Avatar's Favor still lackluster

[Herby]

I'm not at home yet so i have to trust my friend on this, who told me this but you all can test it out easily yourself so listen to what i have to say about this change.

So from what i heard Avatar's Favor now gives Perp cost +3, that's all good and dandy, i have enough gear to compensate for this mor than enough BUT the Potency reset still seems to be there! That's the entire point why Favor was lackluster in the first place... now we have to pay more mp for a buff that still resets every few seconds to a lower potency unless we stand around doing nothing...

At this Point I just give up... SE got me excited the last time for something that is essentially NOTHING...

[Zeargi]

I'm not at home yet so i have to trust my friend on this, who told me this but you all can test it out easily yourself so listen to what i have to say about this change.

So from what i heard Avatar's Favor now gives Perp cost +3, that's all good and dandy, i have enough gear to compensate for this mor than enough BUT the Potency reset still seems to be there! That's the entire point why Favor was lackluster in the first place... now we have to pay more mp for a buff that still resets every few seconds to a lower potency unless we stand around doing nothing...

At this Point I just give up... SE got me excited the last time for something that is essentially NOTHING...

So, here's what I've found thus far:

Test with Garuda:
Base EVA: 465
Max Boosted Eva(For my Skill):487 (+22)
Used Fleet Wind
Resetted Value: 481 (-5)

Test with Titan
Base DEF: 541
Max Boost DEF(with my skill): 613 (+72)
Time To Reach Max: ~1'40"
Used Earthen Ward
Resetting Value: 603 (-10)
Recovery Time: ~17"

Not really the Boost to favor I was looking for at all...
u_u

On a plus note, I didn't see a change to my Prep cost at all and that's without the use of the Caller's Bracers 1/2 prep from weather/day (Callers -1 from weather)

[Sasaraixx]

They need to remove ALL penalties from Avatar's Favor to make it viable. That includes the potency resetting upon blood pact usage. That absolutely needs to be abolished. It will be hard enough keeping up the favor when avatars are defeated or need to be released. I would love it if they could program it so that you maintain the potency level upon resummoning the same avatar. I'm not sure if that is possible though.

The Japanese forum has a post from the dev team saying that they are planning to increase the potency of favors in the November update and that they are testing whether they can change the blood pact usage penalty and that they want to make an ability that is easier to use. We'll just have to wait and see. I understand that they are making changes one step at a time, which makes sense, but it gets to be a bit tiring when you've been waiting years for those changes. I think it will take a few more version updates before we get the favors working the way we all hope.

Fingers crossed.

Also, I know this is a shot in the dark, but could you also consider granting the avatars the favors as well?

[Zeargi]

I agree, the favors' caps are based on your skill, so it should be automatically at it's MAXIMUM upon summoning. No build up, no reset, nothing of that. But we can only hope that there will be some results next month, but until they do, we still won't get a spot in a party over some other Support roll. Apogee, though, is really nice. I like it, even with the extra MP cost (Still wish it didn't have a penalty... u_u)

[Camate]

Just as Sasaraixx has mentioned, we are planning to make adjustments in the November version update that will increase the effect of Avatar’s Favor. To coincide with this adjustment, we’ll also be looking into making Avatar’s Favor an ability that is easier to utilize. One idea the team is looking into is to change how Blood Pacts reduce the effect of Avatar’s Favor, but we’ll announce more details soon.

In the meantime, I will forward your feedback to the development team!

[Zeargi]

Just as Sasaraixx has mentioned, we are planning to make adjustments in the November version update that will increase the effect of Avatar’s Favor. To coincide with this adjustment, we’ll also be looking into making Avatar’s Favor an ability that is easier to utilize. One idea the team is looking into is to change how Blood Pacts reduce the effect of Avatar’s Favor, but we’ll announce more details soon.

In the meantime, I will forward your feedback to the development team!

Thanks for spreading the word, always good to see you, Camate. The major problem isn't just the reset, but the build up to max too. If they increase the boosts, that's amazing, but still not that great if you have to wait a minute and a half for it to reach its max boost value. I switch my avatars a lot during fights, so I imagine I'm not the only one. So please pass that along to the devs too (I have faith that they've already thought of that too, though)

[Imakun]

Like a lot of people have been saying since the release of this amazingly inefficient ability, Avatar's Favor should be Job Trait which gives an automatic aura to the Avatar upon summoning. Like other traits, you can balance it up and make it scale with job levels.
I honestly don't see any other way to make this ability usable.
Why does everything a Summoner can do must have horrendous penalties?

[Frodnon]

a quick and to the point rundown of why favor is too poor to utilize.

A. the current penalty for using bloodpacts severely neuters the favor ability's buffs. a full 34 second bloodpact recast summoner can end up with favor's bonus being floored permanently. Penalizing us for taking action opposed to sitting there is very poor game design.

B. tying the charge up to having an avatar out opposed to having the buff on the player is a poor choice. avatars are too fragile and we have no way of recovering their health outside of dawn mulsums and a few AOE healing pacts. an avatar death or swap essentially resets this charge up and further lowers our enhancements. The charge up should be tied to the buff on the player(summoner) or should be eliminated entirely.

C. the favor AOE range is very small and very poorly tracked. at the bare minimum, the aoe range should be able to fully hit players on the other sides of large mobs. A bonus would be a geo-like graphic effect where we have a ring of runes or bubble around the avatar showing where it's aoe limit is.

D. Disable auto attack while favor is up. This is a huge weakness of mid and large group content. often the group is managing several monsters at once, with the summoner performing several side actions. having the avatar run off and smack something due to the player taking hate is a huge risk.

[Keyln]

a quick and to the point rundown of why favor is too poor to utilize.

B. tying the charge up to having an avatar out opposed to having the buff on the player is a poor choice. avatars are too fragile and we have no way of recovering their health outside of dawn mulsums and a few AOE healing pacts. an avatar death or swap essentially resets this charge up and further lowers our enhancements. The charge up should be tied to the buff on the player(summoner) or should be eliminated entirely.

D. Disable auto attack while favor is up. This is a huge weakness of mid and large group content. often the group is managing several monsters at once, with the summoner performing several side actions. having the avatar run off and smack something due to the player taking hate is a huge risk.

While I agree with points A and C, I'd point out that B will probably not be addressed. The whole design purpose of Avatar's Favor is to give Summoners an incentive to keep avatars out, as opposed to summon, BP, unsummon, and then pretend we're WHMs, as was common back in the days of '06.

As far as auto-attack, that's just normal avatar design, and I can't see SE changing that.

[Zekander]

Look at it this way, Avatar's Favor temporarily turns your summon (and by extension you) into a GEO, standing around doing nothing but providing a large buff to other party members.

Since GEO does exactly that, giving SMN a similar aura buff in addition to being able to use rage and ward BPs would be somewhat unfair to GEO.

Now don't get me wrong, I think Avatar's Favor could be more useful, but I think at best it should have no charge up time, but it would probably be set to a lower value then it's current maximum, at least for some avatars (Ifrit for example).

[Frodnon]

While I agree with points A and C, I'd point out that B will probably not be addressed. The whole design purpose of Avatar's Favor is to give Summoners an incentive to keep avatars out, as opposed to summon, BP, unsummon, and then pretend we're WHMs, as was common back in the days of '06.

