Fixing Avatar's Favor

[Underpanties]

Right now, Avatar's Favor is a mess of JA. It encourages passive play for the SMN and gives underwhelming bonuses that disappear every time the smn does anything. I think its easy to see what the dev's were trying to do with it way back when, but it needs some adjusting.

Here's what I think should be done to keep it in line with today's ffxi:

Popping Avatar's Favor should :

-Significantly increase aura potency of all avatars, except Diablolos' Refresh.
-No longer reset aura potency on use of BP:Ward
-Decrease recast time of BP:Wards by 50%, increase recast time of BP: Rage by 100%
-Increase potency on all wards, while increasing the flat bonuses significantly (Ecliptic Howl giving up to +30 max stats during good moon phase, Noctoshield giving -40 dmg taken per hit, -enspells and frost/shock armor granting significantly increased dmg per hit)
-Increase TP Bonus for healing BP's significantly, allowing Carby to heal up to ~1500 per aoe heal with 300% tp. Obviously this is to encourage use of Mana Cede, another underused SMN JA, and will make the two abilities work hand in hand.
-Increase intelligence of Light Spirit, making it able to cast much faster and react quicker.

This gives a reason to actually use the ability outside of extremely niche situations, and can make smn a competent support and healer class, able to compete with SCH or RDM, but not quite at BRD/COR levels, given their versatile nature. They won't be replacing white mages, nor will they be stepping on toes of other dedicated supports, but it will definitely make them a lot more viable in end game party situations where they really struggle right now.

[Zeargi]

-No longer reset aura potency on use of BP:Ward
-Decrease recast time of BP:Wards by 50%, increase recast time of BP: Rage by 100%
-Increase potency on all wards, while increasing the flat bonuses significantly (Ecliptic Howl giving up to +30 max stats during good moon phase, Noctoshield giving -40 dmg taken per hit, -enspells and frost/shock armor granting significantly increased dmg per hit)
-Increase TP Bonus for healing BP's significantly, allowing Carby to heal up to ~1500 per aoe heal with 300% tp. Obviously this is to encourage use of Mana Cede, another underused SMN JA, and will make the two abilities work hand in hand.

This gives a reason to actually use the ability outside of extremely niche situations, and can make smn a competent support and healer class, able to compete with SCH or RDM, but not quite at BRD/COR levels, given their versatile nature. They won't be replacing white mages, nor will they be stepping on toes of other dedicated supports, but it will definitely make them a lot more viable in end game party situations where they really struggle right now.

While I agree that the effects should be bolstered, I don't agree with increasing the timer on BP: Rages, nor should the effects be reset with the use of ANY Bloodpacts. If SMN had a 'Stay" command, then these wards might actually be useful in other areas, but the other problem is that some of the Auras just need to be re-worked: Ifrit, Leviathan, Fenrir and maybe Ramuh. Double Attack in Most cases is useless, and more so with so many armor pieces already having it, Magic Acc. is also the same, and magic evasion? Seriously?!?! The Avatars spend most of there time around melee fighters anyway... Perhaps the aura could be the equivalent of the Bar-spells/carols as well.
Ifrit: Crit Att. Bonus; Barfira and Barparalyze
Shiva: MAB; Barblizzara and Barsilence.
Garuda: Eva. Bonus; Baraera and Barpetrify.
Titan: Def. Bonus; Barstonra and Barvirus.
Ramuh: Ranged/Melee Acc. Bonus; Barthundra and Barpoison.
Leviathan: Cure Potency+; Barwatra and Baramnesia
Fenrir: Regain; Bardarkra and Barsleep (Dark)
Diablos: Refresh; Bardarkra and Barterror
Carbuncle: Regen; Barlightra and Barblind
Cait Sith: MDB; Barlightra and Barsleep (Light)

We are just as much a support class as we are a healer and DD. Summoner is the second Jack-of-all, next to RDM. Of course RDM falls short in the Melee department. the Favor's not the only problem, our wards need just as much fixing. Earthen Ward isn't nearly as strong as what is should be at lvl 99+. Earthen Armor doesn't seem to work as it should vs. the damage mitigating. (I'm not talking like the NIN's spell, but at least on par with Bard's Song) Ecliptic Howl, the ACC/EVA. Bonuses. Noctoshield's Phalanx. The Enaspir/Endrain from Heavenward Howl. Just to name a few.

