Why is Summoner the most ignored, misunderstood and broken job?

[Malamasala]

It is really hard to understand how the job has come into this situation, and stayed here for all these years.

Take DRG for example. They simply had to say "We think wyvern is part of the job, but it dies all the time. Can you fix this?" and they got a 20 min JA instead of 2 hours. If a Summoner says "Spirits are currently impossible to use, can we have them fixed?", it is just silence from the developers.

Another example is COR. Just 4 months after COR was released, SE said "We notice few people play COR, so we are improving their roll effects". But the fact that SMN was equally as rare, and had even worse Wards than COR had rolls, was just ignored.

Yet another example was PUP, which was added with only mage armors. They made a handful threads saying "We need melee armors to fight along with our pet." Even though this is something a minority of the Summoners have said far longer, it was only PUP who got the change and added to melee armors.

Summoning skill is another one. We felt like we had a skill that didn't matter, and asked for it to do something. Did SE make it do something? No, instead they added a brand new concept of "skill over cap" and introduced that. Our skill is still useless and does nothing... until we pass the cap. Why isn't it a straight bonus like all other jobs get?

We can also talk about SE just "forgot" to add new spells to spirits past level 75. They remembered PUP, but not SMN. How could this happen? Why is SMN not worth caring about, but PUP is?

It really seems like SE doesn't know what they are doing at all. Take for example Favors. It was a common suggestion from others, that avatars should have auras giving good bonuses. Each avatar should have their own - first mistake the suggestions did. How did this end? You ignore the avatars with the wrong favors, and you ignore the avatars with right favors but wrong pacts. SE threw in a 25% damage reduction without any reason at all. Luckily SE didn't give Garuda Hastega aura since it would have made us only use Garuda for everything. Sadly they gave her evasion aura which is useless so never is used.

Another thing SE never grasped, is what the Summoner is supposed to do. Melee? No melee stats or abilities or traits. Cast magic? No magic spells. Use spirits? Too long casting delay and too random. Use avatars? Too long pact recast. Stand and watch? Yea, that is pretty much the remaining option for Summoners. SMN is basically PUP, except we never got any traits to enhance our DD.

And if anyone has paid attention, you would know that new Summoner armors are rarer than mythics on the server. Every update SE keeps showing they have forgotten about the job, alternatively misunderstood it. We always get MAB armors, while we can't get access to anything higher than tier II nukes from subjob. This is just ridiculous when we have B rank staff we could melee with decent melee armors.

Lastly SE doesn't seem to have grasped the concept of buffs. They gave COR and BRD potent, long duration buffs that do not cost any MP. Then they gave SMN weak, short buffs costing a fortune in MP. A WHM can cast RR and it lasts an hour. It can also cast shell V on someone, and it will last 15 min. How about casting shining ruby? Sorry, 1 min duration. How about Earthen Armor, that is at least new. 3 min, 100 MP. At the same time BRD gets the same type of song, again for free, no MP costs, no need to run in next to tank and BP:Ward, can sing at a safe distance.



It isn't like any of us modest Summoners are asking for much.

- We want a clear direction of the job. Native melee traits or native magic spells, to show what we are supposed to do. Split BP timers so we can do more over the course of a minute is also fine, if the focus is meant to be avatars. Severely shortened spirit casting delays would show that we should use spirits.

- Flexibility, so that we can play as needed, instead of try and adapt to the least useless way. A great example is that we shouldn't be forced to stand in the back with Diabolos favor, we should be able to assault and have it melee while the aura reaches the furthest backlines.

- Balance, so we aren't the weakest job, with shortest durations, for highest MP cost and depend on moon phase, time of day, day of week, weather, Santa Claus. Ideally all our wards should work like Shell. 15 min duration. After all, 90% of them are defensive and do nothing to increase damage output, and at least 3 of them wear off based on damage.

- Armors. I can't stress this part enough. Summoner gets 5 new pieces of armor every 3 years. Inbetween we only get MAB gear, to help our tier II subjob nukes and 70+ magical WSes (which are all very weak compared to multi hit crit WSes).

And the smallest request we have is that we just get confirmation that something is being done about this.



PS. I find that all BP:Rages post 70 are just fine. The job can function as a substitute SAM with a 1 min meditate that deals a BP/WS every minute. If we delete all spirits and all wards, I can accept that this is a well made mage DD, but as long as they remain, it is a clear sign that the job was meant for so much more than just Predator Claws.

[Manicora]

toooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo long to read. i lost the point of this after you mentiond Pup.

[Xanaduu]

werent pup melee frames there since day 1 of the job? >.> it was just 2 mage heads that were added later XD

[Soundwave]

I will only read this post IF you change the title to [Dev team please respond!]:cool:

[Dallas]

Malamasala, you remind me of someone I once knew. Please tell me you have begun the long journey to get Hvergelmir! It's about time you love this job.

[Razushu]

we don't need melee or mage gear(we are neither of these job types) we need pet: + gear and/or job traits(preferably traits as alot of our slots are taken up by - perp gear) that boosts our avatars stats this and lower BP cap to 30 seconds at most.

Job traits
Astral Fury
enhances summoned Avatar accuracy and attack
tier I level 30
bonus 10

tier II level 60
bonus 22

tier II level 90
bonus 35

Astral Focus
enhances Avatar Magic attack bonus and grants TP bonus to Blood Pacts

tier I level 30
TP bonus 10% MAB 5

tier II level 45
TP bonus 20% MAB 10

tier III level 60
bonus 30% MAB 15

tier IV level 75
bonus 40% MAB 20

tier V level 90
bonus 50% MAB 25

these traits would help us compete but not surpass melees that can stack much more gear for WS/TP and mage DDs that can put on much more MAB in gear. If coupled with 30 BP delay cap I think SMN would have MUCH less to complain about in any facet of our job

[Soundwave]

Malamasala did not say anything about Hvergelmir?

[Ironside]

1. SMN as rare as COR? Haha, no. SMN has never, ever been as rare as COR; as I recall, COR has been the least-played job in the game since its release (yes, less played than PUP). The most recent Vana'diel Census that I've seen, 2009, shows twice as many SMNs as CORs.

2. Summoning magic skill under cap isn't very useful, true. Elemental Siphon and Avatar's Favor get relatively irrelevant boosts compared to the boosts to MAcc from Elemental or Enfeebling. However, I also do not believe that any other job gets the same kind increase over cap as SMN does; Ward durations can be more than doubled by stacking skill, while still increasing accuracy and damage of Rages.

3. No, SMN does not need melee gear. PUP was initially intended and conceptualized as a combination melee and pet job. Even since its first appearance in the series, Summoner has -never- been a melee job. Summoners have always been reliant on their summons, with no real melee capability.

4. Between rages, wards, favors, and ease of recast, I find avatars to be quite versatile. SMN is quite a strong solo job, especially with all of the perpetuation decreases and MP recovery granted to the job. No, it is not the strongest, but it is not the most useless job in the game. In addition, favors and wards allow SMN to be of use to a party also. I also don't see what you're talking about with ignoring the avatars with poor favors. Different avatars are used for different situations. I wouldn't summon Fenrir just for its favor, but it has other uses as well. Meanwhile, if I do need extra Refresh for myself or my party, I know I can pull out Diabolos and use his favor. This versatility is also why our buffs are not as strong or long-lasting as BRD's. BRD is defined by its songs; if a job with other capabilities (i.e. SMN) could match those, BRD would be a completely, utterly useless job. COR, also, is mostly defined by its buffs, which are also unreliable since their strength is determined by dice rolls. SMN buffs may be short, but they're fairly strong and the avatars can deal damage in addition to using buffs.

5. What other gear does SMN really need? Using proper gear, SMN can cap both perpetuation reduction and blood pact delay reduction with no trouble, while still having other slots to boost summoning magic skill or avatar MAB or whatever else you may need.

6. Minor point: DRG's Call Wyvern was it's 2-hour, an ability that's supposed to be incredibly strong; however, it was a pet that was important to DRG's utility and damage, in addition to dying easily and being difficult to heal. SMN does not have the same sort of issue; spirits do suck, but then again SMN doesn't need them to be a functional job, nor are they a 2-hour or equivalent ability that's supposed to be ridiculously strong. (For that matter, Astral Flow has been a useful 2-hour for as long as I've been playing; pre-cap increase it was a very common CoP mission strategy, and it's still the main ability enabling pretty much the fastest way to level jobs from 10-30.) They just aren't a necessary component to... pretty much anything SMN does. Not every spell that BLU or BLM or RDM gets is useful either; see, Deodorize. Does SMN have a higher proportion of less useful spells? Yes, very much so, but I'd rather have weak spirits than no spirits at all.

My conclusion: No, SMN is not the best job. Could it stand to be better? Yes, of course. However, SMN is able to deal good damage and utilize many full-party buffs with a rather high degree of personal safety, since the avatar is the one doing most of the work and can be quickly resummoned in the event that it is defeated. It is a strong job in its own ways.

EDIT: Didn't mean to make this post so long. Sorry for the wall o' text.

[Razushu]

Malamasala did not say anything about Hvergelmir?
Isn't Dallas the melee SMN or GTFO guy? I don't think anybody needs to mention melee tools to get him talking about it

[Soundwave]

Isn't Dallas the melee SMN or GTFO guy? I don't think anybody needs to mention melee tools to get him talking about it

That's the thing, nobody mentioned anything of "melee" but Dallas in this thread.

[Razushu]

That's the thing, nobody mentioned anything of "melee" but Dallas in this thread.
I've never seen him need to have it mentioned first before

[Malamasala]

1. SMN as rare as COR? Haha, no. SMN has never, ever been as rare as COR; as I recall, COR has been the least-played job in the game since its release (yes, less played than PUP). The most recent Vana'diel Census that I've seen, 2009, shows twice as many SMNs as CORs.

Numerically you may be correct, but numbers are not the same as reality. You have to for example consider that you'd have twice as many COR players, if the job wasn't so expensive. That makes COR = SMN in popularity. Then you should consider that COR is a new job, while SMN is an old, meaning there should be more SMNs than CORs purely by years of existence. In addition to that, over half of those SMN numbers are people who leveled it only for astral burning good jobs to 75. So popularity ranked, COR is higher than SMN by far. But due to game exploits, SMN managed to be twice as popular.


3. No, SMN does not need melee gear. PUP was initially intended and conceptualized as a combination melee and pet job. Even since its first appearance in the series, Summoner has -never- been a melee job. Summoners have always been reliant on their summons, with no real melee capability.

What are you blabbering about? B staff being a proof you should not melee, but C H2H is proof you should? Just admit that you only looked at MP and said "Ah, MP, this job shouldn't melee". It is so obvious SMN is meant to melee, but on a wyvern level, being the opposite of a DRG. (Which falls short because wyverns dying isn't so bad, but Summoners dying is slightly workse. Not to mention avatars DoT is terrible compared to a DRG or a pet jug)


BRD is defined by its songs; if a job with other capabilities (i.e. SMN) could match those, BRD would be a completely, utterly useless job. COR, also, is mostly defined by its buffs, which are also unreliable since their strength is determined by dice rolls. SMN buffs may be short, but they're fairly strong and the avatars can deal damage in addition to using buffs.

But Summoner buffs rely on moon phase and time of day, which is worse than rolls, which you actually have a choice with. And if you want to talk strong, shell V is a god send for countering magic damage, but that isn't 3 minutes long. Glittering ruby, which is much worse, is 1 min long. It just doesn't make sense. Good spells lasting 15 min, bad spells 1 min, and they think it is balanced?

Shuerzo or whatever it is called is the best example. BRD can toss this up when needed, SMN has to summon titan, run up, have their global BP timer ready, activate it for 4 seconds, and spend 100 MP. It is like BRD is a million times better for this than SMN. Wouldn't it be enough if BRD was 4 times as good or something instead? Like keep it on Titan only, but make it cost no MP, have a 30 AOE range etc. so all you do is summon Titan, activate it, done.


5. What other gear does SMN really need? Using proper gear, SMN can cap both perpetuation reduction and blood pact delay reduction with no trouble, while still having other slots to boost summoning magic skill or avatar MAB or whatever else you may need.

I'd say anything but the monthly MAB armors we are getting. Either pet melee enhancements like +20% haste, or Summoner melee enhancements like +20% haste. Ideally hybrid sets, like BST and PUP get. Why SMN doesn't get hybrid sets when it is a hybrid job is beyond me. (Even better question is why we get BLM armors)


6. Minor point: DRG's Call Wyvern was it's 2-hour, an ability that's supposed to be incredibly strong; however, it was a pet that was important to DRG's utility and damage, in addition to dying easily and being difficult to heal.

It was the best 2 hour in the game. Imagine having a 2 hour that lasts until "it" dies. While other jobs had instant or 30 seconds 2 hours, DRGs had one that could last 24 hours, and it only needed to last 2 hours before it had maxed out potency.

How easy it died was a problem, but there was no problem with it being a 2 hour. Though most people could only see as far as "Well, we are fighting this BCNM and I want to 2 hour. Why can't my DRG deal massive damage in a short time?" so naturally they'd complain.


Not every spell that BLU or BLM or RDM gets is useful either; see, Deodorize. Does SMN have a higher proportion of less useful spells? Yes, very much so, but I'd rather have weak spirits than no spirits at all.

Do notice that none of those less useful abilites share the same spell timer though. Summoner is the only job with global timers, making a less excellent spell instantly useless due to unable to cast it while doing the best ones. I still think BLU and BLM should have global recasts as well. This would accomplish two things:

1) No BLU or BLM would pull hate, and they'd all live happily ever after for being a hate free job.
2) Everyone would know how terrible of an idea global timers is and we'd have the whole forum in a riot asking for their removal.


My conclusion: No, SMN is not the best job. Could it stand to be better? Yes, of course. However, SMN is able to deal good damage and utilize many full-party buffs with a rather high degree of personal safety, since the avatar is the one doing most of the work and can be quickly resummoned in the event that it is defeated. It is a strong job in its own ways.

I've never said anything else. The job is fine, as a kind of SATA THF without Treasure Hunter ability. We can join a fight, toss in some high numbers every minute, and keep ourselves alive.

But this is like saying, DRK is fine, it has stun. Or PLD is fine, it has cure IV. You can't just look at a single spell or JA, claim it is useful, and then say that it doesn't matter if nothing else works, you have one thing working. Another good example would be to say THF is fine, it has TH, back when TH was hit the mob once and then stand and watch.

What Summoner needs more than anything else, is interactivity. We need something to do between each Predator Claws. While we can toss out hastega, it is kind of pointless if there are nobody needing hastega in the vicinity. While we can toss out evasion aura, it is not sure to help. We could even swap to spirits, and they do nothing. We could run up and melee, but we aren't much better than PUPs in mage gear at melee.

All these "could, but not worth it" parts needs an improvement. You can't make the most jack of all trades jobs ever, and then have everything so weak you end up as a one trick pony.


EDIT: Didn't mean to make this post so long. Sorry for the wall o' text.

Consider your wall of text expanded.

[Razushu]

B in staff doesn't make us a hybrid job we are a pet job by this logic every job is a hybrid. We are a pet job with versatile pets if you want to melee with your pet use BST, DRG or PUP. What we need is a boost to our avatars our pets using our pets we can fill alot of roles in a party, on at least one occasion I have tanked DD'ed nuked buffed and main healed groups to success and with the exception of tanking(which was because the real tank got KO'd) I've performed these roles throughout the entire party and they were the reason I was asked to come. We would need a boost to our avatars damage survivablity and BP timer to make us a job worthy of a spot in any group.
Name one other thing that makes us a hybrid. Our only source of reliable 100% of the time damage mitigation is being out of range of attacks we are the softest job in the game, I fail to see how anyone can justify us being near the monster for more time than it takes to BP. On anything worth fighting we have enough life for 3 maybe 4 hits and even this is being generous. And if we're meleeing we'd be /SAM so we'd lose blink/SS further endangering us.

[Papesse]

Shuerzo or whatever it is called is the best example. BRD can toss this up when needed, SMN has to summon titan, run up, have their global BP timer ready, activate it for 4 seconds, and spend 100 MP. It is like BRD is a million times better for this than SMN. Wouldn't it be enough if BRD was 4 times as good or something instead? Like keep it on Titan only, but make it cost no MP, have a 30 AOE range etc. so all you do is summon Titan, activate it, done.


Do you really know how these buffs works? EA is 2 times stronger than Scherzo, can lasts longer and you can put it back before it wears off...

[Covenant]

I certainly agree in regards to spirits. They are super silly to use, they font even have that "defense up" when talking about physical damage to them., as opposed to magical(Yes, someone explained to me that mob elementals get added bonuses for being a mob). If the natural phalanx was instituted for all spirits, you might get a better response, for melee'n spirits as a "tank" as opposed to avatars.
However, the idea that a summoner isn't possible to melee is really a lie. When you a compare a summoner using "good" gear, not great and their pets ability vs say a Redmage, they really are quite strong(physically). The ability of a summoner not only to soloskill chain, but to solo magic burst their own skill chains only adds to this strength.
This is not to say, that if you subtract a pets output then yes, they suck. Summoners also get some of the best melee staff options and coupled with a sub job such as /SAM, /WAR, or /THF can't added even more to their based melee damage.
I do agree that their is a disparity in the gear that grants "pet bonuses" with good-excellent additions. Adding 10% isn't great, in my book. I would like to see pet gear that may give them double or triple attacks. Or even simply a haste increase.

[Dallas]

I've never seen him need to have it mentioned first before

First post, paragraph 8ish. I never need to, and this was no exception. (^^)d

Mala says that SE has never given SMN the tools to DD. Unlimited MP is the only tool needed to DD as SMN. Mala, as you can see from later posts, is not 100% averse to melee.

I try to know my audience. I'm pretty sure I know Mala as well as Mala knows me. Mala would be a fabulous owner of Hvergelmir.

[Covenant]

The funny thing I remember about being summoner was an avatars ability to gain access to tier elemental spells BEFORE blackmages. I don't remember the exact range but avatars got tier II and tier IV before a BLM and was able to magic burst them first as well. Somewhere this "bonus" was lost and I can't even begin to explain an avatars merit magic spells compared to an ancient magic or tier V elemental spell.
Why has SquareEnix fail to address this issue is beyond me?

[Ironside]

Sorry for the slow reply. I had one all nice and typed out and then when I tried to post it, it said the token had expired, and I lost the whole thing. Kinda frustrating. Anyway!


Numerically you may be correct, but numbers are not the same as reality. You have to for example consider that you'd have twice as many COR players, if the job wasn't so expensive. That makes COR = SMN in popularity. Then you should consider that COR is a new job, while SMN is an old, meaning there should be more SMNs than CORs purely by years of existence. In addition to that, over half of those SMN numbers are people who leveled it only for astral burning good jobs to 75. So popularity ranked, COR is higher than SMN by far. But due to game exploits, SMN managed to be twice as popular.

First, I'd like to see where this bit about having twice as many CORs if it were less expensive is coming from. The only times I've ever heard people complain about COR being expensive are people who play COR; while my sample size is definitely small, most of the people I've talked to just don't care about COR. It's not that it's expensive, people just don't care. I'll grant that a fair bit of SMN's popularity comes from AFBs, but that doesn't change that it's more popular.


What are you blabbering about? B staff being a proof you should not melee, but C H2H is proof you should? Just admit that you only looked at MP and said "Ah, MP, this job shouldn't melee". It is so obvious SMN is meant to melee, but on a wyvern level, being the opposite of a DRG. (Which falls short because wyverns dying isn't so bad, but Summoners dying is slightly workse. Not to mention avatars DoT is terrible compared to a DRG or a pet jug)

PUP has B+ H2H now, actually. SE realized they set it too low initially. Every job (with the exception of SCH) has a weapon skill at B- or higher, but that doesn't mean that they're meant to be meleeing. (SCH's highest skills are Club and Staff, tied at C+.) In most situations, if I saw a BLM meleeing with their B- staff skill, I'd honestly laugh at them. I don't see how SMN having a B in staff as opposed to a B- means that they're meant to be meleeing, much less making it "so obvious." For that matter, SMN is tied for the lowest STR and VIT in the game, as well as the second-lowest DEX (sorry, WHM). Not seeing how it's obvious, aside from "something to do while waiting on BP timers" and even then it puts you at much higher risk due to SMN's low VIT and HP.

Do me a favor and don't put words in my mouth, by the way: having MP does not mean a job should not be meleeing. Case in point, Blue Mage and -arguably- Red Mage, while the inverse is also untrue, since Bard lacks MP but should probably not be meleeing. Meleeing also gives SMN something to do during downtime, sure, but it's not the purpose of the job, and is far from "so obvious" that they are supposed to be doing it.

(Related tangent: by "conceptualized" I was referring in SMN's case to previous appearances in the Final Fantasy series, and in PUP's to its job description and history since it lacks said prior appearances. Use of sainti and hand-to-hand combat is mentioned in PUP's description and backstory, while Summoner has always been largely reliant on its summons, with no melee capability to speak of and varying degrees of other magic.)


But Summoner buffs rely on moon phase and time of day, which is worse than rolls, which you actually have a choice with. And if you want to talk strong, shell V is a god send for countering magic damage, but that isn't 3 minutes long. Glittering ruby, which is much worse, is 1 min long. It just doesn't make sense. Good spells lasting 15 min, bad spells 1 min, and they think it is balanced?

Shuerzo or whatever it is called is the best example. BRD can toss this up when needed, SMN has to summon titan, run up, have their global BP timer ready, activate it for 4 seconds, and spend 100 MP. It is like BRD is a million times better for this than SMN. Wouldn't it be enough if BRD was 4 times as good or something instead? Like keep it on Titan only, but make it cost no MP, have a 30 AOE range etc. so all you do is summon Titan, activate it, done.

Exactly two avatars have buffs that rely on moon phase or time of day, and that's Fenrir and Diabolos, respectively. Two out of nine. Also, just throwing this out there, Glittering Ruby is also level 44, while Shell V is level 78 for the job made around healing and buffing, 87 and 90 for the others that get it, and costs 1.5x the MP of Glittering Ruby.

Someone else already covered your Scherzo example, but I'd like to also add that using Scherzo is sacrificing another of BRD's buffs that the party could be using. I'd hardly call it "a million times better" than SMN for it, and I'd hesitate strongly before even calling it four times better. Helps that the two stack.


I'd say anything but the monthly MAB armors we are getting. Either pet melee enhancements like +20% haste, or Summoner melee enhancements like +20% haste. Ideally hybrid sets, like BST and PUP get. Why SMN doesn't get hybrid sets when it is a hybrid job is beyond me. (Even better question is why we get BLM armors)

Again, someone already hit most of this; SMN doesn't get hybrid armors because SMN itself is not a hybrid job. SMN is a pet-oriented mage. SMN's avatars function as hybrids, but since they define SMN's functionality, SMN itself cannot be called a hybrid. (Also, while I do agree that MAB isn't useful for SMN, it gets mage armors because storywise, it's a mage.)


It was the best 2 hour in the game. Imagine having a 2 hour that lasts until "it" dies. While other jobs had instant or 30 seconds 2 hours, DRGs had one that could last 24 hours, and it only needed to last 2 hours before it had maxed out potency.

How easy it died was a problem, but there was no problem with it being a 2 hour. Though most people could only see as far as "Well, we are fighting this BCNM and I want to 2 hour. Why can't my DRG deal massive damage in a short time?" so naturally they'd complain.

DRG's armor was largely based around enhancing the wyvern; having said wyvern die very easily and only be summonable every two hours was not a proper use for either that gear or a 2-hour ability, and having your wyvern die made DRG basically just a weaker version of some other DD until their 2-hour came up again.


Do notice that none of those less useful abilites share the same spell timer though. Summoner is the only job with global timers, making a less excellent spell instantly useless due to unable to cast it while doing the best ones. I still think BLU and BLM should have global recasts as well. This would accomplish two things:

1) No BLU or BLM would pull hate, and they'd all live happily ever after for being a hate free job.
2) Everyone would know how terrible of an idea global timers is and we'd have the whole forum in a riot asking for their removal.

SMN without global timers would largely obsolete BRD and COR as jobs, since they'd be able to repeatedly use AoE Phalanx, Stoneskin, Blink, Warcry, Ice Spikes, Haste, Acc/Eva/Attributes Boost and whatever else they want (let's not even start on Avatar's Favor), as well as alternating high damage bloodpacts every few seconds, thus also outdamaging many DDs. Also, most "less useful" spells for other jobs are useless too, since MP and time spent on them is MP and time not spent casting something better.


I've never said anything else. The job is fine, as a kind of SATA THF without Treasure Hunter ability. We can join a fight, toss in some high numbers every minute, and keep ourselves alive.

But this is like saying, DRK is fine, it has stun. Or PLD is fine, it has cure IV. You can't just look at a single spell or JA, claim it is useful, and then say that it doesn't matter if nothing else works, you have one thing working. Another good example would be to say THF is fine, it has TH, back when TH was hit the mob once and then stand and watch.

What Summoner needs more than anything else, is interactivity. We need something to do between each Predator Claws. While we can toss out hastega, it is kind of pointless if there are nobody needing hastega in the vicinity. While we can toss out evasion aura, it is not sure to help. We could even swap to spirits, and they do nothing. We could run up and melee, but we aren't much better than PUPs in mage gear at melee.

All these "could, but not worth it" parts needs an improvement. You can't make the most jack of all trades jobs ever, and then have everything so weak you end up as a one trick pony.

Strong (if short-duration) AoE buffs, high-damage Rages, high degree of personal safety, pets that don't cost money or have a long recast on death. Which of those is that "one trick" or "one spell or JA" that's working?

Also; If Hastega isn't needed, use something that could be useful, like Aerial Armor or Earthen Ward. If Garuda's Favor isn't needed, then don't use it; enjoy the extra attack and MAB for not having Avatar's Favor active. Another fun part of SMN: it has options.

Does SMN always have something to do? No, and it's one of the only jobs for which that's true. However, the avatar is not monopolizing the summoner's resources; they could be tossing buffs or cures from your subjob if they're that bored. What's more, is they're one of the only jobs that can be contributing to a fight while staying near-constantly out of AoE range and having very little risk of taking hate in a party situation.

[RAIST]

Glittering Ruby is also level 44, while Shell V is level 78 for the job made around healing and buffing, 87 and 90 for the others that get it, and costs 1.5x the MP of Glittering Ruby

It's actually Shining Ruby, earned at level 24, lasts for 3 minutes and is listed as a 10% defense/magic defense bonus. Never really paid much attention to whether it scales at 10% on the physical defense side of it, has a cap, or is a flat boost and that is a "typo" of sorts.