As far as auto-attack, that's just normal avatar design, and I can't see SE changing that.

The issue is that it penalizes you heavily for having your avatar in the action, where it needs to be in order to give favor. The two minute charge up for a full powered favor is an outright eternity on anything but the longest of fights, and anything that lasts that long generally has enough AOE potential to kill an avatar long before it ever caps favor. Having Avatar's favor in and of itself is more than enough to keep an avatar out (if it started at full strength and did not have chargeup)


Look at it this way, Avatar's Favor temporarily turns your summon (and by extension you) into a GEO, standing around doing nothing but providing a large buff to other party members.

Since GEO does exactly that, giving SMN a similar aura buff in addition to being able to use rage and ward BPs would be somewhat unfair to GEO.

Now don't get me wrong, I think Avatar's Favor could be more useful, but I think at best it should have no charge up time, but it would probably be set to a lower value then it's current maximum, at least for some avatars (Ifrit for example).

You are aware that Geo has elemental damage spells, right? They're made to compliment their buffs with straight up nuking. They also don't penalize the Geo at all for buff potency or duration outside of MP management.

[Zekander]

I've never actually seen a GEO cast any spells in combat, please let me know when it happens.

[Rakshaka]

Summoner's should have a "Stay" command, just like BST. While "staying" the avatar should be unable to attack anything out of it's range. i.e. you use stay on an avatar, you pull hate on something else, and the avatar would be unable to attack it if it's out of its autoattack range. This would allow summoners to position avatars at specific locations for favor buffs without having to perform assault on a monster just to keep the avatar close to, say, the melee fighters. You could also set up a sort of regen station by having carbuncle (with favor up) sitting on top of a regen luopan.

Simply adding Stay would make favor easier to use and position, and it would allow summoners to actively choose whether or not they want their avatars to automatically defend themselves (the summoner).

[Selindrile]

I've never actually seen a GEO cast any spells in combat, please let me know when it happens.

You must play with terrible Geos, I know few Geos but the ones I know all cast many things during content, whether it's buffing yourself or someone else, or curing yourself, or stunning, or nuking, or Dia2 if you don't have a Rdm doing Dia3 or whatever, your Geos should not simply be buffing and that's it, same goes for Bards.

[Zeargi]

Look at it this way, Avatar's Favor temporarily turns your summon (and by extension you) into a GEO, standing around doing nothing but providing a large buff to other party members.

Since GEO does exactly that, giving SMN a similar aura buff in addition to being able to use rage and ward BPs would be somewhat unfair to GEO.

Now don't get me wrong, I think Avatar's Favor could be more useful, but I think at best it should have no charge up time, but it would probably be set to a lower value then it's current maximum, at least for some avatars (Ifrit for example).

You realize that the GEO job concept, came from this JA, right? SMN had this Job Ability for 2 expansions, and it has taken them this long to look into adjusting it. GEO can still cast Offensive Black Magic Spells while having a loupan and an indi-spell up, with no sacrifice to their over all MATT abilities. Not adjusting would have been more unfair to SMN than anything else. While SMN does have a few abilities that are pretty nice, but they haven't scaled since 75. We're not really considered "DD"s even though most of our BPs are offensive, and we're not considered support because we only offer a few things that can't be done by another job.

[Sasaraixx]

Look at it this way, Avatar's Favor temporarily turns your summon (and by extension you) into a GEO, standing around doing nothing but providing a large buff to other party members.

If you are going to make that analogy you would have to say that AF turns your summon into the luopan. The GEO herself is not standing around doing nothing. Let's also not pretend that most of the favors are anywhere near as powerful as a GEO's spells and we cannot have 2 or 3 favors up at one time. The SMN himself adds very little to the party, unlike a GEO who has a ton of other spells at her disposal. To make up for this fact, the SMN needs to be able to use it's BP's at will in order to provide utility to the party. And whoever it was that said they've never seen a GEO use any other spells . . . I really don't know what to say to you.

I look at SMN as a light DD job that can also provide support. The problem is that both of those aspects, the damage and support, can be lackluster in today's content considering what other jobs can bring to a group.

[Zekander]

Sheesh, I didn't mean to stir up the hornet's nest, ultimately I am agreeing with you. Avatar's Favor is one of the many things that should be changed about Summoner.

As for GEOs, I haven't played the job so I don't have any first hand experience with it's capabilities, and the only two I've played with so far have done exactly what I described. Whether this is from lack of effort or lack of knowledge about the job I don't know.

But you also have to be reasonable, Avatar's Favor is not what SMN is built around, It should not be a buff that is competitive with BRD or GEO buffs. I don't believe that setting it permanently at it's current maximum value is reasonable (at least for some summons). Giving out instant +24% double attack or +6 refresh would be at least on par with BRD and GEO buffs. I think instead more attention should be paid to Bloodpacts, improving upon Summoner's original design rather then complaining about a secondary ability, and I know a lot of changes need to be made there to improve SMNs damage and utility.

[Zeargi]

But you also have to be reasonable, Avatar's Favor is not what SMN is built around, It should not be a buff that is competitive with BRD or GEO buffs. I don't believe that setting it permanently at it's current maximum value is reasonable (at least for some summons). Giving out instant +24% double attack or +6 refresh would be at least on par with BRD and GEO buffs. I think instead more attention should be paid to Bloodpacts, improving upon Summoner's original design rather then complaining about a secondary ability, and I know a lot of changes need to be made there to improve SMNs damage and utility.

Correct, but the problem is that we ARE competing against BRD, GEO, and COR. We'll never be as good as BRD, even with favor, because a BRD can have up to 4 song per party member. Mind you it's a pain in the *** to do that, but it's possible. Likewise, GEO and COR have the options of dividing there buffs. We get 1, and that's it. So until they fix our Bloodpact, give us new ones, or add more summons like Atomos. We need something nice a shiny for people to want us.

Also, as a random after thought, perhaps the devs could think of add the Avatar's Favor Buff value to the /checkparam for pet. :3 Just a thought

[Camiie]

Look at it this way, Avatar's Favor temporarily turns your summon (and by extension you) into a GEO, standing around doing nothing but providing a large buff to other party members.

Since GEO does exactly that, giving SMN a similar aura buff in addition to being able to use rage and ward BPs would be somewhat unfair to GEO.

It's more like GEO is unfair to SMN since SMN and Favor was there first.

[Imakun]

Difference being GEO has been conceived as a mostly support class with the capability of nuking, while SMN is a pure hybrid job in the sense they can support, nuke and attack physically at the same level (in SE's bizarro world).

The truth is that GEO can't sustain nuking and buffing because Geo spells cost an arm and a leg, and the Luopan has the survivability of wet paper no matter how many buffs and heals you throw at it. Buffing and nuking as a GEO is like summoning a 400+ MP Avatar everytime it dies (except Luopans die faster than Avatars) AND sustain the cost of BP'ing.. not gonna happen.

[Malithar]

Difference being GEO has been conceived as a mostly support class with the capability of nuking, while SMN is a pure hybrid job in the sense they can support, nuke and attack physically at the same level (in SE's bizarro world).

The truth is that GEO can't sustain nuking and buffing because Geo spells cost an arm and a leg, and the Luopan has the survivability of wet paper no matter how many buffs and heals you throw at it. Buffing and nuking as a GEO is like summoning a 400+ MP Avatar everytime it dies (except Luopans die faster than Avatars) AND sustain the cost of BP'ing.. not gonna happen.