[Underpanties]

If Favor had zero drawbacks, there'd never be a reason to not use it. It was intended as a support-type stance. Favor should be used when buffing the party, and when the party isn't reliant on smn's damage contribution. Bear in mind it reduces BP Ward recast by half, which is a lot for Carby/Ramuh/Cait's supportive abilities.

In today's ffxi, its penalties to stats mean nothing when you can stack near +175 pet mATK.

A better solution, though, would be to add a mirroring JA built for rage pacts, so give the smn two stances to swap between. It could give the avatar their respective -enspell and increase auto attack / bp damage, while reducing BP Rage recast by half, and doubling BP Ward recast.

Keeping both respective JA recasts at 5 min makes the smn have to decide which role to focus on, but still have the ability to switch on the fly if need be.

[Zeargi]

But why should their be penalization, period? COR and BRD both can use their supports without having to sacrifice anything. COR can continue to use Phantom Roll and swap dice as long as they don't bust, and even that can be circumvented. Plus they don't have to cut their offensive Attack by anything, unlike the favor's effect on our avatars. BRD can use up to 4 songs with the right equipment. SMN's favor is done with the current avatar only and as long as the person is within the area of effect, mean that SMN has to either: stand close by if asked not to melee versus a target or send the avatar in and hope it isn't destroyed by crazy AoE. Even GEO can do 2 Effective buffs at once. Also, I'd never want to increase my Ward timer or my Rage. My goal is to have the lowest possible recast as I can.

Again, without a 'Stay' command the favors for the most part are kind of messed up anyway. I'd gladly give up the -prep cost for the ability to see it changed to something that could be worthwhile.

[Byrth]

I also like the idea of this JA and hate the implementation. Here were my ideas from an older thread:


Okay, Avatar's Favor. This job ability is one of the most complex and unique of any in the game. It's incredibly cool and intricate, but is unfortunately pretty fatally flawed. There are some very potent benefits that can be obtained from it, but its design makes them unreasonable to maintain. Currently it works like this:
* When you use Avatar's Favor, you gain Avatar Perpetuation Cost -2~4 and your Avatar starts emitting an avatar-specific Aura in exchange for an unquantified (probably substantial) Attack penalty, Acc-10, Avatar MAB-20, and potentially other debuffs like Magic Accuracy.
* The potency of the Avatar's Aura starts quite bad, but increases over time (every 10 seconds it increases 1 tier -- 12 tiers or 2 minutes to max it at the moment).
* This Aura potency caps out at a point proportional to your currently Summoning skill. Every 65 skill seems to be a new tier.
* When you use a Blood Pact: Ward, you drop 2 Tiers (20 seconds charge time).
* When you use a Blood Pact: Rage, you drop 5 Tiers (50 seconds charge time).
* If your Avatar dies or is Released, Aura potency is fully reset when you resummon it.
* The Avatar does not gain the benefit of its own Aura.

This system creates a few problems:
1) Summoners cannot use BP: Rage more than every 50 seconds and accumulate Aura potency at all. -- This (and the damage nerfs from Favor) essentially restricts Blood Pact: Rages when the ability is in effect.
2) Avatars frequently die in current content fights due to AoE damage. -- This means that the offensive buffs provided by Ifrit, Ramuh, etc. from Avatar's Favor are not useful in endgame. They do not have time to build an appreciable potency before the avatar is killed.
3) Avatars are frequently unsummoned in current content fights to apply different BP Wards. -- This, combined with the Ward potency reduction of Favor, means that you do not build appreciable potency in a situation where you're swapping between Avatars to buff the party. For instance, if you were maintaining Hastega, Earthen Armor, Inferno Howl, and Crimson Howl, Ifrit would be the only Avatar that got substantial time out, and it is penalized 40 seconds due to its BP: Wards.
4) Avatars are frequently fighting alone in solo content and, because they do not gain the benefits of their own favor, there is no reason to use this ability. -- This kills another potential use of Avatar's Favor in endgame at the moment.


I would:
- Remove the Damage penalties and Avatar Perpetuation Cost reduction from Avatar's Favor.
- Remove the BP: Ward/Rage penalties
- Keep the wind-up mechanism, but allow Avatar's Favor potency to carry over between summons.
- Allow Auras to affect the Aura user. Stop being so god damned lazy, SE. Just create a second type of Aura already.