Compare it to the Prot/Shell combinations available at level 24:

Protect 1 (all jobs): 9 mp cost, 10 DEF
Shell 1 (all jobs): 18 mp cost, roughly a 9.5% MDB


So, at level 24, SMN is able to buff for roughly the same defensive effect for a fraction of the duration, for 160% the cost.

Edit: just ran out and popped Shining Ruby as a naked 90 SMN/WHM Hume and defense went from 143 to 156. Then cast Protect 1 and it went up to 167(143+10+14), and Protect 2 took me to 184 (143+25+16), so it would appear it does scale on some sort of x/1024 factor...hovering around the 9-10% value. Guessing it is about 9.4% like Shell--hard to say for certain as it is flooring the bonus.

So, it has the potential to be a potent defense bonus I guess for it's cost on a level 90 player (potentially around the 40+ DEF mark, but still ~9.4% MDB)--but compare that to Prot/Shell 3 that give 40 DEF and ~19% MDB for 30 minutes and costs only 96 mp to cast. Takes anywhere from 15-30 seconds to summon, get carby to front line and fire it off--Prot/Shell can both be cast from a distance inside of 15 seconds.

So, in this case the SMN buff is a bit out of whack for something to maintain on a lengthy fight. But for short term effect, it "shines" (pardon the pun).

[Razushu]

First post, paragraph 8ish. I never need to, and this was no exception. (^^)d

Mala says that SE has never given SMN the tools to DD. Unlimited MP is the only tool needed to DD as SMN. Mala, as you can see from later posts, is not 100% averse to melee.

I try to know my audience. I'm pretty sure I know Mala as well as Mala knows me. Mala would be a fabulous owner of Hvergelmir.
I fail to se how MP is a DD tool. high STR, DEX, VIT and AGI or native Double attack, accuracy bonus, attack bonus would be what I would consider melee tools, these or any of the many melee centric job abilities. Also just because a SMN could build a TP/WS gear set dopesn't mean we should, I mean we could build an excellent Nuking or enfeebling set too but I've never seen anyone do it or say we should.

[Dallas]

Your best damage is your BP, which costs MP. Your best melee buffs cost MP. Your avatar, if you choose to leave it out, will either lock down 10 item slots or cost MP. Want to pretend to be a WHM? You need MP.

You need MP, so choose your poison:
1) rest for MP
2) gear to reduce MP lost and depend on the subjob for MP
3) melee for MP and depend on subjob for TP
3a) Spirit Taker (WS in INT/MND gear)
3b) Myrkr (WS in MP gear)

Those are your only choices. One of these options actually increases damage by a very LARGE factor. The same option recovers more MP than you could ever use. The same option gives SMN something to do between BPs.

Just because you CAN gear yourself to do more is a perfect reason to do so.

[Malamasala]

Name one other thing that makes us a hybrid. Our only source of reliable 100% of the time damage mitigation is being out of range of attacks we are the softest job in the game, I fail to see how anyone can justify us being near the monster for more time than it takes to BP. On anything worth fighting we have enough life for 3 maybe 4 hits and even this is being generous. And if we're meleeing we'd be /SAM so we'd lose blink/SS further endangering us.

Instant cast "spells". We are the only "mage" job that can fire off magic/physical attacks from our pet without getting a casting animation lasting several seconds. If SE wanted us to be mage only, we'd see our SMN stand in a pose for 8 seconds preparing the pact.

And I see nothing that says BST, PUP or DRG should be up front meleeing since they have no stoneskin or self cures (well, they might have). As a melee SMN you are naturally expected to play under the same rules as a DRG, BST or PUP. You can't say some melee jobs need to heal themselves and others can be healed by white mages.


Do you really know how these buffs works? EA is 2 times stronger than Scherzo, can lasts longer and you can put it back before it wears off...

No, because the information about these are terrible. All I know is "prevents death from extreme damage". I'm not sure how you can say the Ward "prevents death" more than the song. Do you half-die from songs and play as a zombie? I'll take your word for it, but again it is pretty terrible to compare a free 0 MP song for 30 minutes fight, or 1000 MP spent from Wards for the same thing.


Mala says that SE has never given SMN the tools to DD. Unlimited MP is the only tool needed to DD as SMN. Mala, as you can see from later posts, is not 100% averse to melee.

Of course when I talk tools, I mean accuracy and haste gear. I have no problems keeping my pet perpetuation covered, but I'm far behind all other jobs in DoT and TP gain.


The funny thing I remember about being summoner was an avatars ability to gain access to tier elemental spells BEFORE blackmages. I don't remember the exact range but avatars got tier II and tier IV before a BLM and was able to magic burst them first as well.

In name only. We do get T2 spells at level 20 (or was it 10?) but they are of the same potency as T1 BLM spells. Same with T4 at 60, which are same potency as T3 nukes.


Strong (if short-duration) AoE buffs, high-damage Rages, high degree of personal safety, pets that don't cost money or have a long recast on death. Which of those is that "one trick" or "one spell or JA" that's working?


Strong? 15% haste is EQUAL, not strong. -15 phalanx effect is WEAK. Shock Spikes that have 1% chance to give 0.1 seconds stun effect is WEAK. 10 MAB during MIDNIGHT is just AVERAGE. No screw this, you list the good wards and their effects instead of me listing all the bad ones.

Personal safety is also not really the first thing a party needs. "Hey guys, lets invite a SMN. Their amazing ability is that they can run while we die."

And forgive me for not seeing what easily resummoned pets mean for pros. All it means is that we excel at killing your own pet while others have to try and keep theirs alive. Great thing to advertise to others. "Invite a SMN, and watch us let our pet die over and over again. This can not be done by any other job. Invite us!"

[Malamasala]

PUP has B+ H2H now, actually. SE realized they set it too low initially.

You are just proving my point. "Misunderstood" and "Ignored" would be the reason PUP has B+ H2H and SMN is stuck with B staff. If SE had cared one ounce the amount they did for PUP, we wouldn't be in this mess.


I don't see how SMN having a B in staff as opposed to a B- means that they're meant to be meleeing

So B compared to B- is not worth mentioning, but B+ compared to B means you are a melee? You sure run a very strict business.


Someone else already covered your Scherzo example, but I'd like to also add that using Scherzo is sacrificing another of BRD's buffs that the party could be using. I'd hardly call it "a million times better" than SMN for it, and I'd hesitate strongly before even calling it four times better. Helps that the two stack.

And using your global ward timer does not sacrifice any SMN buff? For all intents and purposes, SMN and BRD have the same choice when it comes to this buff. But only SMN has to pay a high MP price for it. I don't know how you did bird parties in the past, but that period taught me that if you can give a MP-free buff, it is vastly superior to the MP version. Especially if you intend on keeping it active over a long period of time.

I actually used the ward the other day for fun during panktrator battle. I got hit for 800 damage while applying it. Rather split on if it is worth applying a BP that "may" be useful, and have to take a WHMs cure V recast timer to get my HP back and increase the risk the tank dies.


(Also, while I do agree that MAB isn't useful for SMN, it gets mage armors because storywise, it's a mage.)

And a PUP is an artist, why not give it only ugly armors with def stats on? They aren't meant to DD, just entertain! (If you catch the hint, I don't agree with armor designs based on silly story elements that stray off the roles of the jobs)


SMN without global timers would largely obsolete BRD and COR as jobs, since they'd be able to repeatedly use AoE Phalanx, Stoneskin, Blink, Warcry, Ice Spikes, Haste, Acc/Eva/Attributes Boost and whatever else they want (let's not even start on Avatar's Favor), as well as alternating high damage bloodpacts every few seconds, thus also outdamaging many DDs. Also, most "less useful" spells for other jobs are useless too, since MP and time spent on them is MP and time not spent casting something better.

Explain this to me again. Due to having hastega, we'd replace march because...`? Last I checked haste and hastega do not stack, so BRD would still be a great job even if SMN could cast 500 hastega per minute. Further not a single of the Wards are even competing with BRD except possibly accuracy. Same with COR. We'd at most steal their PLD roll slot in the party, with our thunder armor over their flame spikes.

Think it through before you spout nonsense. We are more likely to steal the job of SCH by having good phalanxga, stoneskinga, AOE heals, AOE enfire etc. than any other job. And I'd personally claim SCH stole the SMN spot first.


Another fun part of SMN: it has options.

Which is the whole point of this thread. A lot of lackluster options.

- We can use spirits... just don't expect anything out of it.
- We can melee... just don't expect there to be armor for it.
- We can cast tier II nukes from subjob... just don't expect them to hit hard.
- We can main heal... but not on NMs.
- We can give you defensive buffs... for a high cost and short period of time.

I don't think I demand much at all. Just balance the stuff out. Give WHM and all other mages 3 min duration shells and lets see how valid they think that concept is. Nobody, except masochist SMNs, think 3 min buffs that cost MP is a good idea.

[RAIST]

Just a quick note about the T2/T4 magic spells that hit me when reading the last few posts. Avatars magic gets calculated completely differently from a BLM casting. They have considerably lower INT (though they may have roughly the same BASE MAB) than a BLM does at the same level. In order to compensate, you have to keep the avatar out smacking things around for TP. It's been documented that at 75, avatars have MAB4 trait and only around 82 INT--and virtually no gear readily available to enhance it like BLM, so you have to let them build TP to compensate. It takes 100TP just to get the .25 boost from TP or it's crap. Case in point, to hit 1k on a tier4, a my 90 SMN needs about +12 PET MAB and around 130TP in the calculation.

This isn't hypothetical either, I just completed a pet MAB staff and tested it with Thunder4 on firesday (no weather) last week. I am still rigged for physical on merits, but I was curious just how much the 5 pet MAB merits would affect my magic, but didn't want to dump and rebuild them only to have to reset them if I didn't like it--so I made the Pet MAB staff real quick (only took 2 afternoons to make it). I'm only 3/5 on callers +1 atm, so only had 396 skill with my neck off and have the 25% TP bonus from the legs. I fired off mana cede to give avatar a flat 100TP (no regain from neck) and it was consistently landing for 984 damage (bear in mind that is with a +25% TP bonus from legs to make it 125TP in the calculation) on bees right outside Jueno in Rolanberry. Output simply pales in comparison to any decently geared AH BLM.

[Razushu]

Your best damage is your BP, which costs MP. Your best melee buffs cost MP. Your avatar, if you choose to leave it out, will either lock down 10 item slots or cost MP. Want to pretend to be a WHM? You need MP.

You need MP, so choose your poison:
1) rest for MP
2) gear to reduce MP lost and depend on the subjob for MP
3) melee for MP and depend on subjob for TP
3a) Spirit Taker (WS in INT/MND gear)
3b) Myrkr (WS in MP gear)

Those are your only choices. One of these options actually increases damage by a very LARGE factor. The same option recovers more MP than you could ever use. The same option gives SMN something to do between BPs.

Just because you CAN gear yourself to do more is a perfect reason to do so.
So we should start building nuke sets too? So now our need for MP is a melee tool as well? I haven't meleed on SMN on anything above a DC in forever and I haven't rested for MP since 75 cap -perp/refresh gear has me a +2 per tick MP with Garuda out soon to be +4 per tickcoupled wit ~500mp elemental siphons an 200mp sublimations every 5 minutes WITHOUT putting myself in the danger zone as it stands I have more mp than I can use while safe.
subbing a job for TP would lose far too much in utility from /SCH or /WHM as it stands /SCH is imo the best all round subjob for SMN and I can't see myself ever ditching it for a subjob so I can melee to add a little damage and have to melee to keep avatar out. I don't need the extra mp from myrkr when I already have more than enough mp as is and my gear is good but by no means far above average.
I have enough to do between BPs as is without pretending to be a physical DD or a hybrid job.
Again i can build INT, MND, MAB I can even build a CHR set but why should I? SMN is a pet job in fact it's the only job that's PURE pet in this game the other 3 are DDs with pet's in terms of thier own durablity and DD capabilty

[Razushu]

Instant cast "spells". We are the only "mage" job that can fire off magic/physical attacks from our pet without getting a casting animation lasting several seconds. If SE wanted us to be mage only, we'd see our SMN stand in a pose for 8 seconds preparing the pact.

And I see nothing that says BST, PUP or DRG should be up front meleeing since they have no stoneskin or self cures (well, they might have). As a melee SMN you are naturally expected to play under the same rules as a DRG, BST or PUP. You can't say some melee jobs need to heal themselves and others can be healed by white mages.


Our cast time is just as long it takes 7 seconds to call an avatar, then there's the amount of time it takes to position the avatar and 4 seconds for the BP to fire


aside from the fact they can survive more than a sneeze from a mob that can stare a SMN to death?

they get:

The high level weapon skills from their given class natively

They have Higher melee stats

They have job traits/abilities for melee, front line survivablity as well as dumping their emnity on thier pet

Sure melee jobs can rely on the healer to cure them I never mentioned healing, i just said that to be upfront you need to have some sort of innate survival traits SMN's best means of survival is distance. For a healer to successfully keep a party alive all front liners need to be able to survive long enough to be healed if they start taking damage. I can't see a WHM being any happier healing a melee SMN than they would be healing a NIN with gimp evasion skill/gear who won't use shadows and even they would have easily better survivability than a SMN.

[Papesse]

Using his MP for buffing is pretty much irrelevant these day with all the auto-refresh gear existing, Siphon, Convert etc...

Speaking of usefulness, if I'm not DDing in my party then I gives them a +24% Double Attack (Ifrit's Favor), 5:30 Hastega, 20-40 dmg Enfire (even on VT mobs not particulary weak against fire) and a 3:30 Atk+9% while I can keep the role of main healer (600+ HP cure IV) Even without a form of refresh/ballad I never run out of mp (even outside Abyssea) and I don't feel useless at all for my group.

I agree that Smn need a big help for lower levels but not at HL if you take the time to equip it right, capping Skill etc...

[Karbuncle]

No, because the information about these are terrible. All I know is "prevents death from extreme damage". I'm not sure how you can say the Ward "prevents death" more than the song. Do you half-die from songs and play as a zombie? I'll take your word for it, but again it is pretty terrible to compare a free 0 MP song for 30 minutes fight, or 1000 MP spent from Wards for the same thing.

Seriously? You're complaining about a job when you don't even bother to learn everything about it? I play SMN like once a month and even i make a habit to know the basics of it.

Earthern Armor reduces the damage from Severely Damaging attack. It reduces the Damage from those attacks by a certain percentage. It also doesn't activate unless a certain % of your HP is done.

I.E, If you have 1,200 HP, and get hit with 1000 needles, It'll reduce that damage by say, 50%, So instead of taking 1k you take 500. In the same way, the BRD song would only be like 35%~. (These aren't exact numbers FYI).

The SMN one is more potent, Lasts longer, and the best thing is they stack. Really it costs absolutely no where near 1000MP to do Earthern Armor, at least be realistic with your fake numbers.

Really, I don't think the job is misunderstood or Ignored. The job has its uses. A lot of people use SMNs outside of Abyssea simply for Safe-DD, Their Avatars are disposeable, they do good Damage, and they (The Summoners) are technically ranged DD. The problem with SMN is that the BP Timer is too restricting to the point its damage output is laughably low compared to conventional DD, even if you count Avatars melee damage.

SE Probably figures the job is balanced because of its "Safety" Factor. Hateless, Long-ranged Damage that has minimal risk to the Summoner in a group setting. Inside abyssea it sucks because our terrible slow damage and the near immortality of DD makes us less than desirable, but outside Abyssea we aren't AS terrible.

The job needs improvements, don't get me wrong, but I think we'll get them. TBH the job holds its own outside Abyssea nicely, it has its uses as i listed above, hateless, Safe, good Damage. We just need a Reduction in the BP Timer (Maybe lower cap from 45 to 30) and a bit more power behind our punches.

[Dallas]

So we should start building nuke sets too?

I do have a dark magic build for Aspir/Drain because I was one of the first adopters of /SCH. You should have "Impact" by now as well, but I don't suppose you had anything competent in mind.

That brings us to the interesting question, what ARE you doing for 45 seconds? Mala, he may have the answer as to why SMN is ignored.

[Razushu]

I do have a dark magic build for Aspir/Drain because I was one of the first adopters of /SCH. You should have "Impact" by now as well, but I don't suppose you had anything competent in mind.

That brings us to the interesting question, what ARE you doing for 45 seconds? Mala, he may have the answer as to why SMN is ignored.

Why should I have Impact? Is it that really useful to justify 1/3 my MP pool?(Honest question haven't heard that much about it)
My point of the nuke set was because if we're gearing for weak melee why not weak nukes, I have one or two pieces for Drain/Aspir and Sleep. But that's it and I Find I don't use Sleep that much unless something goes wrong Aspir on mobs with mp(which isn't that often idk I just don't find myself fighting mobs with mp for some reason) Drain I use alot to refill my hp after sublimation for cheap. none of this really warrants stretching my already quite full backpack with a nuking set to squeeze an extra 50 damage on spaming my tier II /SCH nukes just like meleeing for mp doesn't really justify building a set for it when i can manage my mp in ways that don't put me in danger of repeated KOs.

I wouldn't call it 45 secs, if I'm in a party i'm spamming a 70 or 75 pact keeping hastega up full time and ATLEAST one other party buff so with pet swapping/positioning and doing my best to be ready to support the party in any way that pops up be it sub heals or an extra sleep etc. I manage to keep quite busy in a party making my 45 downtime a fair bit less.

[Arciel]

Mainly in response to the OP.

SMN is the most misunderstood job because there are people like you who don't understand it that play it. Broken? maybe, depends on your point of view i guess.

DRG - The wyvern was designed to be an integral part of the job. With its recast at 2hrs and the numerous situations in which a wyvern could get dismissed or killed, it just wasn't feasible for players to really integrate they wyvern into gameplay - so they changed it.

COR - SMN has always been more popular than COR, or even at worst, on par in terms of popularity. You can refer to census as proof. COR buffs were enhanced because COR was designed to be a buff job like BRD and had a functional niche through its Phantom Rolls. SMN does not rely on its Wards to perform its main role in parties - this I will elaborate on later.

PUP are hybrid pet-melees. Fact of the matter before they changed the job up, neither automaton nor masters damage were proficient enough for it to be taken seriously as a melee. PUPs accuracy was terrible at C+, automatons had 20minute timers and died fairly easily - and unlike DRG the distribution of damage between pet and master was more equally shared.

SMN skill was once pretty useless, i'll agree. It has a reasonable number of uses now.
1) Elemental Siphon
2) Ward Duration / Rage Accuracy
3) Favor potency cap
4) Elementals recast
The bonuses are not straight, but this can be taken as both beneficial or detrimental - explained later.

Spirits didn't get new spells past 75. I'd like to ask SE why on this too. I suppose they thought no one cares, but I guess we do. Strangely tho Light Spirit does get banish IV.

What is SMN's role?
SMN, unlike a majority of the jobs in FFXI does not have a functional niche. What are functional niches?

- DD classes : subdivided into weapon/damage-type speciality
here's where your jobs like WAR MNK BLM DRG DRK etc go

- Tank classes: jobs that can tank
once the domain of PLD and NIN only, you could say DNC and BST have both increasingly found a place here.

- Support classes: jobs whose main function is to support by buffing/debuffing
WHM and the original refresh trinity: RDM BRD and COR.

then there are jobs that don't have this functional niche...
SMN, SCH.. and to some extent PUP and RDM depending on how you play it.
this isn't something that is set in stone and shifts according to the tools that the jobs acquire and the trends in player behavior.

but one thing that is certain is that SMN has always belonged to the category of jobs that don't have this functional niche. Instead, what it has is a process niche. It does pretty much everything it can do through its avatars, and this, like everything else, comes with its pros and cons.

Because SMN doesn't have a functional niche, it has always been very flexible in the way that it is played - but is typically never the master of whatever it does, because it was not functionally designed that way.

As a DD - SMN is capable of doing good blunt/slashing damage without the need for TP, and decent magical damage in 7 out of the 8 elements (sorry, lolCarbuncle) - all of which, as a bonus, is consequence free, and become increasingly reliable the stronger the NM is relative to the player.

As a tank - whilst not functionally realistic in the presence of certain DD jobs, avatars can tank various NMs, to great effect collectively. that said, they will likely lose out to BSTs in the same scenario, except when the NMs have some kind of extreme magic/elemental affinity - in which case avatars once again shine.

As support, SE has kinda thrown SMNs a bone in recent updates - Tidal Roar is extremely useful, as is Earthen Armor. The old staples such as Earthen Ward, Hastega, etc may still have their uses as well. What we end up with are unconventional support tools most of the time. SMN are still however, incompetent as healers.

Add to this, that SMN is fully capable of performing these functions in weakness/zombie situations, which is a feat that most jobs are not capable of, even in their area of expertise.

SMN, as it has been progressing past 75 is doing rather well, but not exactly good enough

Post 75 pros,
Perp cost issues greatly reduced - with the cost rise being gentler and the abundance of refresh/perp gear, this has mostly become a non-issue for SMN, shifting almost the entirety of MP usage to blood pacts.

BPs have scaled well - Lv70 and merit BPs are still doing damage in acceptable ranges against lv90 NMs, especially in non-atma situations.

New wards are actually useful - we got a utility ward with Fleet Wind, nice debuffs with Tidal Roar / Diamond Storm, and Earthen Armor for buff.. Inferno Howl is ok...

Post 75 cons,
Inside Abyssea, SMN is inferior to pretty much all the other jobs in doing anything in particular because they all gain tremendous boosts through atma and are not restricted by the 45-60s timer in doing anything - particularly true for any form of damage dealing. This is basically an exaggeration of SMNs weakness as a slow-fire job during the zomgHaste era.

New damage pacts don't really add anything new to the job. So now we can actually do magical nukes with Fenrir - thats about all that we really got. Diabolos and Carby get stronger nukes. Ok, but they're all magical, and merit BPs are still mostly more effective than them.

Avatar's Favor is still mainly an afterthought. If not to make use of the perp cost reduction, most SMN wouldn't bother to use favors unless they pretty much can't do anything else with their avatars, which in itself is kind of a rare situation. Also, inside Abyssea, nobody really cares for the marginal buffs they provide, but thats less of a problem with the job than a unique distinction of Abyssea.

Elemental Spirits didn't get a repertoire upgrade, and are still unreliable - at least give them Tier V spells, srsly.

...outside of Abyssea however, SMN is still able to hold its worth perfectly fine, but is still not the first go-to job for pretty much everything unless your playstyle happens to want to favor them in action, like a pet-based or smn based ls, or if you don't like paladins, or if you know somehow that zombieing is likely.

...

tl;dr version

SMN is ignored in Abyssea because its weaknesses are magnified more than its strengths inside due to atma. Sure avatars can get considerable buffs from it, but they still fall outside of most conventional strategy. They're also not your goto jobs for procs.

SMN is misunderstood because people keep thinking it should have a functional niche when it doesn't need to have one, and then start doing silly things like trying to advocate SMN meleeing for damage and so on. SMNs advantage is in that it has never had a fixed function and any of this attempt to create one pigeonholes it, limiting the advantages its always had.
The moment you try to stray away from SMNs process niche of doing stuff through its avatars, the SMN is nothing and will still not compare to other jobs in performing any of these functions.

SMN is not broken. Definitely not outside of Abyssea. Inside, it's simply not popular, thats all.

[Luvbunny]

To the OP, great stuffs!! I only wish that the developers would read, listen, and do something about the SMN job. As it is now, the jack of all trades type of job that is beyond terrible... Even a simple fix of making the buff duration last 10-15 mnts would be a welcome change. Avatar favor that is permanent to the party members with a much wider area would be most welcomed. There are tons of minor improvements that SE could do, but REFUSE to implement, kept silent, and DO NOTHING to fix the job, even after 9 years...

[Malamasala]

Why should I have Impact? Is it that really useful to justify 1/3 my MP pool?(Honest question haven't heard that much about it)

I hear it deals about 1300-1700 somewhere on KS99 Behemoth. Nothing amazing for 666 MP, but the highest damage you'll ever get out of a spell on SMN (that isn't a BP). I've personally not had time to hunt for my own cloak though. Also I believe it was either a SCH or a BLM doing it, so hard to say how much MAB was involved.


Seriously? You're complaining about a job when you don't even bother to learn everything about it? I play SMN like once a month and even i make a habit to know the basics of it.

I'd say I know everything but earthen armor, but I'm sure there is still something left that I don't know. For example I know WHY spirits casting timer reset on assault. They have two modes. Buff mode and Attack mode. But SE stripped all buffing spells of all but light elemental, so buff mode is very hard to notice. Buff mode is about 50% the recast of attack mode. Each time you use Assault, the spirit is set to attack mode AND have to start counting down from max recast. Every time you use Retreat, the spirit is set to buff mode AND have to start counting down from max recast. (Which is half of attack max recast). And that is just one thing I learned all on my own, since nobody had documented this or even talked about it online.


The SMN one is more potent, Lasts longer, and the best thing is they stack. Really it costs absolutely no where near 1000MP to do Earthern Armor, at least be realistic with your fake numbers.

It is 100ish MP lasting 3 minutes, every 3 minutes you reappy it during 30 minutes will add up to 1000 MP. It is a realistic, but not factual number. You may disagree that any NM takes 30 min if you want, it was just an example after all.


The job has its uses. A lot of people use SMNs outside of Abyssea simply for Safe-DD, Their Avatars are disposeable, they do good Damage, and they (The Summoners) are technically ranged DD.

I agree completely. A tiny fraction of the job functions and has its uses. I just wonder why the majority of it is left forgotten to rot. We've got a whole load of wards, that would be useful if they scaled. When you get them at low levels, you have too low skill to use them for any decent duration. When you have the skill, you are too high level to use these wards. The whole job is designed to be counter productive.


SE Probably figures the job is balanced because of its "Safety" Factor.

And in which way would boosting wards or spirits or SMN melee change this? Spirits would be the same as avatars, except "fast" magic DD. Melee SMN would be anti-safety, and not make us overpowered at all. Wards would make the job safe for everyone in the party. And I don't think SMN making MNKs live longer would be called overpowered.

The only thing SE can't improve, is our DD abilities. And it is the only thing we don't need. (We want something new since level 70 physical pacts though, just because other jobs got new WSes. But we don't need them)


We just need a Reduction in the BP Timer (Maybe lower cap from 45 to 30) and a bit more power behind our punches.

I disagree there. It is the only thing we don't need. We already deal slow and safe damage. It fits the job perfectly. What we can't do is buff, spirit and melee, even though the prospects for them are golden.

[Malamasala]

Our cast time is just as long it takes 7 seconds to call an avatar, then there's the amount of time it takes to position the avatar and 4 seconds for the BP to fire

It happens once, and then you have your pet. But I do agree that if you choose a playstyle with pet swapping, meleeing will not be ideal. Other things not suitable for pet swapping is: Nuking (lack of built up TP), Favors (lack of power up), Perpetuation gear (why use it if you don't keep pets out and just resummon new ones?).

