and the avatar could reach that value through melee attacks fast. The remaining part of the problem would be the static enmity from using bloodpacts themselves. I don't see why they just don't make this hateless.

[Herby]

Lowering the enmity of the summoning of the avatar may alleviate some of the problem. That is to say if the static enmity you get from summoning was lowered a lot and the avatar could reach that value through melee attacks fast. The remaining part of the problem would be the static enmity from using bloodpacts themselves. I don't see why they just don't make this hateless.

Sadly it won't. I already lose hate with my first Avatar. So while it may be an issue for ongoing fights, it's already too much Enmity gained on doing petabilities. And if SE didn't make a Typo, they won't adjust them atleast for SMN which is really sad if true.

[HimuraKenshyn]

Hey still great at worms >.> yeah they broke the hell out of the enmity system. It's like they don't comprehend how the smn job worked for years and wasn't over powered at all in any way. Just keep buffing other jobs and leaving smn in the dust sad to say always one of my favorite jobs but now pretty much unused and in the corner since the update... Oh wait WOE still yeah that's the ticket auto-reraise ftw...

[Luvbunny]

You can always stop paying monthly fee - until they rectify this hate issue and actually give Summoner something worth to come back and pay to play again. Otherwise, don't bother giving them your money.

[Herby]

You can always stop paying monthly fee - until they rectify this hate issue and actually give Summoner something worth to come back and pay to play again. Otherwise, don't bother giving them your money.

If Summoner was the only thing I play I certainly would, but I actually love what the enmity update did to PLD (to make it actually able to tank again). There certainly is much to be done about enmity BUT if SE doesn't forget SMN they're actually on the right way.

That being said SMN has WAY more issues than the enmity update. This recent update though just showed how they neglect this job when considering large scale system changes.

[HimuraKenshyn]

If Summoner was the only thing I play I certainly would, but I actually love what the enmity update did to PLD (to make it actually able to tank again). There certainly is much to be done about enmity BUT if SE doesn't forget SMN they're actually on the right way.

That being said SMN has WAY more issues than the enmity update. This recent update though just showed how they neglect this job when considering large scale system changes.

I pulled hate off a pally with refresh2 on myself refresh2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This update blows chunks.....

[Herby]

I pulled hate off a pally with refresh2 on myself refresh2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This update blows chunks.....

Well then that PLD was doing something wrong, I never lost hate on ANY healer or supporter yet since the update. And I'm almost exclusively playing PLD atm.

but this is offtopic anyways so please respond to the SMN side of my comments or not at all (I don't intend to be rude, but this IS the SMN Forums)

[HimuraKenshyn]

Pointing out hate in the game now is whack as hell period a pld tanking multiple mobs and all I do is cast refresh2 on me with only being in the same party and the mob stops turns and hit me in the face a wtf moment for sure. That never happen prior to the great enmity fix. With another fix on the way which is also why SMN and BST now have an issue.

From this response:

Hello,

Thanks for the feedback thus far since my previous post.

We've seen a couple of questions, so I would like to provide some responses.

Blood Pacts, Retreat, and Release do not generate enmity, and as such were not included in the list.

Also, while on the subject of pet jobs, below are some notes about beastmaster's job abilities that were not included on the list:


Ready
This ability does not generate enmity.


Spur/Run Wild
While these abilities have a static amount of enmity generation, they are time volatile, and because the amount is lost every second it was removed from the scope of our adjustments.





Not sure what game are they playing...

[Herby]

Pointing out hate in the game now is whack as hell period a pld tanking multiple mobs and all I do is cast refresh2 on me with only being in the same party and the mob stops turns and hit me in the face a wtf moment for sure. That never happen prior to the great enmity fix. With another fix on the way which is also why SMN and BST now have an issue.

From this response:


Not sure what game are they playing...

Yet again, not sure if the PLD did enough hate controlling things on that particular Mob that turned on you, but I'm NOT saying, that the Enmity generated by buffs is fine, because it's not. I know that. Saying it's the right direction and saying it's fine are two different things. I just firmly believe that with a few more Adjustments the Enmity System can work again.

That being said, the qoute you posted is quite unsettling because I know for a FACT that Blood Pact: Rage generates hate otherweise the things happening to me wouldn't happening. We really have to communicate that to SE until they fix that no matter how long that may take.

[Pebe]

HimuraKenshyn was the mob an umbril by any chance? I think they have weird hate mechanics on purpose when it comes to magic.

[HimuraKenshyn]

HimuraKenshyn was the mob an umbril by any chance? I think they have weird hate mechanics on purpose when it comes to magic.

Pld did exactly what we have done for years aggro-ed and linked a bunch of mobs he was holding them to be picked off. I was dead another story lol raised up casted refresh2 on myself and got instant hate like really and died. This wasn't in a revive nothing special just really screwed up as far as how we normally super tanked mobs in the past.

So I have seen a number of weird hate quirks while fell cleaving and has to do with what seems like the damage done to damage taken ratio almost like - enmity is earned meaning the mob has 0 hate after producing a certain amount of damage without receiving enough damage so any little action puts the next person higher on the hate list.

This post has it pretty much detailed how bad it is I wonder if the dev even play or test for that matter atm:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/31828-Severe-pet-enmity-issues-post-update...-Please-fix-today.

This would do it seems to explain it since enmity can hit 0 then the mobs go to any action performed..


All actions produce 1 CE minimum so obviously it produces some hate, just not much. The reason pets keep losing hate is because they gimp compared to players. Damage from pets took the same reduction that players received. Whatever hate the pet is generating is being instantly lost when they take damage and so when the SMN use's that 1 CE ability it puts them 1CE over their pet.

Talk about ouch....

Well they heard us...


Greetings,

The information mentioned yesterday about summoner's abilities and Blood Pacts not creating hate seems to have raised some questions, so I'd like to follow up on it.

To be precise, Blood Pacts have a non-volatile enmity value of 1. It's been arranged this way so that some enmity remains on the summoner when having a pet perform an action against a monster. If we were to make it so enmity was not placed on the summoner, once the enmity from the avatar is gone, it would cause bugs to occur (such as monsters becoming unclaimed). It's very similar to the way linked monsters don't come after the summoner once the avatar has vanished (except it would happen to the monster you perform the Blood Pact on).

In the case that the avatar's enmity has a minimum value of 1 for both non-volatile and volatile enmity, when executing a Blood Pact, the summoner will receive +1 to their non-volatile enmity, making a total of 2 non-volatile and 1 volatile enmity. When this happens, the target will go after the avatar.

As an adjustment, we are looking into the below:


When the summoner has enmity, they will not receive +1 to non-volatile enmity when executing a Blood Pact. (The +1 to non-volatile enmity will only occur when the summoner's enmity value is 0.)

The above adjustment is not a job ability adjustment; it will be a change to the process occurring in the programming, so please give us a bit of time for this.

We had looked into taking another approach by adding an enmity+ stat to avatars like beastmaster's familiars have, and to ease up on the enmity lost when taking damage; however, this was geared more towards solo play and there are times when it would be best for avatars not to take hate during party battles, so we decided to adopt the adjustment mentioned above.

[leorez]

went to go solo after coming back from a long break...and good lord they need to change things. Im just standing there while my pet bashes on the mob and i get hate somehow...wtf??

also having a BP take so damn before i can use it again really sucks when you trying to do some sense of damage compared to just about any other job (or to make killing stuff at a decent rate worth it) More places have less room for you to get far away enough for a re-summon, and casting a spell is a death sentence at this point. Why not indiviual timers on all the BPs? why not amp up the power a bit? I barely get to play the job ive enjoyed quite a bit, except for a trigger biotch in VW.

just give the job the fixes it needs, its not overpowered in the slightest...if anything its one of the few jobs that could use a nice damn boost.

[Mokeil]

I think Summoner is pretty much out of the race now.

This last update gave many jobs a slew of new weapons with some rather... impressive stats on them. (For anyone who hasn't seen 'em yet, check out the list here (http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/April_2013_Version_Update_Changes). Go ahead. It's worth the look.)

They even gave Summoner a nod with a Balsam Staff (http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Balsam_Staff) that gives Avatars +60 MAB. And as impressive as that is... I still don't see it putting our Avatars' spike damage on par with where we stand now when compared to what other jobs will be putting out - let alone every one else's DoT from just auto-attacks.

The hefty damage on that staff (157!) makes me think that SE is pushing us towards a more melee-centric role if we want to contribute any damage. I know some folks have found a nice niche with a melee build and all... But I don't even have 800HP as a Taru Summoner. Being in melee range, even with Stoneskin, is often asking to be made to eat dirt on a regular basis.

So, lousy damage output... And given that our support side is still fairly useless outside of 5-6 Wards (which other jobs can generally do better)... Once these new weapons start getting around, it'll be pretty much the end of any use for SMN outside of some Abyssea work (which no one will really need to bother with, what with all the new Adoulin gear).

Without drastic systemic changes to Summoner, I think that's gonna be it for us. Like the thread title says, it's rather disheartening.

[Umisame]

Dmg on weapon should increase dmg of avatars.

Do something SE, tell us if you are going to fix smn soon or not!

FIX ******* SMN SE!

[Okipuit]

While we can't give a specific time frame, please rest assured that the development team is receiving your feedback and they do have plans to adjust avatars.

[Genoxd]

While we can't give a specific time frame, please rest assured that the development team is receiving your feedback and they do have plans to adjust avatars.

I'm sorry, I'm going to be quite rude here.

You've been receiving our feedback and making plans for summoner for the past 8-9 years yet all we've gotten is Fenrir (decent concept no longer relevant) Diabolos (worthless other then Netherblast for Kirin years ago) Odin/Alexander (2hrs that were suppose to be actual avatars)

Now you told us Cait and Atomos would be avatars but we've gotten nothing.

Stop sugar coating it. You don't like SMN because it requires too many resources to create new content for and it's such a unique class that it also requires specific gear that you don't feel like spending time on.'

Your "plans" to adjust avatars are likely in the
-"oh hey Jim I think we should fix avatars they seem broken"
-"oh yeah you're right bob, lets do that some day"

Save for maybe a random mention at a meeting, I doubt you've done crap.

And that Cait video you posted? Honestly I could swap some dat files and I'd have what you showed us, and I'm guessing that's all you actually did.

I really want to start cussing at the dev team for even attempting a post like this, too bad it's not allowed. I honestly find it insulting.

[Areayea]

Dmg on weapon should increase dmg of avatars.

Do something SE, tell us if you are going to fix smn soon or not!

FIX ******* SMN SE!

wel... thay gave us an answer O.o THANK YOU OKIPUT, he seems like he's been posting on a lot of Pet jobs lately, so maybe they're going to finally increase the base damage of pets ; ; (that's been long overdue X.X); TYYYYYYY OKIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPPPPUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT :D

[Jerbob]

While I appreciate the post from our esteemed forum rep, I can't say I'm filled with confidence knowing that developers have "plans" for us. Avatar's Favour was and is an absolute atrocity, Odin and Alexander were the worst letdown in FFXI history, the blood pacts on the road to level 99 are, on the whole, terrible (save a few situational gems) and now we have to contend with avatars being made of astral polystyrene and holding hate worse than a box of elementally-aligned kittens. Even the wonderful let up on perpetuation issues we've enjoyed since level 75 is not so much a buff as the removal of a deliberate weakness. I'm not even going to rant about the number of pieces of gear we're able to use (and, given the trend, probably assumed to be actually able to make good use of) with the ubiquitous "INT+X MND+X CHR+X", which are even ridiculous for every other casting job for a whole different host of reasons, let alone us. Let's also not forget that a lot of summoner's "major updates" have actually been bug fixes.

Summoner is in need of a significant overhaul to make it relevant - and in some scenarios, even remotely usable. I consider it one of my two main jobs, I love it to bits, and even I freely admit that it is lacking in so many areas that it's become sort of a joke. I hate to be one of those people who start demanding things, but something needs to be done here and we need more information than a "maybe at some point", as "plans" in the past have been disappointing at best and borderline insulting at worst. There needs to be some proper communication going on, lest something as hideous and malformed as Avatar's Favour surfaces from the murky depths at some undefined point during 2015 as if it were the pallid corpse of some sort of horrific giant squid.

I'm pretty sure that every summoner worth their tuning fork has an idea in their head for how to resurrect our job - perhaps I'm just a bit obsessed, but I've certainly got an overhaul modification written down somewhere. We have lots of ideas and lots of experience that we're all eager to share - please let us contribute, and please listen. I mean, after all the uproar with Odin and Alexander not being actual avatars, you propose to release Atomos in the same way? It does somewhat boggle the mind.

As a pre-emptive comment, I do understand that the development team have said in the past that they have a lack of resources and a lack of manpower. This is, however, not an acceptable excuse. I expect a certain level of support for the game when I pay my subscription fee, and delaying promised content for literally years is not that level. As Genoxd has said, I'm sorry if that seems rude, but it gets a bit much hearing the same excuses over and over.

[Mokeil]

While we can't give a specific time frame, please rest assured that the development team is receiving your feedback and they do have plans to adjust avatars.

Oki, I know you're trying to be reassuring, I know you're passing on what you were asked to pass on, and I know there's a lot of complaints in other areas of the game right now... But do you understand what this sounds like us?

It's insulting.

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. We're still waiting for the avatars we were promised nearly two years ago. Since the time they were promised to us, the only major news we've had about them is that they've been indefinitely delayed. With that sting still rather fresh in our minds, you come to us again with vague promises of "plans" that will be implemented who-knows-when. Really?

Right now, we have nothing to go on. No hope that things will get better anytime in the near future. Give us something - anything! - solid to go on. Insight into what the plans are, a timetable on when the changes will be made... Nearly anything will do, but it must be solid.

[Mirage]

Yeah man. I'm sorry, dev team, but you really are running out of time here. You shouldn't promise things you don't know if you can deliver.

[Edyth]

While we can't give a specific time frame, please rest assured that the development team is receiving your feedback and they do have plans to adjust avatars.

Acknowledgement that you have a problem is the first step! This is big. Although now that I reread the post, they don't directly admit that there is a problem.

[Cahlum]

I really do not care about new avatars at all.

We need to fix our current ones and make them more relevant to the modern day FFXI (SMN has been irrelevant since 75)
So many suggestions are made on a daily basis on how to easily fix this job.

Increasing pet dmg output and lowering their attack delay.

Fix avatars favour so it does not reset when we use a BP and get rid of the negative attributes to it, heck make it so it increases our perp to use it if you have to have a negative attribute on it

Take the bloodpact delay cap to 30 seconds!

New Physical bloodpacts for 99

[Alhanelem]

I'm sorry, I'm going to be quite rude here.

You've been receiving our feedback and making plans for summoner for the past 8-9 years yet all we've gotten is Fenrir (decent concept no longer relevant) Diabolos (worthless other then Netherblast for Kirin years ago) Odin/Alexander (2hrs that were suppose to be actual avatars)

Now you told us Cait and Atomos would be avatars but we've gotten nothing.

Stop sugar coating it. You don't like SMN because it requires too many resources to create new content for and it's such a unique class that it also requires specific gear that you don't feel like spending time on.'

Your "plans" to adjust avatars are likely in the
-"oh hey Jim I think we should fix avatars they seem broken"
-"oh yeah you're right bob, lets do that some day"

Save for maybe a random mention at a meeting, I doubt you've done crap.