These changes would make SMN much more versatile and allow the job and this job ability to play a useful role in current content.

[Underpanties]

Byrth your suggestions are good for the JA itself, but smn has a lot of problems with bp wards' potency as it is - what good are 500 aoe heals, 295 stoneskin, or a 19-dmg phalanx?

They should make the favor ability bolster these and make them actually worth using in parties.

[Byrth]

I agree that some of the buff BPs are crap, but 23% Double Attack or +21% critical hit rate combined with permanent Warcry (+11.3% attack) and 45 damage/hit Enfire would be pretty great.

The potency of maxxed Avatar's Favor or BP Wards isn't so much of an issue. The problem is that BP wards alone don't really merit a party slot, and Avatar's favor isn't viable in most endgame situations. I don't see any reason to address BP ward potency using Avatar's Favor. They should be fixed regardless whether or not Avatar's Favor is up.

[Maxious]

Can't seem to understand why you'd want something like this. I've only been playing for a few months after a 7 year departure. Ever since I came back all I saw AF was deplition reduction.

Back 7 years ago I always saw SMN as a DD. Guess from my understanding there needs to ba another JA that halfs BP:R recast time and increase 0% pettp dmg to the 300% or that come out with 300% tp. This is kinda a troll and maybe I should just give up on smn. Cause I never thought of them and support or healing class.

(If this is a Troll, it's an Ernest Troll.)

[Alhanelem]

I agree that effects of favor shouldn't be reset on ability use; however, that's all I think needs to be done. Dont mess with recast timers, lowering pet's stats is more than enough as it is.

[Camate]

Greetings, summoners!

The development team agrees and also feels that the buffs granted from Avatar’s Favor feel somewhat weaker ever since the implementation of item levels.

The team is currently exploring some ideas that they have and I’m happy to share a bit about it, but please keep in mind that this is only in the idea phase and nothing has been officially decided as of yet.

One example of what they would like to do is increase the buffs granted through Avatar's Favor and eliminate the negative effects applied to avatars while it is active. The idea being that it is a fully positive effect, and in exchange for this the perpetuation cost would be increased.

The team feels that removing the penalty and shifting it into a slightly higher MP cost can be offset by boosting your maximum MP as well as using equipment that reduces the perpetuation cost, making Avatar's Favor to have a lot more value.

Once there are further details, we’ll be sure to update you!

[Dulek]

Hello Camate,

Can you ask if they plan on this being this year? The development shouldn't consider waiting 1 to 2 years as an acceptable time for implementation. Also, would they even consider the avatar favor being applied to the avatar itself?

[Zeargi]

Could you also have the dev team look into better favors for Ifrit, Leviathan, and Fenrir? Double Attack isn't something that people want for a favor. With most Party build having ranged fights that isn't useful. Nor is Magic Evasion or Magic Accuracy. Most end-game gear has Magic Def. and Acc already on them and in general doesn't help the overall party. As a SMN, even if I sub a job with offensive spells, they'll never be worth the use in combat except to proc something in dynamis. And the Magic Evasion in most cases doesn't matter because the mobs magic is going to hit regardless. As I've posted previously, the The Crit. Att Boost and Cure Potency+ would be something that actually helped a party. I can understand if you don't want to give regain, but something need to be done to warrant the place for SMN in party content.

[Byrth]

Could you also have the dev team look into better favors for Ifrit, Leviathan, and Fenrir? Double Attack isn't something that people want for a favor.

What the hell are you smoking? Who doesn't want +23% Double Attack as a favor?

[Zeargi]

What the hell are you smoking? Who doesn't want +23% Double Attack as a favor?
Compare that to the grand scheme: How often are you asked for it? You may like it, but it's still not useful to a Non Melee party. In most set-ups you'll have a MNK, but that's usually it. You'll have RNG, or COR, sometimes both. Are they going to use that buff? No. Is a WHM, BLM, or SCH? Nope. It's be be great if we could have Rage Favors and Ward Favors then the Double Attack could be an option, but these are support abilities, and need to be something that actually supports.