It can and does happen. Needs support to make it work no doubt (or just fighting mobs that are Aspir-able), but it's plenty doable. Geo melee says hi too, and it's not some bizarro world wannabe. ;o I'm prolly a bit predisposed in saying this, but Geo really doesn't have much of a weakness at this point. Geo/Blm, /Whm, or /Dnc without proper support and you could end up with some MP issues if you strained your limits, but you really shouldn't be any of those subs without the proper support.

[Imakun]

I have to say I haven't tested GEO in any serious event lately (mainly because I had to leave the game for a bit around March and I just got back) and I might be a little old school in the sense that things like a mage meleeing is something completely out of the question for me (because I don't have the equip to do so nor do I have any interest in it but most of all I suck at doing it), so maybe you're right. Things are changing so rapidly it's hard to adjust at times.

Anyway, I do know that GEO is pretty strong now while SMN still has to deal with stupid shenanigans like Favor resets and whatever.. what I'm saying is that I don't understand why the dev team insists in giving us horrible downsides to anything they throw at us. For example, Apogee is an ok mini version of the 1h but the higher cost of BP? I don't see BLM having higher recast times with Manawell, or RDM using more MP with Spontaneity. It may be silly, but it just bugs me that SMN always had to deal with stupid things like this. :\
Avatar's Favor could have been so easy to implement as a simple bonus to a job that is heavily influenced by prejudice and ignorance by the general population, yet we have to struggle against things like BP resetting it, time to build it up etc.. Or the Wards not scaling up with levels like Earthen Ward, Noctoshield and so on. I swear they had no clue when they created the job and still don't have any now, even though the job is A LOT better compared to what it was when I started playing in 2003.

[Frodnon]

Sheesh, I didn't mean to stir up the hornet's nest, ultimately I am agreeing with you. Avatar's Favor is one of the many things that should be changed about Summoner.

As for GEOs, I haven't played the job so I don't have any first hand experience with it's capabilities, and the only two I've played with so far have done exactly what I described. Whether this is from lack of effort or lack of knowledge about the job I don't know.

But you also have to be reasonable, Avatar's Favor is not what SMN is built around, It should not be a buff that is competitive with BRD or GEO buffs. I don't believe that setting it permanently at it's current maximum value is reasonable (at least for some summons). Giving out instant +24% double attack or +6 refresh would be at least on par with BRD and GEO buffs. I think instead more attention should be paid to Bloodpacts, improving upon Summoner's original design rather then complaining about a secondary ability, and I know a lot of changes need to be made there to improve SMNs damage and utility.


Diabolos' Favor refresh isn't even half of what a 3 song bard can do, which is 15 a tick. (cast a 3rd song like paeon with terp on yourself, then cast the 3rd ballad with +2 skill so they replace)

[Camate]

Nice changes are on the horizon for Avatar’s Favor!

The development team is currently looking into making it so instead of reducing the effect of Avatar’s Favor when executing a Blood Pact, it will actually become stronger, and this effect will increase proportionately with Blood Pacts that consume a higher amount of MP. :)

[Dulek]

You have a system that promotes swapping out avatars. How does this help out that system?

[Zhronne]

That's better than the current situation I guess, but why such a complicated system (factoring the MP cost of Blood Pacts) when you could simply make the bonus fixed?
You've been saying that you wanted SMNs to keep avatars out and to swap them often for years. A system that resets the potency each time you swap avatar certainly wouldn't help with that.

[Frodnon]

Nice changes are on the horizon for Avatar’s Favor!

The development team is currently looking into making it so instead of reducing the effect of Avatar’s Favor when executing a Blood Pact, it will actually become stronger, and this effect will increase proportionately with Blood Pacts that consume a higher amount of MP. :)

If you mean a sort of inverse of how it is now, where it ticks down and avatar actions boosts it, inactivity leading to it flooring... It's also going to be quite a pain to deal with, it's "worthwhile-ness" hinging on how easy it is to keep "capped" and how strong the buff is given from favor. Too MP intensive and the SMN will lose it's slot anyway to geo and bard due to the summoner being unable to keep it going for a duration. Too weak a buff and it'll be immediately be not worth the effort and we'll still not get the party slot.

[Crevox]

While this is nice, especially combined with the increased potency, we still have to switch avatars very often... and this system goes against that idea. Unless the potency is tied to your character, it's going to be constantly resetting.

Furthermore, this begs the question why we even have to build up the potency still.

Regardless, a buff is a buff, and as a Summoner, I'll take anything we can get. I don't want to deter SE from making changes...


Too MP intensive and the SMN will lose it's slot anyway to geo and bard due to the summoner being unable to keep it going for a duration. Too weak a buff and it'll be immediately be not worth the effort and we'll still not get the party slot.

I dunno about too MP intensive; we're already trying to use our Blood Pacts as much as possible and our MP gets eaten. Summoner has always been about MP, and this favor change synergizes with Apogee. Currently, I can manage my MP mostly fine with tools like siphon, convert and refresh. Obviously in a party scenario I'm going to burn MP even harder, but I never get ballad from bards or other things cause I'm usually solo. I imagine in these scenarios, it wouldn't be much of a problem.

The direction they're taking Summoner seems to be one in which we are extremely MP hungry and trade MP for power (support, damage), what with all the new siphon gear and such. I, for one, don't mind this, if it means we actually do get power for it, and with the favor change, we are being encouraged to do so. Apogee now turns into a very useful JA for both buffing our favor and just using more Blood Pacts. The whole MP thing is actually very interesting, I like that they're actually adding a nice gameplay system like that, though the favor part is still seemingly partially flawed (as stated at the start of my post).

As for "too weak of a buff", we don't know the buff potency yet. Beyond that, if they still plan on adding all the new support blood pacts like they stated (Hastega II) and making others scale with your avatar level/summoner skill (as they said), we can be worth the party slot. We just have to wait and see.

[Olor]

the issue is other jobs do way better damage without having to finick around with MP. Not sure how making SMN even more MP starved helps at all. I dunno though, I'm just a noob SMN, but it seems to me anything that makes SMN harder to keep a consistent damage output isn't going to help... but then again, I am open to being told otherwise... just seems like SMN is going to have a hard time competing with other buffers for a slot especially with the buff being so finicky and requiring massive MP upkeep.

[Zeargi]

the issue is other jobs do way better damage without having to finick around with MP. Not sure how making SMN even more MP starved helps at all. I dunno though, I'm just a noob SMN, but it seems to me anything that makes SMN harder to keep a consistent damage output isn't going to help... but then again, I am open to being told otherwise... just seems like SMN is going to have a hard time competing with other buffers for a slot especially with the buff being so finicky and requiring massive MP upkeep.

To be honest, the only downside is the constant swapping of avatars, other than that the BP usage will be no different than it is now.


Nice changes are on the horizon for Avatar’s Favor!

The development team is currently looking into making it so instead of reducing the effect of Avatar’s Favor when executing a Blood Pact, it will actually become stronger, and this effect will increase proportionately with Blood Pacts that consume a higher amount of MP. :)

Because the way I read it the higher the cost, the greater the boost. Which for example: Garuda - We're going to be using Wind Blade and Predator Claws at lvl 75+, It'll be rare that we use the level 1 Claw ability. You tack on Whispering Wind, Hastega, or any new BP we may get, then it's even more of a boost. Not really gonna see a change in that.