It is just one of those things that us Summoners can choose the way to play. Pet focused or pact focused. (Personally I dislike the weak wards, and that leaves me just spamming rages, which have recasts of 45 seconds and don't need pet swapping).


The high level weapon skills from their given class natively

They have Higher melee stats

They have job traits/abilities for melee, front line survivablity as well as dumping their emnity on thier pet

Observe that your avatar does not get any of these. The avatars are WHM, BLM or DRK, have what equals roughly a 35 DMG rating staff. This is why you are on the edge of hate with a HQ staff and melee with your pet. If you equip a 40 DMG staff or higher, you'll actually out-DD your own avatar (ignoring BP damage).

If you can out DD your own pet, why claim your pet is the DD and yourself not? Only reason to let the pet DD and not yourself, is to avoid death. But a great example of HNM fights were you could melee, is Fafnir. You are supposed to stand on its feet, and you are supposed to get wing spammed and take just as much damage as everyone else. In this situation you may as well melee, since you can't avoid the AOE anyway. (I wouldn't recommend too many melee jobs in total though).

I'd also claim it is easier to keep a SMN alive, than a wyvern. So just check a DRG how long they can keep their wyvern alive, and then add 5 minutes and you'll know how long you can melee. Or better yet, run when the wyvern dies because you are next.

[Karbuncle]

We can buff just fine, I just think our buffs should scale a lot better. For instance.

Carbuncles "Shining Ruby" Should scale to, by level ~90, up to the potency of Shell V, and Protect V. There is no reason it shouldn't. But at the same time, remember Shining ruby stacks with Pro/shell, So even if it doesnt get a power boost (It should) you have to remember if your WHM is handing out Pro/shell V, and you use Shinning Ruby, they stack, and it enhances it further.

Diabolos' Phalanx: This needs to go up to at least 30 damage. Back when only RDM could Phalanx this BP was a good idea, AoE Phalanx, slightly weaker but group friendly. Now with SCH and /SCH, Its lacking. It needs a buff. badly.

Hastega is Fine, Long duration, Same potency.

Diabolos' Magic Attack Bonus needs to be a bit more potent no matter what the time, Maybe just +5 across the board. I.E 15 Full moon, 14/lower, 13/etc /12etc as opposed to its 10/9/8 now. Its still a wonderful BP, Regardless if its not perfect.

Earthern Ward: Needs to be boosted to absorb 300 Damage. a full dmg Stoneskin isn't asking much, Right now players can buff it as high as +100 additional Damage, and again with SCH and /SCH, this loses its uniqueness a lot.

Aerial Armor: Make it more like Utsu Shadows. Blinkga and to a lesser extent, Occultation-ga (JA), make this BP used very very seldom. If it gave 3-4 Utsu-like Shadows, It wouldn't be ENTIRELY useless. Just more situational.

Problem is you have to remember SMN is a group job, All of Summoner's Buffs stack with WHM, COR, BRD, etc buffs. They weren't meant to be solo healers, They were meant to increase and further buffs. Thats my thoughts. But it wouldn't hurt to give them stronger buffs.

-------------------------------------

on the Issue of Spirits. why waste time buffing the most worthless aspect of our job when we could buff the best aspects further and actually make headway in becoming more useful?

In order to make spirits useful, they would have to do Massive amounts of damage in 45 seconds, To match or better the damage from an Avatar in that time. Also Spirits don't get SMN Set bonus proc either, because its for Blood Bood. Soooooooo On Average (yes, Average) the SMN i do things with can do about 4-5k Heavenly Strikes. (Not counting Stupid-resistant mobs, why would i) (This is INSIDE Abyssea, Outside its probably half that).

So in order for us to Buff spirits to somehow make SMN more appealing, I'd imagine we'd have to give spirits a Casting timer of about... 5 seconds, and their nukes would need to do at least 2x their current damage.

This is unrealistic at best. Spirits are so terribly broken any fix to them would take massive man-hours and time. This is also unrealistic. We shouldn't want to focus on boosting the most useless and terrible aspect of our job, We should focus on boosting Avatars to the point they can hold their own against mainstream DD. I don't ask that they out-damage the best of the best, simply that they're at least on par.

If i wanted to gear my SMN to the absolute best of its Abilities, i Should be able to at least be withing a 10% Damage gap of a very well geared WAR. We both put in effort to our jobs, and SMN is designed to DD as well as buff, We should be good at both. I'm not asking to out-DD an Ukon War, or a Vereth MNK, But at least to be useful enough that when asked to come as something, SMN is considered.

we need a few buffs, but i still think the biggest impact to our usefulness would be in buffing our BP:Rages to do a bit more damage, and lowering BP:Timer to 30 seconds instead of 45 (with gear).

---------------------------

On SMN Melee. Stop about it. It can be useful inside Abyssea in some situations, But outside Abyssea we lose entirely too much to make it useful. I would hate a buff to SMN melee because knowing SE, it would not be worthwhile. It would be on level with what "Composure" did for buffing RDM melee.

Yah +10 Accuracy at the lost of all of your native Fast cast! (im exaggerating, It does other things). While trust me, I would be the first to praise a boost to SMN melee, It just isn't fitting withing the "job" description so to say. No past SMNs were heavy Melee, in any FF game title, In FFXI it won't be any different. We have staff skill, yes, We're on Relic Staff, yes, But we're not meant to be hard-core DD. I don't see SE Giving us anything in that category.

It would be nice, but absolutely unrealistic. They wouldn't turn around and make DRK The best nuker, because it doesn't make sense, They wouldn't boost PLDs curing ability because it also wouldn't make sense. both of these examples are basically "These jobs are 'okay' at that, but they're not great at it, they were suppose to be". In the same light, SMN is 'okay' at meleeing, but they aren't great, they were never meant to be.

I'm not trying to say don't keep asking for it, I'm only trying to explain its incredibly unrealistic and knowing SE's past, It will never happen.

-------------------

On your list of Ideas, the best you can hope for is a buff to Spirits and our Buffing. I wouldn't mind a massive buff to our Buffing ability. Infact i think we're way past due for one. Buffing our Spirits would be like polishing a turd, It will never be useful, why bother.

[Soundwave]

Scale x amount of MP (BP:Ward)

Buffs should cost x amount MP/party members granted with selected buff.

Example: Hastega MP 129 When Hastega hits a total of three party memebers including garuda you spend 43 MP

The range needs to be a bit wider than protectra , would be nice considering when you buff everybody tends to run away.

Buff Range

The range needs to be a bit wider than protectra , would be nice considering when you buff everybody tends to run away. I say this for both only beause I so often see party members not close enough and run away and you just watch all your MP go bye bye.

[Malamasala]

SMN is misunderstood because people keep thinking it should have a functional niche when it doesn't need to have one, and then start doing silly things like trying to advocate SMN meleeing for damage and so on. SMNs advantage is in that it has never had a fixed function and any of this attempt to create one pigeonholes it, limiting the advantages its always had.

You are confusing me. Suggesting melee SMN is the opposite of pigeonholing it, since it opens up yet another way to play the job. (Claiming melee SMN is the only way to play, however would fit with what you are saying).

As I see it, we are probably of the same opinion. SMN isn't meant to be good at anything, it is supposed to be decent at a lot. Our opinions are a bit split at where "a lot" lies. You seem to be pretty content with "a few wards", "a few rages", "a few favors". I on the other hand think that every part should be an active part of the job.

It is the tiny things like:
- Phalanx scales with level. Why doesn't Nocturnal Shield?
- Aura range is like 10'. Why isn't it far enough to let your pet melee while your backline gets Macc, MAB, Refresh bonuses?
- Spirits takes like 30 seconds with good gear and after assault to cast a random spell. A PUP casts the optimal spell after 25 seconds.

Do the gaps need to be this large? Would we honestly replace all other jobs if we could toss out a 25 damage reduction Nocturnal Shield? Or how about we got a random spell after 15 seconds? You can still get bind > frost > frost > bind cycles, but it at least doesn't take 2 minutes to get through that cycle.



The updates to the job are really simple. Sit down and tweak the values to reasonable levels. Is it logical to have a level 90 ice spikes spell do 2-3 damage to a HNM with 100 000 HP? Well, I guess one could say it doesn't matter if the paralyze procs often enough, but I'd still like to see something along 15 damage on icespikes for example.

The best part is that no new content is needed. Just sit and change numbers back and forth until you suddenly have some that make sense. Numbers that will make people say "Hey, use that ward! It is helpful".



Though I think some education might be needed also. The Earthen Armor discussion clearly shows that it isn't a bad BP:Ward, if you understand how it works. (Honestly, I still don't get it if is supposed to wear off on when it was effective, or if it lasts the full time and constantly lowers damage taken).

[Razushu]

It happens once, and then you have your pet. But I do agree that if you choose a playstyle with pet swapping, meleeing will not be ideal. Other things not suitable for pet swapping is: Nuking (lack of built up TP), Favors (lack of power up), Perpetuation gear (why use it if you don't keep pets out and just resummon new ones?).

It is just one of those things that us Summoners can choose the way to play. Pet focused or pact focused. (Personally I dislike the weak wards, and that leaves me just spamming rages, which have recasts of 45 seconds and don't need pet swapping).



Observe that your avatar does not get any of these. The avatars are WHM, BLM or DRK, have what equals roughly a 35 DMG rating staff. This is why you are on the edge of hate with a HQ staff and melee with your pet. If you equip a 40 DMG staff or higher, you'll actually out-DD your own avatar (ignoring BP damage).

If you can out DD your own pet, why claim your pet is the DD and yourself not? Only reason to let the pet DD and not yourself, is to avoid death. But a great example of HNM fights were you could melee, is Fafnir. You are supposed to stand on its feet, and you are supposed to get wing spammed and take just as much damage as everyone else. In this situation you may as well melee, since you can't avoid the AOE anyway. (I wouldn't recommend too many melee jobs in total though).

I'd also claim it is easier to keep a SMN alive, than a wyvern. So just check a DRG how long they can keep their wyvern alive, and then add 5 minutes and you'll know how long you can melee. Or better yet, run when the wyvern dies because you are next.

The high level weapon skills from their given class natively=

They get blood pacts not WS

They have Higher melee stats=

Their Blood pacts do lots of damage and naked they way outdamage us (so really the argument should be for us getting more ways to boost thier DoT)

They have job traits/abilities for melee, front line survivablity as well as dumping their emnity on thier pet =

Higher HP and -50% PDT

[Malamasala]

Buff should also be a bit wider range than protectra and maybe maybeeee scale on the

Well, we asked for increased ranged 2004, we got it 2010? I don't think that even if we ask for more, we'll see it until 2020. The current range is also fine except for melee that run away.


In the same light, SMN is 'okay' at meleeing, but they aren't great, they were never meant to be.

Yea, it isn't like I want extreme melee abilities. Just more accuracy so one can build TP easier when I feel like having fun. Easiest way is armors, even though SE did paint themselves into a corner and forced us to wear 5+ slots of armor just to stop our MP from bleeding away. Had they not, we'd have plenty of room for melee gear (had it existed).


On your list of Ideas, the best you can hope for is a buff to Spirits and our Buffing. I wouldn't mind a massive buff to our Buffing ability. Infact i think we're way past due for one. Buffing our Spirits would be like polishing a turd, It will never be useful, why bother.

I'd be more than happy with that. But it is still hard to think SE adds us to MAB armors for any other reason than tick us off. Only thing it helps really is WSing, and as I said, if we want to WS we'd rather have melee armors to get the TP than MAB to boost your rare WS damage.

Buffing spirits wouldn't be so much like polishing a turd, as it would be like giving SMN native spells (cure, holy, thunder IV etc) at a lower efficiency than WHM/BLM/RDM/SCH. I've always hated myself for being /WHM casting cure 3 when I have cure 5 available.

Kind of like being a millionaire hunting cans for recycle money.

[Malamasala]

Stuff

I'll admit, you lost me. Are we talking only avatars, or comparing pet jobs with avatars?

If it were only avatars, I'd kindly disagree that it is rare to call "50% PDT" a melee trait, even if it helps. If you were saying we have 50% PDT and BST/PUP/DRG have melee traits, then I'm not sure what it means except that is how it is.

[Dallas]

If you can out DD your own pet, why claim your pet is the DD and yourself not?

Keep going, you are almost there. I do believe the day you put it all together, you won't be complaining about the pieces.

Obviously, the answer to your question is "SMN DD + pet DD > SMN DD > pet DD"

:cool:

[Soundwave]

I'm actually really curious what you use for your melee set up Dallas would u mind posting your gear of choice etc, for your situations?

Thanks in advanced.

[Arciel]

I'd say I know everything but earthen armor, but I'm sure there is still something left that I don't know. For example I know WHY spirits casting timer reset on assault. They have two modes. Buff mode and Attack mode. But SE stripped all buffing spells of all but light elemental, so buff mode is very hard to notice. Buff mode is about 50% the recast of attack mode. Each time you use Assault, the spirit is set to attack mode AND have to start counting down from max recast. Every time you use Retreat, the spirit is set to buff mode AND have to start counting down from max recast. (Which is half of attack max recast). And that is just one thing I learned all on my own, since nobody had documented this or even talked about it online.


meh. not entirely correct but not exactly wrong. only light spirit comes with different modes, for which its buffing mode is indeed 1/2 its regular casting time. light spirit also has its unique healing mode triggered by low hp. and you can direct who you want light spirit to buff (in buff mode) by facing it at any alliance members.
using assault/retreat simply resets the timer, and this is something you can actually use to your advantage when they start casting AM because you can prematurely reset it before the spell actually casts.

i feel sad for myself and greenith because we'd documented a lot of spirit findings many years ago..
formulas have since been streamlined but we pretty much laid the groundwork.


You are confusing me. Suggesting melee SMN is the opposite of pigeonholing it, since it opens up yet another way to play the job. (Claiming melee SMN is the only way to play, however would fit with what you are saying).

I'm saying that trying to focus on meleeing at all effectively distracts SMN from its current set role, which is nothing in particular, but everything through avatar. And in doing so holds back on the effectiveness of the job because it multiplies its weaknesses - no melee traits, low hp, low def/vit, dead in 1-2hits, without contributing enough back to the table.
I am fully assuming that people are referring to strategic battle situations, where any of this even matters, because a SMN could melee on EP or in Abyssea EXP for all i care and it makes no difference - but on endgame, especially the current top-tier (or any top tier NMs), it is totally not feasible, and thus unacceptable.



As I see it, we are probably of the same opinion. SMN isn't meant to be good at anything, it is supposed to be decent at a lot. Our opinions are a bit split at where "a lot" lies. You seem to be pretty content with "a few wards", "a few rages", "a few favors". I on the other hand think that every part should be an active part of the job.

It is the tiny things like:
- Phalanx scales with level. Why doesn't Nocturnal Shield?
- Aura range is like 10'. Why isn't it far enough to let your pet melee while your backline gets Macc, MAB, Refresh bonuses?
- Spirits takes like 30 seconds with good gear and after assault to cast a random spell. A PUP casts the optimal spell after 25 seconds.

Do the gaps need to be this large? Would we honestly replace all other jobs if we could toss out a 25 damage reduction Nocturnal Shield? Or how about we got a random spell after 15 seconds? You can still get bind > frost > frost > bind cycles, but it at least doesn't take 2 minutes to get through that cycle.


This much I will agree. If the ward pacts actually became more effective, I'm not gonna be one to complain, but so far I don't think changes to them are necessary. I also don't find it realistic to say 'i want every smn ward to still be an effective option' at lv90, because thats kinda unreasonable. It's like BLU demanding that Metallic Body have a use at Lv90.

Effectiveness will come and go. The least they could do is make them still be relevant enough to use.. or scale them a fair bit. Earthen Ward scales (tho tbh i've never tested this past 75), Hastega is still the only AoE magic haste in the game and is ridiculously cheap MP wise, Crimson Howl is still ~9%, and so on. Hell, even our best damage BPs are still relatively cheap mp wise.
Part of the "problem" is that most of these pacts were never designed to scale to begin with, nor did they really need it.
Wards that sucked still suck. Those that were decent are still decent.
No one seriously used Frost or Lightning Armor in the past (cept maybe on Djinn) - I wouldn't expect them to start doing it now, even if its 'better'.



The best part is that no new content is needed. Just sit and change numbers back and forth until you suddenly have some that make sense. Numbers that will make people say "Hey, use that ward! It is helpful".

Though I think some education might be needed also. The Earthen Armor discussion clearly shows that it isn't a bad BP:Ward, if you understand how it works. (Honestly, I still don't get it if is supposed to wear off on when it was effective, or if it lasts the full time and constantly lowers damage taken).

If they do end up tweaking old wards to be more effective, then all it will really be is a bonus, because players can be pretty set in their ways. They usually favor the best buff/debuff of its sort and ignore pretty much everything else.
I'd be happy with a couple of good wards and a couple of good rages because we don't realistically ever need to use all of them in the same situation. People will tend to choose the best ones to use and stick to that. Even with wards. There are a lot more buffs/debuffs we could currently keep up that aren't even bad but don't for various reasons and I doubt this will change unless something drastic changes with the BP timer system.

Anyway, how 'good' they are also majorly depends on what players feel they want to focus on, and what else is available.
If Ramuh's Lv92 ward turns out to be some potent critical attack bonus you'll probably hear melee ask for more of that, especially outside Abyssea.

And I think education is always important, because then people will know how effective various abilities are.

Like how pretty much all of the post 75 wards are great additions. Tidal Roar is 25% attack down, the strongest a player can inflict and lands effortlessly. Earthen Armor makes a world of difference for tanks. Inferno Howl gives ~40ish extra damage enfire, Diamond Storm is like -25 eva, has nothing on Feint but is still useful, and who doesn't like Fleet Wind.

In this sense, I'm quite happy the new additions so far are actually good. But then again, so were Ecliptic Howl and Hastega (yes even the 10% one) back in the day. I don't expect SE to tweak old pacts to be better for 90+ use, but I do expect them to give us entirely new ones, because thats how the job has always been, like a huge deck of cards and you'll pick a small set to play in your hand.

What I'm expecting to see once the current set of celestial avatar wards is done, is...

1) new physical rage pacts.
we don't necessarily need them given how the 70 BPs are still fine, but we could use them as a bonus.
if not as new stronger options, additional variety options.
- a piercing dmg BP
- an aoe physical dmg BP (doesn't even have to be very strong)
- physical rage BPs that can create Lv3 skillchains. considering quite a few other jobs can crap out self lv3 skillchains, and ws well more than once a minute, avatars should by now be able to contribute in some way.

2) new healing pacts.
Healing Ruby III or something. II doesn't cut it anymore.

3) a new avatar.
this might sound like wishful thinking, but I'm not going to rule it out entirely - 1 new avatar that isn't available only during astral flow would add another say 3-4 rage and wards to the arsenal that may not necessarily be useful. but honestly, I just want a light elemental avatar that doesn't suck at nuking (sorry Carby, but you can just still to healing).

edit: just to add, Fafnir is not HNM caliber anymore, nor is he even much of any challenge (wasn't even at lv75. Nidhogg i'll give u), especially not when a good number of jobs can easily solo him...
so I hope you're not serious in using him as support for the SMN meleeing anyway argument.

[Razushu]

I'll admit, you lost me. Are we talking only avatars, or comparing pet jobs with avatars?

If it were only avatars, I'd kindly disagree that it is rare to call "50% PDT" a melee trait, even if it helps. If you were saying we have 50% PDT and BST/PUP/DRG have melee traits, then I'm not sure what it means except that is how it is.

I'm talking about avatars as we are a pet job solely dependant on our pets for real contribution.

I'm refering to the frontline survivabilty part of my "They have job traits/abilities for melee, front line survivablity as well as dumping their emnity on thier pet" of my point. -50% PDT is a trait that enables them to stay alive front line for a longer time. This is also 1/3 of my point if you compare a Summoner to a BST/PUP/DRG(player not the pet) they match 3/3.

1)The high level weapon skills from their given class natively
BST/DRG/PUP all get this.
Avatars get Blood Pacts which are pretty much equivalent to WS
SMN stops getting BPs at Spirit Taker

2)They have Higher melee stats
BST/DRG/PUP all get decent melee stats
Avatar performs well naked(does need some way to boost DoT/stats)
SMN is lowest tier in all but DEX here(don't get too excited though we're second lowest DEX in game)


3)They have job traits/abilities for melee, front line survivablity as well as dumping their emnity on thier pet
BST/DRG/PUP all get various traits/abilities for these 3 criteria i.e Snarl(dumping their emnity on thier pet), Martial arts(melee), evasion bonus(frontline survivability)
SMN gets none
Avatar has -50% PDT(frontline survivability)

[Dallas]

I'm actually really curious what you use for your melee set up Dallas would u mind posting your gear of choice etc, for your situations?

Thanks in advanced.

I assume the only part you need is the TP build haste set. Myrkr WS build is pure +MP. I switch to perp between fights. I macro in standard gear for physical (common) and magical pacts (rare). I stack SMN magic and/or Bonus TP for Wards.

TP build: Currently 22% Haste, -38% enmity

* = potentially augmentable gear, future update

Haste: 23% potential

Goliard Body 4%
Tern set 6%
Aug pants 3%
Zelus Tiara 8%
Nash Hands 1%
Nash Feet 1% (missing)

Enmity:
Novia -7%
Metanoia Ring -5%
Goliard Body -5%
Lore Boots -5%
Leisure Musk -3%
Nash Hands -4%
Pax Grip -4%
Merits -5%

Other:
Brutal Earring
Rajas Ring

Atma: RR/SS/AA (solo) RR/SS/VV (party) It's better to have regain in a party since there's more downtime.

Subjob: /SAM is too dangerous, I go /WHM for utility.

Melee Merits: 5 -enmity, 8 staff, 5 crit

You notice I have removed most Acc/Att gear. That's for survival only. I'd fill in ALL missing haste gear with Lore gear. Because our hate is so bad, I'd rather miss completely than hit without -enmity. Accuracy is still awesome in Abyssea. If SE fixes hate, I will go back to accuracy and /SAM.

[Arciel]

taking into account master primarily, I think you missed mentioning some of the more important points for front-line survivability on pet based jobs.

VIT: DRG > BST / PUP > SMN
DRG: 2nd highest in game
BST, PUP: 3rd
SMN: 5th (last)

HP: DRG / BST > PUP > SMN
somewhere along these lines anyway.

Evasion skill: PUP> BST > DRG> SMN
PUP: B BST: C DRG: C- SMN: E

the rest have secondary defensive skills as well.
All 3 have Parry, PUP has Guard and BST has Shield, even if at E rank.

Traits
DRG has crit def bonus
BST has killer effects (yes it counts especially if you're being targeted, also enhanced by Gausape)
PUP has eva bonus 4 (+48 eva, 2nd highest in game) and crit def bonus

Defensive/Curative Abilities
DRG: Healing Breath, Restoring Breath
BST: none
PUP: Cures from automaton, Role-Reversal
SMN: 3 healing pacts, a bunch of defense pacts scattered across avatars.

Hate-control abilities:
DRG: high jump, super jump
BST: Snarl
PUP: Ventriloquy

Armor
DRG can wear heavy armor not just for melee stats, but also better def.
BST has access to some of them
PUP is mostly cloth and leather class, but can fall back upon its much higher evasion.

so in terms of front-line survivability.. SMN will no doubt end up at the bottom of the 4. maybe you'll only take dmg from AoEs, but that is more than enough to kill you, not to mention the fact that an increasing number of NMs have normal attacks that are AoE already.

[Xerius]

1. SMN as rare as COR? Haha, no. SMN has never, ever been as rare as COR; as I recall, COR has been the least-played job in the game since its release (yes, less played than PUP). The most recent Vana'diel Census that I've seen, 2009, shows twice as many SMNs as CORs.
That's only because of the fact that SMN burns were used for Kirin

[Dallas]

maybe you'll only take dmg from AoEs, but that is more than enough to kill you

Funny, in 5 years, this has not magically become true.

[Razushu]

Funny, in 5 years, this has not magically become true.
are you sure you're playing SMN?

[Karbuncle]

I don't think as a SMN i've ever been 1 shotted by an AoE. That seems like a problem for Tarus.

I keep up Stoneskin/Blink/etc at all times when i play, If i get hurt too bad I'll move back.

Particularly dangerous mobs not considered (Ultimas BOOM, etc)

[Razushu]

I see it enough on even non-tarus to make me wanna stay permenantly out of range if it can be avoided. Even if it doesn't one shot you it''l probably put you in orange or maybe red health which is still pretty bad

[Dallas]

I don't think as a SMN i've ever been 1 shotted by an AoE. That seems like a problem for Tarus.

Earthen Armor makes it even less likely that a Taru would be 1-shot. People forget how easy it is to know what you are fighting before you fight it.

[Razushu]

Still can't beat staying out of range for safety and it frees up your Blood Pact Ward timer for something more useful to the party than Earthen Armor and even if the party needs it chances are the SMN should probably be no where near the frontline because if the 2k+ HP WAR is in danger of losing massive chunks of life then a SMN could still get owned if unlucky

[Arciel]

I don't think as a SMN i've ever been 1 shotted by an AoE. That seems like a problem for Tarus.

I keep up Stoneskin/Blink/etc at all times when i play, If i get hurt too bad I'll move back.

Particularly dangerous mobs not considered (Ultimas BOOM, etc)

You should try some of the new NMs out there.. they''re lovely.
Granted its kinda obvious to stay away from them, its when they don't allow you to do so that it hurts really badly, and this has nothing to do with meleeing really, even BPing puts you at risk sometimes.

of course, the likelihood of being 1 shotted by AoEs is pretty low if you aren't fighting anything remotely challenging, as is probably the case for Dallas anyway.

[Dallas]

If a WAR can't melee it either, it makes for a really useless argument.

[Fyreus]

Because of how pet attack works for avatars the solution isn't to keep tossing those stats at smn razushu but to add higher base stats.

Fenrir for example has a bit above 450att but hits IT like a girl, right? If they would give us gear like haste, Pet: +20str or 30dmg, and bigger mab numbers than 2 or 1 on random gear parts then our avatars would be able to do something. Until SE says 'Ok, all these blm avatars with melee BPs need an overhaul' nothing will happen.

The problem in the past was that SE had smn as a hate free job so there was a trade off. Now that pally has a higher hate cap, blm has enmity douse, and other DDs gain tp faster and hit harder and support classes has access to spells that we can't even get a hold of bar 'standard' buffs we remain in the dust until they decide to give avatars more hp/stats (i feel like my pets have less hp than i do) or change the BP timer to come in line with today's battle standards.