And that Cait video you posted? Honestly I could swap some dat files and I'd have what you showed us, and I'm guessing that's all you actually did.

I really want to start cussing at the dev team for even attempting a post like this, too bad it's not allowed. I honestly find it insulting.You're right, this is a rude post. for one, because you're leaving out tons of adjustments made to summoner over the years, and instead focusing on the one thing they've agreeably slacked on, which is releasing the newer avatars (both most recent and future)



Save for maybe a random mention at a meeting, I doubt you've done crap.seriously, way to shoot the messenger. Okipuit is a member of the community team. They aren't developers, they can only tell you what the dev team tells them.

While I agree with the notion that they should "hurry the heck up and give us what they said they were going to give us", the official comment was in relation to fixes/adjustments, not to new content.

[Karbuncle]

IDK, I think I'll just stay optimistic here. I mean this new guy is literally Pooing on all forms of Balance ever, Maybe he'll ungimp SMN finally.

[Glamdring]

Sorry An, I gotta disagree again (and normally I'm on board with you). The rude post was not (except to Oki-don't shoot the messenger). I play pup now, quite a bit, and I was a latecomer to the job. I could "lolpup" witht he best of them, especially as a top-flight career beast myself. I was a latecomer because the "lol" people were right, but I levelled it once aby came out to let me fight magic-based mobs and found it had utility as long as you used your atmas for the pet, not yourself. So, I didn't have to suffer through the 4+ years of empty broken promises that so many did, I only had about 18 months of it.

Genoxd is letting the devs know that summoners won't stand for it-and you know what? they shouldn't. don't get me wrong, smn is nowhere NEAR as weak as all the complaints would leave you to believe. I know a couple great summoners that have put the time in on the job to be good, they are among the most productive players on Ragnarok because when they are around things happen-and not because they just popped Alexander during a sch Embrava-fest-it was because they were good players on a good job that they knew how to use to the fullest.

But they have been promissed new tools and expanded utility. The players have kept their side of the bargain, they keep coughing up their monthly fees and keep playing the job, finding the limited niches their capabilities allow them to be productive in. Noone has boycott the job, nor are there massive rage-quits like there have been from career rdms. SE has not. Sure, they adjusted spirits-I never see a smn using them for more than Siphon even post-update. They made a few other tweaks, but they were minor. In fact, only the recast time reduction has been a major improvement, and if anything that just pissed off the other pet job players with their up to 20 minute recall timers.

No, I think it's about time someone called the devs on their own bogus statements and I applaud Geno for doing so. If the devs can't handle the workload necessitated by their promises... well, I learned many lessons in the workforce about making promisses I can't keep, and that was just to the boss. If I started doing that to customers I might as well just take up permanent residence on the unemployment rolls. If it REALLY takes this long to create new avatars that's FINE, but for god's sake, tell people BEFORE you get their hopes up. This is just bush-league.

[Genoxd]

You're right, this is a rude post. for one, because you're leaving out tons of adjustments made to summoner over the years, and instead focusing on the one thing they've agreeably slacked on, which is releasing the newer avatars (both most recent and future)

seriously, way to shoot the messenger. Okipuit is a member of the community team. They aren't developers, they can only tell you what the dev team tells them.

While I agree with the notion that they should "hurry the heck up and give us what they said they were going to give us", the official comment was in relation to fixes/adjustments, not to new content.

Please insert all cussing and bad language as you see fit:

You sir are not intelligent. My post is obviously directed at the developers not Oki. However I have no way to quote a developer so I have to quote what was translated.

Yes I left out some changes. Let me list them for you.

They added MB to summoner, something that should have been there from day one since all other magic can MB even enfeebling spells. They also made it so accuracy increases after using a physical BP Rage.

They NERFED summoner by capping damage so you could no longer 1 shot all lower level content.

Am I missing something?

So we got 1 addition that really should have been there and required honestly no thinking and a couple changes to the code. A semi-buff assuming you actually keep avatar out. Then we got a nerf because we were too OP on content that was lower then level 70.

What am I missing? What other changes have we gotten?

I'm not seeing any fix. And the changes they did make were to content and play styles that are no longer relevant to the game nor have they been for the past 7-8 years (When did ToAU come out?)

[Cahlum]

I'm old enough to remember when Blood Pact was one timer...

[Alhanelem]

You sir are not intelligent. My post is obviously directed at the developers not Oki.I demonstrated no lack of intelligence- on the other hand, you demonstrated a lack of clarity- You quoted Okipuit and then used words such as "you", which directs the statements at the person, not SE or the devs in general. If you weren't intending to offend the individual, you should have clearly written the mesage to not be directed at the individual. My inability to read your mind or assume your intentions doesn't make me unintelligent.



They NERFED summoner by capping damage so you could no longer 1 shot all lower level content.This is news to me.

Let's see, things you didn't list:

Elemental siphon
splitting of rage/ward timers
SC along with the MB (carveat: lv70 pacts need sc ability)
Blood Boon
Mana Cede
Skillups on BP usage
Vast increase in gear which enhances pets including avatars
Abilities on support-role jobs that enhance pets including avatars
Fixes for various actual bugs and glitches over the years
Skill points over summon skill cap increasing avatar accuracy, magic accuracy, and making summon skill used more in general
BPs no longer using up timer due to being 'too far away" (BPs no longer using up timer due to enemy death supposedly coming soon)

They've fixed plenty. While I would agree with anyone who says there is a ton more they need to do, they've made a lot more changes, additions, and updates than you would care to acknowledge.

In no way am I trying to say that that they've done "enough" and that we don't need more fixes, and promised content delivered, because we do. But acting as if they've done nothing when that's not really true isn't going to be very persuasive because there is a lack of accurate information behind your anger. If you want to be effective in getting us what we want, use the facts rather than ignore them.

[Tile]

Compared to what I had to deal with while leveling Smn back during CoP, before ToaU was even added, smn is way better.

you don't have to act as Main healer anymore. really from 15-75 you pretended to be a whm
you can get skill by using blood pacts, it used to be just from the summoning
it used to be Blood Pact. and everything was under it, now we got rage and ward.
I got my main six avatars from the solo 20 cap fights, anyone else do those fights? 1/7 garuda 1/9 ramuh
no elemental Siphon for mp. if you needed MP you sat down and put on your Hmp gear

I did Love as a 40ish smn in crawler's nest while acting as main healer MB Diamond Dust at the start of a fight and doing 1k+ to the poor bug, and leveling up to get all my MP back. Breaking my own trial weapon by SC off carby and getting retribution.
learning how to control my spirits and having them spam burst on mobs was great too.

sure some new avatars would be nice but complaining about it wont do anything, its like blm crying they want a new thunder spell or something. took them over a year to give us Odin and Alex back when they said we would get them and those were just 2 hours.

[Genoxd]

Elemental siphon - Cool...

splitting of rage/ward timers - Yup I forgot to include this, too bad most BP ward are nearly worthless. None have been updated since 75. New ones are decent.

SC along with the MB - Yes and we can't do the good SCs Light/Dark for reasons that do not matter anymore. Also when was this ever relevant to the job other then messing around solo?

Blood Boon - Cool....added after we stopped having any MP issues. Honestly it was added so they could have our AF3 proc on something.

Mana Cede - lol

Skillups on BP usage - Uh you mean something that should always have been there? That does nothing for the job AT ALL. You know I always get invited to do things on SMN because ZOMG I CAN SKILL UP WHILE DOING MY JOB THAT SO BROKEN!!!`111 Oh right wait...

Vast increase in gear which enhances pets including avatars - This statement is false. We actually have very few pieces that increase our pets ability to function. In the past we just had basically none. We also actually get VERY VERY BAD gear. It just so happens that all our gear is so horrible when they add any stat for pets to any gear we're like ZOMG I WANT THAT SO BAD IT'S SO GOOD. Actually it's not that good.

Abilities on support-role jobs that enhance pets including avatars - No? This never happened lol...What game are you playing? DRG is the only job that has SJ do anything to pet.

Fixes for various actual bugs and glitches over the years - oh yes I'm sorry I should be happy that they fixed BUGs and GLITCHES in their game. Do you even read what you post? That's for sure something right?

Skill points over summon skill cap increasing avatar accuracy, magic accuracy, and making summon skill used more in general - Let me be clear: SMN skill had basically no use before this. It currently helps, yes, but that's really because the job was SO broken before that all our magic got resisted like crazy on like....everything...This honestly belongs in glitches and bugs because the fact that there was no gear and no way to increase avatar magic acc is a joke.

BPs no longer using up timer due to being 'too far away" (BPs no longer using up timer due to enemy death supposedly coming soon) - Why do you keep listing bugs and glitches as them adding things to the job? This should never exist in any way shape or form. I can't tell you how easy it is to correctly code BP usage. This goes to show how poorly this game is coded.



I know my SAM is probably around 500-600% stronger then it was at 75, if not more. My SMN however is probably about 60-100% stronger at best. Most of that increase didn't come from gear, it came from our avatars leveling up and gaining base stats and MAB. There's only so much ACC you need from skill over cap.

Now I'm excluding the new head piece and new staves from this, because if you want to include them I'm going to include the new 200+ damage weapons. At that point SMN isn't even a spec on the radar anymore.

So at 99 we have: (SMN skill, Avatar specific, and Blood boon gear don't count. Mythic not counted.)

Weapon: MAB + 13 (less then the mythic at 75)
Sub: Nothing
Range: MAB + 1
Head: MAB + 5
Neck: Regain 1/tick
Earrings: BP DMG + 3% BP delay + 5
Body: BP DMG+10%
Hands: BP DMG+ 5%
Rings: Nothing (only ifrit)
Back: MAB + 1 (with BP delay +3 just to screw us a little, cause 1 MAB is OP)
Waist: MAB + 2
Legs: BP DMG + 5% Regen +1HP/tick
Feet: MAB + 3 BP DMG +3%

Totals:
Regain +1
Regen +1
MAB+25
BP DMG + 26%

Physical BPs are even worse off. They basically Physical BPs got the equivalent of eating Meat Jerky (ATT+30 an estimate ATT bonus is somewhere in that range) and DMG+26%

My SAM got
DMG+44
fSTR cap + 5
ACC + a billion
ATT + a billion (I can hit 1-1.1k solo)
STR + 100ish
Capped haste easier from better gear
Hassozanshin
More Zanshin
Meditate boosted to 180% TP
Save TP
Conserve TP
More Store TP, 1 less hit to reach 100%
Shoha (Kaiten +40% DMG if we include relic)
More DA
More TA
QA
fTP belts
SC DMG Boost
SC DMG boost ability
TP Bonus ability that also gives me 40 TP after WS
Hasso Increased stats
Enhanced Seigan (counter+)
Enhanced Hasso (haste+)
WS DMG +7% (10 if you use Ogiers for some WSs)

I'm sure I'm forgetting a ton of things.

tl;dr? lol you're funny. Please go away now. Don't let the devs think anything they've done to summoner is enough or ok.

Edit: Some people found the leg pieces I was missing! Ngen is the superior piece so adding it to the list~

[Demon6324236]

tl;dr? lol you're funny. Please go away now. Don't let the devs think anything they've done to summoner is enough or ok.
In no way am I trying to say that that they've done "enough" and that we don't need more fixes, and promised content delivered, because we do. But acting as if they've done nothing when that's not really true isn't going to be very persuasive because there is a lack of accurate information behind your anger. If you want to be effective in getting us what we want, use the facts rather than ignore them.Read before quote.

[Mokeil]

sure some new avatars would be nice but complaining about it wont do anything, its like blm crying they want a new thunder spell or something. took them over a year to give us Odin and Alex back when they said we would get them and those were just 2 hours.

Truthfully, I'd much rather they sort out the existing problems with our job before getting us those new avatars. The point remains, however, that the continued absence of them represents a high profile, broken promise to us. There is, so far as we know, no work being done to fulfill this promise, either - it has, in fact, been put on hold for more important things.

Then, in light of this broken promise, we're told that there are undefined plans (with no time frame for implementation) that will do... something. That is the part that has me angry. We need - and I dare to say: deserve - something more substantial than vague promises to satisfy us at this point.

Now, if you'll excuse me, the other parts of your post have gotten me all nostalgic, and I need to go start a "Hey, remember when..." conversation with my LS mates...

[Umisame]

While we can't give a specific time frame, please rest assured that the development team is receiving your feedback and they do have plans to adjust avatars.

Thank you to reply thread, we need more info, we need to know if there is going to be a change soon or if we have to wait 1 year(or 10 more) to see a good change on smn. A good change isn't to add 2 avatars, SE needs to increase smn power, avatars power.

Bst/drg/pup needs a fix to their pets but smn needs a greater boost. Smn is the only pet job that is not melee, is a mage, our avatars are all our strength and they hit slow/low and we can only use BP every 45 seconds when other jobs can spam their ws.

All pets should get buffs(songs/rolls/geo/indi/warcry/etc), bst/drg/pup pets could get like 40-70% effect and smn avatars a 100%, we are not going to melee for party/alliance situations.

[Imakun]

I find it amusing that they have no idea of what to do with Summoner. Or any other mage for that matter.
They are so afraid of overpowering them that they'd rather let them agonize and buff SAM or whatever other melee class (that is not THF or DRG, as far as I can tell) hoping that everyone will eventually jump on the bandwagon and forget about them altogether.
But then they throw at us events that need magical damage and support and it's all good and dandy until you find out all the rewards heavily favor melee classes while you walk away with +MAB for your BRD.

They seriously need to put their brains together and think about the situation of magic at this stage of the game's life. Even the simple fact that we have never had magic-specific food, let alone pet-specific food, except for HMP is honestly insulting.

Yes, I am butthurt about it.

Also, if they think I'm just going to quit XI to play ARR when it comes out they are underestimating my intelligence.

[Sasaraixx]

This is news to me.

Let's see, things you didn't list:

Elemental siphon
splitting of rage/ward timers
SC along with the MB (carveat: lv70 pacts need sc ability)
Blood Boon
Mana Cede
Skillups on BP usage
Vast increase in gear which enhances pets including avatars
Abilities on support-role jobs that enhance pets including avatars
Fixes for various actual bugs and glitches over the years
Skill points over summon skill cap increasing avatar accuracy, magic accuracy, and making summon skill used more in general
BPs no longer using up timer due to being 'too far away" (BPs no longer using up timer due to enemy death supposedly coming soon)

They've fixed plenty. While I would agree with anyone who says there is a ton more they need to do, they've made a lot more changes, additions, and updates than you would care to acknowledge.

I think his initial anger is justified. Of the items you listed, only elemental siphon, the BP ward/rage timer split and not losing your timer for the mob being to far away were worth listing. The job is still seriously lacking in gear, especially if you compare it to any other mage or DD job. The SC adjustment was never terribly useful when it was first implemented and is useless now. Skill ups on BP usage was a very nice change, but it does nothing about the job's status in the game. And while we are glad they fixed bugs and glitches, that is expected. They were bugs lol I don't think we need to give special praise for fixing things that were actually broken. And COR pet rolls? IMO, that honestly isn't even worth mentioning.

I also don't think that the "skill over the cap" adjustment did nearly as much as it should have. Then we have Blood Boon and Mana Cede. Again, nice additions but fairly gimped in comparison to similar abilities for other jobs. If we add in all of the failures over the years, like the releasing of new avatars, Avatar's favor and the enmity mess we have now, I think a little anger is justified.