But perhaps, it'll boost it to the cap faster (Not that I believe we should have to build, but this is a start.)

[Olor]

Thanks for the answer Zeargi. Not familiar with how smn is used in groups since my is too gimp to take out in public, and I almost never see smn in groups otherwise.

[Frodnon]

Content wise the only two things we actively do both involve our 2hours, Perfect defence and Chainspell. Perfect defence is used for one or two hardmode fights. Chainspell has it's use in a good portion of those as well as some delve runs.

Damage wise, i'm the exception to the rule. A 33 second BP recast with Nirvana and full +BP damage gear, 10/10 astral conduit effect and astral flow effect, and i can pop out enough damage to put me in the top three of a parse against any of the new delve bosses. The rest of the run however i'm still quite lacking, either there only for resetting mobs, or the evasion debuff. In skirmish i'm more DD oriented, able to keep buffs on my group and one and two hit most all trash mobs.

[Windwhisper]

Small suggestion in addition to the planned changes. Maybe add elemental resistance too.

Example: Ifrit boosts Fire resistance

[geekgirl101]

As far as I'm concerned this changes nothing for smn. Favor is useless as it is and even these proposed changes will be as useless. I don't need favor, I need avatars that can hit and do damage against endgame mobs!!!!!! And if I'm going to be regularly swapping them in/out because of certain magic resists or because I'm running low on mp and having to elemental siphon then favor is not going to be any use to me in those situations.

[Artharian]

Personally I'd like to state my appreciation that things are happening for SMN. It may not be the silver bullet or otherwise that end-game players want, but for me, partying in older areas, this has made Avatar's Favor useful. A slight change to my gearing to allow for the increase in perp cost and the party gets a (admittedly variable) buff where they had none before. OK it changes when I use a BP, but it's still better than before when I wouldn't use it at all due to it weakening the avatar.

Art.

[Rakshaka]

Regarding [dev1239] changes:
For the level 1 skillchain properties of the BPs, I'm not sure what to tell you. The level 1 renkei chart is all sorts of messed up (e.g. 1 way to make induration, but 3 ways to make detonation, etc), so it probably doesn't matter what level 1 element you assign to the BPs. For the level 2 skillchain properties of the BPs however, I hope that you'll match the skillchain property with the avatars element. For instance, both Ramuh and Garuda's lvl 2 skillchain property for Chaotic Strike and Predator Claws should be Fragmentation. This will make it easy to remember the elements of their respective BPs, and will make it easier to magic burst their own skillchain with the use of apogee/astral conduit.

Regarding the Avatar's Favor changes: I think this is a great route to take going forward. Having the effect be strengthened whenever a BP is used will allow us to make effective use of favor in situations like melee zergs where you have to get your buffs up quickly (in this case that means getting favor to max potency as fast as possible). It'll also help foster better SMN gameplay when in party situations. Instead of using an offensive BP when a SMNs pet is about to die (thus pulling hate for a minimal amount of time, as the avatar is immediately killed), SMNs will be more apt to resummon before BPing (for the purpose of having a potent favor immediately after resummoning), which will lead to the avatars tanking for a longer period of time before they're killed, or hate is pulled off of them (assuming that their damage is strong enough to pull hate).

Overall, these changes are highly welcome.

[Byrth]

Yeah, this change can only improve Favor.

I similarly hope for a Tier 2 skillchain property for the level 70 BPs, but I wish that they had just done all the remaining BP:Rages at once. They'd still need to do:
* Merit BPs - x6
* Eclipse Bite
* Lunar Bay
* Meteorite
* Holy Mist
* Nether Blast (maybe)
* Night Terror
* Level ? Holy
* Regal Scratch (if it doesn't have one already?)

I am fairly sure none of those can MB, so they're all WSs and should be able to have skillchain elements.

[Shirai]

Yeah, this change can only improve Favor.

I similarly hope for a Tier 2 skillchain property for the level 70 BPs, but I wish that they had just done all the remaining BP:Rages at once. They'd still need to do:
* Merit BPs - x6
* Eclipse Bite
* Lunar Bay
* Meteorite
* Holy Mist
* Nether Blast (maybe)
* Night Terror
* Level ? Holy
* Regal Scratch (if it doesn't have one already?)

I am fairly sure none of those can MB, so they're all WSs and should be able to have skillchain elements.

Eclipse Bite will get SC properties, they misspelled that as Ecliptic Bite.
Regal Scratch I don't know about, needs testing.
All the others you name are BPs with magical properties and will MB on a skillchain.

[Byrth]

All the others you name are BPs with magical properties and will MB on a skillchain.

Derp, of course. That's why I made Relic +2 hands.

I can go test Regal Scratch later if no one gets to it before me. I'm betting on Transfixion or nothing.

[Dulek]

Nice changes are on the horizon for Avatar’s Favor!

The development team is currently looking into making it so instead of reducing the effect of Avatar’s Favor when executing a Blood Pact, it will actually become stronger, and this effect will increase proportionately with Blood Pacts that consume a higher amount of MP. :)

Love how this continued to be rolled out with no replies to the additional feedback about this. Great job of working with your community, SE.

[Malithar]

Love how this continued to be rolled out with no replies to the additional feedback about this. Great job of working with your community, SE.

Not that they're really known for going back and fourth for feedback, but the feedback given specifically about the favor has been in general "this will be better then it is now." Might even make it an important aspect of Smn depending on just how much MP you need to use to cap the potency, and just how high the potency goes.

[Rwolf]

I'm just hoping since Avatar's Favor stays on you as a buff without an avatar active the new favor cap will cumulatively carry over swapping out avatars. If not, it won't address the real issue which is consistent resummoning.

[Rakshaka]

I'm just hoping since Avatar's Favor stays on you as a buff without an avatar active the new favor cap will cumulatively carry over swapping out avatars. If not, it won't address the real issue which is consistent resummoning.
Resummoning was a minor issue. The major issue was the fact that Favor lost potency when performing a blood pact. This meant that you had to have your avatar out and do nothing in order to effectively provide a potent favor buff. The fact that favor is reset upon resummoning the same avatar is necessary to prevent it from being overpowered. Besides, with the "Favor's potency is increased on blood pact usage" change, it makes the reset upon resummoning even more necessary because you'll hit the potency cap much faster. The increased potency upon BP change will also help foster better smn gameplay; they'll have to BP after resummoning if they want to maintain a high Favor potency. Hopefully this will make more smns think about BPing at the right time, instead of spamming a BP whenever it's up, e.g. if your avatar is tanking, don't BP when it has 10% hp left, it'll just get hate and die; resummon the avatar when you get the chance, then BP while your avatar is at 100% so it can hold hate longer before dying.

[Zeargi]

Resummoning was a minor issue. The major issue was the fact that Favor lost potency when performing a blood pact. This meant that you had to have your avatar out and do nothing in order to effectively provide a potent favor buff. The fact that favor is reset upon resummoning the same avatar is necessary to prevent it from being overpowered. Besides, with the "Favor's potency is increased on blood pact usage" change, it makes the reset upon resummoning even more necessary because you'll hit the potency cap much faster. The increased potency upon BP change will also help foster better smn gameplay; they'll have to BP after resummoning if they want to maintain a high Favor potency. Hopefully this will make more smns think about BPing at the right time, instead of spamming a BP whenever it's up, e.g. if your avatar is tanking, don't BP when it has 10% hp left, it'll just get hate and die; resummon the avatar when you get the chance, then BP while your avatar is at 100% so it can hold hate longer before dying.