There's no way they're scared we'd run out of mp lol... also please SE... take smn damage seriously. AF32+2 body should have 30% damage increase instead of a small number since we don't all sit in abyssea all day.

[Dallas]

AF3+2 body should have 30% damage increase instead of a small number since we don't all sit in abyssea all day.
I just trioed Nyzul with THF, RDM (healer), SMN. There's nothing wrong with our damage outside of Abyssea.

[Cahlum]

Inferno howl is a really nice BP ward 44 dmg enfire outside abyssea is amazing to jobs like MNK especially when using hundred fists

[Razushu]

If a WAR can't melee it either, it makes for a really useless argument.
I never said a 2k+ HP WAR couldn't melee I said if something with that kind of HP can take enough damage to make Earthen armor a necessity or even jsut a good idea what does a <1k HP SMN doing whacking the mob with a stick

[Karbuncle]

I don't think anyone but Galkas have 2k+ HP Outside of Abyssea, and even then just the MNKs, and maybe PLDs or WARs.

But i understand what you're saying. Also, on SMN Melee debate, I think Dallas is probably smart enough to know what NMs to stand back on, and what NMs to melee on.

Also that there are probably few mobs that would risk 1-shotting a SMN with Stoneskin and Earthern Armor up.

Also @ Cahlum: Yes, Ifrits new BP is really good, I just wish there was a way to enhance its Magic Accuracy :(.

Edit: Does adding Skill past cap increase Magic Accuracy of Added Effects on BP:Wards?

[Razushu]

But i understand what you're saying. Also, on SMN Melee debate, I think Dallas is probably smart enough to know what NMs to stand back on, and what NMs to melee on.
I would hope so and this is probably true but the way he advocates it and the language he uses gives the very strong impression that he's saying "Melee or GTFO urdoinitwrong!"


Also that there are probably few mobs that would risk 1-shotting a SMN with Stoneskin and Earthern Armor up.
True but most of the time an NM will still hit a SMN hard enough with Stoneskin on to make them regret being in range. I've been rare though it is 1-shot by mobs with a full stoneskin and full health before so it does happen. Admittedly I'm a Taru but What would 1-shot a Taru SMN would leave a Galka SMN in low orange to red probably which is still undesirable. Earthen Armor is a waste of a Ward if your the only one that needs it and if the melees need it for the party to be successful this is probably not a NM that is SMN melee friendly.

[Kisuke]

It seems to me that part of the very versatility enjoyed by SMN and mentioned on every summoner argument thread is the thorn in the side of those evokers who want to approximate other jobs in performance. How best to buff a job that has access to almost all buffs in the game, most of the cures, most of the nukes, etc? Could it be that SE sweats this as well but knows how quickly things could go overboard?

I'm not a summoner, so I don't know what I'm talking about, but had a couple ideas I was flirting with, Stances and Specialization.

You can make the argument that each individual summon (be it spirit or avatar) is its own stance, because it excludes abilities not inherent to that pet. Still, summoners can switch between them rather quickly, losing little but the Avatar's Favor effect - which as mentioned is a bit of a mess of popular vs unpopular buffs. Why not put more emphasis on the summoner? Give 'em a set of heavy-recast "stances" that would focus their summons but make them more limited in other areas. Of course, this would be stealing the entire job concept of the Scholar~

As long as we're borrowing from other jobs, how about a wild re-envisioning akin to Blue Magic points wherein a growing summoner can specialize into particular roles or affinity with their avatars? Imagine: 1 Evocation Concentration point for every 10 points in Summoning skill. A whole category of Merit Category 1 type boosts. Become the Spirit Master by lowering their recast timer and boosting their spell potency! Ravage your enemies with combat avatars pumped up with extra haste and double attack! Put on a funny hat and pretend to be a white mage by boosting potency of defensive buffs and avatar cures!

Actually, that sounds like a lot of fun, for at least the first month until someone figures out the 'right' way to spec and everyone follows that. Guess it's an MMO, can't be helped. Thoughts?

[Malamasala]

meh. not entirely correct but not exactly wrong. only light spirit comes with different modes, for which its buffing mode is indeed 1/2 its regular casting time. light spirit also has its unique healing mode triggered by low hp. and you can direct who you want light spirit to buff (in buff mode) by facing it at any alliance members.
using assault/retreat simply resets the timer, and this is something you can actually use to your advantage when they start casting AM because you can prematurely reset it before the spell actually casts.

My theory is actually impossible to prove wrong. But there are other theories that work just as well, they are just not as logical.

If you summon a fresh spirit and catch aggro, they'll cast in exactly half time. This means that either you summon spirits in offensive mode at half initial recast, or they are summoned in buff mode with max recast. There is no reason SE would set "create new spirit with half timer" as code, opposed to the likelihood they put it as "create new spirit with max timer". Considering elemental behavior is buff mode or attack mode, all evidence point at similar for spirits.

You can also retreat a non-light spirit, then claim a monster to trigger aggro protection, and see if it takes half or full time to attack. If it resets their only attack recast, it will be full time. If they are in fact in buff mode as I predict, they'd cast in half time. (I believe I tested this, but I forgot so can't claim this as true)

Another option is to wait 10 seconds after your light spirit buffs you, and claim a monster. Light spirit should cast a nuke within the same time span as he would if you had let him stay and buff you. It's timer is the buff timer until it has cast one spell or is told to assault.

Everything about this behavior fits with my theory. But I will admit that you can make up excuses that could also be true. Like pets being summoned with half their casting time (except light spirit which is summoned in buff mode with full? seems like random programming in that case, instead of a logical one)

[Fyreus]

I just trioed Nyzul with THF, RDM (healer), SMN. There's nothing wrong with our damage outside of Abyssea.

Using the word 'damage' is a bit vague when dealing with you :/ I'm talking about avatars (hence the AF3+2 body reference) and not beating up somewhat EP mobs. If i were to compare smn+avatar damage to my blu or drk or even rng then we'd be debating punch buggys to G4s but i'm talking about the steady damage over time, healing over time, and buff boosts that are slightly outside of our reach. No i'm not being mean or attacking but the fact is our avatars are all blm except for 1 and he's not wearing any +str/dmg.

[Arciel]

My theory is actually impossible to prove wrong. But there are other theories that work just as well, they are just not as logical.

If you summon a fresh spirit and catch aggro, they'll cast in exactly half time. This means that either you summon spirits in offensive mode at half initial recast, or they are summoned in buff mode with max recast. There is no reason SE would set "create new spirit with half timer" as code, opposed to the likelihood they put it as "create new spirit with max timer". Considering elemental behavior is buff mode or attack mode, all evidence point at similar for spirits.

You can also retreat a non-light spirit, then claim a monster to trigger aggro protection, and see if it takes half or full time to attack. If it resets their only attack recast, it will be full time. If they are in fact in buff mode as I predict, they'd cast in half time. (I believe I tested this, but I forgot so can't claim this as true)

Another option is to wait 10 seconds after your light spirit buffs you, and claim a monster. Light spirit should cast a nuke within the same time span as he would if you had let him stay and buff you. It's timer is the buff timer until it has cast one spell or is told to assault.

Everything about this behavior fits with my theory. But I will admit that you can make up excuses that could also be true. Like pets being summoned with half their casting time (except light spirit which is summoned in buff mode with full? seems like random programming in that case, instead of a logical one)

hence my statement that it is neither correct nor wrong.
we both understand them to work in pretty much the exact same way but choose to express this in different terms.

the one consensus we can come together upon is probably the fact that whether it be your theory or mine, both prove that spirits are outdated in spell repertoire, unreliable by design and can be very random (esp water/wind/dark), making them nigh useless in a SMNs arsenal.

At present, apart from Light Spirit which can be used to crank out a few buffs in the absence of RDM/WHM/SCH, all other spirits serve no real purpose to players other than for Elemental Siphon, and in desperation for 2 spells within the elemental wheel capable of proccing grellow.

[Dallas]

Using the word 'damage' is a bit vague when dealing with you :/ I'm talking about avatars (hence the AF3+2 body reference) and not beating up somewhat EP mobs. If i were to compare smn+avatar damage to my blu or drk or even rng then we'd be debating punch buggys to G4s but i'm talking about the steady damage over time, healing over time, and buff boosts that are slightly outside of our reach. No i'm not being mean or attacking but the fact is our avatars are all blm except for 1 and he's not wearing any +str/dmg.

When I talk damage, I'm talking about every action that results in reducing the HP of the mob. Nothing at all vague about that. There are 4 sources of damage: avatar melee, avatar BPs, avatar buffs, SMN melee. If you don't melee with SMN, put a big 0 there. If you think your avatar is a weak BLM, put a big 0 on both avatar melee and buffs. Your choices make your damage tiny and insignificant.

[Anewie]

Isn't Dallas the melee SMN or GTFO guy? I don't think anybody needs to mention melee tools to get him talking about it

Notice your post has no likes and the OPs has 9.

You make solid points, but theyre not very good ones.
Summoner is a weak job and always has been. Idk if youve played as long as me, but for the first 3-4 years it was basically just a gimp whm with pred claws. It's changed a lot since then, but this job is not a solid one. SMNs are only semi-ok at everything and that's a problem imo.

Idk what parties you play in these days, but smn buffs imo are prett much lol and you would be better off coming another job if thats your main focus. If your main focus is dd, ud also be better off coming a dd job. This is true for other jobs, but smn is probably the worst job at being OK at everything (cures,buffs,dd). It's trumped by every job it can assist in and so much in such a way that playing smn outside duo/trio type situations when you have other jobs is pretty much a strain.


This job needs an extreme decrease n bp timer or to remove it entirely. I think bp timers should either be 10-15seconds MAX or nothing at all. That would really make the job damn good and without gamebreaking. Why? Because the bps are so mp costly, outside abyssea. smns will actually have to worry about mp conservment with lower/no timers.

You're right about some things, but you're giving smn way too much credit and i'd bet you don't play it often or at all.

just my two cents, cause no one who is a career smn or loves playing smn in party situations would share this opinion. This job needs change. Badly.

[Anewie]

My SMN was/is useless in party or serious situations.

Don't get it twisted, SMN is amazing for duo/trio/solo. There is no doubt in that, but the job is incredibly lackluster if you have any other jobs and you're playing in partty situations. I had RDM,WHM,BLM,BRD 90.. If my pt need buffs, ill come RDM OR BRD. If they need heals, WHM sup. If they need DD... BLM FTW. SMN can do most of these things but not nearly good enough to warrant playing it for versatility if you have the other job counter parts. In factm i recall saying in LS i'd come smn a few times and people would lol and say they didnt care. Reason is, smn is kinda a joke job in groups.


Not saying SMN should be turned into a full on dd or buffer/healer, just the bp timer needs to GTFO. I dont think ittle break the job or the game. If you're gonna spam bps, ull run outta mp hella quick even in abyssea.

[Razushu]

Notice your post has no likes and the OPs has 9.

You make solid points, but theyre not very good ones.
Summoner is a weak job and always has been. Idk if youve played as long as me, but for the first 3-4 years it was basically just a gimp whm with pred claws. It's changed a lot since then, but this job is not a solid one. SMNs are only semi-ok at everything and that's a problem imo.

Idk what parties you play in these days, but smn buffs imo are prett much lol and you would be better off coming another job if thats your main focus. If your main focus is dd, ud also be better off coming a dd job. This is true for other jobs, but smn is probably the worst job at being OK at everything (cures,buffs,dd). It's trumped by every job it can assist in and so much in such a way that playing smn outside duo/trio type situations when you have other jobs is pretty much a strain.


This job needs an extreme decrease n bp timer or to remove it entirely. I think bp timers should either be 10-15seconds MAX or nothing at all. That would really make the job damn good and without gamebreaking. Why? Because the bps are so mp costly, outside abyssea. smns will actually have to worry about mp conservment with lower/no timers.

You're right about some things, but you're giving smn way too much credit and i'd bet you don't play it often or at all.

just my two cents, cause no one who is a career smn or loves playing smn in party situations would share this opinion. This job needs change. Badly.
SMN is my main, my only 90 and the thing I do best in this game lol.

you whooshed me with the likes thing the OP addresses several issues with SMN which was always gonna get likes and I'm debating that melee SMN isn't the best way to play SMN.

SMN is far from a weak job we're in need of a boost definitely but if you care about the job it can be a great asset to the party we're something rare in ffxi we're an allrounder job that can do anything ok and can fill more than one role that a time while being autonomous within the party i.e we're a spike DD that the tank doesn't need to cover and the WHM will never need to heal if we're being careful.

SMN buffs may be lol in your opinion but it's hard to argue with a 5 minute AoE haste for a quite low price if 3+ people get it and thats just for starters. SMN works best if you don't have a main focus if I'm in a party I'm PCing every 45 seconds keeping hastega up fulltime and adding as many buffs as I can manage and keeping them up as much as possible. Top this off with the utility of /SCH, I find myself DDing Buffing filling in gaps that form in the party i.e sleeping adds if blm is mid cast helping remove Debuffs or waking slept pt members(accession FTW) seeing how my SMN is immune to sleep unless sublimation is down or fully charged or my avatar dies as i run in to BP and a sleepga goes off(which is rare).
Sure we don't add as much damage as a WAR or as good buffs as a BRD but we can do both at the same time and hate free and we still have some free time to assist anywhere it's needed.


My SMN was/is useless in party or serious situations.

Don't get it twisted, SMN is amazing for duo/trio/solo. There is no doubt in that, but the job is incredibly lackluster if you have any other jobs and you're playing in partty situations. I had RDM,WHM,BLM,BRD 90.. If my pt need buffs, ill come RDM OR BRD. If they need heals, WHM sup. If they need DD... BLM FTW. SMN can do most of these things but not nearly good enough to warrant playing it for versatility if you have the other job counter parts. In factm i recall saying in LS i'd come smn a few times and people would lol and say they didnt care. Reason is, smn is kinda a joke job in groups.

True SMN can shine extremely brightly solo or lowman because SMN is an allrounder and isn't buff dependant to perform well. But if you start buffing a party as well as DDing you're already adding alot to the party. I've haven't found my SMN lacking in contribution since I hit level 75. SMN does everything well not as good as a specialist but good enough to earn my place at the table been a SMN for 3years now and never heard the phrase "lolsmn" in reference to me. A good SMN can bring alot to a group and versatility is our strength. I may not nuke as hard as a BLM but I'm buffing at the same time, I may not Buff as well as a BRD but I'm nuking at the same time and while I can't touch WHM for healing power I'm nuking and Buffing while I'm support healing.

I agree with you 100% that BP delay needs a big change it would make SMN much more efficient and something 30 would be great but not Over Powered.

[RAIST]

My SMN was/is useless in party or serious situations.

--------------------------------

Reason is, smn is kinda a joke job in groups.

This post is a pretty good example of how misunderstood SMN is. When I've gone on SMN, it has always been benificial too the group--whether it's a duo, all the way up to an alliance. I remember when we were first farming the caturea (sp), many times it was the avatar keeping the bleeding thing busy while the "tanks" were recovering from weakness. When fighting a lot of NM's, it is the avatars taking a beating while the rest of the group is recovering from a serious beating (sometimes even a full wipe). When it has been club or staff for proc, more often than not, it has been the SMN that got it. When we are needing to get TE's, I am often the one running around and grabbing/holding ephemerals for the mages to get magic kill (or I simply kill them if we want to boost pearl. If we were after KI/feet....I'd amber kill them with my staff.

And that's just abyssea. There are sooooo many examples where the SMN has secured the win--CoP, TAU, ACP, BCNM's.....there is a LONG list of strategies where SMN has been a proven asset.

[Arciel]

agreed. SMN is hardly a joke job in groups. If may only appear this way because most strats prefer to avoid incorporating SMN into the strat because of its biggest weakness - speed.

SMN can do most anything with proper consideration of strategy, but it can be hella slow - and most players would want to maximize their time in game and get things done faster. They thus don't apply SMN into the mix unless they have to.
However, as slow as it may be, the SMN approach can also end up being the safest, which is why you have all sorts of strategies that utilize SMN for its safety and success rate as mentioned above.

as such, if anything were to really improve or 'fix' SMN from its current state into greater playability, it'd have everything to do with the BP timer, because its really the only thing that is holding us back.

my suggestions:

1) reduce the default BP recast. Base of 45s would probably be a good enough adjustment, if we consider that BP reduction gear can lower this (if we use the existing numeric value cap) to 30s.
For greater effect, could even do with a base of 30s, with gear able to lower this to 15s. This would move SMN damage speed into a totally different range, which is actually fine since it won't be sustainable with limited MP pools.

OR

2) have BP recast vary according to the BP being used.
They could set this as a static value (like say Claw on Garuda giving BP: Rage a 10s recast if its used, but P.Claws giving a 45s recast) - this system is already used for Waltzes.
OR they could set this as a dynamic value based on the relative level that the BP is obtained and the current level of the player, especially for Rage BPs. Like say every 5 levels above a BP you are gives you a reduction of 5 seconds from the BP recast until you hit a base of 5seconds. (so in such a case, lv70 BP would be 40s for Lv90, 35 seconds for Lv95, before taking into account gear). Astral Flow BPs could always be capped at maximum timer to prevent abuse (need MP anyway).

OR

3) a mixture of both. Have base timer at like 45s, implement dynamic recast timers - allow players to be able to mix up using lower damage BPs more frequently or higher damage ones less frequently. Either way would be faster than it already is and it'd be up to the SMN to manage his own MP before it runs out.
Dynamic recast timers doesn't have to affect Ward BPs because the timers on those are actually fine as is, and effectiveness of ward pacts doesn't follow the same usability relationship that rage BPs have in proportion to level.

..this way it doesn't exactly change what we can do, because what we can do is fine. but how fast we can do it would be vastly improved.

[Malamasala]

2) have BP recast vary according to the BP being used.

I've been kind of into this before, since it, with good numbers, would mean things like use healing ruby, wait 10 seconds on recast, then use meteor, wait 30 seconds, swap to Garuda and do predator claws and wait 45 seconds etc.

I think this is the only suggestion that keeps a global timer that could work. In all other cases it will just be a direct DD boost, and that is like saying "All jobs needs to do 9999 damage before balance is achieved". I prefer SMN being weaker, but it should be more versatile with its pact selection.


Dynamic recast timers doesn't have to affect Ward BPs because the timers on those are actually fine as is, and effectiveness of ward pacts doesn't follow the same usability relationship that rage BPs have in proportion to level.

Obviously you never use dispel or slowga. Those are two pacts that due to their long global recast are never used. Wards would also need specialized recasts. Like dispel really should be 5 seconds recast on Fenrir.

I'm sure the wards you think are fine, are the ones that are fine and you are using. Hastega, Earthen Armor and such. But we do have plenty pacts we don't use just because they aren't fine.

[Malamasala]

Speaking of recasts on global timers though, I've always wondered why SE gave only SMN a global spell timer. COR came close with a global roll timer and a global quick draw timer. But paying 0 MP to buff and only being able to put up 2 buffs it didn't really matter so much with having a global recast on it. Quick Draw would be the odd one, considering NIN can elemental wheel rotate for gil, but CORs can't.

In a similar fashion I would have almost expected BLU to have global recasts also. You learn some pretty strong moves, and you are a melee job, and yet they got the spells on separate timers. If you change spells though, I hear you have a long cool down on all of them.

But for example, why can BLU spam head butt for stun, but SMN can't spam Ramuh's low level shock strike? The only difference is hate to pet or hate to BLU. So one has to assume the reason we have global recast is because hate goes to the pets.... but can you really claim it such a huge advantage to get hate for 75 damage to the avatar for shock strike, that it warrants a 60 sec global recast?

If you ask me personally, global recasts don't even need to exist until like level 50+ when one in theory could spam 400 damage pacts. And even if you give those moderate recast (maybe 20 sec?) it wouldn't be all that massive damage hate free anyway.

As far as I can see, the only reason global recast even exists, is that SE thought it was a funny gimmick that would be fresh and new to the game. If only they had taken a moment to consider if it would be fun playing with it.

[Arciel]

Obviously you never use dispel or slowga. Those are two pacts that due to their long global recast are never used. Wards would also need specialized recasts. Like dispel really should be 5 seconds recast on Fenrir.

I'm sure the wards you think are fine, are the ones that are fine and you are using. Hastega, Earthen Armor and such. But we do have plenty pacts we don't use just because they aren't fine.

And this is obvious how?

A lot more ward BPs are fine on the current timer than they aren't. I just mentioned they probably don't need tweaking because trying to figure out suitable recasts on them wasn't really worth the time hypothesizing just for a suggestion.
5 second recast on Fenrir's Roar would be useful yes, but 5 second recast on Healing Ruby 1 is pretty broken. Also there are other prevailing reasons than global recasts that they aren't being used.
As a simple yardstick ward debuffs could probably use timer reductions, ward buffs don't need it.

But its just a suggestion anyway, no need to get your panties in a twist about it.

..as for global timers, SMN isn't the only job stuck with global timers, but is the only one to mainly rely on 2 of them.
COR is next in line, PUP mage automatons suffer the same fate, DNC have a bunch of global timers that they are made to work with...

but mainly, SMNs original single global timer was the result of bad design and a relic of a past where the devs knew almost absolutely nothing about MMORPG game balance - this wasn't too long ago from when BST Charm was 5minutes (and crits could uncharm pets), Astral Flow lasted like 30s and didn't reduce perp to 0, the standard set of avatars couldn't be obtained unless you had a lv50+ job, avatar acc/m.acc was worthless, etc.

Can't say the job hasn't come a long way since, but in terms of speed its definitely fallen behind even further now

[Fyreus]

Know what we could use? +stats transfer to pets.

Wyverns have it and it wouldn't be hard to code in (it's already there lol) and would allow a smn to further enhance the way avatars work no matter what they are doing. It makes use of many things like some haste, mab, acc, str and such stats you can't get on certain avatars. If you are smart or use common sense then you benefit from this or suffer if you want to really equip terrible stuff. That and syphoon avatar mp since it does absolutely nothing in game.

Who in the world would really hate stat transfers?

[Fyreus]

When I talk damage, I'm talking about every action that results in reducing the HP of the mob. Nothing at all vague about that. There are 4 sources of damage: avatar melee, avatar BPs, avatar buffs, SMN melee. If you don't melee with SMN, put a big 0 there. If you think your avatar is a weak BLM, put a big 0 on both avatar melee and buffs. Your choices make your damage tiny and insignificant.

I understand you try your hardest to justify obtaining an emperyean and i won't knock you for that, but you are fighting 'safe' mobs or things that won't kick a party's butt. Fact. I'm talking about the last few mobs left that require effort even in a small man. What exactly are you fighting anyway? Show me some pics

[Airget]

I think if people wanted drastic changes to SMN they might have to accept other tweaks to the job. Compared to other pet jobs excluding BST to a point they have a limitless amount of drones they can toss at a mob without fear of death for the most part. In group settings they provide a safe way to dish out heavy damage without putting their own life on the line. With BST they have the same instance granted the recast timer on call beast.

I think that if people wanted a big change to SMN that would make them more diverse and useable SE would have to add a "summoner fatigue" that prevented them for summoning an avatar for a certain amount of time based on certain aspects. Before you huff and puff over this tweak basically what I"m getting at is summoner as it stands is a formidable tool with the ability to dish out a decent amount of damage with little hassle, only a BP recast timer which can be lowered.

However with this "summoner fatigue" in mind the idea would be to add a range of abilities that could be used to act as more of a support class. If anything perhaps give the option through a JA called "Astral Focus" which allows the user to be more attune with the next summoned avatar however they will be unable to call another avatar for 10 minutes. While "Astral Focus" is in effect the perp cost starts at 0 however they do not have any of their BP accessed for use. Instead the SMN uses Rituals to enhance the avatar as well as start the perp cost timer.
Say you have Garuda out with Astral Focus, you would gain access to the following magic spells:
"Flow of Wind" Haste aura. (can be cast from 1-6 times based on smn skill) 1/3/5/7/9/11 20 MP +1 perp per cast
"Wind Barrier" Wind resist aura (can cast 1-6 times) 15/30/45/60/75/100 20 mp +1 perp
"Wind Slicer" aura (deal extra dmg to enemies weak to wind element) 50 mp +5 perp
"Swift Step" AGI aura (cast 1-6 times) 15 mp +1 perp
"Sway" Evasion aura (cast 1-6 times) 30 mp +2 perp

So basically SMN would be given the option to play the old way or use "Astral Focus" and play more of a support role to the party. However their support would be limited by the fact they can only choose 1 avatar every 10 minutes. It's just even though SMN may have a hard time finding it's proper place, you can't deny that it does serve a purpose in terms of dealing dmg and allowinga method of solo play that other jobs can't do without risk of their life. While it may take them longer to kill foes solo, in a group setting it's pretty much carnage as the mob is ripped to shreds with an unlimited amount of disposable soldiers.

Overall though I wouldn't mind seeing SMN take a more defined role, while it's ability to dish out heavy dmg and absorb dmg taken to extent it would be nice they could serve a bigger purpose then a sacrificial meatshield.

[Razushu]

I think if people wanted drastic changes to SMN they might have to accept other tweaks to the job. Compared to other pet jobs excluding BST to a point they have a limitless amount of drones they can toss at a mob without fear of death for the most part. In group settings they provide a safe way to dish out heavy damage without putting their own life on the line. With BST they have the same instance granted the recast timer on call beast.

I think that if people wanted a big change to SMN that would make them more diverse and useable SE would have to add a "summoner fatigue" that prevented them for summoning an avatar for a certain amount of time based on certain aspects. Before you huff and puff over this tweak basically what I"m getting at is summoner as it stands is a formidable tool with the ability to dish out a decent amount of damage with little hassle, only a BP recast timer which can be lowered.

However with this "summoner fatigue" in mind the idea would be to add a range of abilities that could be used to act as more of a support class. If anything perhaps give the option through a JA called "Astral Focus" which allows the user to be more attune with the next summoned avatar however they will be unable to call another avatar for 10 minutes. While "Astral Focus" is in effect the perp cost starts at 0 however they do not have any of their BP accessed for use. Instead the SMN uses Rituals to enhance the avatar as well as start the perp cost timer.
Say you have Garuda out with Astral Focus, you would gain access to the following magic spells:
"Flow of Wind" Haste aura. (can be cast from 1-6 times based on smn skill) 1/3/5/7/9/11 20 MP +1 perp per cast
"Wind Barrier" Wind resist aura (can cast 1-6 times) 15/30/45/60/75/100 20 mp +1 perp
"Wind Slicer" aura (deal extra dmg to enemies weak to wind element) 50 mp +5 perp
"Swift Step" AGI aura (cast 1-6 times) 15 mp +1 perp
"Sway" Evasion aura (cast 1-6 times) 30 mp +2 perp

So basically SMN would be given the option to play the old way or use "Astral Focus" and play more of a support role to the party. However their support would be limited by the fact they can only choose 1 avatar every 10 minutes. It's just even though SMN may have a hard time finding it's proper place, you can't deny that it does serve a purpose in terms of dealing dmg and allowinga method of solo play that other jobs can't do without risk of their life. While it may take them longer to kill foes solo, in a group setting it's pretty much carnage as the mob is ripped to shreds with an unlimited amount of disposable soldiers.