Now I doubt he/she *really* meant that nothing has been done over the last 9 years. At least, that is how I interpreted the post. If we want to talk about adjustments that really helped the job, it would be a very short conversation. And the last few years have been particularly frustrating. How long have we heard about Cait Sith? The BP's on the way to 99 were pretty horrible for the most part. The enmity problems and the dev teams unwillingness to listen to the player base is unacceptable. How many years have we been asking for a buff to avatar DOT or revamping avatar's favor? The only serious balance adjustment we've gotten was a nerf to Perfect Defense. Now we get a "we're thinking about fixing things, but we don't know when" message.

There are only a couple of jobs in the game that can legitimately claim to be more poorly treated than SMN, but we're still at the bottom. I think a little outrage is justified at this point. Nothing else seems to be working.

[Randnum]

SC along with the MB (carveat: lv70 pacts need sc ability)


Just noting the extreme relevance of this. On demand damage was probably the issue. That is not an issue. Let's just have all physical BP chain. Chain beautifully.

[Sasaraixx]

While we can't give a specific time frame, please rest assured that the development team is receiving your feedback and they do have plans to adjust avatars.

Okipuit, can you please pass on to the dev team that we would like to hear about these plans before they spend the manpower implementing them? We understand that the team is understaffed. A lot of dev time could be saved by bringing plans to the player base and taking in our feedback first. You would be able to save time on revamping ideas that are met with overwhelming hostility by the players. It would also confirm that you guys really are listening to our ideas because a lot of the time it does not feel like that is the case.

Even if you don't have a time frame for when these changes will be implemented (and there are separate issues with that), we would very much appreciate it if you could let us know what you are thinking about in terms of adjustments. We will do our best to respond with specific, focused comments. The worst possible outcome is the dev team taking a year to implement something that no one asked for or really wants.

[Cahlum]

Why do we always keep mentioning how we understand that the team is understaffed? It is not our problem. We pay a subscription fee, we expect a certain quality of service. It would not be hard to make simple adjustments to SMN.

[Genoxd]

Read before quote.

I am stating that they have done so close to nothing that you should not even pretend to let them think they've done something.

[Edyth]

Okipuit, can you please pass on to the dev team that we would like to hear about these plans before they spend the manpower implementing them? We understand that the team is understaffed. A lot of dev time could be saved by bringing plans to the player base and taking in our feedback first. You would be able to save time on revamping ideas that are met with overwhelming hostility by the players. It would also confirm that you guys really are listening to our ideas because a lot of the time it does not feel like that is the case.

Even if you don't have a time frame for when these changes will be implemented (and there are separate issues with that), we would very much appreciate it if you could let us know what you are thinking about in terms of adjustments. We will do our best to respond with specific, focused comments. The worst possible outcome is the dev team taking a year to implement something that no one asked for or really wants.

This is one of the best, most intelligent posts ever posted on this forum.

[Alhanelem]

[I had written a lot of stuff here, but decided it was pointless.]


This is one of the best, most intelligent posts ever posted on this forum. I agree, and IMNSHO it is a LOT more productive than RAGEMODE SMN SUX FIX THE #&^$ JOB SE DO NOTHING DOESNT CARE WAAHRBLGARBL.

Posting in an immature, raging, childish fashion is not going to make a difference here. Coherent feedback with strong support conveyed in a tactful manner is far more likely (at least, more than 0% likely) to get our real message across.

[Babekeke]

Legs: Nothing (wow I had to double check, that's actually shocking...)

Took me a while to remember what they were, but: post 75 smn legs (http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Punga%27s_Slops)

[Kiakasha]

I suggest altering avatar's favor, allow access to the buffs as a bloodpact ward instead of an aura that needs to charge and enhance the potency a bit, that will give summoner a place in advanced battles.

[Rosalie]

Took me a while to remember what they were, but: post 75 smn legs (http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Punga%27s_Slops)

Also: Ngen Seraweels (http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Ngen_Seraweels)
(BP Damage +5%)

[Infidi]

Even releasing the new SMN 1hr before the others would be epic. Obviously this isn't going to happen, as everyone will cry foul that the other jobs weren't released at the same time. XD

[Kagetachi]

actually, you were promised Cait Sith in 2008. Don't know if anyone mentioned that yet.

[Genoxd]

Thank you! I knew I was forgetting something on leg pieces!
Editing post!

Edit: I'd like to point out that this last update PUP got an Animator that gives Automaton all stats +70. Why can't we have gear like this?

[Demon6324236]

Even releasing the new SMN 1hr before the others would be epic. Obviously this isn't going to happen, as everyone will cry foul that the other jobs weren't released at the same time. XDUnless they fixed the RDM one to not suck, I would rather not get my ability, at least then I could have some hope they come to their senses...

[Kiakasha]

while "adjusting" Avatars... factor in the pace of battles these days, fights are extremely fast!

[Sasaraixx]

This is one of the best, most intelligent posts ever posted on this forum.


You are too kind. :) I can't lie though. I have had my rage moments! Being a career SMN can do that to you! hehe

[Severence]

I'm sorry, I'm going to be quite rude here.

You've been receiving our feedback and making plans for summoner for the past 8-9 years yet all we've gotten is Fenrir (decent concept no longer relevant) Diabolos (worthless other then Netherblast for Kirin years ago) Odin/Alexander (2hrs that were suppose to be actual avatars)

Now you told us Cait and Atomos would be avatars but we've gotten nothing.

Stop sugar coating it. You don't like SMN because it requires too many resources to create new content for and it's such a unique class that it also requires specific gear that you don't feel like spending time on.'

Your "plans" to adjust avatars are likely in the
-"oh hey Jim I think we should fix avatars they seem broken"
-"oh yeah you're right bob, lets do that some day"

Save for maybe a random mention at a meeting, I doubt you've done crap.

And that Cait video you posted? Honestly I could swap some dat files and I'd have what you showed us, and I'm guessing that's all you actually did.

I really want to start cussing at the dev team for even attempting a post like this, too bad it's not allowed. I honestly find it insulting.

Solution to problem? Fire Jim and Bob. Obviously they are not doing there job correctly. C'mon I don't even play SMN and I feel bad for you guys. Honestly? They keep implementing all this new stuff thinking we are gonna forget about the old stuff. They keep bringing it back up to us; reminding us that they have failed to do their job. If they didn't plan on implementing the content that they promised you guys in the first place within a few months... WHY WOULD THEY EVEN BOTHER BRINGING IT UP? Fire Jim. Fire Bob. So Jim-Bob Jr. and Bob-Jim Jr. can starve because Daddy didn't do his job correctly. We pay to play... so they should pay because we can't play. Done Done. Enjoy.

Edit: Removed double "didn't".

[Zeldar]

The hate situation is absolutely ridiculous. From a player perspective, there is no situation where i would mind if my avatar had hate, as long as that hate doesn't transfer to me when it dies.My PLD may mind the mob hitting our whm, but who cares if it kills my Shiva? It's not like bst when theres a big timer on re-summoning. Give them hate , we don't care...we'll just cast another.

[Genoxd]

To be honest I wouldn't even care if hate went to me when my avatar died so long as I actually preformed well. If hateless damage is the big reason we're OP then just have it give us hate oh well~ maybe SMN can stack Enmity- gear then, we seem to get a lot of it.

[Mokeil]

The hate situation is absolutely ridiculous. From a player perspective, there is no situation where i would mind if my avatar had hate, as long as that hate doesn't transfer to me when it dies.My PLD may mind the mob hitting our whm, but who cares if it kills my Shiva? It's not like bst when theres a big timer on re-summoning. Give them hate , we don't care...we'll just cast another.

I agree that it seems like very weak reasoning.

Back in the Dark Ages of XP, when we leveled up via VT-IT mobs (man, those were the days, huh?) it was a good thing when avatars stole hate for a few moments. Tank wasn't beat on, healer didn't need to spam cures, and Summoners got to feel like something other than a /whm for a few moments.

I can actually think of one time when it might matter - on mobs with direction based TP moves (e.g. Spike Flail). That's really the only time I can think of, and the problems with that can be easily be ameliorated by a Summoner who knows what they're doing.


To be honest I wouldn't even care if hate went to me when my avatar died so long as I actually preformed well. If hateless damage is the big reason we're OP then just have it give us hate oh well~ maybe SMN can stack Enmity- gear then, we seem to get a lot of it.

I don't see enmity transfer on avatar death being a good path for Summoner. For example, it would be the death of avatar kiting, unless they also give us an ability to transfer that hate to a fresh avatar. And given that avatars are rather flimsy, the ability would have to have such a short cool down as to make you wonder why they even bothered to have the hate transfer in the first place...

In a group scenario, as the fight dragged on, we would eventually wind up near the top of the hate list, which would drag the mob way away from the front line and over to the support team. One good (read: nasty, annoyingly timed) AoE would then have the back line in disarray.

I don't want to have to go off to the special Summoner-gets-killed corner all by myself...

[Babekeke]

Pretty sure that the avatar taking hate is what SE doesn't want, and what we want is irrelevant.

Adjustments have been made recently to AOE damage for players/pets that aren't the main target, so I can only assume that SE doesn't want the avatar to be taking hate and allowing the players to get away with minimal damage.

[Sasaraixx]

Pretty sure that the avatar taking hate is what SE doesn't want, and what we want is irrelevant.

Adjustments have been made recently to AOE damage for players/pets that aren't the main target, so I can only assume that SE doesn't want the avatar to be taking hate and allowing the players to get away with minimal damage.

If that is the case, I think my FFXI days may be over. I don't mean to sound overly dramatic, but this change is so ridiculous. Not only does it show a lack of understanding about how we actually play this game, but it also shows that they aren't listening to the players at all. Also, effectively ruining the solo capability of a job that has been the same way since it's inception is just more than I can stomach.

[JackDaniels]

Yeah man. I'm sorry, dev team, but you really are running out of time here. You shouldn't promise things you don't know if you can deliver.

"For real real gaiz!"


If that is the case, I think my FFXI days may be over. I don't mean to sound overly dramatic, but this change is so ridiculous. Not only does it show a lack of understanding about how we actually play this game, but it also shows that they aren't listening to the players at all. Also, effectively ruining the solo capability of a job that has been the same way since it's inception is just more than I can stomach.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-iGg2992TY_s/TYlz1-bFUHI/AAAAAAAAATE/360MSj0mU3M/small+violin.jpg

SAYYY IT AINT SO

[jake3614]

I'm sorry, I'm going to be quite rude here.

You've been receiving our feedback and making plans for summoner for the past 8-9 years yet all we've gotten is Fenrir (decent concept no longer relevant) Diabolos (worthless other then Netherblast for Kirin years ago) Odin/Alexander (2hrs that were suppose to be actual avatars)

Now you told us Cait and Atomos would be avatars but we've gotten nothing.

Stop sugar coating it. You don't like SMN because it requires too many resources to create new content for and it's such a unique class that it also requires specific gear that you don't feel like spending time on.'

Your "plans" to adjust avatars are likely in the
-"oh hey Jim I think we should fix avatars they seem broken"
-"oh yeah you're right bob, lets do that some day"

Save for maybe a random mention at a meeting, I doubt you've done crap.

And that Cait video you posted? Honestly I could swap some dat files and I'd have what you showed us, and I'm guessing that's all you actually did.

I really want to start cussing at the dev team for even attempting a post like this, too bad it's not allowed. I honestly find it insulting.


I think I love you.

[Genoxd]

I agree that it seems like very weak reasoning.

Back in the Dark Ages of XP, when we leveled up via VT-IT mobs (man, those were the days, huh?) it was a good thing when avatars stole hate for a few moments. Tank wasn't beat on, healer didn't need to spam cures, and Summoners got to feel like something other than a /whm for a few moments.

I can actually think of one time when it might matter - on mobs with direction based TP moves (e.g. Spike Flail). That's really the only time I can think of, and the problems with that can be easily be ameliorated by a Summoner who knows what they're doing.



I don't see enmity transfer on avatar death being a good path for Summoner. For example, it would be the death of avatar kiting, unless they also give us an ability to transfer that hate to a fresh avatar. And given that avatars are rather flimsy, the ability would have to have such a short cool down as to make you wonder why they even bothered to have the hate transfer in the first place...

In a group scenario, as the fight dragged on, we would eventually wind up near the top of the hate list, which would drag the mob way away from the front line and over to the support team. One good (read: nasty, annoyingly timed) AoE would then have the back line in disarray.

I don't want to have to go off to the special Summoner-gets-killed corner all by myself...

Do you mean like BLM SCH WHM RDM GEO? Are those the ones you're worried about? News flash, they already pull more then enough hate nuking and curing. Have you seen the enmity generated from debuffs? We don't stand a chance at pulling hate over any of those mages.

Assuming it was a long fight and Cumulative Enmity managed to cap, the way SMN currently stands there would be no way for it to build Volatile Enmity fast enough. 45 sec is too long between BPs and we do far too little damage. On top of that, if we let our avatars die instead of dismiss them it's likely the damage they take would wipe all the CE they'd have accumulated leaving us with only VE to deal with. Considering a SMN acting as a SMN (no healing and such) generates virtually no hate. There is little to no chance that we'd actually pull hate unless all the other mages were dead and the tank and all melee died.

[Mokeil]

Pretty sure that the avatar taking hate is what SE doesn't want, and what we want is irrelevant.

Ain't that the truth....



Adjustments have been made recently to AOE damage for players/pets that aren't the main target, so I can only assume that SE doesn't want the avatar to be taking hate and allowing the players to get away with minimal damage.

Did that happen already? I thought that was one of those "this is what we're maybe thinking of implementing sometime in the future" type things.

[Mokeil]

Assuming it was a long fight and Cumulative Enmity managed to cap, the way SMN currently stands there would be no way for it to build Volatile Enmity fast enough. 45 sec is too long between BPs and we do far too little damage.

I thought that your proposed hate transfer was supposed to accompany some sort of increase in avatar performance - likely with a focus in the areas of damage generating and defense. In light of this, I wasn't speaking of an "as SMN currently stands" scenario, but one in which our avatars are far more competitive in output.

[Genoxd]

I thought that your proposed hate transfer was supposed to accompany some sort of increase in avatar performance - likely with a focus in the areas of damage generating and defense. In light of this, I wasn't speaking of an "as SMN currently stands" scenario, but one in which our avatars are far more competitive in output.

Assuming an Avatar could actually keep up in damage with the top DD then yes they would eventually target the SMN. That said, we had issues like this in the past before Abyssea where everyone forgot how to play. Cure has a range of approximately 20 yalms (or 21 I forget) and there's no reason SMNs and other mages can't separate. Most AoE are in the 10-15 range however some do go to 20 or even 30. It is quite easy to have Healers in 1 area 20ish yalms from the DD and at the same time 20 yalms from the SMN (and I assume BLM and other DD mages who will take hate)

Healers can heal DD and mages as needed yet both stay out of the shorter range AoEs and it becomes quite easy to avoid the 20 yalm AoEs. 30+ depends on speed of attack and such. This isn't hard people, we did all of this in the past. Remember fighting dragons or KB?

absolutely horrible paint.net drawing in spoiler depicting such a situation.



Also yes SMN is going to die more often if they take hate, but honestly who cares? Is not dying worth sucking?

[Areayea]

Also yes SMN is going to die more often if they take hate, but honestly who cares? Is not dying worth sucking?