[Byrth]

Compare that to the grand scheme: How often are you asked for it? You may like it, but it's still not useful to a Non Melee party. In most set-ups you'll have a MNK, but that's usually it. You'll have RNG, or COR, sometimes both. Are they going to use that buff? No. Is a WHM, BLM, or SCH? Nope. It's be be great if we could have Rage Favors and Ward Favors then the Double Attack could be an option, but these are support abilities, and need to be something that actually supports.

Yeah, man. Who could possibly have a use for 23% Double Attack, +11% attack from Warcry, and 45 damage/hit Enfire in a meleeburn? I wish they would give Ifrit a favor that's useful for Rangers and Black Mages instead.

Holy crap, the worst part of SMN is the summoners. In the future, try to avoid doubling down on stupid.

[Zeargi]

Yeah, man. Who could possibly have a use for 23% Double Attack, +11% attack from Warcry, and 45 damage/hit Enfire in a meleeburn? I wish they would give Ifrit a favor that's useful for Rangers and Black Mages instead.

Holy crap, the worst part of SMN is the summoners. In the future, try to avoid doubling down on stupid.

So how often are you in those melee-burns? How often do people use enfire over Haste Samba(A weak enfire at that)? The only one doubling down on stupid is you. As a BRD, you should know very well, out of all the songs you have, which ones people actually ask for. Double Attack is nice, but only in select situations. a Boost to Critical hit DMG would benefit both Melee and Ranged fighters.

[Mokeil]

So how often are you in those melee-burns? How often do people use enfire over Haste Samba(A weak enfire at that)? The only one doubling down on stupid is you. As a BRD, you should know very well, out of all the songs you have, which ones people actually ask for. Double Attack is nice, but only in select situations. a Boost to Critical hit DMG would benefit both Melee and Ranged fighters.

Since when was Ifrit's enfire weak? It's the strongest AoE-able en-spell effect available... Or are you attempting to state that the en-spell damage doesn't counter the overall boost in damage from extra haste samba (assuming you have someone who can even use Haste Samba...)?

As for not being called on to use it ever? Take a look at Favor's ridiculous restrictions for your answer there - the reason why this thread was started to even begin with. It starts off weak, takes times to build, and then resets any time you change avatars or even use a BP. It takes so long to build back up that it can't even be back at full strength before you can even be using your next BP. The reality is that its almost never even at 23% double attack.

[Zeargi]

Since when was Ifrit's enfire weak? It's the strongest AoE-able en-spell effect available... Or are you attempting to state that the en-spell damage doesn't counter the overall boost in damage from extra haste samba (assuming you have someone who can even use Haste Samba...)?

As for not being called on to use it ever? Take a look at Favor's ridiculous restrictions for your answer there - the reason why this thread was started to even begin with. It starts off weak, takes times to build, and then resets any time you change avatars or even use a BP. It takes so long to build back up that it can't even be back at full strength before you can even be using your next BP. The reality is that its almost never even at 23% double attack.

Exactly, most the time the effects are never at full. I was just in a party, 3 out of the 6 had DNC subbed. So yes, most of them can use Haste Samba. And also, Enfire with +45 is nice, but that's IF the monsters aren't resistance to it. You people as so narrow sighted that you can't see the bigger picture of things. Enfire gives a boost to DMG up to 45, why don't the other avatars have a similar ability? Why is it that Endrain and Enaspir are so weak in comparison? Why can't we break up the abilities of Heavenward Howl to give Endrain, and give Diablos an Enaspir ability (Seeing how his favor restores MP) Most Melees have Double Attack, or even Triple Attack on some gear piece. I'm not saying that Double Attack is bad, It just doesn't help the party as a whole. When you go to a party, most Melees ask for a boost to ACC, they don't ask for Double Attack. The party can benefit from an Evasion, Defense, Magic Defense, Magic Attack, Regen, and Refresh bonus. And Rather than fighting over semantic, why not offer better solutions. I've already stated some myself: with things such as the Stay command like BST has, or an Avatar's Fury, as well as the Avatar's Favor. Think outside the box, people

[Herby]

I'm on Mokeil's Side on this one. the Double Attack Favor is awesome in right situations, and if we really get the suggested Favor adjustment, Camate mentioned, this will make us really a viable buffer for melee setups like MNKx3 in Delve not to mention that we might be able to normally BP. As mokeil said the only reason we do not use Favor are the ridiculous restrictions placed on Avatar's Favor. Fixing Avatar's Favor the way Camate mentioned this, may be the way to fix Summoner as a viable Party Job and i'm really excited that we may get this adjustment finally.