Overall though I wouldn't mind seeing SMN take a more defined role, while it's ability to dish out heavy dmg and absorb dmg taken to extent it would be nice they could serve a bigger purpose then a sacrificial meatshield.

I like your idea its very good, but 10 minutes without a pet is far too steep for a job that is almost completely dependant to contribute. maybe just have the ability on a 10 minute recast and have it wear upon avatar release/death

I had a similar Idea in another thread, but it was more about boosting avatar damage capablities


Infused Summoning

recast 5 minutes
duration 2hrs or avatar death

Summoner sacrifices health to empower currently summoned

drains 25hp per tick from summoner

grants following bonuses to avatar:
Blood pact Damage +20%
Melee damage +50%
regen +20
Haste +20%

grants Summoner the following bonuses:
Blood Boon +10
BP delay -10 passes cap

[hideka]

my only complaint with summoner is the extremely low durability of avatars in abyssea, how horribly low astral flow damage is in comparison to all other 70+ BPs, and the 15 second cap on BP reduction gear, should be 30 second cap if anything. i have no qualms with my damage output, i do 5-6k every heavenly strike, so im quite happy.

[Razushu]

my only complaint with summoner is the extremely low durability of avatars in abyssea, how horribly low astral flow damage is in comparison to all other 70+ BPs, and the 15 second cap on BP reduction gear, should be 30 second cap if anything. i have no qualms with my damage output, i do 5-6k every heavenly strike, so im quite happy.

Funnily enough on Abyssea I Find Diamond Dust equal to Heavenly Strike. I had great fun killing 10+ Sheep at a time in AbY la theine for shiva magian trial

[Ketaru]

And I see nothing that says BST, PUP or DRG should be up front meleeing since they have no stoneskin or self cures (well, they might have). As a melee SMN you are naturally expected to play under the same rules as a DRG, BST or PUP. You can't say some melee jobs need to heal themselves and others can be healed by white mages.

Just thought I'd chime in that this is not entirely accurate. BST, PUP, and DRG actually do have varying degrees of innate healing utility and survivability tools. They might not see much use in typical group dynamics, although they might if you feel your healing is not going to be sufficient for what you're about to do.

BST's Lucky Lulush has an Area Wild Carrot that heals everybody in range for approximately Cure IV amounts. They also have Snarl so, if they do become the target, they can quickly shrug it off to their pet that they themselves can heal (in Abyssea, my Rewards with Zeta heal approximately 1650 HP).

PUP has healing automaton frames that, while it leaves a lot to be desired compared to a living, breathing WHM, is still adequate supplemental healing on occasions. Not to mention PUP's reputation has a hate free nuker itself. That puppet is capable of some sick amounts of damage.

DRG needs to sub one of the mage jobs in the game, but once they do, their wyvern is capable of some of the most MP efficient heals in the game. If they are also feeling pressure from taking damage because they've grabbed hate, they have their jumps to shed it.

So, in a way, yes, they do each have self cures to varying degrees. They even have hate manipulation tools of their own to aid in their own survivability. To say they don't have survivability tools to justify their bid to be in the frontline is completely inaccurate.

SMN? You die if a mob so much as sneezes at you.


SMN is not broken. Definitely not outside of Abyssea. Inside, it's simply not popular, thats all.

SMN can solo things in Abyssea. People might not like that, but just take a walk down Port Jeuno and look at all the people that don't have the gear they want for their jobs. In Abyssea, your ability to get procs counts for a lot. But groups are not always available and, at such times, you would do well to have a job to fall back on if you need to solo. And, at the point of the game that it is now, being able to get loot one way or the other counts for a lot. All I have to say is, if you don't exploit that SMN can solo stuff, Danny DRK and Roger RNG still aren't going to feel sorry for you.


I've always wondered why SE gave only SMN a global spell timer.

BST pets have global recast timers. All of our pet's abilities are on the foul and wretched "charge" system so, even if our pet's have 100 TP, we still have to wait to have the appropriate number of "charges" to perform some of our abilities. Wild Carrot? Sheep Song? Acid Mist? Charged Whisker? Rage? All come from the same charge pool whether they're damage dealing, support, healing, or enfeebling. Calling pets? All on the same job ability timer. Healing HP or curing status effects? All on the Reward timer.

I'm not saying SMN has it good, but in a way, that's actually the price you pay for being a pet job.

[Dallas]

PUPs get a little snobby at times, but BSTs really are my best friends. I've never met a BST that said "meleeing alongside your pet is stupid."

[Malamasala]

All I have to say is, if you don't exploit that SMN can solo stuff, Danny DRK and Roger RNG still aren't going to feel sorry for you.

Soloing on SMN may be possible, but it is never worth it. It takes you about 30 minutes to kill a KI NM, and you have no triggers to get KI so it is like a 30% drop rate, meaning you need 1.5 hours to get one KI.

Sure, if you go to exp parties and get gold chest KIs, you'll later be able to go pop those item dropping NMs and solo those. But you are again looking at some 1 hour solo sessions, for 1 drop of the type you want.

Overall the fact that something can be done is far outweighed by the inefficiency of doing it. This is nothing different than saying that a SMN at level 50 could craft themselves their own penance robe. It isn't very time efficient, but it could be done. You can't see any level 50 WARs synthing kitty pants.

[Razushu]

PUPs get a little snobby at times, but BSTs really are my best friends. I've never met a BST that said "meleeing alongside your pet is stupid."

That's because BST was designed with that in mind

[Razushu]

Soloing on SMN may be possible, but it is never worth it. It takes you about 30 minutes to kill a KI NM, and you have no triggers to get KI so it is like a 30% drop rate, meaning you need 1.5 hours to get one KI.

Sure, if you go to exp parties and get gold chest KIs, you'll later be able to go pop those item dropping NMs and solo those. But you are again looking at some 1 hour solo sessions, for 1 drop of the type you want.

Overall the fact that something can be done is far outweighed by the inefficiency of doing it. This is nothing different than saying that a SMN at level 50 could craft themselves their own penance robe. It isn't very time efficient, but it could be done. You can't see any level 50 WARs synthing kitty pants.

The pop and proc system kinda smoothered SMN solo in it's sleep, we still have the ability to solo NMs but with craptastic drop rates.

[Dallas]

That's because BST was designed with that in mind

You need to be told that the single most popular staff WS (Spirit Taker) was used to design the most powerful staff WS (Myrkr). Design is an amazing topic, which I will gladly discuss with someone who has unlocked Spirit Taker.

[Razushu]

You need to be told that the single most popular staff WS (Spirit Taker) was used to design the most powerful staff WS (Myrkr). Design is an amazing topic, which I will gladly discuss with someone who has unlocked Spirit Taker.

You really don't read posts do you? I told you 2+ times my staff skill is.... 245 I stopped bothering to level it because I unlocked Spirit Taker to use when soloing EPs. Now MP is no problem I don't need to tickle mobs to death for EXP. A weak weapon skill more popular over more powerful ones? Hmmm. why is that, oh yeah because it's sole purpose is to regain MP. Myrkr is the weakest WS in the game it does 0 DMG. It has uses like MP regeneration(But MP isn't an issue really anymore) and removes debuffs which is nice but this can be done with items/subjobs spells. Myrkr = Weak but useful

[Dallas]

I told you how to fix your "tickle problem" and you haven't done it. I'll admit that I only skim your posts for some effort on your part.

Now, do you really want to discuss how Spirit Taker wasn't part of the design of this job? It's not there for MNK, WAR or PLD. Next in line is SMN.

[RAIST]

umm...I'd hardly call 1k+ Spirit Takers in abyssea that can fully refill your MP after Spamming Mana Cede and BP's and depleting your MP pool in large chunks a "weak WS" not worth using instead of Retribution or Cataclysm. Maybe if you had your staff capped, you might appreciate it's utility.

[Razushu]

I told you how to fix your "tickle problem" and you haven't done it. I'll admit that I only skim your posts for some effort on your part.

Now, do you really want to discuss how Spirit Taker wasn't part of the design of this job? It's not there for MNK, WAR or PLD. Next in line is SMN.

They can use it though. It's also there for BLM, BRD, WHM and SCH Should they be meleeing fulltime too? It wasn't put there to make backline jobs melee it's there to give them something to do if they find themselves meleeing.

[Razushu]

umm...I'd hardly call 1k+ Spirit Takers in abyssea that can fully refill your MP after Spamming Mana Cede and BP's and depleting your MP pool in large chunks a "weak WS" not worth using instead of Retribution or Cataclysm. Maybe if you had your staff capped, you might appreciate it's utility.

In Abyssea, everything can do big damage, there is no argument for SMN melee in here that can't be applied to the other backliners. I spam Mana Cede and BP's and spells from my subjob and MP is still not a problem. I have the weapon skill it's the highest tier I have I fully appreciate it's utility I use it all the time in Campaign and exping on EPs.

[RAIST]

lol... guess that may be the issue...only fighting EP's. Until you've stepped up your game and started taking on bigger prey, don't think you can give a very informed opinion on SMN melee playstyles.

There is nothing encoded in the game to prevent any job from meleeing--this is a player created and driven issue. I often avoided the boring solo sleep/nuke/rest strategy on BLM. I would often get teased for it, but it was just hella more fun to thwack at things some while you were nuking them down--often times it seemed to make things go a little faster too without having to rest all the time. I did the same thing on WHM, RDM, BRD, SMN......it all comes down to how you gear and play.

If you are comfortable staying away from your target and chucking pets at it, that's your style. If you aren't the Krazy Ivan type that likes to mix it up now and then, has your weapons capped as well as your magic, and has a gear set to aid in this playstyle that makes it very effective for you in the proper setting....please refrain from putting down those that do (not you specifically Razushu, but the players in general).

And spirit taker isn't just good in Abyssea. I've been able to peg 300+ easily in non-aby zones. Seen it fire off around the 800 mark on EP's. Was in campaign just yesterday popping it for 300+ on bosses--and that was with the weaker Avatar staves. If I would have switched to my melee staff, it would have done more.

[Dallas]

In Abyssea, everything can do big damage, there is no argument for SMN melee in here that can't be applied to the other backliners.

How long does it take to fire off a V spell? How much enmity does that produce? You still aren't ready to argue against melee mages.

[Razushu]

lol... guess that may be the issue...only fighting EP's. Until you've stepped up your game and started taking on bigger prey, don't think you can give a very informed opinion on SMN melee playstyles.

There is nothing encoded in the game to prevent any job from meleeing--this is a player created and driven issue. I often avoided the boring solo sleep/nuke/rest strategy on BLM. I would often get teased for it, but it was just hella more fun to thwack at things some while you were nuking them down--often times it seemed to make things go a little faster too without having to rest all the time. I did the same thing on WHM, RDM, BRD, SMN......it all comes down to how you gear and play.

If you are comfortable staying away from your target and chucking pets at it, that's your style. If you aren't the Krazy Ivan type that likes to mix it up now and then, has your weapons capped as well as your magic, and has a gear set to aid in this playstyle that makes it very effective for you in the proper setting....please refrain from putting down those that do (not you specifically Razushu, but the players in general).

And spirit taker isn't just good in Abyssea. I've been able to peg 300+ easily in non-aby zones. Seen it fire off around the 800 mark on EP's. Was in campaign just yesterday popping it for 300+ on bosses--and that was with the weaker Avatar staves. If I would have switched to my melee staff, it would have done more.

Lol step up my game? I only melee on EPs because it's worth the risk, I solo NMs all the time theres no need for me to step up my game. I know SMN I know it's strengths and weaknesses, again I've yet to find a thing in FFXI that would require years of practise to understand.

I've already said if it's safe melee. I'm not putting down any that do(except Dallas he's.... Special). There's nothing encoded into the game to stop non-melees meleeing but the jobs are designed so that some jobs do it well and some don't, SMN falls into the latter obviously(but again I'm not saying don't). As I said in my above post I melee in campaign too, But again there's no real downside to death and mobs are easy enough there now.

[Razushu]

How long does it take to fire off a V spell? How much enmity does that produce? You still aren't ready to argue against melee mages.

Anyone with sense can argue against making the weakest side of a job that can be applied under certain circumstances the full time main focus of the job

[Arciel]

everything has its trade offs..

SMN can solo a bunch of junk in Abyssea but a lot of that isn't particularly efficient, and you'll have to accept the lower drop rate. Of course, nothing is stopping you, although you may find yourself annoying more than a few people who are waiting in line to pop the same NM, or for its next pop.

Even so, it isn't particularly popular, even if it can proc a bunch of things, even if it could be the most reliable job for NMs that murder you with cheap death tricks. But its their loss, not yours.

Spirit Taker, well.. theres never a need to use that in Abyssea, so its a bit of a moot point. If you're actually running out of MP BPing full-time, mana ceding and whatnot with an atma like MM on, even after Elemental Siphon, its likely your gear that needs checking, not your playstyle.

Myrkr, even less necessary in Abyssea for SMN, altho a point could be made that with it you can forego a refresh atma and do something DDish like RR VV SS and rely on the regain to power your Myrkr and overcome any MP shortfall.
There is no denying that its an excellent utility WS for MP, but this is true whether or not you melee, so using it as an excuse to push for meleeing isn't going to work.

also lol @ the backliner comparison.. in the time that a V spell starts casting and goes off... how much damage does it do? And how much damage can your melee mage hold up to that? >_>

[RAIST]

Lol step up my game? I only melee on EPs because it's worth the risk, I solo NMs all the time theres no need for me to step up my game. I know SMN I know it's strengths and weaknesses, again I've yet to find a thing in FFXI that would require years of practise to understand.

I've already said if it's safe melee. I'm not putting down any that do(except Dallas he's.... Special). There's nothing encoded into the game to stop non-melees meleeing but the jobs are designed so that some jobs do it well and some don't, SMN falls into the latter obviously(but again I'm not saying don't). As I said in my above post I melee in campaign too, But again there's no real downside to death and mobs are easy enough there now.



the point is you won't cap your staff fighting EP's, and therefore haven't really experienced all that your weapon has to offer in melee situations, so you aren't able to provide as informed an opinion on that playstyle as someone who has. When you are continually fighting tougher mobs and capped off that skill and gained access to a wider variety of weaponskills and such to experience the wider versatility it provides....then you have a stronger foundation for discussion. For example, using campaign melee is a poor example for discussing SMN melee--some of those mobs were easily soloable at 75 SMN and are pretty much a joke at 90.

[Razushu]

the point is you won't cap your staff fighting EP's, and therefore haven't really experienced all that your weapon has to offer in melee situations, so you aren't able to provide as informed an opinion on that playstyle as someone who has. When you are continually fighting tougher mobs and capped off that skill and gained access to a wider variety of weaponskills and such to experience the wider versatility it provides....then you have a stronger foundation for discussion. For example, using campaign melee is a poor example for discussing SMN melee--some of those mobs were easily soloable at 75 SMN and are pretty much a joke at 90.

First off as a SMN further skilling up gains me no extra WS, I'll need to /WHM to get them. Secondly I've experienced enough unless the WS gained after Spirit Taker transform the player into a giant robot that exits the atmosphere and and hits the mob with a charged particle cannon from orbit, I'm pretty sure I'll know how/when to use it. I do fight tougher mobs, I just don't melee on things that can 1 or 2 shot a SMN if things go south.

Except Myrkr WS are generally the same with minor differences chain properties, AoE etc. that are easy to comprehend and use. I have a fine foundation for disscussion, being that I'm a human of atleast average intelligence and I've read on the subject. Campaign is a fine example of SMN melee in that the principles of melee will remain the same regardless of mob fought you just have to be more careful with tougher mobs. also you're the one who started using Campaign as an example. I merely stated that it's one of the things I'd use my staff on.

[RAIST]

First off as a SMN further skilling up gains me no extra WS, I'll need to /WHM to get them. Secondly I've experienced enough unless the WS gained after Spirit Taker transform the player into a giant robot that exits the atmosphere and and hits the mob with a charged particle cannon from orbit, I'm pretty sure I'll know how/when to use it. I do fight tougher mobs, I just don't melee on things that can 1 or 2 shot a SMN if things go south.

Except Myrkr WS are generally the same with minor differences chain properties, AoE etc. that are easy to comprehend and use. I have a fine foundation for disscussion, being that I'm a human of atleast average intelligence and I've read on the subject. Campaign is a fine example of SMN melee in that the principles of melee will remain the same regardless of mob fought you just have to be more careful with tougher mobs. also you're the one who started using Campaign as an example. I merely stated that it's one of the things I'd use my staff on.

you have 245 skill....natural cap is 335, so that's 90 more points of skill to increase your ACC and ATT with, plus there is the head piece you can throw on to give you 12 more ACC and +5 skill on top of that, along with various other gears to assist your output.

Have you unlocked Retribution (230 WSNM trial)? Have you closed a chain and fired off a MB on it? Or even just soloed your own chains? Do you have a stronger staff for meleeing that does more than 52 damage? All kinds of little tweaks here and there that are easy to do that make a BIG difference to how your staff meleeing performs. It sounds almost as if your main argument for meleeing is Spirit Taker or something, when there is so much more available. You don't melee just for MP recovery.

As for my reference to Campaign,

Was in campaign just yesterday popping it for 300+ on bosses--and that was with the weaker Avatar staves. If I would have switched to my melee staff, it would have done more.
that was a specific reference for comparing the damage output of Spirit taker alone, and not about SMN melee potential in general.

The fact that you have yet to fully explore all that the playstyle has to offer means you can't provide a fully accurate comparison. You completely write off cataclysm, and you've never even tried using it...oh yeah...because you CAN'T.

That is how I farmed some AF3 feet for myself and others btw... solo SMN/WHM, building amber with my Cataclysm. I later switched to doing it on NIN because I got tired of trashing stones since it was harder to score the azure with SMN.

[Razushu]

you have 245 skill....natural cap is 335, so that's 90 more points of skill to increase your ACC and ATT with, plus there is the head piece you can throw on to give you 12 more ACC and +5 skill on top of that, along with various other gears to assist your output.

I have that head piece, and I fully understand how to gear a melee job. I ncreased ACC and ATK does notchange how it works, if I know how to do something at 245 it won't change at 335 skill and vice versa.


Have you unlocked Retribution (230 WSNM trial)? Have you closed a chain and fired off a MB on it? Or even just soloed your own chains? Do you have a stronger staff for meleeing that does more than 52 damage? All kinds of little tweaks here and there that are easy to do that make a BIG difference to how your staff meleeing performs. It sounds almost as if your main argument for meleeing is Spirit Taker or something, when there is so much more available. You don't melee just for MP recovery.

No. I fail to see how Retribution changes how it would be played other than different SC and MB properties.

Yes I have been doing it for 50 levels Sunburst, poison nails and banish. I even was able to pick up my brother's SAM mid colibri party when he needed to go and duobox it with my SMN skillchaining with Shiva's Double Slap.

Again does more damage on a staff change how it is played?(aside from needing to be more careful with hate)

They're easy to do so why are you touting this as difficult and you need to have everything available for it.

The melee SMNs I've discussed it with WS to regain their MP most of the time, from how I've interpretted their posts. Aside from SC properties(which ST has none) how does choice of WS change it in a way so drastic that I'd need to have them to understand a style?

If you gear for melee you need to melee for MP.




As for my reference to Campaign,

that was a specific reference for comparing the damage output of Spirit taker alone, and not about SMN melee potential in general.

Well I apologise I misinterpretted your post


The fact that you have yet to fully explore all that the playstyle has to offer means you can't provide a fully accurate comparison. You completely write off cataclysm, and you've never even tried using it...oh yeah...because you CAN'T.

I've experienced enough to fully understand it only a child would need as much experience in it as you deem necessary to understand it. I've never written it off Cataclysm and when iI do unlock it I'll be able to use it.... because it's a WS I have them already I already know how to use WS because I've been using them for 90 levels on SMN already.


That is how I farmed some AF3 feet for myself and others btw... solo SMN/WHM, building amber with my Cataclysm. I later switched to doing it on NIN because I got tired of trashing stones since it was harder to score the azure with SMN.

I farmed my AF3 feet too and was going to use rock crusher to build amber, Didn't need to in the end I got my feet off the first kill.

[Malamasala]

As I said in my above post I melee in campaign too, But again there's no real downside to death and mobs are easy enough there now.

I've died 10 times at various places, with limits mode on, and lost 500 exp. I still don't get it myself, but SE must be spamming us with content that has no exp loss on death. And I'm sure you could get 500 exp back if you also died 10 times at various activities while meleeing.

I can't claim I actually meleed when I died though. More like monster ran next to me because someone pulled hate, then AOEed me... which brings me to my popular complaint that what does it matter if SMN is hate free if someone else is pulling hate anyway?

[RAIST]

@Razushu
I'm not talking about experience in the sense of learning how to do something, I'm talking about first hand experience of actually doing it--seeing the results for yourself. Things are simply different with a capped skill at 90 than they are when you are 90 and your skill is only at the 74 caps. Take out the extra WS and gear varieties and just look at the damage calculation. The function that compares your ATT to target's defense is a flat mod to your damage output. Raising skill raises your base ATT rating. That alone means you are comparing apples to oranges on that one portion of the debate because you don't have the skill capped.

[Razushu]

I've died 10 times at various places, with limits mode on, and lost 500 exp. I still don't get it myself, but SE must be spamming us with content that has no exp loss on death. And I'm sure you could get 500 exp back if you also died 10 times at various activities while meleeing.

I can't claim I actually meleed when I died though. More like monster ran next to me because someone pulled hate, then AOEed me... which brings me to my popular complaint that what does it matter if SMN is hate free if someone else is pulling hate anyway?

I think it was so the tank and healer could have a DD in the party they didn#'t need to worry about, But our damage isn't big enough to make that really desired atm

[Razushu]

@Razushu
I'm not talking about experience in the sense of learning how to do something, I'm talking about first hand experience of actually doing it--seeing the results for yourself. Things are simply different with a capped skill at 90 than they are when you are 90 and your skill is only at the 74 caps. Take out the extra WS and gear varieties and just look at the damage calculation. The function that compares your ATT to target's defense is a flat mod to your damage output. Raising skill raises your base ATT rating. That alone means you are comparing apples to oranges on that one portion of the debate because you don't have the skill capped.

No you're comparing apples to... slightly bigger apples. The extra WS is the only change and as I said WS aren't so vastly different you need to have it and have used it many times to understand it's nature. So being capped when I was 74 and being capped at 90 will be 2 entirely different matters?

[RAIST]

for calculating damage output yes.

Here's an example: I dind't start breaking 1k Jin's against EM targets on my 90 NIN again until I got near recapping my katanas. Same gear, same job level--the only change was my skill.

[Razushu]

for calculating damage output yes.

Here's an example: I dind't start breaking 1k Jin's against EM targets on my 90 NIN again until I got near recapping my katanas. Same gear, same job level--the only change was my skill.

so the amount of damage changed but nothing else? like I've been saying. just because you're breaking 1k doesn't change the way nin is played. again higher skill = more damage =/= an enitrely different playing experience that only getting those extra levels unlock

[RAIST]

when it leads to no longer just tickling the mob...it makes a difference

[Razushu]

when it leads to no longer just tickling the mob...it makes a difference

Compared to a frontline job you are just tickling the mob. Also still no differnce in play experience just he results will slightly improve

[RAIST]

See... there is an example of what I'm talking about. If you don't have an on par setup as people who actively melee and are supporting it, you can't really provide an accurate argument against it as you don't have anywhere near the output or possibly even a comparable damage mitigation strategy. I can be on the front line hitting just as hard per hit with my Staff as I do with my NIN--sometimes actually even harder. Other's on the front line have been killled by AOE's while I survived, stuck my pet on it, raised them and took off to kite it while they rested up.

Here's some more examples to try to illustrate the damage output difference:

My naked SMN has 396 base ATT with a staff equipped. Against a mob with 300 defense, before any of the VIT and level difference and everything, you are starting with a base mod of 1.32, giving a base of 105 damage with an 80 damage staff.

Now take off that 90 skill, lowering your ATT and ACC--dropping you to 306 ATT, leaving a mod of just 1.02 and a base of 81 damage with the same weapon. That's almost a 30% difference.

Lets say you have a NIN geared for a balance of haste and evasion that winds up with with 410 attack, 46 damage weapon. This yields a base mod of 1.3666... giving a base of 62 per hit, 124 per DW round.

Even with an avatar staff that only gives 52 damage per hit, it comes out to 62 damage per hit--the same damage per hit-- versus just 53 with 245 skill.

Because of your lower skill keeping you at a lower attack rating, you are more likely to suffer a penalty on that mod against the tougher level 74+ mobs (ones more likely to have higher base defense ratings), and so you aren't seeing the ramped up damage. All of this comes into play also with physical weaponskills. The math is stranger because of the secondary mods, the level mods, etc--but it has the same pDIF function at the end. So after all is calculated you are working off a 1.32 mod at 335 skill vs 1.02 mod on the same mob. Think of it like MAB for a BLM. Higher skill simply translates to more damage via a similar mechanic when it comes to physical damage.

So, until you have capped your skill and seen the increase in damage, then that can't really be part of your argument with someone who IS set up to deal out the bigger numbers. You are more likely to get that feeling you are just tickling things because you in fact have nerfed output because of your lower skill.

As for geting killed in one or two hits...that's more an issue with how you are set up when you go in, or maybe not seating hate on your avatar first is an issue. Gear and buffs may help mitigate that. Getting out of range for an AOE, or doing something to interrupt it if it's a spell, bar spells etc. go a long way to extending your chances too.

The point is...first get yourself set up on par with those that are doing it already, then debate it.

[Razushu]

See... there is an example of what I'm talking about. If you don't have an on par setup as people who actively melee and are supporting it, you can't really provide an accurate argument against it as you don't have anywhere near the output or possibly even a comparable damage mitigation strategy. I can be on the front line hitting just as hard per hit with my Staff as I do with my NIN--sometimes actually even harder. Other's on the front line have been killled by AOE's while I survived, stuck my pet on it, raised them and took off to kite it while they rested up.

Here's some more examples to try to illustrate the damage output difference:

My naked SMN has 396 base ATT with a staff equipped. Against a mob with 300 defense, before any of the VIT and level difference and everything, you are starting with a base mod of 1.32, giving a base of 105 damage with an 80 damage staff.