Dieing used to be a much bigger deal than it is now... don't forget no matter what job you were on you HAD to Meripo at 75~ now exp comes in bountiful amounts EVERYWHERE.

[Mokeil]

Is not dying worth sucking?

An interesting question, to be sure. Generally, players wish to perform at the highest level they can that doesn't end up with them taking a dirt nap. A dead or weakened player can't contribute as well as a healthy one, after all. Admittedly, this is less of an issue for Summoners and Beastmasters, as they can pull out a fresh, full powered pet at any time.

All the same, whatever other means by which we're contributing to the fight will be impacted, be it via meleeing or supporting via spells from our support jobs. Additionally, I still feel we'd find ourselves holding back while weakend, as Summoner's low HP compounded with being weakened will leave us open to being one-shot by a stray breeze.

Ultimately, the answer will entirely depend on how such a system would be implemented. I can envision scenarios in which it solves all our problems. I can, however, envision far more scenarios in which it makes more problems for us than it solves, as even our ability to solo/duo/trio NMs is smashed apart. SE's track record for drastic changes is fairly spotty, and I'm not sure they can get the balance right.

[Tannlore]

Well according to this:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/33461-Job-Adjustments-for-the-Next-Version-Update?p=432203&posted=1#post432203

One of our fixes are grips with avatar stats on them.... These better be some Freakishly awesome stats.

[Mokeil]

One of our fixes are grips with avatar stats on them.... These better be some Freakishly awesome stats.

Pup did get an animator that grants +70 to all of an automaton's stats. Something along those lines would make a good start at catching us up. I just hope they're not all from Delve only...

The Follow-up to Level 99 RME thread (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/33458-Follow-up-Level-99-Relic-Mythic-Empyrean-and-Walk-of-Echoes-Weapons) also mentions that WoE weapons will likely be used to unlock the weapon skills. Being able to use Myrkr with any staff would be fairly nifty.

Also: SE Dev/Rep guys? You gave us something more concrete to go on, as well as a reasonable time frame to expect these changes in. Thank You.

[Tannlore]

Pup did get an animator that grants +70 to all of an automaton's stats. Something along those lines would make a good start at catching us up. I just hope they're not all from Delve only...

The Follow-up to Level 99 RME thread (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/33458-Follow-up-Level-99-Relic-Mythic-Empyrean-and-Walk-of-Echoes-Weapons) also mentions that WoE weapons will likely be used to unlock the weapon skills. Being able to use Myrkr with any staff would be fairly nifty.

Also: SE Dev/Rep guys? You gave us something more concrete to go on, as well as a reasonable time frame to expect these changes in. Thank You.

Yes, I'm hoping it's something along the lines of that animator. It really needs to be at this point. As for the WoE weapons, I was very happy about that. I imagine they would let us with the real emp weapon would be able to take our WS with us as well. I'd love to have my Myrkr on something else.

[Babekeke]

Yes, I'm hoping it's something along the lines of that animator. It really needs to be at this point. As for the WoE weapons, I was very happy about that. I imagine they would let us with the real emp weapon would be able to take our WS with us as well. I'd love to have my Myrkr on something else.

Would be hilarious if people who made the WoE weapon get to take their WS with them, but ppl who made the empy don't!

[Alhanelem]

Yes, I'm hoping it's something along the lines of that animator. It really needs to be at this point. As for the WoE weapons, I was very happy about that. I imagine they would let us with the real emp weapon would be able to take our WS with us as well. I'd love to have my Myrkr on something else.
Actually, I'd love it if they didn't, and tied avatar stats to staff damage (and tied nuke acc/attack to staff damage, etc) the way they're tying wyvern stats to polearm damage.

[Mokeil]

Actually, I'd love it if they didn't, and tied avatar stats to staff damage (and tied nuke acc/attack to staff damage, etc) the way they're tying wyvern stats to polearm damage.

Pet stat progression tied to staves vs Pet stat progression tied to grips? What's the difference? They would both still be an item we'd more or less be required to get. At least with the grip I won't be forced to give up my -perp Magian staves.

[Mirage]

Grips/straps to boost avatars is fine by me. Sounds like it would make for more flexibility in gear choices.

[Calatilla]

Neck: Regain 1/tick


Pretty sure smn af3 neck is 2.5tick regain not 1tick.

[Infidi]

Pretty sure smn af3 neck is 2.5tick regain not 1tick.

Yep. ^^ 2.5 a tic. :D I hope grips are adequate boosts. :( And just a one size fits all dealio', like the new animator, not ton of different grips with diff stats on them.

[Karbuncle]

Actually, I'd love it if they didn't, and tied avatar stats to staff damage (and tied nuke acc/attack to staff damage, etc) the way they're tying wyvern stats to polearm damage.

I don't think an Avatar meleeing with Staff DPS will be any better than a SMN meleeing with Staff DPS, in fact it'd be worse, cause pets dont have food or gear haste. I'll take the Alternator ;\

[Alhanelem]

Pet stat progression tied to staves vs Pet stat progression tied to grips? What's the difference? They would both still be an item we'd more or less be required to get. At least with the grip I won't be forced to give up my -perp Magian staves.
First: You should be HAPPY to give up your perp magian staves- you never needed them in the first place. I haven't used a perp staff in years. There is more than enough perp- and refresh on gear to counter perp cost even with zero perp cost on a weapon. Even if you don't have enough, you can use avatar's favor to negate the rest at minimal loss of damage.

The difference is one of them is a good idea and the other is a terrible idea. The difference being not a grip that says "avatar magic attack bonus" or "base stats +100" on it, but rather literally basing avatar damage calculations on the DMG: of your weapon.

Likewise, BLM nuke damage ought to be based on the DMG: of their weaopon.

I was under the impression that this is what they were doing for DRG.

SMN needs systemic changes to the way things are determined and how their abilities work- not stat boosts. I don't care if they make a grip that has "avatar: all stats +70". I want shorter BP timers (without gear), better damage calculations, skillchains on lv70 pacts, the new pacts not sucking, enmity fixes, etc.

+ stats for avatars on gear is about the last thing I want. That should only come after everything that's actually broken about SMN is fixed. Gear can't fix every problem SMN has right now. While stat bonuses are nice, they don't fix things that are inherently broken.


I don't think an Avatar meleeing with Staff DPS will be any better than a SMN meleeing with Staff DPS, in fact it'd be worse, cause pets dont have food or gear haste. I'll take the Alternator ;\ I'm shocked at you- I thought you knew more about this stuff. I'm not talking about melee damage. I'm talking about all damage. The same way a weapon determines your weapon skill damage, your weapon should determine BP damage. You'd be an idiot to take the + stats item over something like that. The DMG rating on any R/E/M or expansion staff would drastically increase avatar damage, both on melee attacks and on physical BPs.

It wouldn't simply be the pet's attacks having DMG:108 or whatever. it would rather be a modifier into all of its damage calculations. Even if it was simply straight up damage, the base dmg of avatars is horrendous and increasing it by like a factor of 5 would do a lot more than doubling its STR INT MND etc. It would do a lot more than avatar magic attack bonus +50 as well (though having both sure wouldn't hurt e.g. skirmish weapon)

tl;dr you're wrong, and basing an avatar's dmg on weapon damage would boost it a lot more than adding +X to STR INT MND DEX CHR VIT AGI. Then you could have gear with stats on it, like Pet: Haste + X%, and your complaint about the idea is solved. Even against low level mobs, SMN damage isn't that impressive- and thats a situation where the int dif / str dif should be maxed out.

None of you should be "fine" about grips with SMN stats. Stats are the least of SMN's troubles. Kinda funny how I started this thread on SE's side, then when they come up with a terrible idea, now suddenly everyone's on SE's side and I'm not...

One last edit: There is also no reason why you couldn't have weapons be more important to SMN and also have new grips. These two things aren't mutually exclusive.

[Karbuncle]

I'm shocked at you- I thought you knew more about this stuff. I'm not talking about melee damage. I'm talking about all damage. The same way a weapon determines your weapon skill damage, your weapon should determine BP damage. You'd be an idiot to take the + stats item over something like that. The DMG rating on any R/E/M or expansion staff would drastically increase avatar damage, both on melee attacks and on physical BPs.

It wouldn't simply be the pet's attacks having DMG:108 or whatever. it would rather be a modifier into all of its damage calculations. Even if it was simply straight up damage, the base dmg of avatars is horrendous and increasing it by like a factor of 5 would do a lot more than doubling its STR INT MND etc. It would do a lot more than avatar magic attack bonus +50 as well (though having both sure wouldn't hurt e.g. skirmish weapon)

tl;dr you're wrong, and basing an avatar's dmg on weapon damage would boost it a lot more than adding +X to STR INT MND DEX CHR VIT AGI. Then you could have gear with stats on it, like Pet: Haste + X%, and your complaint about the idea is solved. Even against low level mobs, SMN damage isn't that impressive- and thats a situation where the int dif / str dif should be maxed out.

None of you should be "fine" about grips with SMN stats. Stats are the least of SMN's troubles. Kinda funny how I started this thread on SE's side, then when they come up with a terrible idea, now suddenly everyone's on SE's side and I'm not...

One last edit: There is also no reason why you couldn't have weapons be more important to SMN and also have new grips. These two things aren't mutually exclusive.

Can't say i agree, but not 100% disagree, Giving them a Staves DMG isn't going to suddenly make their fSTR, Acc, attack and dDEX not suck. Without both a DMG Boost and the Alternator-Type buffs, neither are going to be very worthwhile (Except maybe Magicals).

I can wack a 150 DMG Staff on SMN, but on content worth a d*mn I'll still be punching like I'm wielding a Rounsey Wand. While DMG:150 would be a nice step up from the GARBAGE they are now, I'd rather them give us our Alternator Grip and just rework Avatars Damage/Delay altogether, rather than dooming them to Staff Damage, which hasn't gone well for any of the jobs.

So, Basically, We're both wrong and right, but one without the other will be lackluster.

That and If they're going to keep us at this absolutely retarded 45 Second delay cap on BP Timers, I'd like Avatar melee DPS To count for something too :p

[RAIST]

I'm just sick and tired of having to chase after gears to swap in/out just to make avatars worth a flip. Seems like that's all we've done since we left the jungles and Ugly Pee. Scaling for our pets has not scaled well in comparison to the masters, and it's just too grossly out of whack now (not a SMN specific issue, but it's pretty bad for SMN).

Before, it was basically just seen as a nuissance and posed a bit of challenge to balance things out, but now post 75 caps (and outside of using atmas to enhance pets), it's just borked.

Sorry, I just can't shake the idea that they need to fix the pets themselves first, THEN focus on gear bonuses to be used for the exceptions--not as a means to balance the job's shortcomings.

[Alhanelem]

Can't say i agree, but not 100% disagree, Giving them a Staves DMG isn't going to suddenly make their fSTR, Acc, attack and dDEX not suck. Without both a DMG Boost and the Alternator-Type buffs, neither are going to be very worthwhile (Except maybe Magicals).As I pointed out, weapon DMG: and items that give more stats aren't mutually exclusive. Why couldn't we have both this systemic change of DMG: on staves having a secondary function for mage jobs, AND have grips that boost pet stats?


I'd rather them give us our Alternator Grip and just rework Avatars Damage/Delay altogether, rather than dooming them to Staff Damage, which hasn't gone well for any of the jobs.This doesn't "doom" anything. It's a buff. a flat out plain and simple buff. All staves have a DMG rating. Many of them also have many useful stats. This would be an upgrade no matter which weapon you use, with the avatar's current base damage being what is used with no weapon equipped. Why are you not seeing that this is nothing but a benefit for everybody- it opens up a large number of weapon options- it makes the R/M/E weapons relevant to all playstyles and not just one. This just makes sense- the avatar's power will scale much better, unlike the way things are now where a SMN can easily outdamage its pet with a high DMG weapon- this way, the avatar is always stronger than you no matter what weapon you use.


Sorry, I just can't shake the idea that they need to fix the pets themselves first, THEN focus on gear bonuses to be used for the exceptions--not as a means to balance the job's shortcomings.I said that in my post- I totally agree with this. The first priority should be fixing systemic issues, not compensating for the flaws with gear.

That being said, tying avatar power to weapon damage is more of a systemic change. You're never not going to have a weapon equipped short of stripga. higher levels mean higher dmg staves, so this does not break early game balance either.

[Mokeil]

First: You should be HAPPY to give up your perp magian staves- you never needed them in the first place. I haven't used a perp staff in years. There is more than enough perp- and refresh on gear to counter perp cost even with zero perp cost on a weapon. Even if you don't have enough, you can use avatar's favor to negate the rest at minimal loss of damage.

Unless I missed a few pieces of gear coming out (always possible), I'd end up losing 2-3 points worth of auto-refresh without using those staves. You are correct in saying I don't need them to 0 out the cost between perpetuation and auto-refresh gear, however, I don't see why I shouldn't be trying to maximize my returns without sacrificing damage.



+ stats for avatars on gear is about the last thing I want. That should only come after everything that's actually broken about SMN is fixed. Gear can't fix every problem SMN has right now. While stat bonuses are nice, they don't fix things that are inherently broken.
[...]
None of you should be "fine" about grips with SMN stats. Stats are the least of SMN's troubles. Kinda funny how I started this thread on SE's side, then when they come up with a terrible idea, now suddenly everyone's on SE's side and I'm not...


I definitely agree that we need hefty changes to all sorts of things - preferably sweeping changes to very core mechanics. I do not - in any way - accept these grips as any sort of fix to our actual problems. However, as a means by which we can be expected to achieve growth? Eh. I'll wait to see where they go with it before I pass judgement.

Mostly, it's just nice to actually have something even semi-positive to speculate on for once.

[Alhanelem]

Unless I missed a few pieces of gear coming out (always possible), I'd end up losing 2-3 points worth of auto-refresh without using those staves. You are correct in saying I don't need them to 0 out the cost between perpetuation and auto-refresh gear, however, I don't see why I shouldn't be trying to maximize my returns without sacrificing damage.In this case, you WOULD be maximizing your returns AND your damage. You don't need a perp staff- ever. There is so much MP recovery in the game now that even if you don't completely cancel it, it's a nonissue. There's no reason to ever be using anything other than a staff that helps either you or the avatar (or both) do more damage.

As far as gear, I don't know when you last played, but perp staves have been pretty much unnecessary (meaning "don't need the benefit," more than "has no benefit) since caller's set +2 came out.

[Babekeke]

I haven't actually used SMN in Adoulin yet, so I'm still intrigued as to what sort of damage the BPs can push out there.

The benefit of SMN, and the reason we never got any upgrades before was that BP: Rage received no Level Correction Factor Penalties, so although BPs didn't do the best damage, or all that quickly, it was consistant, and VS lvl 120 content, just as strong as vs lvl 75 content.

Now that in Adoulin they got rid of the LCF and just increased mob stats to reduce damage taken of higher mobs, does this mean SMN completely sucks for damage now?

[Mokeil]

In this case, you WOULD be maximizing your returns AND your damage.

Ah, I should have clarified better. My apologies. My comment about maximizing damage was in response to you mentioning Avatar's Favor to keep perpetuation down. A "minimal loss in damage" is still a loss in damage, ergo I do not want to use Avatar's Favor if its only purpose is to minimize my perpetuation if my perpetuation can be minimized in ways that have no negative impact on my damage.

The comment was not directed towards your proposed idea of tying avatar stats into the stats on staves.