[Damane]

I'm on Mokeil's Side on this one. the Double Attack Favor is awesome in right situations, and if we really get the suggested Favor adjustment, Camate mentioned, this will make us really a viable buffer for melee setups like MNKx3 in Delve not to mention that we might be able to normally BP. As mokeil said the only reason we do not use Favor are the ridiculous restrictions placed on Avatar's Favor. Fixing Avatar's Favor the way Camate mentioned this, may be the way to fix Summoner as a viable Party Job and i'm really excited that we may get this adjustment finally.

dont be excited yet.... it all depends how its done, if you cant apply favor on your melees at all because "insert whatever mechanic" kills it (atm its avatars dieing very easy to AoEs) we are back at step1... the ability being useless.

[Sasaraixx]

Exactly, most the time the effects are never at full. I was just in a party, 3 out of the 6 had DNC subbed. So yes, most of them can use Haste Samba. And also, Enfire with +45 is nice, but that's IF the monsters aren't resistance to it. You people as so narrow sighted that you can't see the bigger picture of things. Enfire gives a boost to DMG up to 45, why don't the other avatars have a similar ability? Why is it that Endrain and Enaspir are so weak in comparison? Why can't we break up the abilities of Heavenward Howl to give Endrain, and give Diablos an Enaspir ability (Seeing how his favor restores MP) Most Melees have Double Attack, or even Triple Attack on some gear piece. I'm not saying that Double Attack is bad, It just doesn't help the party as a whole. When you go to a party, most Melees ask for a boost to ACC, they don't ask for Double Attack. The party can benefit from an Evasion, Defense, Magic Defense, Magic Attack, Regen, and Refresh bonus. And Rather than fighting over semantic, why not offer better solutions. I've already stated some myself: with things such as the Stay command like BST has, or an Avatar's Fury, as well as the Avatar's Favor. Think outside the box, people

I'm going to join everyone else and disagree with you. I think you're the one being short sighted on this one. Ifrit's bonuses are fantastic for a melee set up. I think you're fixating on the current preference for rangers on some of the more difficult content, and therefore you want our buffs to benefit them. There is still plenty of content where you will have Monks, Samurais or other melee jobs. We already have favors that would benefit mage jobs. You can't honestly think that Refresh, Regen, MAB, Evasion, etc. bonuses are what will get summoner a spot in a party. You are also very likely to have a Bard in your party to provide accuracy songs if needed, so I think it is in our favor to have unique buffs like Double Attack or Crit Bonus.

As others have explained, the reason why no one asks for these favors is not because of the buffs themselves, but because of how horribly implemented Avatar's Favor is. These changes could be a huge step in the right direction. Removing the penalties to the avatars is necessary and a huge step in the right direction. There are a few key points that I really hope the dev team changes.

1. The favor absolutely cannot be reset by blood pact usage. For me this is the main issue. If you want the SMN to be worthy of the party slot, they are going to have to be able to keep the Favor at full potency AND be able to use other Ward or Rage pacts to assist the party. This really is non-negotiable. With the increased perp cost, I don't see this being remotely overpowered.

2. Maintaining the favor after the avatar is defeated: I'm not sure if this is possible, but the avatars will be taking heavy damage because they will be in melee range. If the favor is reset every time the avatar is defeated, it will be very difficult to keep the favor at max potency. If this cannot be programmed, then the ramp up time needs to be greatly reduced OR the base potency of the effects should be raised. Another alternative would be to greatly increase the range of the aura so that the avatar can remain on the back lines with the Summoner.

With those two items and the removal of the negative effects on the avatar, I think we'll be a job in contention. There are a couple of additional tweaks, like increasing avatar subtle blow and allowing the avatars to receive the favor themselves that would be greatly welcomed. (The latter would also help to further specialize the avatars. Elemental correlation would still remain paramount, but I think allowing the avatars to have their own mini specialization would add great fun to the job.)