To be honest, I don't feel that there will be any loss of favor effectiveness now. So there's no need to 'maintain' it, as much so for you to nurture it. So, from my understanding of what is read, the Favor will increase like it always does, but while now Jump/Spike with BP usage. I will agree that there will need some bit of strategy if they make it so that BPs will increase the cap, but I don't think that's exactly how it'll work. It's a supportive JA anyway, so this leads to greater avenues of things I.E. Maybe more summons for us to get to branch out more abilities. (though not likely, but a hopeful dream :3)

[Crevox]

The effects of Avator's Favor have been increased.

Results of favor testing:

Carbuncle: Same
Garuda: Same
Titan: Same
Diabolos: Same

None of the others are testable super quick and easily for me.

So... what does this mean exactly from the patch notes?

[Frodnon]

Results of favor testing:

Carbuncle: Same
Garuda: Same
Titan: Same
Diabolos: Same

None of the others are testable super quick and easily for me.

So... what does this mean exactly from the patch notes?

As i thought, and tested, there's one higher tier for Favor, but it seems broken or based on convoker's and not simply a high enough skill level.

I'm showing 87 defence from titan with 560 skill on AND convoker's horn +2. Both wikis have cap for 447 skil & convoker's+2 at 82 def.

[Byrth]

BGwiki has >512 skill with Caller's Horn +2 being 87 DEF: http://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Avatar%27s_Favor

The info was added on October 14th. Technically it was implied before, but Spicyryan spelled out the information that was already on the page with another column that added 2*tier potency to the 512 value so people wouldn't have to do math.

Either way, that testing doesn't indicate that anything has changed.

[Crevox]

It was always 87 defense. If you want hard numbers, you can see Papesse's testing here from before the patch:


512 skill and Caller's Horn +2 :
Carbuncle : 24 HP/tick
Ifrit : 21~24 DA
Titan : 87 DEF
Garuda : 31 EVA
Shiva : 13 MAB
Ramuh : 21% Critical Hit Rate
Diabolos : 6 MP/tick
Caith Sith : 15 MDB


There is no new tier, and there are no new effects. All they changed was BPs lowering tiers into raising tiers.

[Clou777]

Summoner
The following Blood Pacts: Rage will have skillchain elements added.
Ecliptic Bite / Flaming Crush / Mountain Buster / Spinning Dive / Predator Claws / Rush / Chaotic Strike
The job ability Avatar’s Favor will undergo the following adjustments.
The effects of Avatar’s Favor will be increased.
The effects of Avatar’s favor will increased based on the amount of MP consumed when using a Blood Pact: Rage or Blood Pact: Ward.

Have the Effects been increased? I dont think so.

[Artharian]

To coincide with the increased effect of Avatar’s Favor, we’ve eliminated the effect penalty when using Blood Pacts, and made it so that each time you use a Blood Pact the effect of Avatar’s Favor grows.


I think Crevox's testing and analysis hits the nail on the head, along with the wording from the Freshly Picked...the favour grows (i.e. goes up through the tiers) but there's not a cap increase. I could be wrong (often am! :-) ) but that's also backed up by my Diabolos testing which is, admittedly, a bit ad hoc.

Art.

[Camate]

We have in fact increased the upper limit on the effects of Avatar’s Favor, but in order to reach this new tier you will have to surpass 512575 summoning skill. We understand that at the moment it is difficult to procure the equipment to achieve 513+575+ summoning skill, but we will be making adjustments moving forward so you can aim for higher summoning skill numbers.

Also, to clarify what has already been stated, using Blood Pacts will push the effect of Avatar’s Favor through the tiers more quickly to reach the maximum effect that coincides with your summoning skill.

[Genoxd]

We have in fact increased the upper limit on the effects of Avatar’s Favor, but in order to reach this new tier you will have to surpass 512 summoning skill.

No you didn't.

I will use titan's favor as an example:

SMN Skill 544:
Base DEF: 423
With maxed out Favor: 510
Favor Gives +87 DEF

SMN Skill 512:
Base DEF: 330
With maxed Favor: 417
Favor Gives +87 DEF

SMN Skill 550 (without Caller's Horn +2)
Base DEF: 494
With maxed Favor: 571
Favor Gives +77 DEF

You did NOT increase the cap for Avatar's Favor. Unless you mean the cap without Caller's Horn +2. If so then that cap is LOWER than the cap WITH Caller's Horn +2.

Again. You did NOT raise the cap.


We understand that at the moment it is difficult to procure the equipment to achieve 513+ summoning skill

No it's not, it's quite easy to break 512. It would be nice to have it be easy and keep all our good gear on though.

[Acacia]

We have in fact increased the upper limit on the effects of Avatar’s Favor, but in order to reach this new tier you will have to surpass 512 summoning skill. We understand that at the moment it is difficult to procure the equipment to achieve 513+ summoning skill, but we will be making adjustments moving forward so you can aim for higher summoning skill numbers.

Also, to clarify what has already been stated, using Blood Pacts will push the effect of Avatar’s Favor through the tiers more quickly to reach the maximum effect that coincides with your summoning skill.
You are mistaken. The bonus at 512+ summoning skill is the same as it has always been.
I have 564 summoning skill which is only 10 less then the absolute maximum you can get right now (I'm missing Conveyance Cape augment.)
The max bonus with 512 is the same as with 564 ... and the same that it has always been.
The max bonus with 512+horn is the same as with 558+horn ... and the same that it has always been.
Maybe you meant they added the 577 tier? That is impossible to reach currently and even if more armor is added it would require you to dedicate EVERY SLOT to Summoning magic skill armor to reach that tier.

[Shirai]

Camate, I can't shake the feeling that we're being lied to.
Please come with verifiable numbers because the players below your post have come with numbers which are disproving everything you have just said.
Apart from that, I must say I am very disappointed.
The patchnotes gave me (and I am sure other summoners) the impression that we'd get a direct potency boost on Avatar's favor itself instead of another tier.

Even in it's updated state Avatar's favor simply doesn't make Summoner a viable alternative for filling a support role.
Please consider the following changes:
- Remove the potency scaling over time, Avatar's favor needs to be at maximum potency from the get go to be of any use.
If I am playing a support summoner I switch between avatars a lot for other Avatar buffs, having to rebuild potency every time I summon just doesn't work, we can't be relied on for Avatar's favor alone.
Keep the potency based on skill though, that is fine.

Please also consider changes to the following Favors:
- Ifrit's Favor: Double attack -> Attack
- Ramuh's Favor: Critical Hitrate -> Accuracy

And please increase the favor potencies to close the gap between the other support roles.
This gap is still far too large to even be considered as a viable replacement for other support classes.

[Rakshaka]

Please also consider changes to the following Favors:
- Ifrit's Favor: Double attack -> Attack
- Ramuh's Favor: Critical Hitrate -> Accuracy


No. Don't even joke about changing these. They're two of the best favors we have.