You don't need a perp staff- ever. There is so much MP recovery in the game now that even if you don't completely cancel it, it's a nonissue.

I believe I stated fairly unequivocally that you were indeed correct when you said you do not need a -perp staff. I flat out agreed, and added no caveats to that agreement. With that in mind, I'm not sure why you felt you needed to repeat yourself.



There's no reason to ever be using anything other than a staff that helps either you or the avatar (or both) do more damage.

A fair statement! When I melee, I use a staff (and gear) appropriate to such a task. When I use a blood pact I switch to yet another staff. Why then, when I am not meleeing or using a Blood Pact should I not be using a staff that benefits me by ensuring I have just a little more MP? If there's another staff out there I should be using during such a time, please tell me and I will make every effort to acquire it.



As far as gear, I don't know when you last played, but perp staves have been pretty much unnecessary (meaning "don't need the benefit," more than "has no benefit) since caller's set +2 came out.

Taking a look at what's currently out there: The Caller's +2 Doublet and Pigaches account for -7 perp. The Evoker's Ring adds another -1. The Summoner's Horn +2 would give another -3... Oh! And the Adhara Gages grant -2. All in all, that's -13 perpetuation. That still leaves me with a perp cost of -2. Factor in Summoner's native auto refresh and I would balance out to exactly 0 cost. (Demonstrating that - exactly as I agreed - you are indeed correct). I can even sneak in an augmented Stearc Subligar and Moonshade Earring for a net gain of +2MP per tick.

On the other hand, with my current setup (counting in the -perp staves) I can pull in a passive +5MP per tick. So, again, you're right that I don't "need" a -perp staff, but it's still nice to have given that there's nothing else for me to use when I'm not meleeing.

Should such a change you ask for be implemented, I will of course switch to whatever staff would improve my performance in the best manner. Heck, I'm not even against the change you propose. I merely opined that I would miss my -perp staves. All that extra MP is nice to have.

[Mokeil]

I haven't actually used SMN in Adoulin yet, so I'm still intrigued as to what sort of damage the BPs can push out there.
[...]
Now that in Adoulin they got rid of the LCF and just increased mob stats to reduce damage taken of higher mobs, does this mean SMN completely sucks for damage now?

Purely anecdotal accounting:
I tend to get something between 1200 and 1500 on the mobs in Ceizak and Yahse (depending on the mob and which avatar I have out).

I've also done a few Delve NMs as Summoner. I tend to miss a lot on the Physicals - the few that have landed have varied from 500 to 1400. More Misses than not, however.

I haven't had much luck landing Magical Pacts, either. Most get resisted into oblivion. Nether Blast is a pretty consistent 500-600, though.

At the very least, when blasted out early in a fight, Odin will drop a fair 9 -10k or so!

[Thundarian]

Damage is pretty awful unless you are playing to the mob elemental weakness with no delve gear (don't bother trying to land phy blood pacts right now unless you have an avatar acc set). Nether blast spamming isn't an awful idea. That said, with the Delve staff and helm, I hit decently. Right now for Delve NM's the content for casters is a lot about hitting your magic bursts imo for 2k+ damage depending on pet tp and setup. Playing to mob elemental weakness is important though. I find myself using Shiva and Ramuh for damage the most right now.

[Karbuncle]

This doesn't "doom" anything. It's a buff. a flat out plain and simple buff.

First off, Yes, Its doom. whether or not its a buff I'm not debatting, But it'd be like asking "hey, Gimme some Dagger damage with a Polearm delay, cool with me, Better than a Pebble's Dmg!", If they're going to buff Avatar's Damage, I rather it not be tied to the weapon I'm using, If anything I'd rather them just flat out buff Avatars damage rating up to about on par with our best damage staff.

For a Summoner who can't get their hands on a D:150 or higher staff, what do they get? Plenitas? I mean its better than nothing but its still garbage compared to even level 85 Empyreans. Staff is by and far ahead the worst melee weapon in the entire game, so while it'd be better than our avatar's current DPS, it will not even remotely make people take a second look at SMN, we'd go from "Sword Dmg and axe delay" to "Staff dmg and axe delay", which will still be pretty top tier garbage.


All staves have a DMG rating. Many of them also have many useful stats. This would be an upgrade no matter which weapon you use

Fay Crozier
Chatoyant
Soulscourge
Any Magian Perp Staff.
Avitap Pole(I think?)

All of these commonly used weapons have worse damage ratings than our avatars currently have, meaning if your SMN isn't lucky enough to have the Delve weapon, or Skirmish weapon, It'd be a clear and concise nerf.

Regardless, done with the quoting, as i said in my last post, An Alternator is good, upgrading their damage is good, but one without the other won't mean much for the job, and if they are going down the "Buff their dmg" street, I'd rather it not be tied to "Whats the best staff i can get my hands on?" and it be more like BST and PUP, and not their plans for DRG. the plans for DRG work cause Polearms generally have crazy dmg and high buffs, and Wyvern's aren't designed around Blood:Pact or "Special attack" Systems like PUPs, BST, and SMN...

Talking in circles more but srsly, If they're going to upgrade Avatar DPS by any amount, I'd rather them make it something meaningful, rather than give us the DMG of the single worse melee weaponry in the entire game. Basically, I know you see my point.

[Alhanelem]

First off, Yes, Its doom. whether or not its a buff I'm not debatting, But it'd be like asking "hey, Gimme some Dagger damage with a Polearm delay, cool with me, Better than a Pebble's Dmg!", If they're going to buff Avatar's Damage, I rather it not be tied to the weapon I'm using, If anything I'd rather them just flat out buff Avatars damage rating up to about on par with our best damage staff.Well, we'll just have to disagree here. Why would you rather it not? How does it hurt you? If using a DMG:150 staff gives you more damage than an elemental staff, isn't that a good thing? shouldn't we be able to use level 99 gear at level 99 instead of level 51 gear? This doesn't doom anyone or anything.


All of these commonly used weapons have worse damage ratings than our avatars currently have, meaning if your SMN isn't lucky enough to have the Delve weapon, or Skirmish weapon, It'd be a clear and concise nerf. I think you're missing something here. I didn't say that it would be straight up "Avatar's damage = wepon damage rating." I said the base damage with NO WEAPON EQUIPPED would be exactly the same as it is currently. Thus, equipping a weapon, any weapon, would result in an increase in damage. It wouldn't be 1:1, because that would be ridiculous- but it would increase the avatar's physical damage.

So let's say you are naked, and your avatar's base DMG: is 50. (just saying for example purposes.) You equip a skirmish staff with DMG: 103, and the avatar's DMG: goes up to (example) 120. Essentially, it would work like hand to hand in this regard (all avatars do HTH damage with melee as it is anyway).

All of those commonly used weapons you listed would still be better than not having a weapon equipped. No weapon would ever decrease your avatar's damage below what it is currently, unless SE invents some piece of garbage item with a negative DMG rating.

By the way, since you seem to know but aren't stating it, what are the summons' base DMG: ratings? It would go a long way giving a more precise ratio.


Talking in circles more but srsly, If they're going to upgrade Avatar DPS by any amount, I'd rather them make it something meaningful, rather than give us the DMG of the single worse melee weaponry in the entire game. Basically, I know you see my point. I'm afraid I don't see your point. you don't seem to be understanding what I'm saying. I'm not saying "Avatars should attack with your staff using its damage and delay." I'm saying "Avatars should get a bonus to damage based on the DMG: rating of the staff you're using." A great improvement that would increase the relevance of many staves in the game to summoners who choose not to ever swing them. The bonus would be based on the DMG: only, not the delay, which would be unmodified.

Using the parameters I described, your avatars would always hit for more damage both with their melee attacks and blood pacts than you would with your staff, no matter how strong it is. Currently, this is not the case. I think the other people in this thread understand what I'm getting at here. Think of it as if a weapon read like this (just without it being seperately listed as a stat):

Hvergelmir
(Staff) All Races
DMG:113 Delay: 390 MP+150
"Myrkr" Aftermath: Occ. deals dbl. damage
Pet: DMG: +80
Lv.99 BLM/SMN/SCH

You would of course still want to switch to a MAB or elemental type staff for magical blood pacts.

[Karbuncle]

So what you're saying is, Your staff damage would be added to your avatars base damage, not replace it?

WELL WHY DIDNT YA SAY SO BRO.

While i still think a refit to their damage formula would be better for us, and probably 8,000,000% Easier to program, If it was just "Add dmg to pole" Its not bad, Gives a reason for Claustrum to exist when/if its buffed. Still:


shouldn't we be able to use level 99 gear at level 99 instead of level 51 gear? This doesn't doom anyone or anything.

Well, Duh, But that doesn't mean there aren't level 51 weapons or such that are still worth using for SMN, Unfortunately until they release a DMG:150 Staff with Perpetuation Cost-, Things like Fay Crozier and Chatoyant are going to remain in use, even with the best of gear most avatars will cost your or be just free without Favor, and its better to get MP back... Its not about "Moving on is good!" is that there's this cold harsh reality no matter how much we believe in the heart of the cards, those weapons are still useful :|

Plus, While SMN Is a gear heavy job, Its never been a "You have RME? no? Then gtfo my party" job. Making it so where Staff damage is added to your pets, the damage of your Avatar would be heavily dependant on you owning a Delve weapon, which means, the job, if ever invited to DD, would now become just another "Got RMED? no? Gtfo our party" job, which i believe would be a step backwards.

Even you can't deny that yes, this would happen, you know FFXI too well.

[Alhanelem]

WELL WHY DIDNT YA SAY SO BRO.It's what i've been trying to say the whole time. :p

We have tons of weapons and other items that boost avatar magic. For physical, we have a handful of items that say Avatar: increases attack which only work on blood pacts and which are so trivial they're not worth using. Nothing increases avatar melee damage and nothing measurably increases avatar physical blood pacts. People have always been asking for reasons to keep their summons out. Having them actually do meaningful DPS would be a pretty good reason if you ask me.


Unfortunately until they release a DMG:150 Staff with Perpetuation Cost-, Doesn't need to have perpetuation cost - on it. I already argued this with someone else. There is already an overabundance of this stat on all other gear slots. You do not need a weapon to render perpetuation cost irrelevant. Even without remarkable gear you can negate it with avatar's favor, which gives you a buff and has a negligible effect on physical BPs and a larger but still minor effect on magic BPs, which can easily be countered by the gear available today (e.g. skirmish weapon with +50 pet MAB).

Not saying I would complain if they had perp cost on them, but it's completely unnecessary and if it meant not having some other beneficial stat on them, I would rather have the other beneficial stat instead.


Its never been a "You have RME? no? Then gtfo my party" job.This is only because most people have historically regarded the RME as worthless outside of a niche group of people. To make these weapons more relevant is really not a bad thing. (The SMN empyrean is very easy to get, this wouldn't be putting any kind of major burden on people. The Skirmish weapon isn't bad to get either and it's very similar in DMG: )

Besides, Staff has a lot more weapons which come close to the RME in physical power than other weapon types. There are alternatives that would still be effective.

[Mokeil]

I already argued this with someone else.

I think I'm a little hurt that I didn't rate well enough to at least have my name given. I may start to think you don't like me at this rate...




There is already an overabundance of this stat on all other gear slots. You do not need a weapon to render perpetuation cost irrelevant. Even without remarkable gear you can negate it with avatar's favor, which gives you a buff and has a negligible effect on physical BPs and a larger but still minor effect on magic BPs, which can easily be countered by the gear available today (e.g. skirmish weapon with +50 pet MAB).

I came out to -13 perp cost without a staff. This is not what I'd call an "overabundance" given that the practical cap for -perp on Celestials is -14. Is there some gear I didn't mention that you know of? Something that would actually put us over the cap, perhaps allowing us to slide in bits of refresh gear instead of -perp (i.e. Caller's Horn +2 VS Summoner's Horn +2), maybe?

(Also, if you would oblige me, I'd appreciate a clarification as to what you mean by "remarkable". Do you mean as in: something that can only be acquired through a difficult and/or time consuming event - which the Adhara Gages might qualify as for by some - or do you mean as in: something like the Aegis that radically alters the way a job can approach an event?)

Ultimately, I merely take exception to the way you say that perp costs are "irrelevant". Without the -perp currently available on staves we can minimize its impact, yes, but you have yet to demonstrate a means by which I can attain maximal -perp through gear (sans weapon) without lowering either my damage or reducing my passive MP returns. No matter how you slice it, losing damage or losing passive MP returns still sounds like suboptimal performance to me.

Like I said, if there's some other staff out there I ought to be using, I'd love to hear about it.



Not saying I would complain if they had perp cost on them, but it's completely unnecessary and if it meant not having some other beneficial stat on them, I would rather have the other beneficial stat instead.

If the other beneficial stats were exactly that, I'd take them over a -perp staff, too. There are plenty of other things that could be put onto a weapon that would benefit us, but don't try to pretend that we still wouldn't be losing something out of the deal. Something worth giving up for the right stats? You betcha.

However, telling us we don't "need" maximized -perp sounds like something akin to telling us we don't "need" -15 BP delay, or telling a Whitemage they don't "need" 50% cure potency, or telling a melee that they don't "need" 25% in gear haste. While technically true, it is nonetheless silly to think that anyone would ever want to settle for anything other than maximized performance if they could help it.

[Mokeil]

Plus, While SMN Is a gear heavy job, Its never been a "You have RME? no? Then gtfo my party" job. Making it so where Staff damage is added to your pets, the damage of your Avatar would be heavily dependant on you owning a Delve weapon, which means, the job, if ever invited to DD, would now become just another "Got RMED? no? Gtfo our party" job, which i believe would be a step backwards.

I hate to say it, but be it staff or grip I'm worried that is exactly what's going to happen no matter what. In either case, its going to become the "must have" item or you're gimped. The only silver lining I can see is that every job will be in the same boat...

[Alhanelem]

I think I'm a little hurt that I didn't rate well enough to at least have my name given. I may start to think you don't like me at this rate...No, nothing against you- it was just kind of a hasty response.


I came out to -13 perp cost without a staff.You may be forgetting auto refresh II and 2 refresh on summoner's horn. Favor can also grant you -3 perp cost. perp cost doesn't even need to be completely negated to be irrelevant. The question you have to ask is a simple one- Can you perform the job you came to perform without having to stop because you ran out of MP? It's honestly pretty rare for anyone to have to say this these days. If you can answer yes to that question, you don't *need* more perp -. Without favor or weather or day the celestial avatars have me at -3/tick, those other things can neutralize it or give me a slight gain. even without it, it's not an issue because I can recover MP easily enough with siphon, weapon skills, capabilities of certain subjobs, and/or support effects from party members, depending on the situation. Unless none of these things are available to me, MP is generally not a problem.


(Also, if you would oblige me, I'd appreciate a clarification as to what you mean by "remarkable". I pretty much mean anything you can't realistically obtain while playing summoner in the current community climate. e.g. stuff from the current expansion excluding items obtainable with bayld, Empyrean +2, anything from abyssea and voidwatch (which summoner can usually participate in) is not "remarkable."

So basically, TL;DR would be: Irrelevant, in this case, means "this mechanic is not inhibiting my ability to use my job's functions." IMSHO, this happens well before it reaches 0 or goes to net gain.

[Karbuncle]

You may be forgetting auto refresh II and 2 refresh on summoner's horn.