Now take off that 90 skill, lowering your ATT and ACC--dropping you to 306 ATT, leaving a mod of just 1.02 and a base of 81 damage with the same weapon. That's almost a 30% difference.

Lets say you have a NIN geared for a balance of haste and evasion that winds up with with 410 attack, 46 damage weapon. This yields a base mod of 1.3666... giving a base of 62 per hit, 124 per DW round.

Even with an avatar staff that only gives 52 damage per hit, it comes out to 62 damage per hit--the same damage per hit-- versus just 53 with 245 skill.

Because of your lower skill keeping you at a lower attack rating, you are more likely to suffer a penalty on that mod against the tougher level 74+ mobs (ones more likely to have higher base defense ratings), and so you aren't seeing the ramped up damage. All of this comes into play also with physical weaponskills. The math is stranger because of the secondary mods, the level mods, etc--but it has the same pDIF function at the end. So after all is calculated you are working off a 1.32 mod at 335 skill vs 1.02 mod on the same mob. Think of it like MAB for a BLM. Higher skill simply translates to more damage via a similar mechanic when it comes to physical damage.

So, until you have capped your skill and seen the increase in damage, then that can't really be part of your argument with someone who IS set up to deal out the bigger numbers. You are more likely to get that feeling you are just tickling things because you in fact have nerfed output because of your lower skill.

As for geting killed in one or two hits...that's more an issue with how you are set up when you go in, or maybe not seating hate on your avatar first is an issue. Gear and buffs may help mitigate that. Getting out of range for an AOE, or doing something to interrupt it if it's a spell, bar spells etc. go a long way to extending your chances too.

The point is...first get yourself set up on par with those that are doing it already, then debate it.

1) the entire frontline but the SMN die to an AoE? I'm sorry but I find that highly unbelievable. I've also kited many a mob and saved a party from AoE wipe.

2) Your SMN out damages damages your nin per hit? So what that nin is going to be hitting far more and you'll be DDing for far less tha it.

3) Your point is still "You hit for less so you can't understand how it's played" A difference in number's isn't a difference in how it's played.

4) If you're not capable of pulling hate you've not justified your spot upfront and if you wouldn't survive pulling hate you shouldn't be front line. The argument agaainst SMN melee is the same argument as against any backline meleer. The Damage output won't be worth the risk.

5) That would want to be an AoE with a giant recast/tiny range if you're reliably running out of range of it, but then again an AoE that'll drop a SMN won't always be such a Danger to jobs that should frontline. And maybe those party wipes wouldn't have happened if you were backline supporting the party while using an avatar to DD.

6) Again I understand the concept of melee just fine, I'm well able to debate it.

[RAIST]

1. It does happen when you have damage mitigation they don't have

2. the point is per hit you are the same or maybe higher, so if one is tickling the mob, then so is the other.

3. no, it goes against the argument that you are tickling the mob, aimed at countering the arguments trying to trivialize the damage output of a SMN meleeing

4. and yes, you can pull hate while being up front quite easily in fact. Every manuever, cure, status removal, WS and the fact you are smacking them around generates hate. It can and does happen. I can do it on BLM and WHM too. Just because you are swinging a weapon doesn't mean you cant perform your other duties as well, which leads to #5

5. you can hit macros and select members just as easily up front as in back. It can actually work better to be down front with your avatar out for more timely AOE buffing and such. I've done this a lot for a long time, it all comes down to your playing style and being used to it I guess.

6. If you understand melee so well, then why do you seem to be presenting the idea that your skill on your weapon has little to do with your effectiveness with that weapon? It isn't whether you understand melee...it is more that you are comparing effectiveness of a weapon which is nerfed when you are using it against those who are capped and may be geared more appropriately to further improve efficiency with that weapon.

[Razushu]

1. It does happen when you have damage mitigation they don't have

No job has less damage mitigation than SMN, and what we do have is AoE so if you're getting it so is everyone in range is too


2. the point is per hit you are the same or maybe higher, so if one is tickling the mob, then so is the other.

So for hit you're the same as a weapon that has half the delay as yours and is dual wielded that NIN will still leave you in the dust, unless they're gimper than a one legged mule.


3. no, it goes against the argument that you are tickling the mob, aimed at countering the arguments trying to trivialize the damage output of a SMN meleeing

My argument is that if you are doing a fraction of the damage of a DD you are for all intents and purposes tickling the mob


4. and yes, you can pull hate while being up front quite easily in fact. Every manuever, cure, status removal, WS and the fact you are smacking them around generates hate. It can and does happen. I can do it on BLM and WHM too. Just because you are swinging a weapon doesn't mean you cant perform your other duties as well, which leads to #5

It doesn't mean you can't but it will definitely lower the effectiveness, even if it's just you pull hate and die when the party needs heavy cures.


5. you can hit macros and select members just as easily up front as in back. It can actually work better to be down front with your avatar out for more timely AOE buffing and such. I've done this a lot for a long time, it all comes down to your playing style and being used to it I guess.

Yeah to the macros. No to the increased effectiveness. If it was even jsut as easy to support from the front there'd be no such thing as a backline(aside from AoE etc.). It's just as easy to time buffs back line if not easier.


6. If you understand melee so well, then why do you seem to be presenting the idea that your skill on your weapon has little to do with your effectiveness with that weapon? It isn't whether you understand melee...it is more that you are comparing effectiveness of a weapon which is nerfed when you are using it against those who are capped and may be geared more appropriately to further improve efficiency with that weapon.

I'm not saying my "staff weapon skill" has no effect on the effectiveness of the melee, I'm saying that there is absolutely no need for me to skill it up further to understand how melee works, I've used it as SMN and I've been able to more than well play my brother's SAM and DRG without playing or leveling the job before.

[RAIST]

No...not all your buffs that mitigate damage are AOE. You can maintain Blink, and SS on yourself more consistently than you can party wide. If you are /RDM, phalanx and bars are only for you. There is also atma selection in the case of abyssea. Likewise, there are gear selections specific to yourself and not others--I once got a tell asking how I was intimidating a mob on SMN...it was because of a piece of gear.

If you are staying out of the wide AOE range of an NM or something, you may be out of range to even call your BP Wards and have to run in first to do it...whereas if you are down there already, you just call it. So calling SMN buffs from backline versus frontline CAN be considerably different in some scenarios. Also, being down there when you see a -ga cued up, when you quickly hit a bar that automatically focuses on yourself you KNOW it is going to hit the full front line, versus having to to worry about positioning if your back line is on the edge of casting. Same goes for curing from the backline--DD's sometimes get knocked back or otherwise can get positioned just out of your casting range and you have to adjust a lot. So, again...being closer to the action can prove beneficial in some cases. The point is, there are pros and cons to both scenarios--but if you are able to manage it effectively, why can't you do it? Because people who don't understand it say you can't?

And as for this whole issue of tickling a mob...your statments here can just as easily be used to say a NIN should /mage and sit in the back to use ranged, ninjutsu, and support magic from subjob, or PLD should be a backline job, or BST, or PUP--essentially all you are saying is that any job that can't keep up with jobs x y z should be relegated to backline utility, where the value of x y z can change depending on what someone personally thinks are the top 3 DD jobs.

Again with this whole "understanding how melee works"--I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the actual NUMBERS at play--the difference in the ACTUAL RESULTS between two different levels of proficiency and the impact it may have on playstyle. I can't rightfully go into the RNG forums and complain about issues with 90 RNG because my RNG was retired at 51, all I can properly do is complain about my experiences up to level 51. Even though my Archery is at 250, and I've used SAM/RNG...I can't even talk accurately about RNG at a comparable level for my archery skill simply because I haven't played RNG past level 51, and have only used it as a subjob since I retired it at 51 several years ago. Likewise, someone with level 74 staff skill doesn't have much to stand on for arguing about how staff performs at level 90 staff skill--they can only talk from experience about how it performs at that 74 level. I haven't experienced playing at higher than a level 51 RNG, you haven't experienced swinging with a 335+ staff skill--people can't really put a lot of stock in what either of us have to say on anything beyond our own experiences.

[Razushu]

No...not all your buffs that mitigate damage are AOE. You can maintain Blink, and SS on yourself more consistently than you can party wide. If you are /RDM, phalanx and bars are only for you. There is also atma selection in the case of abyssea. Likewise, there are gear selections specific to yourself and not others--I once got a tell asking how I was intimidating a mob on SMN...it was because of a piece of gear.

If you're going to need Bars and Phalanx etc. why would you opt for the self target subjob? Also unless you stack enhancing gear you're Phalanx will be weaker than SMNs native AoE phalanx same with SS and blink is always weaker than Aerial armor. If I'm going to need SS i'll try to give the whole party it just in case(accession/earthen ward), same with any defensive buff. This play style seems like you've gone out of your way to not benefit the party with anything but your melee in this scenario. Also it Bars etc. are needed the WHM and RDM should have these covered on them anyway, theres no way a SMN should be surviving anything that kills a melee.


If you are staying out of the wide AOE range of an NM or something, you may be out of range to even call your BP Wards and have to run in first to do it...whereas if you are down there already, you just call it. So calling SMN buffs from backline versus frontline CAN be considerably different in some scenarios. Also, being down there when you see a -ga cued up, when you quickly hit a bar that automatically focuses on yourself you KNOW it is going to hit the full front line, versus having to to worry about positioning if your back line is on the edge of casting. Same goes for curing from the backline--DD's sometimes get knocked back or otherwise can get positioned just out of your casting range and you have to adjust a lot. So, again...being closer to the action can prove beneficial in some cases. The point is, there are pros and cons to both scenarios--but if you are able to manage it effectively, why can't you do it? Because people who don't understand it say you can't?

No they can't any SMN worth wearing the Horn should know how to time their summonings/ buffs personally if I'm cycling buffs i call new avatar at ~15 seconds left on BP timer and my avatr is in position with time to spare. again any good backline player will know the AoE range and there's nothing stopping us from hitting a similar macro. Knock back is usually a non-issue, if theres knockback have the melees stay on the same side of the mob as the mages so they're knocked back .... into the mages. No the problem is people understand it and know the game and don't say you can't just that you shouldn't on anything powerful/important.


And as for this whole issue of tickling a mob...your statments here can just as easily be used to say a NIN should /mage and sit in the back to use ranged, ninjutsu, and support magic from subjob, or PLD should be a backline job, or BST, or PUP--essentially all you are saying is that any job that can't keep up with jobs x y z should be relegated to backline utility, where the value of x y z can change depending on what someone personally thinks are the top 3 DD jobs.

If you're only matching a 1 hander(that's Dual wielding) strike for main hand strike you're not worth the risk as a frontliner. PLD, BST and PUP all have much more reason to be frontline than SMN, they are good DD or tanks. No I'm not saying any job that can't keep up with the top jobs shouldn't melee, just the ones the top tier leave in the dust.


Again with this whole "understanding how melee works"--I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the actual NUMBERS at play--the difference in the ACTUAL RESULTS between two different levels of proficiency and the impact it may have on playstyle. I can't rightfully go into the RNG forums and complain about issues with 90 RNG because my RNG was retired at 51, all I can properly do is complain about my experiences up to level 51. Even though my Archery is at 250, and I've used SAM/RNG...I can't even talk accurately about RNG at a comparable level for my archery skill simply because I haven't played RNG past level 51, and have only used it as a subjob since I retired it at 51 several years ago. Likewise, someone with level 74 staff skill doesn't have much to stand on for arguing about how staff performs at level 90 staff skill--they can only talk from experience about how it performs at that 74 level. I haven't experienced playing at higher than a level 51 RNG, you haven't experienced swinging with a 335+ staff skill--people can't really put a lot of stock in what either of us have to say on anything beyond our own experiences.

1st off I'm a 90 SMN and have meleed on mobs before so the RNG comparison is off. I still know how to melee on a job my skill is high enough and was when i was in the 70s to melee and understand the mechanics behind it the onlt difference with the lower skill is ACC and ATK. You've yet to provide one differnce in meleeing at 74 cap and meleeing at 90 cap change how it would be played. I havent swung the staff at 90 cap but I've swung it capped at 74 at level 75 or does those 5 skill points completely change it too?

[RAIST]

Again, as already mentioned it's all situational, and possibilties exist on both your side and my side of the argument as to what goes on on the front line. Just because I mention keeping personal buffs up for myself doesn't mean I'm not keeping them up for the party--but when your BP timer only allows you to keep two buffs up reliably for the party, and you can almost instantly renew a worn buff on yourself that a mob eats while your BP timer is still counting down, it simply provides greater protection for you in that short window. And some people avoid /WHM like the plague so they can get the extra refresh from /RDM, so they simply won't have access to AOE buffs from subjob.

No matter what you say, the simple fact remains that you in particular are not likely on equal footing with others who actively do get up front and personal with their tougher targets often simply because for various reasons you yourself haven't been interested in it and haven't taken the steps to prepare for things that others probably have. Again, you haven't had the same experience as them because you are not setup for it like they are, so you can't speak on the matter on the same level as them.

And yes, 90 points of skill DOES make a difference at 90. On your way to 90, your skill per level accelerates to reach a higher increase per level then your target's defense does, helping to close that gap and increasing your pDIF values slightly. Post 80, you're increasing at the same rate per level as the A ranked skills, putting you at a faster pace then the rate defense increases per level for most of your general targets. This ultimately puts you at at least a 10 point higher differential at 90 on targets with the same level difference then you had with the same level difference at 74. At 90, A ranked weapons can hit the 2.2 pDIF mod cap against most of the general targets you would be beating up on as a SMN without doing anything special to their gear setups. Your skill is only 19 below that at 90, so can get close to a 2.0 mod at that point on a large portion of your targets. That is why it is not that uncommon to see staves hit for close to 200 damage at 90. So yes, capping your skill makes a difference.

You completely missed the point of my mentioning my RNG. I don't have a 90 RNG with capped skill, so I can't rightfully go in there and complain about what a 90 RNG faces. I can only complain about what a 51 RNG faces, as that is the only level at which I have skills capped out for RNG. I have reached 89 cap for a bow on NIN, and have actively used it on NIN. That doesn't in any way qualify me to talk about a RNG's experience with a bow at their 71 caps because I haven't experienced it the same way that RNG would--I've only used it on other jobs with their native skill up to 250 or with a RNG subjob. The point is I am not qualified to debate them on their ranged issues as I can in no way put myself in the same position to experience those same issues. If I were able to do so, I could discuss various things I may have tried to overcome the issues and such, or complained that I haven't found a way to overcome the issues....but since I can in no way experience those same issues, people can't put much stock in anything I would have to say on those issues. Likewise, I do have a 90 BST with capped skills--but I rarely play it, so I generally try to stay out of the BST debates unless it is indeed something I've experienced first hand.

In short, because of the changes in how your skills scale faster now against how your target's skills scale, meleeing at 74 with capped skills against even match is different than capped level 90 skills against an even match. Level 90 melee with level 74 skill is not level 90 melee with capped skill. Therefore, your particular experience with melee at 90 would not be the same as a level 90 would experience with capped skill. This has not only happend with just offense either--I certainly am able take more hits now than I used too with the same behavior at lower levels against mobs in the same level differences. It all comes together in the end and simply has gotten considerably better in comparison when you are fighting mobs with the same level differences now.

[Razushu]

Again, as already mentioned it's all situational, and possibilties exist on both your side and my side of the argument as to what goes on on the front line. Just because I mention keeping personal buffs up for myself doesn't mean I'm not keeping them up for the party--but when your BP timer only allows you to keep two buffs up reliably for the party, and you can almost instantly renew a worn buff on yourself that a mob eats while your BP timer is still counting down, it simply provides greater protection for you in that short window. And some people avoid /WHM like the plague so they can get the extra refresh from /RDM, so they simply won't have access to AOE buffs from subjob.

No matter what you say, the simple fact remains that you in particular are not likely on equal footing with others who actively do get up front and personal with their tougher targets often simply because for various reasons you yourself haven't been interested in it and haven't taken the steps to prepare for things that others probably have. Again, you haven't had the same experience as them because you are not setup for it like they are, so you can't speak on the matter on the same level as them.

And yes, 90 points of skill DOES make a difference at 90. On your way to 90, your skill per level accelerates to reach a higher increase per level then your target's defense does, helping to close that gap and increasing your pDIF values slightly. Post 80, you're increasing at the same rate per level as the A ranked skills, putting you at a faster pace then the rate defense increases per level for most of your general targets. This ultimately puts you at at least a 10 point higher differential at 90 on targets with the same level difference then you had with the same level difference at 74. At 90, A ranked weapons can hit the 2.2 pDIF mod cap against most of the general targets you would be beating up on as a SMN without doing anything special to their gear setups. Your skill is only 19 below that at 90, so can get close to a 2.0 mod at that point on a large portion of your targets. That is why it is not that uncommon to see staves hit for close to 200 damage at 90. So yes, capping your skill makes a difference.

You completely missed the point of my mentioning my RNG. I don't have a 90 RNG with capped skill, so I can't rightfully go in there and complain about what a 90 RNG faces. I can only complain about what a 51 RNG faces, as that is the only level at which I have skills capped out for RNG. I have reached 89 cap for a bow on NIN, and have actively used it on NIN. That doesn't in any way qualify me to talk about a RNG's experience with a bow at their 71 caps because I haven't experienced it the same way that RNG would--I've only used it on other jobs with their native skill up to 250 or with a RNG subjob. The point is I am not qualified to debate them on their ranged issues as I can in no way put myself in the same position to experience those same issues. If I were able to do so, I could discuss various things I may have tried to overcome the issues and such, or complained that I haven't found a way to overcome the issues....but since I can in no way experience those same issues, people can't put much stock in anything I would have to say on those issues. Likewise, I do have a 90 BST with capped skills--but I rarely play it, so I generally try to stay out of the BST debates unless it is indeed something I've experienced first hand.

In short, because of the changes in how your skills scale faster now against how your target's skills scale, meleeing at 74 with capped skills against even match is different than capped level 90 skills against an even match. Level 90 melee with level 74 skill is not level 90 melee with capped skill. Therefore, your particular experience with melee at 90 would not be the same as a level 90 would experience with capped skill. This has not only happend with just offense either--I certainly am able take more hits now than I used too with the same behavior at lower levels against mobs in the same level differences. It all comes together in the end and simply has gotten considerably better in comparison when you are fighting mobs with the same level differences now.

I think we're disagreeing while agreeing here, I said that SMN melee can be used situationally lol.

even my 30s base duration buffs now last 3+ minutes thats time enough for a skiled SMN to fulltime 4 buffs.

I know that the damage increases with extra skill etc. my point is if i knew how to melee at 75 I'll still know how it works at 90 cap except it'd be easier. I didn't miss your point it's just not really applicable here I'm a 90 SMN and I have been close to capped skill before and I've meleed in this state so I know how melee works on SMN. Just because the effect is slightly different doesn't mean the practise would be any different.

I've noticed no real change in the damage I can take aside from my capped SS on /sch. Mobs seem to hit just as hard as before, If not harder. I got nuked for over 1k twice in Beacedine [s] by EPs, I was prety damn surprised.

[Dallas]

SMN is rank #10 this year. You are welcome.

[Neonii]

No...not all your buffs that mitigate damage are AOE. You can maintain Blink, and SS on yourself more consistently than you can party wide. If you are /RDM, phalanx and bars are only for you. There is also atma selection in the case of abyssea. Likewise, there are gear selections specific to yourself and not others--I once got a tell asking how I was intimidating a mob on SMN...it was because of a piece of gear.

If you are staying out of the wide AOE range of an NM or something, you may be out of range to even call your BP Wards and have to run in first to do it...whereas if you are down there already, you just call it. So calling SMN buffs from backline versus frontline CAN be considerably different in some scenarios. Also, being down there when you see a -ga cued up, when you quickly hit a bar that automatically focuses on yourself you KNOW it is going to hit the full front line, versus having to to worry about positioning if your back line is on the edge of casting. Same goes for curing from the backline--DD's sometimes get knocked back or otherwise can get positioned just out of your casting range and you have to adjust a lot. So, again...being closer to the action can prove beneficial in some cases. The point is, there are pros and cons to both scenarios--but if you are able to manage it effectively, why can't you do it? Because people who don't understand it say you can't?

And as for this whole issue of tickling a mob...your statments here can just as easily be used to say a NIN should /mage and sit in the back to use ranged, ninjutsu, and support magic from subjob, or PLD should be a backline job, or BST, or PUP--essentially all you are saying is that any job that can't keep up with jobs x y z should be relegated to backline utility, where the value of x y z can change depending on what someone personally thinks are the top 3 DD jobs.

Again with this whole "understanding how melee works"--I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the actual NUMBERS at play--the difference in the ACTUAL RESULTS between two different levels of proficiency and the impact it may have on playstyle. I can't rightfully go into the RNG forums and complain about issues with 90 RNG because my RNG was retired at 51, all I can properly do is complain about my experiences up to level 51. Even though my Archery is at 250, and I've used SAM/RNG...I can't even talk accurately about RNG at a comparable level for my archery skill simply because I haven't played RNG past level 51, and have only used it as a subjob since I retired it at 51 several years ago. Likewise, someone with level 74 staff skill doesn't have much to stand on for arguing about how staff performs at level 90 staff skill--they can only talk from experience about how it performs at that 74 level. I haven't experienced playing at higher than a level 51 RNG, you haven't experienced swinging with a 335+ staff skill--people can't really put a lot of stock in what either of us have to say on anything beyond our own experiences.

Have you posted your gear set up ? I would not mind taking a peek.

[Razushu]

SMN is rank #10 this year. You are welcome.

that has absolutely, utterly, positively nothing to do with you. This has to do with people who leveled the job and gladly 90+% will have never encountered you, or it's safe to say the job would be dead in the eyes of the player base

[Dallas]

You can argue that BST and SMN jumped 6 spots for any reason you like, but the answer is "soloing in Abyssea" which requires Ducal Guard. No one was looking at -pdt pet builds but me.

[Razushu]

You can argue that BST and SMN jumped 6 spots for any reason you like, but the answer is "soloing in Abyssea" which requires Ducal Guard. No one was looking at -pdt pet builds but me.

and everyone else don't forget them it's a select club. I can't think of anyone that would see -50% PDT and not think "hmmmm.... I could use this for my avatar". Next you'll claim you're responsible for people using spirits for elemental siphon

[Dallas]

and everyone else don't forget them it's a select club. I can't think of anyone that would see -50% PDT and not think "hmmmm.... I could use this for my avatar". Next you'll claim you're responsible for people using spirits for elemental siphon

Your lie doesn't get you far, when I was the only person working on -PDT builds months before Heroes was released. Pick any 5 SMN on your friend list. How much Avatar: pdt gear do they all own between them?

[Arciel]

LOL.. you ask how much as if there are actually options.

there is a grand total of TWO pieces of pet: dt/pdt gear that a SMN can use..
Selenian Cap with augment, and TotM staff (Shareeravadi)

the former, I actually bothered to use for a while but it's honestly wasted because I have BST as well and the 10% dmg taken goes a much longer way there.
the latter, a SMN has no real reason to get because before heroes, if you were aiming to max PDT, inclusive of 2 atma and both pieces of gear, you'd still be a little short of 100%, which isn't actually that bad but you'd be forgoing atma to sustain perp/bp MP costs. your avatar would still die rather quickly because they have pitifully short HP counts and you don't have a reliable way of healing them apart from Ward healing back to back, which you won't likely be able to sustain given MP constraints.
Drop an atma or the staff, and your pet will be dying a whole lot faster. but at least then you can melee with your Hvergelmir for Myrkr rite?

end of the day, it boils down to this...
- if you can kite the NM, you're better off doing that and killing (solo) for SMN because it takes no effort to stack damage and your avatar is disposable, and will take just as long, if not faster because you're not geared/specced for damage.
- if you can't kite the NM, you could have an avatar straight tank it but you're going to take a helluva long time to kill it - back in 2 atma days (also considering empyrean gear options), chances of you running out of mp is higher if you didn't use refresh atma - and your avatar would likely be your only source of dmg.
- if you can straight tank with the avatar and melee, well then obviously your avatar wouldn't be tanking it since you claim that it has trouble pulling hate from your awesome melee no?

so which is it

[Malamasala]

SMN is rank #10 this year. You are welcome.

That list is very confusing, since I see just as many PUPs as SMNs, and I believe PUP was rank 19 or 20. I'll just assume all the SMNs are on other servers than Phoenix.

[Razushu]

That list is very confusing, since I see just as many PUPs as SMNs, and I believe PUP was rank 19 or 20. I'll just assume all the SMNs are on other servers than Phoenix.

I think it's what people have leveled to cap not what people are maining

[Razushu]

Your lie doesn't get you far, when I was the only person working on -PDT builds months before Heroes was released. Pick any 5 SMN on your friend list. How much Avatar: pdt gear do they all own between them?

What lie?

It took you months to find all the gear with pet: PDT-% on it? - PDT is kinda pointless with disposable pets unless it's a big number.

[Malamasala]

It isn't really useless. The longer your pet lives, the more time you have to melee.

I've still not seen all that much -PDT gear around though. And I believe the augmented one for example was applied AFTER your initial 50% avatar PDT was removed. so 100 damage turns into 50 damage and then you might remove 5% from that, which is more like 2 damage than 5 damage.

[Razushu]

It isn't really useless. The longer your pet lives, the more time you have to melee.

I've still not seen all that much -PDT gear around though. And I believe the augmented one for example was applied AFTER your initial 50% avatar PDT was removed. so 100 damage turns into 50 damage and then you might remove 5% from that, which is more like 2 damage than 5 damage.

If your solo and you'll need to recast melee is a poor idea unless you do less damage than a single Blood pact rage can do, chances are you'll pull too much hate for a fresh avatar to take quick enough to save you, and if your in a party who cares if your avatar dies call a new one. I said pointless not useless as in yes you can have a slightly longer lasting pet but will it change the fight enough to justify stacking it?

[Ulric]

So, Malamasala, let me try to understand something. You want SMN to be able to melee really well, buff really well, deal tons of damage with their pets, and buff amazingly well? So, you want it to just do most everyone else's job for them? Most of that isn't in the role of what Summoner is supposed to do, in my opinion. White Mage can deal a lot of damage melee, yes, but it isn't their role. I've seen White Mages outdamage some DDs, but it just isn't their job to attack, theirs is to support a group by healing and buffs. I've seen a Black Mage do incredible melee damage, but again, melee damage is not their role. Summoner's role, is to support the party with damage from pets, which has hit numbers that make my DD's envious, as well as buffing that I believe mostly stacks with other buffs of the same type, or offers something that you can't get readily elsewhere. Your job isn't to be the main damage mitigation, that's the jobs with higher forms of doing it, such as White Mage and Red Mage. Leave melee to the jobs that specialize in it. Learn your role a bit better. Honestly, my Summoner isn't a main by any means, and I feel I know more about it than you might. But, as I said before, this is all just personal opinion.