[Shirai]

You are right, scratching that.
Although an Accuracy buff wouldn't be misplaced as a ward buff perhaps (With a boost to Ifrit's Crimson Howl)

(Although Personally I was also considering Favors that could compete with Geomancer's Fury and Precision as we also have Favors for our fellow mages that increase MAB and MACC.)

[Zeargi]

No. Don't even joke about changing these. They're two of the best favors we have.

While I agree with the Ifrit, now that the upper limit can be reached and maintained, but is the Crit % Rate really one of the best? I feel that a shift to Crit DMG or even ACC to would be far more useful. Of course, if Fenrir didn't have the Lunar Cycle crap attached to his BPs, then it wouldn't matter too much I guess.

[Arciel]

was wondering if it'd be so hard to give elemental spirits favor too?
give them elemental resistance or something. its not exactly very useful but would be another situational tool to add to our mixed bag. pocket RUNs lol

[Jerbob]

Is there any way that Avatar's Favour can be altered so that we aren't penalised when swapping out skill+ gear when using blood pacts? As it stands I still have to choose between using blood pacts in 512 skill gear, usually requiring me to make sacrifices in BP delay and potency, or using blood pacts in the appropriate gear and suffering a favour tier penalty as my skill drops. This effectively means that either Avatar's Favour weakens my blood pacts or my blood pacts weaken Avatar's Favour, which was the original problem...

[Camate]

Hello, everyone.

Thanks for all the testing and data. I’ve been talking to the development team in an effort to solve this topic in question. The team did some further testing and found that Avatar’s Favor is working as intended, but it seems like the values being shown through the client are not being reflected. Since displaying these value variations up-to-the-second would place a large amount of stress on the servers and it would also take a lot of resources to change how the client functions, we do not have any plans at the moment to make adjustments to this.

Please rest assured that the effects are being granted to your characters properly and also keep in mind that the /checkparam command should show you the stats more quickly than the equipment screen.

[Malithar]

So you're saying the values reported are lower then what they actually are? Cause that sounds pretty awkward, can't remember a situation anytime in the history of the game where the stats we see from effects are incorrect. I mean, for example, Titan gives +87 defense on our screen, how are we to know if he's actually giving +100?

To be frank, this sounds like the whole Automaton being able to Protect itself situation all over again. If we're unable to see the correct values, then could you possibly get information from the dev team concerning what the current max buff values are? I mean hard values too. Not "it's been increased" as we're assured it has, without anyway to visibly see such.

[Acacia]

Hello, everyone.

Thanks for all the testing and data. I’ve been talking to the development team in an effort to solve this topic in question. The team did some further testing and found that Avatar’s Favor is working as intended, but it seems like the values being shown through the client are not being reflected. Since displaying these value variations up-to-the-second would place a large amount of stress on the servers and it would also take a lot of resources to change how the client functions, we do not have any plans at the moment to make adjustments to this.

Please rest assured that the effects are being granted to your characters properly and also keep in mind that the /checkparam command should show you the stats more quickly than the equipment screen.
No, you are still mistaken. I've tested and tested and tested again. Nothing at all has changed.

Titan's Favor with 433 Summoning Skill (No horn) = Max bonus of DEF+67
Titan's Favor with 503 Summoning Skill (No horn) = Max bonus of DEF+72
Titan's Favor with 518 Summoning Skill (No horn) = Max bonus of DEF+77
Titan's Favor with 564 Summoning Skill (No horn) = Max bonus of DEF+77

Those are the same tiers and the same max values as before the update and I checked with /checkparam and with the equipment menu. The frequency of the value updates is of no relevance at all, I waited for 20min and the max bonus was still capped at the same values. Unless you mean that the max bonus does go higher then DEF+77 but it will NEVER display that value?

[Crevox]

We're using checkparam, we're using the equip window, everything. Heck, even the Regen effect from Carbuncle is not changing. If he's healing us for the same in both situations, then there is no bonus.

There's no way that could be misinterpreted or stats could not be showing up in a case like that.

[Shirai]

Camate, please.
This is getting embarrassing, we are using measurable values and are comparing them with values that have been known for a very long time, we know how to measure them!.
Please take it from the playerbase that if we say that nothing has changed, just maybe nothing has changed.

While I am not a big fan of playing the whole Paying customer part, if you keep telling us off like that while we have numbers to proof that you're wrong I will start filing formal complaints against you and the development team.
And yes, I know where to place them. Not here.

Sincerely,

Someone that is losing his patience and understanding.

[Acacia]

We're using checkparam, we're using the equip window, everything. Heck, even the Regen effect from Carbuncle is not changing. If he's healing us for the same in both situations, then there is no bonus.

There's no way that could be misinterpreted or stats could not be showing up in a case like that.
Good call, I'm not sure why I didn't think of just testing with Carbuncle's Favor:

Carbuncle's Favor with 433 Summoning Skill (No horn) = Max bonus of Regen+16
Carbuncle's Favor with 503 Summoning Skill (No horn) = Max bonus of Regen+18
Carbuncle's Favor with 518 Summoning Skill (No horn) = Max bonus of Regen+20
Carbuncle's Favor with 564 Summoning Skill (No horn) = Max bonus of Regen+20
Carbuncle's Favor with 558 Summoning Skill (With horn) = Max bonus of Regen+24

Those are the same tiers and the same max values as before the update...

@Shirai... A formal complaint, really? Come on, it's a video game, don't be silly.

[Shirai]

@Shirai... A formal complaint, really? Come on, it's a video game, don't be silly.

I'm not.
As I said, I am not a fan of the whole "Mah munneh" part, but I don't like to be lied to either.
And at this point I really feel like we're being lied to.

Either they provide evidence, or they admit that nothing happened, I won't accept this answer.

[Acacia]

I'm not.
As I said, I am not a fan of the whole "Mah munneh" part, but I don't like to be lied to either.
And at this point I really feel like we're being lied to.
I highly doubt it's intentional. It's entirely possible it's a bug that's just not showing up on the developers' machines so they think it's working fine. I'm a software engineer myself and I'm always surprised how many times I find a bug in a release build that doesn't show up in a debug build. Providing evidence and facts in order to help them to solve the problem is helpful, threatening is not, especially this early in the discussion. You have to remember that Camate isn't a developer, he's just providing a channel of communication between us and the developers. I'm sure it takes time for him to communicate (including translation) with them, for them to test and then to get a response back.

[Rakshaka]

I highly doubt it's intentional. It's entirely possible it's a bug that's just not showing up on the developers' machines so they think it's working fine. I'm a software engineer myself and I'm always surprised how many times I find a bug in a release build that doesn't show up in a debug build. Providing evidence and facts in order to help them to solve the problem is helpful, threatening is not, especially this early in the discussion. You have to remember that Camate isn't a developer, he's just providing a channel of communication between us and the developers. I'm sure it takes time for him to communicate (including translation) with them, for them to test and then to get a response back.

Agreed; this situation requires patience and understanding. Camate, if possible, it would help us greatly if we had specific information on the new tiers, including the required smn skill level, and even just a couple of the new values that we can expect from this higher tier. That way we can compare what the devs expect vs what we're actually seeing in game. After that, the devs could figure out why the numbers are different. Titan's favor would be the best one to test, as the difference in tiers is obvious to detect as I'm sure everyone's surmised.