He might be forgetting Auto-Ref II, But I assume he's using Summoner's Horn +2 (Perp-3) in his equations :x

And using Favor kinda negates the idea of doing damage with your avatars as If i remember right, Its something -Attack, -20MAB, and -10 Acc.

[Mokeil]

He might be forgetting Auto-Ref II, But I assume he's using Summoner's Horn +2 (Perp-3) in his equations :x

Two for two, sir. It seems I made my own hasty post. I remembered to account for it the first time, then forgot to mention this time that the 2 points of auto-refresh will, indeed, exactly 0 out the cost. And I definitely did say I was using the Summoner's Horn +2, vs the Caller's +2 when I first arrived at that number.


Without favor or weather or day the celestial avatars have me at -3/tick, those other things can neutralize it or give me a slight gain.

And in the same situation I pull in +5/tick. Using Favor does nothing but penalize me, as it cuts my avatars' offensive powers, and does nothing to give me more MP back. Yes, I can get the job done with a -3 cost (did for years before Abyssea came along after all), but I can do so much more with the +5.

For me, having a maximized -perp/refresh set is like the difference between a melee having, oh... an 85 Empy, and a 99 one. The difference is small, and a skilled player with an 85 is better than a lousy player with a 99, but it's still better (from the perspective of the owner) to have the 99.

[Kiakasha]

I find it amusing that they have no idea of what to do with Summoner. Or any other mage for that matter.
They are so afraid of overpowering them that they'd rather let them agonize and buff SAM or whatever other melee class (that is not THF or DRG, as far as I can tell) hoping that everyone will eventually jump on the bandwagon and forget about them altogether.
But then they throw at us events that need magical damage and support and it's all good and dandy until you find out all the rewards heavily favor melee classes while you walk away with +MAB for your BRD.

They seriously need to put their brains together and think about the situation of magic at this stage of the game's life. Even the simple fact that we have never had magic-specific food, let alone pet-specific food, except for HMP is honestly insulting.

Yes, I am butthurt about it.

Also, if they think I'm just going to quit XI to play ARR when it comes out they are underestimating my intelligence.

I agree! so afraid of overpowering mage and pet class jobs! at this moment the game is all about supporting the two handed melee SAM, DRK and WAR! where is the balance...

[Kuvo]

I really didn't pay attention to how the hate system was updated until recently. Most of the time I play this game I solo older content or ill dual box with sam as my main. I never had an isse as sam keeping hate. But I just picked up redmage again and tried to level dagger skill on crawlers in the past and I was shocked at how hard it was for me to keep hate. I would be killing this mob up to about 10% left of its life and my dual box character I would just have sit there doing nothing the whole fight. Then I casted stoneskin with my dual box whm and took all the hate from my redmage and couldn't get it back. I couldn't believe it. This emnity system is all screwed up to no end. I was going to start leveling summoner for both characters but I don't know now until avatar emnity is fixed.

[Calatilla]

So what gear are you using where you don't need a -perp staff to keep an avatar out without it costing you mp? And at present there aren't any better staves to use when not using a BP other than a -perp staff.

[Mirage]

My terrible gear: Chatoyant, Caller head +2. caller body +1, caller hands +1. evoker's ring, stearc subligar with refresh augment, caller's feet +2. Net loss of 0 mp per tick on non-matching day/weather.

Matching day: Net gain of 3 mp/tick, then I can still use the Refresh spell to gain even more.
It's pretty easy to do.

[Calatilla]

Now try that without the chatoyant, which is effectively a -perp staff for every avatar. The question was, what would you use in place of a -perp staff where you're not losing MP, and that includes chatoyant.

The whole point to my question was because it was said that -perp staves are not needed. So give me an example of a gearset where you're not losing mp with an avatar out that doesn't include a staff, any staff.

[Mokeil]

So give me an example of a gearset where you're not losing mp with an avatar out that doesn't include a staff, any staff.

Actually, I already did that:


The Caller's +2 Doublet and Pigaches account for -7 perp. The Evoker's Ring adds another -1. The Summoner's Horn +2 would give another -3... Oh! And the Adhara Gages grant -2. All in all, that's -13 perpetuation. That still leaves me with a perp cost of -2. Factor in Summoner's native auto refresh and I would balance out to exactly 0 cost.


No staff involved. No Avatar's Favor. No day/weather shenanigans.

Toss in an augmented Stearc Subligar and you'll be at +1/tick cost. There's also a possible Moonshade Earring augment to get you to +2/tick, but not everyone might want to put their Moonshade to mage-iness.

[Alhanelem]

First-
And in the same situation I pull in +5/tick. So what? I don't run out of MP without "pulling in" +5/tick. I don't need that in order to not run out of MP.


Using Favor does nothing but penalize me, as it cuts my avatars' offensive powers, and does nothing to give me more MP back.Using favor has virtually no penalty whatsoever, reduces perp cost, and gives you a potentially useful (but slight, because you'll be using BPs) buff. While you don't need it's perp- if you've already negated it elsewhere, why use a crappy staff with perp- on it when you can use a better staff without perp- on it and negate the perp cost elsewhere?


For me, having a maximized -perp/refresh set is like the difference between a melee having, oh... an 85 Empy, and a 99 one.For me, having a real staff instead of a perp staff is like the difference between a melee DD having an 85 empy and a 99 one- because the real staff improves my performance, while the perp- staff doesn't. Your comparison is extremely flawed and inaccruate because you don't need a maximize perp/refresh set for optimal performance. your BPs are on a hard timer. It is not difficult to maintain your MP while using them as often as they come up. To me this is like continuing to add gear haste past the gear haste cap. If you don't actually need something, adding more of it doesn't help you.



The whole point to my question was because it was said that -perp staves are not needed. So give me an example of a gearset where you're not losing mp with an avatar out that doesn't include a staff, any staff. You don't even need to completely negate perpetuation cost for it to be irrelevant. Unless you're unable to perform your essential job functions as a result of the perpetuation cost, you don't need any more. If you have enough other forums of MP recovery, be they buffs, siphon, myrkr, spirit taker, any of several refresh effects, convert, or sublimation, and you're able to BP when you want without having to rest for MP, then you don't need more perp -.

with this gear set http://www.ffxiah.com/item-sets/301790, which represents the stuff I most commonly have equipped (I do of course have some macro sets), there is -8 perp, +2 refresh, and +2 auto refresh; +1 more in a matching weather condition, and halving any remainder (rounded down). if no day or weather is available, the remaining perp can be cut by using Favor- which has a very minor negative impact on the avatar. Unless I'm in some hardcore endgame event like delve NMs, I generally am able to use Myrkr whenever I need it to get a total or near total MP refill. Then there's Siphon. SMN has access to lots of MP recovery.

Of course, all this ignores the fact that you can in fact completely negate avatar perp without a staff, and also the fact that if you have the highest damage staves, you're in a good position to use MP recovery WS and your avatar is also doing more damage (with the suggestion I offered in this thread).

[Babekeke]

So what gear are you using where you don't need a -perp staff to keep an avatar out without it costing you mp? And at present there aren't any better staves to use when not using a BP other than a -perp staff.

His argument is that if the avatar dmg was based on the dmg of the SMN's main weapon, then using a high damage weapon would be more beneficial.

[Alhanelem]

His argument is that if the avatar dmg was based on the dmg of the SMN's main weapon, then using a high damage weapon would be more beneficial.
that's the gist of it basically. If/when you're able to melee, a high dmg staff is already more beneficial, but if it also added dmg to the avatar like I described in an earlier post (which is similar to what they say they are doing for polearms on DRG) you won't have to melee to gain a benefit from the many weapon-type staves (as opposed to stat-sticks that have never offered as much to SMN as other jobs).

In many other games, including FFXIV 1.x, the damage rating of your weapon was a key stat even on caster classes. Weapons for mages are balanced around this, where the weapon's damage value influences the effectiveness of their primary means of attack (e.g. spells).

[Mokeil]

While you don't need it's perp- if you've already negated it elsewhere, why use a crappy staff with perp- on it when you can use a better staff without perp- on it and negate the perp cost elsewhere?

What better staff? I've said at least twice now that I'd love to know what staff you think I should be using, and you have yet to provide me with an example.

By your listed gear set and comments, am I safe in assuming you would wish to put forth the Hvergelmir as such an example? I would not deny that you would have an excellent point, but then I also already stated that I myself use a different staff when it's safe to melee. If that statement then wasn't enough, allow me to make this as clear as possible now:

I have not now or ever stated, nor do I believe that a -perp staff is the best staff for all situations and that it should be used at all times. I also agree that in times when it is safe to melee you will net far more returns from a higher damage staff via Myrkr/Spirit Taker than you would get from the -perp staves with the added benefit contributing to your overall damage.

But what about when it's not safe to get up next to the mob and melee? If I can't swing for TP to WS with, the Hvergelmir (or any melee centric staff) offers me no benefit as I am neither getting MP back from it, nor generating extra damage from it. What other staff should I be using in such a situation that makes a -perp staff "crappy"?

If you're trying to tell me that a -perp staff allowing me to get more MP still does nothing beneficial for me when I can't get up and melee, I'll have to disagree. People have radically different ideas of what their "essential job functions" are (which are often further modified by who they're with, and what event they're doing at the time). Given my particulars, I need that +5/tick to do my thing more often than not. For me, since I'm not giving up anything when I can't melee, and am in turn getting something I need, a -perp staff is an invaluable piece in my overall -perp/refresh set.

Now, as I believe this talk of -perp staves has gone on more than long enough, that neither you or I are likely to shift our stances, and that it is beginning to detract from the purpose of the thread(as well as discussion about the idea you proposed), I will allow the following to be the last I intend to say here on the subject: As the saying going, "stuff's situational." Just because you don't have a use for something doesn't mean that someone else in entirely different circumstances doesn't, and I object to your unilateral dismissal of -perp staves as useless.

[Alhanelem]

What better staff? I've said at least twice now that I'd love to know what staff you think I should be using, and you have yet to provide me with an example.Virtually any other staff that doesn't have perp but has other useable stats e.g. pet MAB, better DMG rating, MP, summon skill, anything. Do I really need to list all the staves that have these stats?

I'm not really sure why you can't see that perp- does zero to improve your performance. Perp - only compensates for an intentionally imposed limitation; once it's been adjusted to the point where it doesn't impact your activities, it is indeed "useless." Perp- doesn't help you do more damage, it doesn't make your buffs better, it does nothing but save you MP- if you're not having MP troubles, then you have all the perp- you need.


I have not now or ever stated, nor do I believe that a -perp staff is the best staff for all situations and that it should be used at all times.I never claimed you've said that. All I'm telling you is that you don't need as much perp- as you think you do and you can easily obtain the necessary perp with gear you're very likely to already be using before equipping a staff.

[Deifact]

Virtually any other staff that doesn't have perp but has other useable stats e.g. pet MAB, better DMG rating, MP, summon skill, anything. Do I really need to list all the staves that have these stats?

I'm not really sure why you can't see that perp- does zero to improve your performance. Perp - only compensates for an intentionally imposed limitation; once it's been adjusted to the point where it doesn't impact your activities, it is indeed "useless." Perp- doesn't help you do more damage, it doesn't make your buffs better, it does nothing but save you MP- if you're not having MP troubles, then you have all the perp- you need.

I never claimed you've said that. All I'm telling you is that you don't need as much perp- as you think you do and you can easily obtain the necessary perp with gear you're very likely to already be using before equipping a staff.

I feel as though the SMN community feels they have to reduce perp cost as much as possible, and then stack other stats ontop. Really it should work the other way around. You should be stacking other stats, and if you find you are running out of MP slowly implement more -perp cost until you find a point where you can manage MP like you say.

[Calatilla]

Virtually any other staff that doesn't have perp but has other useful stats e.g. pet MAB, better DMG rating, MP, summon skill, anything. Do I really need to list all the staves that have these stats?

I have all those, and they're macro pieces, pet mab does nothing unless using a magical BP, smn skill doesn't do anything for your avatar unless its performing a bp.

I completely understand what you are saying, if you're in a position where you can melee, then a higher dmg staff with melee oriented stats will benefit you more than using a -perp staff, but then, if you're meleeing, you're going to be using melee oriented gear also, which will negate your -perp even further.

[Alhanelem]

I prefer to strike a balance and keep just enough of that gear on such that I can keep an avatar, usually ifrit b/c of its Ward buffs and double attack favor, up indefinitely. You see, the problem here, which I'm trying to address with my original suggestion (getting back to that...), is that having found everything else that buffs your pets, the only way to further improve your performance is to melee- with a strong staff, the master is more powerful than their pet, and I see this as a problem on a caster class that's supposed to command powerful beings. Given the limited gear available, and the fact that absolotely NONE of it increases your avatar's DPS except for the odd piece with a tiny bit of pet haste, having the avatar recieve a damage buff based on the staff you're using will help the avatar at least keep pace if not be always better than you are.

Part of this is because, lets face it- Summoner rarely even gets to participate in content where melee really isn't an option (e.g. Delve NMs since the time limit was added). The least SE can do is kill two birds with one stone and make the RME weapons and the other non-magey staves out there have more meaning to a wider portion of the playerbase. This suggestion allows them to do that without even changing the actual base stats of the weapons, also producing the first items that actually increase the avatar's damage over time and creating an incentive to keep them up (remember, Avatar: increases attack items have been show to only be effective during a blood pact)

Obviously I won't convince you it's not necessary to get the maximum amount of -perp, that's fine. But I would like to see options avialable that most players would find attractive- especially ones that are effective at all times, so they don't have to switch them constantly- something you can't do if you're meleeing, as you will lose your TP (which is why I am quite happy with the Skirmish staff, which offers both high DMG and up to +50 pet MAB; no myrkr but you win some, you lose some)

[Mokeil]

I can definitely respect that. I always find it annoying that I must choose between a melee staff or a staff to boost Avatar performance. Getting the best of both would be nifty - even more so if they do, indeed, allow the WoE weapons to unlock the empy weapon skills. Myrkr with any staff would be mighty fine by me.




(remember, Avatar: increases attack items have been show to only be effective during a blood pact)


This has always been a minor pet peeve of mine. Some stuff... sure, OK. Even melees have stuff that only boosts damage during weapon skills. But all of our Avatar: Attack gear? I call shenanigans at that.

[Alhanelem]

Yes... Literally, the only thing that affects avatar's melee attacks are atmas in abyssea.

[RAIST]

Using favor has virtually no penalty whatsoever, reduces perp cost, and gives you a potentially useful (but slight, because you'll be using BPs) buff.

hate to be nitpicky...but not sure I'd say it's virtually no penalty.

Initially, Avatar's Favor was suspected to be around 10% from people just eyeballing it. Through lots of testing, it has been mathed out to be -20 MAB for magic attacks and -10 ACC on physicals. Last I looked at tests for ATT values, it hadn't been hammered down, but it had been shown to be a penalty to physical damage output (and yes, that included melee). It may be a flat -10 ATT to be in line with the ACC penalty, which is why it may be hard to hammer down I guess, as the calculations for avatar damage have been shown to be pretty funky and they hadn't figured out how to math them out properly--but parsings showed it to be roughly a 5% reduction to just meleeing.