[Zeargi]

I'm going to join everyone else and disagree with you. I think you're the one being short sighted on this one. Ifrit's bonuses are fantastic for a melee set up. I think you're fixating on the current preference for rangers on some of the more difficult content, and therefore you want our buffs to benefit them. There is still plenty of content where you will have Monks, Samurais or other melee jobs. We already have favors that would benefit mage jobs. You can't honestly think that Refresh, Regen, MAB, Evasion, etc. bonuses are what will get summoner a spot in a party. You are also very likely to have a Bard in your party to provide accuracy songs if needed, so I think it is in our favor to have unique buffs like Double Attack or Crit Bonus.

As others have explained, the reason why no one asks for these favors is not because of the buffs themselves, but because of how horribly implemented Avatar's Favor is. These changes could be a huge step in the right direction. Removing the penalties to the avatars is necessary and a huge step in the right direction. There are a few key points that I really hope the dev team changes.

1. The favor absolutely cannot be reset by blood pact usage. For me this is the main issue. If you want the SMN to be worthy of the party slot, they are going to have to be able to keep the Favor at full potency AND be able to use other Ward or Rage pacts to assist the party. This really is non-negotiable. With the increased perp cost, I don't see this being remotely overpowered.

2. Maintaining the favor after the avatar is defeated: I'm not sure if this is possible, but the avatars will be taking heavy damage because they will be in melee range. If the favor is reset every time the avatar is defeated, it will be very difficult to keep the favor at max potency. If this cannot be programmed, then the ramp up time needs to be greatly reduced OR the base potency of the effects should be raised. Another alternative would be to greatly increase the range of the aura so that the avatar can remain on the back lines with the Summoner.

With those two items and the removal of the negative effects on the avatar, I think we'll be a job in contention. There are a couple of additional tweaks, like increasing avatar subtle blow and allowing the avatars to receive the favor themselves that would be greatly welcomed. (The latter would also help to further specialize the avatars. Elemental correlation would still remain paramount, but I think allowing the avatars to have their own mini specialization would add great fun to the job.)

The thing I'm actually thinking about is more than just SKCNM. Yes, There will be times where you'll be in a party with SAMs, THFs, etc. But the problems falls into a few other areas. With these changes It'll be great to have the effects boosted and without the decrease to the Avatar's overall stats. If the aura can be like GEO where the effect is 100% max the moment the avatar is summoned then we could be talking, but it also comes down to Party configuration.

As SMN, most of the content that we're going to be doing involve what's currently popular. We can be a DD, but most the time people don't see us as that(Even though we have 61 or so offensive abilities). We're most definitely not a healer to the caliber of SCH or WHM, and can keep people healthy, but there's still a high chance of death. Which leaves the support role, so that means we're basically competing against COR and BRD for slots in parties. Which sucks, because some of our buffs need desperate work.

Personal, I feel that the Avatars should naturally have Double Attack and ALL should have some ability to gain/bestow En-Spells, Their survivability should be taken into account, and our wards need to be fixed.

Everyone also keeps zeroing in on the Irfit thing, Does that mean you agree with me then on Leviathan and Fenrir?

[Damane]

So how often are you in those melee-burns? How often do people use enfire over Haste Samba(A weak enfire at that)? The only one doubling down on stupid is you. As a BRD, you should know very well, out of all the songs you have, which ones people actually ask for. Double Attack is nice, but only in select situations. a Boost to Critical hit DMG would benefit both Melee and Ranged fighters.

23% DA... THAT IS HUGE. If SE finally fixes Avatar's favour decently, as in you can have it up constantly without loosing its potency on any remote hard fight, and can bring it up instantly when you switch avatars shortly for a BP ward/debuff, i would definitly think about droping the cor spot for a smn.

[Sasaraixx]

Who said that I was focusing just on SKCNM's? This would apply to Delve and other content. As Damane said, if the changes are properly implemented, we may be able to rival corsair and geo for a 2nd support slot. In alliance content it is even more likely due to rotating bards and cors.

We zeroed in on Ifrit because you made a point of declaring the effect not that useful lol. I don't agree with you about Leviathan's favor. Magic accuracy could be a big deal for mages on harder content. Fenrir. . . I might agree. I don't know how much meva it gives and if it could really help resist rates. If it could actually help resist things like doom or charm, then it might be useful.