[Glamdring]

what we need is for the devs to get off the test servers and start testing things in real live play on real servers, without all the testing tools that allow them to adjust things and test various things out. get on REAL characters on REAL content with REAL players and see what the REAL end results of their work are. Because as players that's all we really care about, the end results, not the theories of where the devs would like for things to go, but where the players actually take them.

[Genoxd]

Hello, everyone.

Thanks for all the testing and data. I’ve been talking to the development team in an effort to solve this topic in question. The team did some further testing and found that Avatar’s Favor is working as intended, but it seems like the values being shown through the client are not being reflected. Since displaying these value variations up-to-the-second would place a large amount of stress on the servers and it would also take a lot of resources to change how the client functions, we do not have any plans at the moment to make adjustments to this.

Please rest assured that the effects are being granted to your characters properly and also keep in mind that the /checkparam command should show you the stats more quickly than the equipment screen.

The numbers I posted are from /checkparam

Again. You did NOT buff Avatar's Favor.

[geekgirl101]

Still not using Avatar's Favor because it's rubbish. You need well over 500 summoning skill and to be regularly using the same avatar for it to be of any use. The moment your avatar is dismissed or dies you lose that potency. You also weaken the bonus that Avatar's Favor gives to you when you switch into your Bloodpact Damage bonus gear, which lowers your summoning skill. How is this supposed to be helpful to us? It isn't! You've given us nothing SE, you're as transparent as a sheet of glass for throwing us bitter carrots.

[Malphius]

Poor Camate having to deal with all the sad sad tears of the bitter pet community. I hope there's an in-house therapist for this guy having to read the same whiny threads since day one of this forum.

Que whiny replies.

[Jerbob]

Poor Camate having to deal with all the sad sad tears of the bitter pet community. I hope there's an in-house therapist for this guy having to read the same whiny threads since day one of this forum.

Que whiny replies.
On the contrary, I think everyone sympathises with the community reps. They have a difficult job trying to mesh two sides with very different sets of expectations.

Whining happens for a reason. It doesn't just come out of thin air - there's a trigger that causes it. SE implemented this forum precisely because they wanted the insight that comes from communicating with the playerbase. I find it a little baffling when people complain about the complaining, because feedback is why we're all here - us and SE.

Back on topic, I'm beginning to think that Avatar's Favour just needs a complete rework. It's amazing that they've buffed the ability so much and it's still massively under-par. That does sort of imply that the base principles of the ability need looking at, Even if the buff potency had increased, as SE has been claiming, it still would be uninspiring and laden with broken mechanics.

[Camate]

Hello, everyone.

First off, I’d like you all to understand that solving this issue is just as important to us and we’re doing everything we can to find out answers. I appreciate the data you've been providing as well as your patience.

With that said, there was an error in my previous post regarding the summoning skill. The necessary skill value required to reach a higher effect tier through skill alone is 575+. Apologies for the miscommunication.

We are still in the process of talking to the development team about this and they are currently working with QA to perform further testing. Once I hear more information I will definitely make a follow-up, so please sit tight in the meantime.

[Zeargi]

Back on topic, I'm beginning to think that Avatar's Favour just needs a complete rework. It's amazing that they've buffed the ability so much and it's still massively under-par. That does sort of imply that the base principles of the ability need looking at, Even if the buff potency had increased, as SE has been claiming, it still would be uninspiring and laden with broken mechanics.

Agreed, It's a nice through, but the overall function just isn't conducive to the SMN class. If we had a way to sustain the Avatar's HP like BST's Reward, then keeping them alive wouldn't be that big of a deal, but that still doesn't fix the problem of shifting from one avatar to another. I feel that it should fall in to the realm of GEO and BRD, where the effect is based solely upon your current skill. SMN Magic=X then you get this boost, no build up at all. As it, we need to switch avatars at a frequent pace to fully utilize our job. Titan, Garuda, Fenrir, Diabolos, hell even Carbuncle all have things that can help a party. I've been told by people that they're surprised on how much ground a SMN can cover. We've been saying the same things for a while now, but it seems that they aren't being even thought of. But that's the thing with MMOs they're always a WIP.

[Malphius]

The necessary skill value required to reach a higher effect tier through skill alone is 575+

There ya have it guys. You're just not good enough at SMN.

[Jerbob]

I'm not sure why the developers think it's worth announcing that a new tier has been specifically added to Avatar's Favour as part of the ability's reworking. I mean, it's an ability that naturally scales with skill. I think it's kind of... assumed that scaling shouldn't just arbitrarily stop?

When the merit point caps were increased, SE didn't feel the need to specifically note that increased VIT merits would boost Chakra healing. That sort of goes without saying. Why is SMN consistently different in this regard? Why do we have to beg to be given appropriate scaling? Why is it that when things like this are sorted, it's part of our once-in-a-blue-moon job adjustment? I mean, Ward potency has been plagued with this issue for ages. It's like that time when they made the first step to fixing our blood pact timers being wasted when mobs were out of range. That was apparently an addition to our job!

Making abilities scale properly isn't a buff or enhancement, it's a bugfix.

[Acacia]

Hello, everyone.

First off, I’d like you all to understand that solving this issue is just as important to us and we’re doing everything we can to find out answers. I appreciate the data you've been providing as well as your patience.

With that said, there was an error in my previous post regarding the summoning skill. The necessary skill value required to reach a higher effect tier through skill alone is 575+. Apologies for the miscommunication.

We are still in the process of talking to the development team about this and they are currently working with QA to perform further testing. Once I hear more information I will definitely make a follow-up, so please sit tight in the meantime.
Thanks for digging into the issue for us Camate. It's good to know what the real story is but it's still disappointing. Currently it's impossible to reach this new tier (the highest Summoning magic skill you can get is 574) and just to get close we have to use every single armor slot, including your weapon. Adding new armor with slightly higher skill wont really solve that problem either. Honestly I think a good solution would be to just have a fixed value (no warm-up) for Avatar's Favor bonuses that are based on your avatar's level. This way you don't have to go crazy with the armor and it will scale nicely with the iLvl ammo and Nirvana.

[Frodnon]

There ya have it guys. You're just not good enough at SMN.

575 is impossible to get, by 1 point.
+12 kirin's pole
+3 vox grip
+15 convoker's horn +1
+9 caller's pendant
+5 andoa earring
+3 summoning earring
+12 anhur robe
+19 glyphic bracers +1
+10 evoker's ring
+5 globidonta ring
+18 Conveyance cape (+8 and perfect +10 aug)
+5 cimmerian sash
+14 adapa's slacks +1
+11 marduk's crackows +1

Puts us at exactly 574, with capped skill and 8/8 merits.

[Zeargi]

575 is impossible to get, by 1 point.
+12 kirin's pole
+3 vox grip
+15 convoker's horn +1
+9 caller's pendant
+5 andoa earring
+3 summoning earring
+12 anhur robe
+19 glyphic bracers +1
+10 evoker's ring
+5 globidonta ring
+18 Conveyance cape (+8 and perfect +10 aug)
+5 cimmerian sash
+14 adapa's slacks +1
+11 marduk's crackows +1

Puts us at exactly 574, with capped skill and 8/8 merits.