[Malamasala]

So, Malamasala, let me try to understand something.

How nice of you to try and understand it.


You want SMN to be able to melee really well, buff really well, deal tons of damage with their pets, and buff amazingly well?

Depends on your rating of "really well". A SMN should melee as good as a PUP, since both jobs are at the core identical (the difference being one has MP the other doesn't). If you think PUP melee too well for a SMN to match it, then it isn't my fault that PUP is overpowered.

And yes, I want the job to buff really well. Have you taken a second glance at our buffs? 90% defensive buffs. What point is there to have weak defense buffs to not replace BRD and COR that has offense buffs? I promise you that even if SMN could give you a 24 hour icespikes effect, they'd still not replace BRDs in parties. The closest I get to challenging BRDs and CORs, is that I want more than 30 seconds Crimson Howl (with 8% attack bonus, it may as well be 15 min duration). I also don't want my howls and growls to depend on moon to be good. (Yea, I know, overpowered to be strong more often than once every 5 days)

I'm pretty sure I've never said I wanted to do more damage though. You must be confusing me with someone else. What I want is to do more debuffs with my low level pacts. Like throw out Dispel, without using my global ward timer. Apply blind to the mob, without using up my global rage pact timer.

It just hit me that maybe you meant my spirit changes? In some ways it would of course increase damage, but the main point is to increase my pet selection, rather than my damage. I also believe I have addressed that on Abyssea mobs with absorb modes, you want the BP control rather than timed nukes that might end up during an absorb mode.


Honestly, my Summoner isn't a main by any means, and I feel I know more about it than you might. But, as I said before, this is all just personal opinion.

I think you probably have to have mained it back in the old days to understand. Main healing with cure 3 for 75 levels and all your merits will make you wonder about what the job really is about. You'll start to wonder what would have happened if you didn't have cure 3. What would you do between recasts of Blood Pacts? Melee or spirits seems like the obvious choices, but neither of them would have worked. Stand and watch? It seems unlikely the design of the job was for you to just BP and clean your room until next BP.

It is these events that make you think outside the box. Trying to find the true purpose of the job, which was never achieved due to clumsy design choices. While NIN didn't become what it was intended, it grew into a powerful tank role. SMN on the other hand shrunk instead into a role-less assist healer.

Any day I'd say I agree with you about what the SMN can do. I'm well aware of it, just not interested. I'm interested in what we could be doing, with just some tweaks of values in the code. I've said it since 2004. It would only take ONE WEEK to make SMN perfect by tweaking the range/duration/recast/cost of things. Nothing new is required, just number tweaks.

I'd like to see any other job (or player) claim they'd be happy to never get anything more, just a maintenance of the existing job.

[Ulric]

I may have been confusing some of what was said about damage with someone else, or with something you said, I apologize. I agree with you on the timers for BP:Rage/Ward, but I disagree with most everything else. Also, this isn't the old days anymore. I may not understand how things worked back then, but I have a pretty good grasp of how things are now. Thinking outside the box is good, and it sometimes works. But also, it sometimes doesn't. I feel a Summoner meleeing would not work out as well, because going by the lore of this game, and previous Final Fantasy games before it, as was stated before, it is a mage, and that's not the role of that type of job. If you want to melee, there are decent staves you can use for it, feel free to have at it, but I don't think they should add too much to make it oriented for melee. It would be, to me, similar to having a Ninja riding in on a dragon and throwing giant axes at people all willy-nilly.

[Razushu]

Depends on your rating of "really well". A SMN should melee as good as a PUP, since both jobs are at the core identical (the difference being one has MP the other doesn't). If you think PUP melee too well for a SMN to match it, then it isn't my fault that PUP is overpowered.


I agree with nearly everything you say, but SMN was never intended as a frontline melee. Any job can be geared to melee but that doesn't mean they were intended to melee, by all means melee if you want but stop comparing SMN to DRK, DRG and now PUP.

[Dallas]

It took you months to find all the gear with pet: PDT-% on it?

Go read up on it on wiki forums.

http://forums.ffxiclopedia.org/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=25873

There were:

1) Magian staff. As far as I know, I'm the only one who finished -pdt.
2) Augmented hat, which I had to toss/rebuild.
3) -mdt belt, I camped it for weeks based on bad information. My bad.
4) Several Avatar: Defense Bonus or Enhances avatar defense items. They help, and only I care.
5) 2 -10% pdt Atma, pre-Heroes.

Oh, and this:

6) 3 regen Atma: 15, 15, and 20.

#6 is very important, since the combination of regen and -pdt is why avatar tanking works on some of the toughest NMs. I discovered that even without the existance of DG, pet tanking/kiting capacity would improve an additional 460% in Abyssea. That means I would have to summon my pets once for every five times the average SMN would, IF the mob was strong enough to break through the regen/cures. Yes, melee is VERY possible where your pet can tank it. Talk to any BST.

As for my melee gear surpassing that of my avatar? The solution is -enmity, or a real tank. I can deal 60% more damage than my pet and stay out of harm's way.

[Karbuncle]

1) Magian staff. As far as I know, I'm the only one who finished -pdt.
I have one (Well, Its almost finished...!)


2) Augmented hat, which I had to toss/rebuild
I got this for my BST/PUP :|, Considered it for SMN too, Sucks having mutliple jobs.
.

3) -mdt belt, I camped it for weeks based on bad information. My bad.
Selemnus Belt? I tried camping that, Evil NM.
.


5) 2 -10% pdt Atma, pre-Heroes.
Atma of the Heavens and? Can't think of the other off the top of my head.

[Dallas]

Karb, picking BST over SMN is like picking chocolate over vanilla ice cream. I am glad to hear someone else is going for Shareerevadi -pdt. SE noticed that players like pet tanking, so I expect some gear choices to show up for outside of Abyssea.

:)

The other pdt Atma is Lions. I skipped those when I found out how much more potent regen was for SMN. 50HP regen with 60% -PDT turns into 125 effective regen, where 35HP regen with 70% -PDT is only 116 effective regen. The magic vulnerability is what tips the scale to regen.

Of course, DG "ruined" it all, but we get to leave Abyssea knowing about auto-guard, so the work isn't a complete loss.

[Razushu]

Go read up on it on wiki forums.

http://forums.ffxiclopedia.org/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=25873

There were:

1) Magian staff. As far as I know, I'm the only one who finished -pdt.
2) Augmented hat, which I had to toss/rebuild.
3) -mdt belt, I camped it for weeks based on bad information. My bad.
4) Several Avatar: Defense Bonus or Enhances avatar defense items. They help, and only I care.
5) 2 -10% pdt Atma, pre-Heroes.

Oh, and this:

6) 3 regen Atma: 15, 15, and 20.

#6 is very important, since the combination of regen and -pdt is why avatar tanking works on some of the toughest NMs. I discovered that even without the existance of DG, pet tanking/kiting capacity would improve an additional 460% in Abyssea. That means I would have to summon my pets once for every five times the average SMN would, IF the mob was strong enough to break through the regen/cures. Yes, melee is VERY possible where your pet can tank it. Talk to any BST.

As for my melee gear surpassing that of my avatar? The solution is -enmity, or a real tank. I can deal 60% more damage than my pet and stay out of harm's way.

I'm sorry but you seemed to misunderstand the mocking tone in my post when I said

It took you months to find all the gear with pet: PDT-% on it?

I was mocking the fact it took you months to find something that it took 20 minutes to find on the ah/wiki sites. Why are you posting forums from Nov last year? Is this you claiming you "discovered" all of those things. Every update(and I'm extremely sure I'm not alone in this) I check the new items section on ffxiah.com to see if my jobs got anything useful and also (again I'm extremely sure I'm not alone in this) when new content comes out I check to see if there's things that my jobs can beat or benefit from(Atmas).

Of course you're the only one that cares about avatar: defense bonus each piece is only +10 on a disposable pet, which is pretty much a total waste of a slot compared to most pieces of useful gear. A big part of what makes BST melee feasible on things is the fact they shed ALL THEIR hate onto their pet every 30s. If you're stacking regen/-PDT% atmas you've gimped you Blood pacts to keep the pet out so you can melee the NM kinda pointless when you can just max out your BPs and kite the thing to death very easily

inb4


Yeah But I discovered them and invented cheese

[Malamasala]

I agree with nearly everything you say, but SMN was never intended as a frontline melee. Any job can be geared to melee but that doesn't mean they were intended to melee, by all means melee if you want but stop comparing SMN to DRK, DRG and now PUP.

I still don't see what gives you the idea it would be a backline job.

HP? If so, then taru are backline races.
MP? If so, PLD and DRK are backline jobs.
Pets? If so, BST and PUP and DRG are backline jobs.

Heck, your avatars are BLMs as jobs, and you say they should be the ones up front meleeing.

The only logical deduction is that SMN is a frontline job. But I won't argue with you that SMN being a backline job is the "normal" thing to think. Like the world being flat years ago. It is incredibly hard to convince people they are wrong, if they have no desire to change their opinion.

I'd suggest you re-roll as galka, and get a view of how SMN without taru HP survives at melee range. You'll be surprised at how little damage you take. (I'd say 95% of the time you are more likely to be yelled at for "feeding TP" than actually being a sponge on MP)

[Razushu]

I'm pretty sure you're trolling but what the hell I'll keep replying


I still don't see what gives you the idea it would be a backline job.

The complete lack of any frontline trait and Final Fantasy canon... also the complete lack of frontline traits


HP? If so, then taru are backline races.
MP? If so, PLD and DRK are backline jobs.
Pets? If so, BST and PUP and DRG are backline jobs.

PLD, DRK, BST, PUP and DRG all have frontline traits they were designed as such SMN was not comparing SMN to any of these is like comparing fish to birds


Heck, your avatars are BLMs as jobs, and you say they should be the ones up front meleeing.

Avatars are BLMs sure(I'd call that poor design though) but they -50% PDT native and hell they're disposable.



The only logical deduction is that SMN is a frontline job. But I won't argue with you that SMN being a backline job is the "normal" thing to think. Like the world being flat years ago. It is incredibly hard to convince people they are wrong, if they have no desire to change their opinion.

The illogical deduction that SMN is a frontline job is more akin to when the notion that the earth was round was gathering support there was one guy saying the earth was hexagonal and made of frozen yoghurt.


I'd suggest you re-roll as galka, and get a view of how SMN without taru HP survives at melee range. You'll be surprised at how little damage you take. (I'd say 95% of the time you are more likely to be yelled at for "feeding TP" than actually being a sponge on MP)

Of course you'll take less damage as a non-DD job meleeing you'd only pull hate off people with MUCH worse gear than you. I don't need to play as a Galka to understand, when I could just level a frontline job on my Taru and see a similar Difference in HP but also a FAR greater difference in ability as a frontline DD

[Karbuncle]

I'm pretty sure you're trolling but what the hell I'll keep replying



The complete lack of any frontline trait and Final Fantasy canon... also the complete lack of frontline traits



PLD, DRK, BST, PUP and DRG all have frontline traits they were designed as such SMN was not comparing SMN to any of these is like comparing fish to birds



Avatars are BLMs sure(I'd call that poor design though) but they -50% PDT native and hell they're disposable.




The illogical deduction that SMN is a frontline job is more akin to when the notion that the earth was round was gathering support there was one guy saying the earth was hexagonal and made of frozen yoghurt.



Of course you'll take less damage as a non-DD job meleeing you'd only pull hate off people with MUCH worse gear than you. I don't need to play as a Galka to understand, when I could just level a frontline job on my Taru and see a similar Difference in HP but also a FAR greater difference in ability as a frontline DD

While some of your points are sound, SMN Really only has 2 options outside of Avatars.

A) Being a gimp Healer. (Face it, Don't lie. Cure IV is gimp, even with 50% Cure potency, Its gimp, and it raises a lot of Enmity).

B) Or Being a Mediocre Melee.

When I'm faced with 2 Options, I chose the one that most productive to my time. If I'm in a party as SMN for whatever reason, and theres also a WHM in my party, I'm chosing Option B, Melee. If i'm The only healer in the party (Which in itself would be absolutely stupid if you're fighting anything stronger than a Land Worm), I'll default to my Gimp healing Abilities.

I have gear for both, I come prepared for both aspects.

Theres obviously situations for everything, But as Mediocre as SMN melee is, Its more productive than sicking your avatar then picking your nose hoping your WHM slips up on their cure duties so you can spend some MP. SMN Melee, Especially in Abyssea where you can stock up on DD Atmas (For Predator Claws) is not awful.

When you get to the bare bones, If your WHM is worth a spit, and for whatever reason You're there on SMN, Your better off Meleeing with your pet if you have a proper build.

Of course its not for Every NM (*Hint: Ones with multiple annoying TP moves where your TP Feed would get in the way), But for some fights, in some situations, Its useful.

Limited though it may be, the Idea is sound. It lacks Frontline Traits yes, But it does not erase the notion of it being able to Melee. WHM lacks any front-line Job Trait, (Maybe aside From afflatus Misery but if that counts so does Garuda's Hastega, Ifrit's Crimson Howl, Etc), But WHM melee is fun/has some places (Limited as it may be).

[Rafien]

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/guide/development/census/10/2.html

Summoner is in the top ten jobs.. They are fine.

[Razushu]

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/guide/development/census/10/2.html

Summoner is in the top ten jobs.. They are fine.

tell that to my underpowered avatars and god awful global timer

[Rafien]

tell that to my underpowered avatars and god awful global timer

I've seen summons out damage me, a DRK, that should NEVER happen.

[Razushu]

While some of your points are sound, SMN Really only has 2 options outside of Avatars.

A) Being a gimp Healer. (Face it, Don't lie. Cure IV is gimp, even with 50% Cure potency, Its gimp, and it raises a lot of Enmity).

B) Or Being a Mediocre Melee.

When I'm faced with 2 Options, I chose the one that most productive to my time. If I'm in a party as SMN for whatever reason, and theres also a WHM in my party, I'm chosing Option B, Melee. If i'm The only healer in the party (Which in itself would be absolutely stupid if you're fighting anything stronger than a Land Worm), I'll default to my Gimp healing Abilities.

I have gear for both, I come prepared for both aspects.

Theres obviously situations for everything, But as Mediocre as SMN melee is, Its more productive than sicking your avatar then picking your nose hoping your WHM slips up on their cure duties so you can spend some MP. SMN Melee, Especially in Abyssea where you can stock up on DD Atmas (For Predator Claws) is not awful.

When you get to the bare bones, If your WHM is worth a spit, and for whatever reason You're there on SMN, Your better off Meleeing with your pet if you have a proper build.

Of course its not for Every NM (*Hint: Ones with multiple annoying TP moves where your TP Feed would get in the way), But for some fights, in some situations, Its useful.

Limited though it may be, the Idea is sound. It lacks Frontline Traits yes, But it does not erase the notion of it being able to Melee. WHM lacks any front-line Job Trait, (Maybe aside From afflatus Misery but if that counts so does Garuda's Hastega, Ifrit's Crimson Howl, Etc), But WHM melee is fun/has some places (Limited as it may be).

I'm not saying it can't be geared to melee, any job can. I'm just arguing against the idea that it was designed and implemented as a melee job.

[Dallas]

Of course you're the only one that cares about avatar: defense bonus each piece is only +10 on a disposable pet

If your staff skill didn't blow chunks, your pet wouldn't be disposable. Anyone capable of doing more than scratching the enemy wants a pet that doesn't die.

BTW, the bolded statement is a lie. You can't possibly know something that is, to this day, still unknown. I can tell you, because I bothered to check, that most defense gear for avatars gives a visible increase to defense. Anyone kiting should be using the gear.

If you read all the gear every update, why do you not know anything about your job?

[Razushu]

If your staff skill didn't blow chunks, your pet wouldn't be disposable. Anyone capable of doing more than scratching the enemy wants a pet that doesn't die.

BTW, the bolded statement is a lie. You can't possibly know something that is, to this day, still unknown. I can tell you, because I bothered to check, that most defense gear for avatars gives a visible increase to defense. Anyone kiting should be using the gear.

If you read all the gear every update, why do you not know anything about your job?

Avatars are Disposable it's part of their charm it's how they were designed regardless of whether you're meleeing or not they are still disposable. If you need to wear all pet: survivability + gear and equip x3 tanking atmas so you can beat the NM whats the point in meleeing anyway.

How is re-summonable at anytime with zero downside or cost outside MP not disposable. Disposable is a good thing ask PUP and DRG. Nobody Kiting will be using that gear because you lose out on valuable gear choices to use the def bns for a negligible increase in #Avatar longevity. Why is it negligible you will ask? Because when kiting the Avatar only needs to last long enough to BP and give you time to run to a safe distance so that by the time the NM kills it and reaches you you have a fresh Avatar moving to engage and BP: Rage is ready again.I love the accusation that I know nothing about my main from a guy who has contributed nothing of worth to ANY discussion he's been involved in and cowers from any request to back up his outlandish claims. It's a fairly safe assumption that I or anyone who's ever looked at an avatar know more about SMN than you.

[Dallas]

Poor Raz. No one would ever use that gear in Abyssea because I found a single atma that caps -pdt. Take away DG, and you go back to kiting.

defensive gear = fewer resummons = more time dealing damage = faster kills

Once again, you are stuck wearing one set of gear to pretend you have enough MP to play SMN. If only there were SOME WAY to recover MP without having to waste all your gear slots on -perp.

[Leonlionheart]

Guys you don't have to listen to dallas, he's a lvl 1 rdm

[Malamasala]

Raz, I think you keep jumping to the wrong conclusions.


Avatars are Disposable it's part of their charm it's how they were designed regardless of whether you're meleeing or not they are still disposable.

Avatars were NEVER designed to be disposable. They were designed to be interchangable. You were supposed to access pacts by swapping pets. That is why you can remove one pet and get a new one. If SE had done like PUP and let us remove our pet, but wait 10 min on summoning next because it had taken 5 damage, it would have never worked.

Disposability was just a side-effect, that wasn't planned at all. In fact kiting itself is probably abusing game mechanics, it is just that SE doesn't really care if you kite mobs. They'll just smile and say "Look at that SMN running all over the place. I wonder if he'll survive."


The complete lack of any frontline trait and Final Fantasy canon... also the complete lack of frontline traits

That is where you are wrong.

Melee traits:
Resist slow
Auto-refresh

They aren't spectacular, but none of them are needed at backlines where you can just avoid slow, erase your own slow as /WHM, or kneel and rest MP with your clear mind trait.

It is of course still just opinions. Like my opinion is that RDM has refresh to allow them to melee and regain MP. Your opinion might be that RDM is a terrible melee, so they got refresh to be good at backlines instead.


The point though, is that you are ignorant if you can't see things speak just as much for frontline SMN as for backline. None of them are a clear winner. Perhaps because the job is a jack of all trades and sucks at everything, but is intended to do everything.

[Malamasala]

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/guide/development/census/10/2.html

Summoner is in the top ten jobs.. They are fine.

Statistics are just lies. According to the list, one would assume BRD and SMN swapped places, and that must be because SMN level 80+ wards are superior to songs, right? Why else would two support jobs swap places if it wasn't their support roles that changed?

The truth is closer to SMNs now not being told "Go away, you are useless" and BRDs not being told "Please leave your party and join ours. We got to have 2 BRDs or we can't exp!". In other words, both jobs are treated as optional party members. Instead of don't want or must have.

[Razushu]

Poor Raz. No one would ever use that gear in Abyssea because I found a single atma that caps -pdt. Take away DG, and you go back to kiting.

defensive gear = fewer resummons = more time dealing damage = faster kills

Once again, you are stuck wearing one set of gear to pretend you have enough MP to play SMN. If only there were SOME WAY to recover MP without having to waste all your gear slots on -perp.

Add DG and you'll still be kiting there's far too many NMs that'll still kill an avatar with DG up(If you don't think so you aren't really doing anything you claim to). DG didn't get rid of kiting it made it alittle safer.

defensive gear = slightly fewer resummons = a little more time dealing damage = slightly faster kills.

unless you want to post evidence to the contarary, seeing as the Bulk of avatar's DD comes from Blood pacts you'd need to show something pretty concrete to validate stacking def gear because even with Karura Hachigane on/off theres never been a noticable difference in Garuda's longevity.

Onjce again you insist on meleeing when unnecessary/ill advised so you can have the same staying power as a full perp/refresh set You know as in I don't need SOME WAY of getting MP back.

Glad to see you're still claiming that you discovered DG I think thats what I missed most of all about you while you were gone the outlandish claims.

[Razushu]

Raz, I think you keep jumping to the wrong conclusions.



Avatars were NEVER designed to be disposable. They were designed to be interchangable. You were supposed to access pacts by swapping pets. That is why you can remove one pet and get a new one. If SE had done like PUP and let us remove our pet, but wait 10 min on summoning next because it had taken 5 damage, it would have never worked.

Disposability was just a side-effect, that wasn't planned at all. In fact kiting itself is probably abusing game mechanics, it is just that SE doesn't really care if you kite mobs. They'll just smile and say "Look at that SMN running all over the place. I wonder if he'll survive."

You think SMN = DRK and you claim I'm jumping to the wrong conclusion. I'd say they were designed with both in mind, if they were designed with just interchangablitiy in mind SE wouldn't be so interested in us keeping them out longer. Seeing as the ability to spam throwing avatars at a mob til it dies is the only thing of SMNs's that works completely I'd say it's fair to assume it was part of the design. Kiting isn't against the rules pinning is that's why they fixed it.




That is where you are wrong.

Melee traits:
Resist slow
Auto-refresh

They aren't spectacular, but none of them are needed at backlines where you can just avoid slow, erase your own slow as /WHM, or kneel and rest MP with your clear mind trait.

It is of course still just opinions. Like my opinion is that RDM has refresh to allow them to melee and regain MP. Your opinion might be that RDM is a terrible melee, so they got refresh to be good at backlines instead.


The point though, is that you are ignorant if you can't see things speak just as much for frontline SMN as for backline. None of them are a clear winner. Perhaps because the job is a jack of all trades and sucks at everything, but is intended to do everything.

Resist slow is a pointless trait, But it's hardly a melee trait. Your logic applies to the frontlines too what SAM cares about slow when there's a WHM to erase it. the REsist slow is more than likely because under the wrong circumstances slow would be the death of a SMN just like paralyze and silence, also most jobs past the original 6 get a resist trait regardless of play design so that's still a poor arguement.

Auto-refresh is so we can keep our Avatar';s out longer pure and simple. All forms of MP regeneration were designed not to increase melee capacity, they were designed to help eliminate downtime. SMN has auto-refresh and clear mind because we hemorrhage MP with an avatar out barring refresh/perp gear. I think RDM make a fine light DD they got refresh to eliminate downtime for themselves and party memeber regardless of their other duties at that particular moment.

There's nothing in the job that speaks for frontline at all, they're really isn't we have less fior frontline than any other job the job was designed as a jack of all trades relying on the pet, but the pets need a massive fix. They made SMN as a half job because we are missing all the healing magic they usually have in other FFs(although we can add them via /whm, sch and rdm).

[Neisan_Quetz]

SMN has a G rating in HP j/s, that's below F rating.

[Dallas]

SMN has a G rating in HP j/s, that's below F rating.

Completely pointless argument when the subpar SMN arms himself to the teeth in -hp gear.

[Evilvivi]

Completely pointless argument when the subpar SMN arms himself to the teeth in -hp gear.

I would really like to know what -hp gear a smn would use. Please hum- I mean enlighten me please.

[Dallas]

DG didn't get rid of kiting it made it alittle safer.

Only a little safer? Are you even playing the same game as the rest of us?


I would really like to know what -hp gear a smn would use. Please hum- I mean enlighten me please.

There's an mp build for Myrkr WS, but we're talking about gimp SMN, not the good ones. Same gear, full-timed.

[Neisan_Quetz]

You have the worst HP pool of any mage was the point I was trying to clarify over Mala stating smn hp shouldn't be considered if you think smn is a backline job and that taru should be a backline race. But I digress since you're not even comparing the same thing. Aside from blm using sorc ring any race on Smn will have less hp than said race on any other job. If actually trying to DD through melee you would be subbing Sam, if not you're subbing a mage job and/or /war for procs or something and unless it's some weak mob/has no AoEs period you're better off supporting from the back. You (Dallas) yourself admitted you die from the damage you deal meleeing so at that point you're just being a detriment to the group/you need better melee/healers.

EDIT: Even then blm still has manawall/enmity douse disregarding sub since most blms won't be meleeing.

[Razushu]

Only a little safer? Are you even playing the same game as the rest of us?

It has neither gotten rid of or overhauled it, kiting was already really safe and reliable anyway, so yes only a little safer. I'm still not sure what game you're playing but me and everyone else here are playing FFXI you should try it it's a really good game.


There's an mp build for Myrkr WS, but we're talking about gimp SMN, not the good ones. Same gear, full-timed.

The only gimp SMN here is you mate, that's why you're so afraid to post a gear set let alone link a real character

[Rezeak]

I'm gonna reply to the OP

You really don't understand Summoner at all.

SMN in abyssea can pretty much solo any mob in abyssea it takes time but still it's an impressive thing outside that it does enough DMG to get by and u can astral burn crap for boxes.

honestly theres plenty SMN can do in abyssea and yes it's not a fast DD but thats never what SMN is about.

Outside abyssea it still has it's niche as the safe/low hate DD if you have a had to handle mob (voidwatch this is the case ALOT) SMN can constantly pump DMG out meaning all the rest of the party has to do is stay alive.
still one of the most reliable method of killing crap is Tank party + SMN party.

outside this there is alot of obsolete rubbish on SMN Favors, spirits ect but forget that stuff.

honestly when i read the OP all i got from it was "O SE tell me how to play my job cause i'm too lazy to work it out or ask other useful SMNs"

[Dallas]

You (Dallas) yourself admitted you die from the damage you deal meleeing so at that point you're just being a detriment to the group/you need better melee/healers.

Don't quote me without understanding what you are quoting. The ONLY thing that can't keep hate off me is my avatar. Real tanks can still tank. I have broken SMN, nothing else. I wear -enmity because the job is capped in solo potential ONLY by the terrible performance of our pets. With a minor sacrifice in accuracy/attack (which don't affect my performance much), I can deal 60% more damage than my pets and still function. Yes, I still pull hate because I am that much better than my pets.

And some of you only use those terrible pets...