That may not sound like a lot when just looking at those values, but you have to put them into caclulations over time. It can mean as high as around 10-13% reduction on the magic side (depending on gear and such, it could be lower if you have lots of boost), but it is still a big chunk to the MAB bonus, just the same. At the very least it has been shown to have a -5% reduction on all the physical damage--this would apply to both melee and BP's. It could be potentially more if the accuracy penalty causes extra whiffs on both melee and BP's (epecially if it causes more misses on the first hits on multi-hit BP's....where most their damage comes from). Apply that to a session where you are doing damage in the thousands (or tens of thousands) over time and it can add up to have a pretty noticable impact.

[Alhanelem]

hate to be nitpicky...but not sure I'd say it's virtually no penalty.

Initially, Avatar's Favor was suspected to be around 10% from people just eyeballing it.On physical attacks, I can't even see the difference- granted physical BPs can vary a lot so its not easy to eyeball.

As far as I'm aware, the magic penalty is -20 MAB. It's visible, since magic damage is more consistent, but it's still small and there is a large amount of pet MAB available now that counters that and then some.

[RAIST]

On physical attacks, I can't even see the difference- granted physical BPs can vary a lot so its not easy to eyeball.

As far as I'm aware, the magic penalty is -20 MAB. It's visible, since magic damage is more consistent, but it's still small and there is a large amount of pet MAB available now that counters that and then some.

You can notice it on the multi-hit's when they start whiffing more though. Especially if they start missing more of that first hit, output drops considerably--sometimes to the tune of 1k or more. And the difference is there in the melee's, may not be seeing it because the min/max range is so wide. The increased crit rate for avatars at 99 probly helps to mask it more now too, but if you run the parsers on them and put the results side-by-side you should still see it. It was a pretty clear distinction when they ran them a couple years ago. It's all sourced out at the wiki's, and the numbers are there for all to see. They found a definate drop in the physical output, even though they couldn't pinpoint exactly what was cut and by how much, but it is there and it does add up over time.

And -20 MAB is significant. It's even significant for BLM. Even if you are able to get your avatar to the 200 MAB point, you are still getting a 10% reduction at that point in the formula, which is one of the last elements in the calculations:

(floor[512+1.72*(TP+1)] + floor[(Avatar's INT - Monster's INT) * 1.5]) * MAB(of avatar)/MDB(of monster) * Day/Weather
Another way to look at it is that it can more than negate your merit bonus for your magic BP's (it's twice the cap for magic attack). Or, it counter's a base Nirvana's MAB bonus, half of a completed one, or potentially nearly 30% of the bonus on a maxed out Skirmish staff (assuming it follows the BLM augments, a bigger chunk if it doesn't get to 67 MAB). So, yeah....-20 MAB is a significant impact to your merit BP's.

[Herby]

So... why don't you stop arguing and just use grips (like SE probably wants it to do anyway) for exactly the same thing alhanelem suggests for the staves? Then you can keep your perp staff or melee staff if you want and still increase the dmg of the Avatar. You are way more flexible this way, too. It's not like we have any really good Grip anyway (smn skill+3? MP+? not really needed). I like the direction that SE wants to use grips since it's a slot we don't really needed until now. Implement lowlvl to highlvl grips so SMNs on lower levels can already benefit from it and it's done.

If we use Grips instead of weapons you can still use your highdmg Staff if you want to melee alongside your avatar but you aren't tied to a high dmg staff without perp cost if you want your Avatar perform good. That way you have WAY more options of gearing because noone will let you gear in perp staffs except Nirvana if it's tied to staves with high dmg, it would kill a whole line of staves and that isn't favorable. Just think about this for a moment.

[Jerbob]

I don't know why SE can't just give our avatars the same benefits in gear as other jobs receive in theirs. Ultimately, any "fix" they make with grips/staves and so on is going to be temporary, and slowly diverge from the direction other jobs take as the game progresses. Is it really that difficult to put half-way decent "Pet: X" effects on new gear as a matter of course? A set like the Orvail stuff exchanged for bayld has no utility for summoners (save for Shattersoul - but, honestly, aren't we entitled to a bit more than that?) and I simply cannot see why, after all the fuss we make -every single time gear is released- that someone at SE couldn't just have a bit of thought as they plop that "/ SMN /" on the bottom of gear description.

Caster gear is already badly designed enough for the jobs that can make decent use of it - having INT+14 on the Orvail Corona to match the MND/CHR+14 is NOT going to break it, simply because spellcaster stats work differently to melee stats - just as having Ice Perpetuation-7 and Thunder Perpeutation-7 on the same staff is no more powerful than two separate staves. Having "Avatar: Magic Attack Bonus +10" on a hypothetical pair of MAB gloves doesn't make them any more powerful for BLM, nor does the MAB on them have any relevance for SMN.

Honestly, I think half of the developers must still have converstations along the lines of "INT affects cure potency, right guys?"...

I think it's also worth reiterating that having more "Pet: X" gear does depend on the prerequisites of a preceeding general "all pets" fix, a SMN job overhaul, and a general revisitation of existing "Pet: X" effects (eg. Avatar: Attack being terrible). "Pet: X" gear should be keeping us in line with other jobs as they get new gear, not used as a desperate scrabble up to something approximating the same general tier.

[RAIST]

The bigger point that seems to keep getting forgotten is that the fix should not be coming from gear.

The fixes should be going directly to the pets first, regardless of what gear is equipped.

Whether that is a direct boost to the pets base line stats, or tweaking/addition of a trait to either the master or the pet's own native traits gained from their job class can be open to debate. What NEEDS to happen is for something to be done that is native to either the master or the pet that gets an adjustment first, and then gear adjustments can follow as a finer tuning.

Tying the adjustment to weapons, grips, armors, or accessories is the wrong approach to what plaques SMN. DRG is hurting in much the same way too, and I know it also applies to other pet jobs as well. So, it isn't just a SMN that needs to have it's pets tweaked directly, it's just a much bigger issue for SMN (and DRG). Just because BST and PUP have had some better scaling for their pets, that doesn't mean they don't deserve some adjusting also.

Pets simply need to get some sort of improvement natively, before any gear bonuses are applied. If they want to add the gear adjustments to give us more flexibility/potential, that's fine. But gear should not be released under the guise of "fixing the job", as that by definition is not adjusting the job, but adjusting gear.

[Duelle]

The bigger point that seems to keep getting forgotten is that the fix should not be coming from gear.

The fixes should be going directly to the pets first, regardless of what gear is equipped.Quoting for emphasis

[Babekeke]

Yep, another J/T like Stout Servant, but enhancing base damage/attack/STR/MAB, that kind of thing.

Oh and reduce the cap on BP timer, naturally.

[Alhanelem]

First:

The bigger point that seems to keep getting forgotten is that the fix should not be coming from gear.

The fixes should be going directly to the pets first, regardless of what gear is equipped.This- This is the first action they should be taking, rather than using gear as bandaids.

My proposal is mainly made with the understanding that they're not likely to do the above, even though it's the most sane, intelligent, logical thing to do.


So... why don't you stop arguing and just use grips (like SE probably wants it to do anyway) for exactly the same thing alhanelem suggests for the staves? Then you can keep your perp staff or melee staff if you want and still increase the dmg of the Avatar. You are way more flexible this way, too. It's not like we have any really good Grip anyway (smn skill+3? MP+? not really needed). I like the direction that SE wants to use grips since it's a slot we don't really needed until now. Implement lowlvl to highlvl grips so SMNs on lower levels can already benefit from it and it's done. I don't think you understand the purpose of the proposal. First- they could easily make a grip with perpetuation - on it, thus making it all the more easy to choose a high level staff. Second- Tying avatar damage to weapon damage is not intended to help melee- it is intended to help the avatar. By setting up the system like this way, you ensure that the avatar is always stronger than the player (which is the way things should be.)- You can't increase your melee damage without also increasing avatar's damage, therefore you will always be more interested in using your avatar. This is primarily aimed at improving avatar's physical characteristics, where you may still need another staff for magic enhancement.

Having grips give super stats for the avatar just doesn't make sense. Grips have always been minor bonuses to supplement stats for 2-handed users. Avatars should be improved naturally before any gear is applied. Failing that, the best way to improve them would be to leverage gear we already have. Since basing mage capabilities on the damage of their weapons is common in many other MMOs, it is what made the most sense to me here (This could be applied to BLM too, where the DMG: on the weapon modifies nuke damage. This makes it a lot simpler to find and upgrade compared to the current system).

[Herby]

I don't think you understand the purpose of the proposal. First- they could easily make a grip with perpetuation - on it, thus making it all the more easy to choose a high level staff. Second- Tying avatar damage to weapon damage is not intended to help melee- it is intended to help the avatar. By setting up the system like this way, you ensure that the avatar is always stronger than the player (which is the way things should be.)- You can't increase your melee damage without also increasing avatar's damage, therefore you will always be more interested in using your avatar. This is primarily aimed at improving avatar's physical characteristics, where you may still need another staff for magic enhancement.

Having grips give super stats for the avatar just doesn't make sense. Grips have always been minor bonuses to supplement stats for 2-handed users. Avatars should be improved naturally before any gear is applied. Failing that, the best way to improve them would be to leverage gear we already have. Since basing mage capabilities on the damage of their weapons is common in many other MMOs, it is what made the most sense to me here (This could be applied to BLM too, where the DMG: on the weapon modifies nuke damage. This makes it a lot simpler to find and upgrade compared to the current system).

Oh I understand perfectly what YOU think this does to us, but MY opinion is, that it does more harm than it does good, to tie it to the Weapon. It would cripple our choices in staves. We have different staves for different styles of play and I don't want to give that up becaue i have to wear a certain Staff to make my Avatar useful overall. And unlike you state grips makes PERFECT sense BECAUSE they only gave really minor enhancements to any stat. Because they're replaceable it's the perfect slot. Unlike staves because they already give major enhancements to our avatars like perp cost-7 or Avatar MAB +40 and upwards (well i'd love to have a better stave for physical Blood pacts still, Magian or Soul Scourge aren't exactly giving a huge boost)!

But I totally agree that first and foremost Avatars should be boosted naturally and then by gear, but staves would be IN MY opinion then wrong way, as much as I like that you at least do make proposals as how to change the gear enhancements for SMN.

[Mirage]

Just like DDs are crippled in that they have to use a small selection of RMED all the time.

[Alhanelem]

Oh I understand perfectly what YOU think this does to us, but MY opinion is, that it does more harm than it does good, to tie it to the Weapon.I disagree. It does way more good than harm. It doesn't harm anybody other than those who refuse to upgrade their weapon for the sake of clinging to the past (a past where summoner has always been mediocre at best).


It would cripple our choices in staves.It wouldn't cripple our choice in staves, because outside of choosing whether you want to melee or not, there isn't much of a choice. either elemental staves/prism staff, one of the few MAB staves, or a perp staff. MAB staves would still be completely relevant, and staves with a higher DMG rating would become meaningful for their benefits to your summons. the total number of useable staves would be higher than it is now, not smaller.


Unlike staves because they already give major enhancements to our avatars like perp cost-7Not going to go in to detail, but -7 perp is not a major benefit. It's very minor, as while helpful, it is not absolutely necessary to perform your role as summoner.


or Avatar MAB +40 and upwardsMAB staves would still be relevant because DMG: only affects physical attacks.


But I totally agree that first and foremost Avatars should be boosted naturally and then by gear, but staves would be IN MY opinion then wrong way,It's a far better way than putting pet stats on grips. Grips is where the big perp cost - should be. Even that would give more weapon choice.

Again though, all of this is in lieu of addressing the inherent flaws in the avatars. Gear should be needed to push the envolope, not upgrade our pets from shiatty to not-as-shiatty.

[Herby]

I disagree. It does way more good than harm. It doesn't harm anybody other than those who refuse to upgrade their weapon for the sake of clinging to the past (a past where summoner has always been mediocre at best).

What the...? I love that we can use staves from various levels, because we don't get pidgeonholed into the "Use this single uberweapon or gtfo!" I don't want this to happen, and to be honest even with powerful grips we're running into this mess. It's still better to use grips for it though, since they're replaceable atm. But it's not doing us any favors whatsoever if our mainsource of avatar power comes from gear. I understand that there should be gear progression since we won't get another lvlcap raise but still, i hate all these RMED only shouts and I'd hate it for SMN, PUPs and other jobs alike if there starts to be shouts like "alternator only" (as unlikely as it is since those jobs aren't exactly popular)



It wouldn't cripple our choice in staves, because outside of choosing whether you want to melee or not, there isn't much of a choice. either elemental staves/prism staff, one of the few MAB staves, or a perp staff. MAB staves would still be completely relevant, and staves with a higher DMG rating would become meaningful for their benefits to your summons. the total number of useable staves would be higher than it is now, not smaller.


It WOULD cripple our choices in staves, because I for one like my Perp cost gear. I like that i can use a 5%Haste +3critrate hat for my Avatars and Relic+2body for even more critrate. when i'm gearing towards Avatar Melee i have 9% more crits on avatars and 12%Haste on them. I couldn't do that if i have to wear a Highdmg staff without perp cost, because my Avatars would cost too much to let them melee for longer periods. Oh and having the dmg bonus on Grips wouldn't do that. Why create perp cost grips when there are already staves for this, and staves you have to put time into, to get them? THAT doesn't make sense. and when I want to melee Alongside my Avatar i simply switch in another staff with high dmg and instead more perp gear in other slots. Because I HAVE those choices. Those would be taken away if your proposal would be done by SE. I don't want to be pidgeonholed into only 1 or 2 staves for everything (ok i hate that i have 8 staves for 8 elements, that could be 1 alone and wouldn't be overpowered but i'd still use like 4-5 staves for different situations then)



Not going to go in to detail, but -7 perp is not a major benefit. It's very minor, as while helpful, it is not absolutely necessary to perform your role as summoner.

That's so wrong IN MY EYES, -7 perp cost is a HUGE benefit because it frees so many other slots to put in something way more useful for many situations.
Example given above



MAB staves would still be relevant because DMG: only affects physical attacks.


I agree on this one



It's a far better way than putting pet stats on grips. Grips is where the big perp cost - should be. Even that would give more weapon choice.

I still don't think you understand the thinking of the community as a whole. That's why I say it would cripple our choices in staves, because just like melees are pidgeonholed into "RMED" at the moment we would be pidgeonholed into "new superuberweapon which makes avatar melee useful- only" I for one don't want that to happen. Too powerful grips would do something alike, I know, and I'm not wanting that either but it would at least let us choose which staves we want to use for OUR OWN playstyle. Not everybody does play SMN like you do



Again though, all of this is in lieu of addressing the inherent flaws in the avatars. Gear should be needed to push the envolope, not upgrade our pets from shiatty to not-as-shiatty.

Agreed on this one. And that being said don't understand me wrong I don't want to make your arguments any less important since such a discussion is NEEDED for SMN. I'm just being on another side of opinions than you.

[Alhanelem]

What the...? I love that we can use staves from various levels, because we don't get pidgeonholed into the "Use this single uberweapon or gtfo!"You aren't pigeonholed into use this single weapon whatever. There are a lot of staves out there with good dmg ratings these days, and delve didn't pump that up much so there are still a variety of options that are quite close to each other in power. Currently (short of some creativity) we are pigeonholed into using either a rainbow ele staff or -perp staff for the majority of the time. How is this any better? In fact, for the longest time, all mages were pigeonholed into the elemental staves. Thus, even just throwing the R/M/E weapons in there means more options, but there's more than that- A skirmish staff ursurps my lv90 empy...