You'd think that the devs would have known this >_>; Still I'll never reach that. And I'm getting to the point I no longer care. They make it so unGodly hard for the pet jobs to actually be productive. My faith in that the new Blood Pacts is growing dim.

[Acacia]

Papesse on the FFXIAH.com forums found that the potency of Shiva's Favor and Cait Sith's Favor has actually been increased. I haven't tested it myself yet to confirm.

[Jerbob]

I would really like a developer response to the issue of swapping equipment affecting favour potency. All the changes to avatar's favour show us that the developers want to encourage blood pact use while avatar's favour is in use, but adding new tiers to the skill requirement encourages the exact opposite of that.

SE, we cannot maintain full strength favour and use blood pact abilities at the same time. There needs to be a major shift in Avatar's Favour design before this works properly. Is this even a recognised issue?

[Rakshaka]

I would really like a developer response to the issue of swapping equipment affecting favour potency. All the changes to avatar's favour show us that the developers want to encourage blood pact use while avatar's favour is in use, but adding new tiers to the skill requirement encourages the exact opposite of that.

SE, we cannot maintain full strength favour and use blood pact abilities at the same time. There needs to be a major shift in Avatar's Favour design before this works properly. Is this even a recognised issue?

I don't see what the problem is. When you want to use a BP, put on your BP- gear, then command the BP, then swap to attack/mab/accuracy/whatever gear you need for the blood pact, then swap back to your favor set. Remember, the potency of favor is determined by your current skill, caller's horn, and the duration that favor has been active. When you use a blood pact, you effectively increase the duration counter by a set amount according to the mp that the BP costs. So, if you're already at capped duration, and you use a BP (while swapping gear normally), you don't have to swap back to your favor gear and wait until the duration is capped again. It was capped before, and it stays capped. All you have to do is swap to favor gear, and BOOM! you're at max favor potency.

[Jerbob]

Has that been confirmed to be true by testing? I may be mistaken.

I was under the impression that, when you add skill+ gear, Avatar's Favour takes time to increase to maximum potency as dictated by that new tier - the same time it would take to move from one tier to the next when first activated. If, instead, it is definitely based on the time that Avatar's Favour has been active, then I gladly withdraw the majority of my complaint! It's still dumb that our favour blinks in and out of existence when using BP, though less critically problematic than I believed.

I will have to see for myself on a day when I have some spare time. Thanks for the heads up.

[Byrth]

Jerbob is correct in my experience. If you lower your tier by dropping skill, you have to wait the number of tier tocks for it to go back up.

[Rakshaka]

I just did some testing. I started in my smn skill gear with caller's horn for a total of 533 skill. At this point I had 475 defense. I summoned Titan, turned on avatar's favor, did a few earthen armors, and my defense ended up at 562, for total of 87 defense from favor. I then stripped naked for a defense of 226. I then immediately put back all of my smn skill gear with caller's horn, and my defense was immediately 562.

There was no waiting to tick back up to maximum potency.

[Acacia]

I've been too distracted with other things to post about this again, but I'm back for more...

So basically what we've got here is that a few of the Avatar's Favor effects have been increased but not all of them. Why was this not the answer from the developers from the start? Why were our concerns met with evasiveness and misdirection instead of honesty? It seems clear now that the 575+ Summoning skill response was most likely just to avoid answering directly.

So, Camate, why are the developers giving us misinformation instead of a relevant response? Even getting a "it's a secret, keep looking" response would be preferable to "quick, look over there!"

[Grekumah]

We were able to confirm additional adjustment details on Avatar’s Favor.

The following are the adjustments that were made:


Raised the effect on all the Avatar’s Favors.
When you maintain a summoning skill 575 or greater, the effects on Avatar’s Favor will be much higher.
When equipped with the Caller’s Horn +1/+2, the effect will also be higher than usual even if summoning skill is below 575.
Shiva and Cait Sith have received an overall potency increase.


In regards to the required summoning skill (575 or above) being too high, the development team intentionally set it to this level so that there will be a buffer when they decide to make further adjustments to the summoning skill, so please wait for an update on this.

Additionally, the devs. are considering to apply an item level on the Caller’s Horn +2.

[Byrth]

Hopefully they're considering making a full set of Empyrean iLevel armor instead of just Caller's Horn +2.

What the heck does number 1 mean? How can they have raised the effects of all avatar's favors yet only boosted Shiva and Cait Sith's?

[Malthar]

Grekumah, they better not just upgrade the Caller's Horn +2 or all the denizens will riot!
They'll all, repeatedly, cast Firaja II and and burn Ru'Lude Gardens down! Aht Urhgan Whitegate will be next!

[Acacia]

We were able to confirm additional adjustment details on Avatar’s Favor.
Thanks for the update Grekumah. I do appreciate your continued communication about this subject. That being said, the points you've provided are contradicting and are not new information. It seems like you're giving our own proven facts back to us and claiming that these are additional details from the development team.

1. This has been proven false by players and point #4 contradicts this.
2. This is irrelevant in relation to the update note since it's impossible to reach 575 summoning magic skill.
3. The Caller's Horn +1/+2 has always had this effect and the update made no changes to that.
4. This was actually found by the player Papesse and avoids the issue of what changes where made to the other Avatar's Favars that was claimed by point #1

[Fobby]

I don't mind getting flamed but perhaps avatars favor effect may want to be linked to the ilvl of the pet? This would avoid the issue of having to stack summoning skill on for a mediocre effect while still allowing the SMN to maintain pet melee/refresh idle gear. It may be useful to have temporary boost to the effect when apogee is used (still keeps effect boosted by amount of mp used). Especially for career summoners who pride themselves on using bloodpacts often, there will be more damage dealt over time by blood pacts than by the buff given by avatars favor.

[Jerbob]

I just did some testing. I started in my smn skill gear with caller's horn for a total of 533 skill. At this point I had 475 defense. I summoned Titan, turned on avatar's favor, did a few earthen armors, and my defense ended up at 562, for total of 87 defense from favor. I then stripped naked for a defense of 226. I then immediately put back all of my smn skill gear with caller's horn, and my defense was immediately 562.

There was no waiting to tick back up to maximum potency.
I've just looked at this myself and got the same result. I guess I was mistaken. Thanks for looking into it.

This makes me a little happier about avatar's favour, at least.

[Daydreamer]

Summoner has gotten some long awaited attention thank you devs!!!!!!!!!

Your adjustments to avatars favor eh not bad not amazing mind you but better than nothing? How else can summoner gain utility without being over powering ?

1. Abolish the global ward timer on all ward pacts, much like what was done with dancer. Give each ward an individual timer, none of the timers would ever need to be greater than 30 secs or max bp down with gear kinda thing (not claiming this is the current max bp down this is just for example). but waiting 30 secs between casting a buff and another buff and another buff hinders summoner's support job abilities.

BP rage seems fine the way it is. I don't see any reason why astral conduit wouldn't be able to continue to work the same way it does now.

Slightly off topic but not really... "Odin Pact" make it useful or turn it into a ward ? just a thought. WS dmg +50% to all in range for 45 secs kinda thingy wouldnt suk ^^

Thanks for reading my suggestions. All and all I love summoner even as it is. but the tweaks to Ward timers would help alot. New BP rages all around never hurts either even if they are just fun extras. the wimpy potency on the ward's wont be an issue if we can use alot of the wimpy wards alot faster. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!;)