Just looking at the list we seem to be fairly diverse.
Mages: magic attack, magic accuracy, refresh, Eva down or attack down wards to help the party, mab ward
Melee: double attack, crit hit bonus, accompanying enspell or warcry and stun
Tanks: def, mdef, Eva and earthen armor, cait sith's wards (if they land)
Ranged melee; nothing

The last one is the only area we're missing. Perhaps Fenrir could be changed to ranged attack or WS damage.

[Karbuncle]

Ranged attacks do gain benefit from Ramuh's favor, and Warcry effects ranged attacks as well. We also have Fenrir's stat buffs, though small.

While melee and mages gain the lions share of benefits from Avatars, we do have ways to benefit RNGs, and Ramuh's favor is no slouch, especially in situations where one might use Jishnu's, let alone their white damage, which is a decent portion of RNG damage.

I'll be the first to say a re-haul of SMN needs to happen, our Wards don't scale with level and are all laughably mediocre at best and Favor is a good idea with horrible execution. Right now I'm thankful our damage potential has been significantly increased with the Melee DPS boost to pets... but our support abilities need to be readdressed (The mage ones being far and away the most pathetically underpowered).

Now I'm not saying we couldn't use a few more ranged buffs, I'm just saying don't try to undersell what we do have, both Ramuh's favor and Warcry are good-to-great buffs for RNGs.

Also, Earthern Armor and Earthern Ward really help all classes... even RNGs can get hit if enmity goes awry.

Edit: And on yah, Ifrit's Favor is almost without a doubt the best of them all, if we're to change any of should be one of the more crappy ones... like say, Fenrir.

[Zeargi]

Very well then, I accept defeat. Apparently, the rest of the community finds a more effective use of double attack then I. So I, the benevolent Zeargi, have deemed that the double attack shall stay. All joking aside, perhaps we should get a little bit back onto topic. So, it's already been established that the wards and the favors need to both be fixed, but this conversation has got me thinking. Geomancer was basically created from avatar's favor, and I have already said that it'd great idea to add avatar's fury... perhaps we could lean towards the realm of having negative statuses on enemies within the area of effect.. (ehhh? EEEHHH?)

I would still like to see each of the avatars have their own particular ability to give their matching element to the party. Not to mention, we could even expand upon our current abilities with the use of job points. we could make it so things like: Diamond Storm could also incorporate having magical evasion down as well, or Tidal Roar having magical attack down. Eerie Eye is a great combo when it works, making great use of nullifying enemies' magic and job abilities

[Underpanties]

Good news from this thread :D I never would have thought the dev's would allow us to fulltime Favor with such a small penalty. -Perp cost gear is plentiful and easy to cap with just a few pieces, and a few more per tick wouldn't hurt to make smn more viable in parties. SMN has always been a hybrid-role job, able to do many things at once, and very adaptable.

Given some of the new / more common stats on ilvl equip, we can bring about some really good ideas for favor/wards.

Things like +magic damage, high +magic atk bonus, %-based haste (stacking with hastega).

SMN might also really benefit from an overhaul to its recast timers - atm since all like abilities are grouped into a single timer, why would anyone in the right mind use any ability but the highest level one?

What if you could use a tier 2 nuke on a 6-second recast like blm/sch can, or Carbuncle's healing ruby on a 4-sec cooldown alternated with his aoe erase to help your healer during a tough fight? Keep the high level abilities on a decently high timer, but give smn a reason to use lower level abilities as well. Also, let's expand on skillchain potential, instead of abruptly stopping at level 50 abilities. SMN gets access to some great weaponskills, especially with /whm, and being able to solo skillchain would really help.

Finally, lets increase the potency of fixed-number ward pacts. So many of them were designed with lv 75 mechanics and were never updated. Diabolos' ward offering +12 magic atk bonus, or 15-damage phalanx, or most healing abilities capping out at ~500-600. -Spikes abilities also cap out low, and Elemental Spirits are still useless, almost a decade after they were introduced.

But amidst all this, smn right now is in a much better position than it has ever been - its damage half has become very potent with the huge surplus of +magic atk bonus staves and equipment, along with ilvl satchels. SMN Solo is truly a force to be reckoned with, and leaves its supportive half in the dust.

[Nemn]

Can we please also have the auras extend the avatars themselves? That would also be step in the right direction.