TL;DR: There are more options under my proposed system than there are currently (collectively treating ele staves as one thing, collectively treating magian perp staves as one thing- they all do the same thing, they're not really different- I don't consider them "options.")

You seem to think that literally my mindset here is "Everyone must use the relic weapon!" That's not it at all, and that's not what would happen here.


Not everybody does play SMN like you doI'm NOT asking people to play SMN like I do! NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST. I'm asking everyone to play the way they normally do, and have more weapons be possible to do it with. This is NOT ABOUT meleeing with summoner. This is about improving the AVATARS. Please, get your mind past this fact so you can understand my position better. This is about more weapon possibilities and better avatar DPS. You're missing the point that the whole idea is to ensure that the avatar is always more powerful than you are, thus making it so you DON'T have to melee to get your damage to a half decent level.

[Herby]

You aren't pigeonholed into use this single weapon whatever. There are a lot of staves out there with good dmg ratings these days, and delve didn't pump that up much so there are still a variety of options that are quite close to each other in power. Currently (short of some creativity) we are pigeonholed into using either a rainbow ele staff or -perp staff for the majority of the time. How is this any better? In fact, for the longest time, all mages were pigeonholed into the elemental staves. Thus, even just throwing the R/M/E weapons in there means more options, but there's more than that- A skirmish staff ursurps my lv90 empy...

TL;DR: There are more options under my proposed system than there are currently (collectively treating ele staves as one thing, collectively treating magian perp staves as one thing- they all do the same thing, they're not really different- I don't consider them "options.")

You seem to think that literally my mindset here is "Everyone must use the relic weapon!" That's not it at all, and that's not what would happen here.

I'm NOT asking people to play SMN like I do! NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST. I'm asking everyone to play the way they normally do, and have more weapons be possible to do it with. This is NOT ABOUT meleeing with summoner. This is about improving the AVATARS. Please, get your mind past this fact so you can understand my position better. This is about more weapon possibilities and better avatar DPS. You're missing the point that the whole idea is to ensure that the avatar is always more powerful than you are, thus making it so you DON'T have to melee to get your damage to a half decent level.

1) It's wrong that Delve didn't do much about staffdmg: Yaskomo's Pole rates @ 150dmg that's around 50 above MYTHIC at the moment, that's a whole lot, if you'd translate that to the avatars. So tell me why they wouldn't say "delve or gtfo" if you have way less dmg on other staves for Avatars

2) you don't seem to read what i write. I was only talking about meleeing alongside Avatars as an option. My mainpoint was that perp staves give me the Freedom to enhance my avatar even further with other Gear (as stated before Haste +12% and critrate +9% FOR MY AVATAR). Just put dmg increases on grips and i can keep those options. (yeah perp grips would do the same, but why create perp grips when you already have perp options available and instead do something on grips which really helps) and do the dmg increase instead on grips)

I don't understand why you insist on doing this on Staves when Grips fit the bill perfectly

I guess we may have to agree to disagree on this matter

[Babekeke]

1) It's wrong that Delve didn't do much about staffdmg: Yaskomo's Pole rates @ 150dmg that's around 50 above MYTHIC at the moment, that's a whole lot, if you'd translate that to the avatars.

Maybe you missed that SE have said they'll be upgrading the r/m/e to be more comparable to the delve weapons?


So tell me why they wouldn't say "delve or gtfo" if you have way less dmg on other staves for Avatars

Kind of irrelevant, since the Grip will almost certainly drop from delve as well. If you have access to the grip, you have access to the staff. It'll still be "delve or gtfo" whether it refers to the grip or the staff. The difference being that you'll most likely want the staff anyway, just for the +MAB.

[Herby]

Maybe you missed that SE have said they'll be upgrading the r/m/e to be more comparable to the delve weapons?



Kind of irrelevant, since the Grip will almost certainly drop from delve as well. If you have access to the grip, you have access to the staff. It'll still be "delve or gtfo" whether it refers to the grip or the staff. The difference being that you'll most likely want the staff anyway, just for the +MAB.

If you read my earlier posts you would see that I already said that Grips aren't the best solution either, i just think they're the better choice, since it wouldn't make older weapons outside of R/M/E obsolete, and I know about the revamp to R/M/E99, but R/M/E99 are still extremely diffcult to obtain for a large number of people. So it's stilll "have x/y/z or gtfo" and that bothers me

[Mirage]

It's kind of cute that some of you think you're not pidgeonholed into a very small selection of staves. Either you have a perp staff, or you have a "make avatar stronger" staff, or you have a melee summoner staff. Where is the variety, really?

[Karbuncle]

Cure Potency Staff. You have 4 Weapons more or less, 6 if you're really hardcore (Pure MAB Staff like Delve-Craftable, and Macc/MAB like Delve Point Staff, and a Dark M.acc Set for Impact's added effect, which SMN can use and is quite nice for some Delve bosses if you're /sch). This is still more than most DD.

IDK who's side you're on(Or if you're on any at all lol), so I'll clarify that I'm on the side that pretty much wants SMN to not become another "RMED or gtfo" job, which personally, it is right now, as no one cares about anything but your SMN Skill or your ability to competently use Shock Squall...

Plus, IDK if the definition of Pigeonholed has changed lately, but having a 6+ Staff variety for the hardcore is Pigeonholed, does that make melee Dragonholed?!

[Babekeke]

Cure Potency Staff. You have 4 Weapons more or less, 6 if you're really hardcore (Pure MAB Staff like Delve-Craftable, and Macc/MAB like Delve Point Staff, and a Dark M.acc Set for Impact's added effect, which SMN can use and is quite nice for some Delve bosses if you're /sch). This is still more than most DD.

IDK who's side you're on(Or if you're on any at all lol), so I'll clarify that I'm on the side that pretty much wants SMN to not become another "RMED or gtfo" job, which personally, it is right now, as no one cares about anything but your SMN Skill or your ability to competently use Shock Squall...

Plus, IDK if the definition of Pigeonholed has changed lately, but having a 6+ Staff variety for the hardcore is Pigeonholed, does that make melee Dragonholed?!

To me, the thing that affects me more than anything else, is inventory space. Especially since magian staves can't be stored on porter moogle.

Right now I Use Chatoyant and Soulscourge. Chatoyant is basically the Jack-of-all-trades staff for SMN. -3 perp, cure potency, dark accuracy (for drain/aspir as well as impact when /sch).

But I can't remember the last time I played SMN outside of WoE right now, so I don't need the SMN skill build as much.

[Alhanelem]

I don't understand why you insist on doing this on Staves when Grips fit the bill perfectlyGrips don't fit the bill perfectly. Unless grips say "Avatar: DMG+X on them" (good luck with that) they arent worth it. A +stat animator like item isn't going to solve summoner's problems. A perp - grip, on the other hand, would free the weapon slot to perform other purposes, like the ones I'm suggesting.

The thing grips should be doing is having the things like perp- and bp cooldown - to free both weapons and other gear slots from those things.

Grips alone won't solve our problems, especially if they don't open up gear choice elsewhere. The things they seem to want to do with new items are things that should be done by simply buffing the avatars.


(yeah perp grips would do the same, but why create perp grips when you already have perp options available and instead do something on grips which really helps) and do the dmg increase instead on grips) Because the grip slot is a better place to do this- it frees up a more important item slot from having to be used for it- it makes more sense to take an item that's already about doing damage and have it help your damage more, than it does to take an item that doesn't have anything to do with damage basically and making it start doing that.


1) It's wrong that Delve didn't do much about staffdmg: Yaskomo's Pole rates @ 150dmg that's around 50 above MYTHIC at the moment, that's a whole lot, if you'd translate that to the avatars. So tell me why they wouldn't say "delve or gtfo" if you have way less dmg on other staves for AvatarsStaff got the smallest overall increase in the delve weapons- Some weapons increased in damage by nearly double the commonly used weapons before the expansion. The staff damage increased by less than 50% of the most used melee staves.

Maybe you guys don't realize tihs, but it's common in other MMOs for mages' weapons damage directly affect their magic, rather than baving low/no damage and having stat buffs. Under this design, weapons usually have a much more meaningful impact to your performance than when they're simply stat sticks.
Imagine if WHM cure potency and blm nuke potency was based on weapon damage- All you'd have to do to cure more is get a stronger weapon. It makes things a lot more straightforward.

Obviously, its a very drastic system change, but it's one I have a preference for having played other games (such as FFXIV0 that do it this way.


(yeah perp grips would do the same, but why create perp grips when you already have perp options available and instead do something on grips which really helps) and do the dmg increase instead on grips) Inventory space would certainly be a nice bonus to come from this as well.

[Infidi]

Sooo... about 'dem new upcoming SMN AMMO items in the new version update... Maybe they're adding Grips AND Throwing items? XD

[Arciel]

looking forward to the new gear but also hope we get some fundamental gameplay changes to suit the current playstyle.
based on last info it seems SMN will only be getting at least 2 ammo slot pieces purchasable with bayld and plasm.

a grip would also make sense because we don't have that many options available. Vox for that +3 skill or if you're looking for refresh/perp theres Oneiros Grip which is pretty nifty.
then again the last thing SMN probably needs is SE telling us to get a grip :p

[Babekeke]

The plural part of the statement is what makes me hold my breath a little. When we were told we would be getting a new grip, they said 'don't worry, there won't be lots of avatar-specific ones'. However, noone said this about ammo items. Hopefully there's 1 for physical and 1 for magical, and nothing more.

Edit: or 1 for BP rage damage +10%, and 1 for BP ward duration +10%

And they're better both have 50 MP on them.

[Mokeil]

It would be nice if we could get a quick clarification about this grip/ammo thing. Are we getting both? Was it changed from one to the other? Was this just a slip while typing? I'm fine with any of those, but it would be nice to know!


What I'm hoping that what they mean here by stating there will be multiples is that the items (grip or ammo or whatever) will simple be available at multiple item/content levels. As in, each will do more or less the same thing, just that one from higher content levels will offer higher boosts.

The idea being that a smaller boost <item> easily available from, say, Bayld, would be used to give Summoners the leg up they need to get into Delve in order to work on the higher end boosting <item>.


I guess we'll know the answers to all of these questions for certain in a week... (And then 2-3 weeks after that once people have gotten the items and done testing to know what the "Boosts Avatar Performance" on the item description actually means....)

[Dekusuta]

You know, even without Alternator, Puppets were way ahead of avatars already interms of flexibility.

Originally, the trade off for having a more flexible survivable pet was the pet timer, but with Deus Ex Automata the gap was pretty much wiped out. And their other 1hr ability they are proposing for pups is supposed to grant puppets the 1hr abilities of their respective puppet jobs.

Summoner's don;'t come close on our naked pet. I do feel a bit miffed that they think we're only upset by the Alternator buffs.

That's the straw the broke the camel's back, a back with a long line of grievances they haven't bothered to address.

[Babekeke]

It would be nice if we could get a quick clarification about this grip/ammo thing. Are we getting both? Was it changed from one to the other? Was this just a slip while typing? I'm fine with any of those, but it would be nice to know!

As I understand it:

The grip that they mentioned was supposedly coming from delve (bought with plasm). This was supposed to be alternator-like boosts to all avatars in general.

The ammo(s) are from Bayld, and by pluralising it, I get the impression that they will be more specific (hopefully not to each avatar, but maybe to ward/rage or phys/magic, or potency/duration)

[Herby]

Actually I think the Bayld one(s) is/are slightly weaker ones for people who can't join delve yet. It would make sense with all their "Gear Progression" Ideas. There won't be too specific pieces imo.

Edit: Also I don't think we're getting any Grip now they simply changed it to the Ammo/Ranged Weapon slot.

[Babekeke]

The thing with them being weaker ones, is that if the delve one is indeed a grip, both can be worn at the same time.

[Mokeil]

While I would have no complaints about that, I doubt we will be so lucky. I think it far more likely that either the dev team changed their minds from grips to ammo for some reason... or some one made a mistake while preparing that info to be posted.

[Herby]

It's most probably that it was early in development and they didn't really decide which slot it would become. The Bayld and the Delve one will almost 100% be in the same slot. There will be no equipping both. Don''t set yourself up with Disappointment.

It's probably just the same as the alternator. Has some really nice stats. Let's us comfortably solo again outside Adoulin but won't set the world on fire. SMN will stay in it's niche. SE clearly doesn't want SMN to shine beside jobs like MNK DRK SAM.


Edit: Hate to be right but the SMN delve item is a bit underwhelmingas of yet. Yes, it does boost our dmg but not nearly as much as needed to be desired (doing 4,4k Heavenly Strike on Fernfelling Chapuli and around 100-140 melee dmg). Still have to test if it boosts our Wards like Earthen Ward though

[Mokeil]

So... SE dev/community rep guys... I see there are some job changes in the works for the next update. Beastmaster is getting some tweaks. Blue Mage is getting some tweaks. Those guys need some love, so good for them. But there is no news for Summoner, and that is distressing.

Sure, we've gotten lots of nice MAB (only useful once every 45 seconds), even some potential -perp pieces (if you win the Augment Roulette - I know I still haven't), but we're still so far behind nearly everyone in actual usefulness that I'd have given up long ago, if my friends weren't nice enough to occasionally indulge my whims.

I mean, OK, I know that we've kinda got that Jack-of-all-trades thing going on, and we shouldn't be as good as a specialist. Of course we shouldn't. That would be silly! But the problem is that we're not even half as good as the specialists, who can likely also fill at least one other role (damage, buffs/debuffs, and healing) at least as well as we can.

Our DoT is so non existent I'd be able to bore myself to death long before a mob falls over from it, our spike damage is so far apart I have time to go make a quick sammich before it's time to use the next one, our AoE damage is almost exclusively tied to Astral Flow (which wouldn't be half so damning if the first two things I mentioned weren't an issue), our buffs are outclassed 95% of the time (with even our very best being match-able by others), our cures no longer keep pace with the kinds of HP players now have nor the damage they take, the one debuff that looked like it would have been useful (Evasion Down) has been neutered by the piles of +combat skill that have been slapped on every weapon...

The sheer breadth of our abilities is staggering, but they're just so darned ineffective! The very second you have both a dedicated healer and a dedicated support person on the team, the need for those aspects on a present SMN is instantly destroyed, as most of our buffs don't stack and we're better off healing from our support job anyways. This leaves us only the need to do damage... which plenty of other jobs do far, far better. Similar arguments can be made if the Summoner is supposed to be playing a support role - damage and healing are covered, and there are far better jobs to fill the support role who won't have buffs that entirely overlap/are outclassed by the healer.

So c'mon, SE! SMN still has a ton of problems that need looking at! To name five, off the top of my head: BP Timer, Ward potency, Favor, Spirits, and auto-attack damage. Tweaking any of those five things might just tip us back over into being useful again. Is there any hope at all for us? Even a simple "Hey, we see there are problems and we're working to get them taken care of in the next 1-2 updates" would be nice... Just to let us know we weren't forgotten.

(Like Cait Sith apparently has been. I mean, how long ago was that preview video shown? You know, the one that showed us how super diligently you guys were working on that for us?)

Bah. Sorry for the griping without trying to provide something constructive. I know it's not up to my usual standards, but, as it says on the tin, being a Summoner can be disheartening these days.

[Shinzaku]

I completely agree. Summoner has always been one of my favorite jobs - throughout all of the struggles it has had in this game.

It's completely disheartening when you're trying to join end-game content and they won't accept you because you're a summoner. Too bad it's ruled by oats monks.