[Razushu]

Don't quote me without understanding what you are quoting. The ONLY thing that can't keep hate off me is my avatar. Real tanks can still tank. I have broken SMN, nothing else. I wear -enmity because the job is capped in solo potential ONLY by the terrible performance of our pets. With a minor sacrifice in accuracy/attack (which don't affect my performance much), I can deal 60% more damage than my pets and still function. Yes, I still pull hate because I am that much better than my pets.

And some of you only use those terrible pets...

If you think Avatar's are that terrible you need to play SMN as a subpar DD, go level another job. Our pets aren't terrible, they're disposable spike damage dealer's not meant for DPS(only thing holding them back is BP delay timer). You've broken nothing, all you've done is say "I haz stix, I hitz things me uber!" with nothing to back it up, let alone admit melee has situational uses only. On SMN any sacrifice to acc or atk is more than minor seeing as we have pretty much none to start with. Congratulations you can pull hate off the most broken thing in the game, avatars are in need of a big fix have been since day one and they weren't even designed to be DPS. /clap

[Korpg]

If your staff skill didn't blow chunks, your pet wouldn't be disposable.

That's right! Because with a decent staff skill, your avatar wouldn't have the chance to die, before the summoner dies!

Avatars won't be disposable anymore. You will. Both in parties and solo.

[Neisan_Quetz]

CG on outmeleeing a naked blm?

[Neonii]

I'm gonna reply to the OP

You really don't understand Summoner at all.

SMN in abyssea can pretty much solo any mob in abyssea it takes time but still it's an impressive thing outside that it does enough DMG to get by and u can astral burn crap for boxes.

honestly theres plenty SMN can do in abyssea and yes it's not a fast DD but thats never what SMN is about.

Outside abyssea it still has it's niche as the safe/low hate DD if you have a had to handle mob (voidwatch this is the case ALOT) SMN can constantly pump DMG out meaning all the rest of the party has to do is stay alive.
still one of the most reliable method of killing crap is Tank party + SMN party.

outside this there is alot of obsolete rubbish on SMN Favors, spirits ect but forget that stuff.

honestly when i read the OP all i got from it was "O SE tell me how to play my job cause i'm too lazy to work it out or ask other useful SMNs"

Will you share with me how you manage to proc mobs solo in Abyssea? I can solo stuff but I have found doing the necessary procs difficult. However, I am willing to learn and improve. Care to share some of your bag of tricks? I would imagine it has to do with sub job? I prob need to level more at this time I only have whm and rdm sub leveled. In fact I think we should make a whole topic called SMN bag of tricks so the smn community can network.

[Zanoza]

[/QUOTE] Does SMN always have something to do? No, and it's one of the only jobs for which that's true. However, the avatar is not monopolizing the summoner's resources; they could be tossing buffs or cures from your subjob if they're that bored. What's more, is they're one of the only jobs that can be contributing to a fight while staying near-constantly out of AoE range and having very little risk of taking hate in a party situation.[/QUOTE]

all avatars do monopolize SMN's main resource to be an effective back-up healer or nuker, MP, the higher you get the more mp it costes to keep em out. a way that a smn can compinsate for this is in fact melee with staff since Spirit taker converts damage done into MP which can let the smn keep the avatar out longer and possibly have the mp to toss a cure here and there. Having the global cooldowns does in fact suck since it does lower dps of avatars. If you want something dead we get the short end of the stick. If SE gave us other stuff to keep us busy during the cool down and DONT say heal since a RDM or SCH main is a much better healer then smn is since they have a much higher healing skill.

[Dallas]

CG on outmeleeing a naked blm?

Congratulations on undernuking a melee RDM.

[Razushu]

Does SMN always have something to do? No, and it's one of the only jobs for which that's true. However, the avatar is not monopolizing the summoner's resources; they could be tossing buffs or cures from your subjob if they're that bored. What's more, is they're one of the only jobs that can be contributing to a fight while staying near-constantly out of AoE range and having very little risk of taking hate in a party situation.[/QUOTE]

all avatars do monopolize SMN's main resource to be an effective back-up healer or nuker, MP, the higher you get the more mp it costes to keep em out. a way that a smn can compinsate for this is in fact melee with staff since Spirit taker converts damage done into MP which can let the smn keep the avatar out longer and possibly have the mp to toss a cure here and there. Having the global cooldowns does in fact suck since it does lower dps of avatars. If you want something dead we get the short end of the stick. If SE gave us other stuff to keep us busy during the cool down and DONT say heal since a RDM or SCH main is a much better healer then smn is since they have a much higher healing skill.[/QUOTE]

Even half decent gear nowadays is enough to have free avatars. MP shouldn't be an issue at all any more unless you're still using a gear set from lvl75 cap. Until they fix the BP delay system back up healing/support is the best use of our time between BPs. We're not DDs SMN is a DD/support hybrid our DPS is lower than DDs through intent not completely failed design(Global timer indicates partially failed design though). If you find yourself at too much of a loose end start cycling buffs in a party. Also healing skill does next to nothing for Cure spells(below Cure V) only interupt rate.

[Razushu]

Congratulations on undernuking a melee RDM.

Congrats on not understanding what SMN is

[Toukai]

I always melee as Smn in abyssea parties, working on Shareeravadi+2 for pet M.atb atm which has some decent Dmg on it. My gear aint pimped out, nothin too special, but even using M.atb Atma for shiva, I do fairly well. Pull out garuda for hastega now and then (since lets face it, not many ppl really haste/buff in aby parties) or a titan for Stoneskin, keep shiva out for ice spikes and 4.5-5kish heavenly strikes, then spirit taker for my mp. Just don't like sittin on my butt for too long, love to be in the fray.

I don't bother healing unless i think i can save a life with my lolcure III if im /rdm. If i really am just in a DD mood, /sam ftw heh. The way I see it, A job can be anything you make it out to be. Even if Smn was never "meant" to DD with the big boys, we got spirit taker, some decently high damage staves, means to keep Avatars out for a long time and boost their damage. I'm not hoping to outparse a mnk in a Dolls party but i know i've outdamaged a ton of mediocre DDs with crap Atma lol. And thats enough :3 Although I would like to see some more DD gear for smn. Gimme a haste set or somethin. Don't wanna redo my scenario gear though >.>;

[Ketaru]

Melee traits:
Resist slow
Auto-refresh

They aren't spectacular, but none of them are needed at backlines where you can just avoid slow, erase your own slow as /WHM, or kneel and rest MP with your clear mind trait.

It is of course still just opinions. Like my opinion is that RDM has refresh to allow them to melee and regain MP. Your opinion might be that RDM is a terrible melee, so they got refresh to be good at backlines instead.

That's a terribly thought out case. Slow is detrimental to the magic side of things too, especially to casters that depend on casting in rapid succession like healers or blink tanks. Not to mention that Resist traits have never been dependable. They're just there so you can grin and say "Lucky me" every 1 out of 15-20 times you actually resist because of the trait.

Besides, if you were being treated like a legitimate damage dealer, most forms of Slow should never land on you because you'd have Haste effect anyway.

Ditto to Refresh which, regardless of your opinion, or backliner opinions, it functions just as well either way.

If you were going to make a case for RDM, you wouldn't go with "It has Refresh." You'd go with reasons like: native access to good critical hit weaponskills, spells that directly increase the damage of melee swings that are not a function of the weapon's DMG rating itself, a job ability that increases Accuracy and decreases casting load, and sufficient gear availability to allow you to cap gear Haste. In case you haven't noticed though, even all that doesn't produce the necessary numbers to convince the greater playerbase. And nobody can even say any of these things about SMN.


I always melee as Smn in abyssea parties, working on Shareeravadi+2 for pet M.atb atm which has some decent Dmg on it. My gear aint pimped out, nothin too special, but even using M.atb Atma for shiva, I do fairly well. Pull out garuda for hastega now and then (since lets face it, not many ppl really haste/buff in aby parties) or a titan for Stoneskin, keep shiva out for ice spikes and 4.5-5kish heavenly strikes, then spirit taker for my mp. Just don't like sittin on my butt for too long, love to be in the fray.

I don't bother healing unless i think i can save a life with my lolcure III if im /rdm. If i really am just in a DD mood, /sam ftw heh. The way I see it, A job can be anything you make it out to be. Even if Smn was never "meant" to DD with the big boys, we got spirit taker, some decently high damage staves, means to keep Avatars out for a long time and boost their damage. I'm not hoping to outparse a mnk in a Dolls party but i know i've outdamaged a ton of mediocre DDs with crap Atma lol. And thats enough :3 Although I would like to see some more DD gear for smn. Gimme a haste set or somethin. Don't wanna redo my scenario gear though >.>;

You know...I'm sure some people are going to get on my case of being some sort of internet Grammar Nazi who doesn't like to have any fun and doesn't appreciate some good light-hearted chit chat.

But some of you guys use too many smileys, too much internet chatspeak, too much "I do this" or "I do that" without seemingly any intent to prove a point. Normally, I'd completely skip over a reply like yours. But it's about time somebody puts this in writing.

If you want to convince people of your stance on something, that's a terrible way of going about it. Stuff like this belongs on AOL Instant Messenger. When I type, I'm doing it with the intention of making sure people can read what I'm saying.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Congratulations on undernuking a melee RDM.

The game, you just lost it.

[Dallas]

The game, you just lost it.

Awww, do you really believe that BP/release ranks anywhere but dead last for damage?

/comfort

[Arciel]

lol this is just rich

ITT:
Resist Slow and Auto-Refresh are melee traits!

talk about grasping at straws.

also Dallas, no one with the right sense of mind has ever taken you seriously. Even less so now that you're anon as a level 1 RDM. Besides, even if you do have a Lv90 SMN to back you up, none of what you ever say ever matches up to reality.

Ducal Guard doesn't remove the necessity to kite. It merely makes it easier to build distance, lets the avatar stay up longer. In effect a SMN never has a real need to use it unless your avatars are required to straight tank a mob that is so doom/death-spammy or does something that a BST cannot keep up with, or players may not be able to handle (like say Bukhis)

FYI, a melee RDM has been able to outnuke a SMN since time eternal. If you want to talk nuke for nuke, then thats just stupid cos in that case we all know PUP > either jobs for nukes. But in the course of 45 seconds or 1 minute, a RDM could easily make up the damage. A smart melee RDM also gear swaps when he nukes, because clearly when you're casting, you're not swinging and need none of those stats at the exact same time. Why you even want to compare anything with a melee RDM is a joke. It's like, oh i don't know, comparing a melee SMN with an Ukon WAR.

Pets are terrible! Don't even summon them. Seriously. Stay anon, and go back to your hole, because YOU ARE NOT A SUMMONER. You are a melee-mage.

[Dallas]

Ducal Guard doesn't remove the necessity to kite.

On many NMs, and all other mobs, it does. Here's one that you should be able to kill without ever resummoning: Sedna. "Necessity" increases proportionally to sucking at the job.


That too, but i like the Emp staff for its shininess :D also because I'm after certain drops from both Kukulkan and Sedna at the same time. to each his own and to suit your goals, i'd say.

I'm not a SMN, and yet you are the troll wanting the staff I own. Just remember what my shadow looks like.

[Razushu]

On many NMs, and all other mobs, it does. Here's one that you should be able to kill without ever resummoning: Sedna. "Necessity" increases proportionally to sucking at the job.

So on trash mobs and low NMs... oooh you sure have broken the game, also POIDH. If you pick your targets very carefully of course you can get by with a single avatar, but then thats like posting your numbers on Qutrub. Stacking tanking atmas will of course hurt your damage alot. Necessity is there and will always be there regardless of how much solos and personal epicness you imagine for yourself.


I'm not a SMN, and yet you are the troll wanting the staff I own. Just remember what my shadow looks like.

I'd say your shadow doesn't look like much, as lying face down in the dirt you won't be casting much of one

[Korpg]

Awww, do you really believe that BP/release ranks anywhere but dead last for damage?

/comfort

how about having to melee constantly weakened? Since that is what you are 75% of the time.

[Arciel]

On many NMs, and all other mobs, it does. Here's one that you should be able to kill without ever resummoning: Sedna. "Necessity" increases proportionally to sucking at the job.



I'm not a SMN, and yet you are the troll wanting the staff I own. Just remember what my shadow looks like.

LOL... pick a harder NM? On BST I literally AFK whilst soloing Sedna.

Also, wanting an Empy staff, not to melee btw, doesn't make me a troll. It just makes me flexible because it gives me access to a WS that has a situational use that suits me - and is also for show, since I don't have my Nirvana yet and the golden birdcage and dark staff look so bleh.

Besides, SMN isn't the only job that can use the staff, silly melee-mage.

[Dallas]

LOL... pick a harder NM? On BST I literally AFK whilst soloing Sedna.
Which you can also only do thanks to me. You lie for attention. Got it. Talk to yourself.

[Leonlionheart]

I'm not a SMN,

You heard it here first

Dallas is not a SMN

[Dallas]

The Ukon WAR continues crying.

[Razushu]

Which you can also only do thanks to me. You lie for attention. Got it. Talk to yourself.

Still claiming you discovered DG? Or is it that you actually coded it into the game now?

[Razushu]

You heard it here first

Dallas is not a SMN

I think we all knew that.

[Dallas]

Yet another post brought to you by Razushu of Fenrir.


Still claiming you discovered DG? Or is it that you actually coded it into the game now?

You can search your whole life for proof otherwise. Please go do that, no one cares about buff cycles.

[Razushu]

Yet another post brought to you by Razushu of Fenrir.



You can search your whole life for proof otherwise. Please go do that, no one cares about buff cycles.

No need to search for proof, there's none that you "discovered" it. People care more about it than your weak ass melee and constant death.

[Dallas]

No need to search for proof, there's none that you "discovered" it. People care more about it than your weak ass melee and constant death.

http://forums.ffxiclopedia.org/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=26324

I made a quick change to the OP. The odds of you being educated are slim to none, so I have immortalized your shame.

[Razushu]

http://forums.ffxiclopedia.org/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=26324

I made a quick change to the OP. The odds of you being educated are slim to none, so I have immortalized your shame.

So you post about it in late DEC I'm sorry but the BG wiki had it's info up 2 weeks before your post

[Dallas]

So you post about it in late DEC I'm sorry but the BG wiki had it's info up 2 weeks before your post

BG... you mean the website that discovered immune avatars on January 2 here?

http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/100567-Atma-Effects-amp-Discussion?p=4334739&viewfull=1#post4334739

It took less than 24 hours for my thread to be linked. Scroll down on that link, or I shall be forced to shame you with a second link. I believe BG was the last forum to find my thread.

[Razushu]

BG... you mean the website that discovered immune avatars on January 2 here?

http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/100567-Atma-Effects-amp-Discussion?p=4334739&viewfull=1#post4334739

It took less than 24 hours for my thread to be linked. Scroll down on that link, or I shall be forced to shame you with a second link. I believe BG was the last forum to find my thread.

No I mean the actual BGwiki entry(http://www.bg-wiki.com/index.php?title=Category:Abyssea_Atma&oldid=151747#Synthetic_Atma_.28Heroes.29) posted on DEC 7th stating DGs properties. Or are you claiming you discovered that this atma will work on pets, like the rest of the atma. Any fool would have read the description on this and thought "hmmm... this might be useful for pet longevity" but it takes a really special kind of fool to read a description and Claim they discovered something.

[Dallas]

Never happened. I bet you are going to tell me how the world knew all about Auto-guard too.

[Razushu]

Never happened. I bet you are going to tell me how the world knew all about Auto-guard too.

Are you saying that a link that exists with a saved state containing both the time and date doesn't exist? Because thats pretty much the definition of HAPPENED.

[Arciel]

as if whether you discovered DG makes a difference to the fact that you're a melee mage and not a SMN anyway.

which begs the question, if you were meleeing, as you always claim to be doing, you must have pulled hate from your avatar, because you broke SMN didn't you? and I'm sure DG is totally useful for an avatar that isn't tanking.

next thing you know you're gonna say your melee-mage itself is a tank-mage with DG too.

[Korpg]

You lie for attention. Got it. Talk to yourself.

Yeah, only you are allowed to lie for attention, right? Got it. Go delete your sys32 folder.

[Sasaraixx]

these traits would help us compete but not surpass melees that can stack much more gear for WS/TP and mage DDs that can put on much more MAB in gear. If coupled with 30 BP delay cap I think SMN would have MUCH less to complain about in any facet of our job



I don't know how/why this derailed into a SMN melee debate, but Razushu's suggestions are pretty much in alighnment with my thoughts. Job traits to boost our avatar's attack/mattack and a BP timer cap lowered to 30 seconds would make me very happy. I think avatar's favor and our spirits are poorly implemented and could use serious tweaking. Correcting these issues would solve most of my complaints with the job and lay a good foundation for adding new elements. You have to fix what's broken before you start adding more. That has been a problem with SMN updates up until this point.

[I also wouldn't mind a third category of blood pacts, either for enhancing or enfeebling.]

[Inafking]

SMN's job is simple. Be a time sink as a second job. Everything square has ever done with SMN in this game has required you to have aanother job at maximum level. Hunting pacts, fighting avatars, carby miits, etc. They have changed some things around like with mini fork battles, but the original intent has always been the same. SMN is not popular because it's good as a job. It's popular because it's iconic in the Final Fantasy series. I'm not saying not's not good as a job, but other pet jobs are treated better. I'd just like to go over the perspective of what SMN looks like from the point of view of someone looking to have it as their only main job.

Spells:
- You only get them past lv20.
- Spirit pacts don't become useful until elemental siphon (which is the first good way to restore MP)
- You don't get fenirir/diabolos until/after/around the time you fight Maat.
- After this point, you have to go through Aht Urghan missions to get a pair of Avitars that are uselees in most situations and when they're useful require support from a bunch of conditions.
* So basicly, you have to wait until lv20 to get something that is useful in a party. Then once you get them at 20 those are the ones you use more or less forever. You get some other ones along the way but not used nearly as much.

Perpetuation:
- Good luck getting help with carby mitts when you're lv20.
- Ele Staffs and the first regular perpetuation- gear starts to kick in around the same time at 50/51.
- Up to this point, you've had to use yag drinks to keep yourself going if you're not resting all the time. You also get Avitar's favor around this time.
- Evokers ring is the next big thing, but as you progress in levels, the perpetuation cost is rising so this -1 does not count for much. Oh, and this is also about the point you saying to yourself "why doesen't my AF1 help with perpetuation?"
- Magian / Nyzul / Dynamis gear is avalible to you ny this point. But good luck finding a LS that will help you get it while your job still requires you to rest a lot.
* This is always an uphill battle. Every pact you use is 1 step closer to losing your pet. And with so little gear that has it and how long it takes to get, you spend a lot of time resting and not being useful at all. There needs to be more items to adress this or the overall perpetuation needs to be lowered.

Other notes:
- Blood pact recast times are way too long for stuff that's bundled together.
- My SMN is a Taru. I like to mele as much as the next guy. But with my HP the way it is, if there is any AoE damage mele is out of the question.
* If SMN is for burning MP, split up the pacts or lower the recast timers. If SMN is suppoed to mele, give them more HP or damage- and something that converts the damage they deal to MP more efficiently thn spirit taker. These two things are what keep SMN from being useful in all situations.

I know a lot of what I have to say has been said in this thread, but not in this way.

I honestly think square has no intentions of changing smn. They might add stuff 90+ but it is the way it is for a reason. It's bussy work for fanboys who want to be summoners at any cost.

[Dallas]

Are you saying that a link that exists with a saved state containing both the time and date doesn't exist? Because thats pretty much the definition of HAPPENED.

Yeah, it happened. BG gave credit to me for discovering an indestructible avatar. BG stole their information from a JP site. BG didn't even know how to get the atma.

Then there's that small problem that you have to ignore the word "auto-guard" to keep this conversation going. That's my word for it. It didn't exist before DG and avatars were combined, by me. You have to forget "avatars have -50% pdt" because it is incomplete. Avatars have 100% guard rate, 50% damage reduction on guarded attacks. Good luck finding the word "Auto-guard" on BG wiki.

You can "but, but, but..." all you want. No one was headed down the avatar tanking path but me. DG was supposed to suck because we were wrong about avatars. Let's break down how YOU looked at the world before I discovered DG.

Before DG:
Avatar: 2k HP + Enemy: 400 dmg hits = Avatar dead in 10 hits.

Expected DG:

Avatar: 2k HP + Enemy: 400 dmg hits = Avatar dead in 15 hits. (This is how it works for BST)

Actual DG:

Avatar takes 0 damage. Enemy dead.




It was NOT an accident. It was a mistake, my very fortunate mistake, that changed the way people play SMN and BST.

[Korpg]

It was NOT an accident. It was a mistake, my very fortunate mistake, that changed the way people play SMN and BST.

So now you invented DG.....That is what you are saying, you know that, right?

I wish you would stop lying to not only yourself but everyone else here. I knew about Ducal Guard and what it did to avatars before you posted it, because I found out (by my mistake, I got the atma within a week without realizing how to "unlock" it) what it does. I didn't do extensive studies from it, but I did use it, and I still continue to use it, because it is a good atma. You did absolutely nothing to make any of the claims of yours.

Why don't you start telling the truth and come out that your whole story is a lie, because there are so many holes in it that it looks like Swiss Cheese.

[Razushu]

Yeah, it happened. BG gave credit to me for discovering an indestructible avatar. BG stole their information from a JP site. BG didn't even know how to get the atma.

So you admit you didn't discover DG, I say BG discovered it for sure just that they had it's stats up before you "discovered" it.


Then there's that small problem that you have to ignore the word "auto-guard" to keep this conversation going. That's my word for it. It didn't exist before DG and avatars were combined, by me. You have to forget "avatars have -50% pdt" because it is incomplete. Avatars have 100% guard rate, 50% damage reduction on guarded attacks. Good luck finding the word "Auto-guard" on BG wiki.

You can "but, but, but..." all you want. No one was headed down the avatar tanking path but me. DG was supposed to suck because we were wrong about avatars. Let's break down how YOU looked at the world before I discovered DG.

Or finding it anywhere, everyone was going down the avatar tanking path. I's kind of the fundamental way to play SMN, the avatar is meant to tank for you. Astral meat-shield and distance are SMN's 2 best damage mitigation techniques. How was DG supposed to suck? Any idiot could see from reading it could see it should have given us at least an extra -25% PDT.


Before DG:
Avatar: 2k HP + Enemy: 400 dmg hits = Avatar dead in 10 hits.

Expected DG:

Avatar: 2k HP + Enemy: 400 dmg hits = Avatar dead in 15 hits. (This is how it works for BST)

Actual DG:

Avatar takes 0 damage. Enemy dead.

All three of those scenarios for a good SMN = enemy dead.




It was NOT an accident. It was a mistake, my very fortunate mistake, that changed the way people play SMN and BST.

You changed nothing for no one or don't you get it yet your ideas are laughable(hence you being the laughing stock of these forums and I'm guessing your server) and your claims are wild, incorrect and unsubstantiated.

[Dallas]

Poor Raz. This is all you have left. Denial. Keep believing that you had it within you to come close to accomplishing what I clearly did. I'm leaving you right where you are. The game will fill itself with Hvergelmirs without you.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Poor Raz. This is all you have left. Denial. Keep believing that you had it within you to come close to accomplishing what I clearly did. I'm leaving you right where you are. The game will fill itself with Hvergelmirs without you.

That word, I do not think it means what you think it means since you clearly do no think it applies to you (hint: it does).

[Razushu]

Poor Raz. This is all you have left. Denial. Keep believing that you had it within you to come close to accomplishing what I clearly did. I'm leaving you right where you are. The game will fill itself with Hvergelmirs without you.

Dallas let's be frank for a moment, you have accomplished nothing yet claim to have created the moon and stars. Empyreans aren't that hard to get and if I ever get the urge to be a gimp melee I'll be sure to get one. I'm sure lots of people will go out and build this situational staff, seeing how that's pretty much what this game is anyway.... working towards getting situational gear. BTW trying to zombie NMs on SMN while onlookers rofl at you isn't that much of an achievement. Of course you'll leave me where I am, which funnily enough happens to be a skilled SMN dedicated to the job and respected by my friends on it. You on the other hand will also be left where you are, which happens to be forum troll and general laughing stock.

[Razushu]

I don't know how/why this derailed into a SMN melee debate, but Razushu's suggestions are pretty much in alighnment with my thoughts. Job traits to boost our avatar's attack/mattack and a BP timer cap lowered to 30 seconds would make me very happy. I think avatar's favor and our spirits are poorly implemented and could use serious tweaking. Correcting these issues would solve most of my complaints with the job and lay a good foundation for adding new elements. You have to fix what's broken before you start adding more. That has been a problem with SMN updates up until this point.

[I also wouldn't mind a third category of blood pacts, either for enhancing or enfeebling.]

Avatar's Favor is pretty much the worst implemented JA in the game. It would have been better if they gave it to us as 9 buffs on a shared 1 minute timer with a 3 minute duration that comes from the
Summoner, regardless of whether we have an avatar out.

[Arciel]

SMN's job is simple. Be a time sink as a second job. Everything square has ever done with SMN in this game has required you to have aanother job at maximum level. Hunting pacts, fighting avatars, carby miits, etc. They have changed some things around like with mini fork battles, but the original intent has always been the same. SMN is not popular because it's good as a job. It's popular because it's iconic in the Final Fantasy series. I'm not saying not's not good as a job, but other pet jobs are treated better. I'd just like to go over the perspective of what SMN looks like from the point of view of someone looking to have it as their only main job.

Spells:
- You only get them past lv20.
- Spirit pacts don't become useful until elemental siphon (which is the first good way to restore MP)
- You don't get fenirir/diabolos until/after/around the time you fight Maat.
- After this point, you have to go through Aht Urghan missions to get a pair of Avitars that are uselees in most situations and when they're useful require support from a bunch of conditions.
* So basicly, you have to wait until lv20 to get something that is useful in a party. Then once you get them at 20 those are the ones you use more or less forever. You get some other ones along the way but not used nearly as much.

Perpetuation:
- Good luck getting help with carby mitts when you're lv20.
- Ele Staffs and the first regular perpetuation- gear starts to kick in around the same time at 50/51.
- Up to this point, you've had to use yag drinks to keep yourself going if you're not resting all the time. You also get Avitar's favor around this time.
- Evokers ring is the next big thing, but as you progress in levels, the perpetuation cost is rising so this -1 does not count for much. Oh, and this is also about the point you saying to yourself "why doesen't my AF1 help with perpetuation?"
- Magian / Nyzul / Dynamis gear is avalible to you ny this point. But good luck finding a LS that will help you get it while your job still requires you to rest a lot.
* This is always an uphill battle. Every pact you use is 1 step closer to losing your pet. And with so little gear that has it and how long it takes to get, you spend a lot of time resting and not being useful at all. There needs to be more items to adress this or the overall perpetuation needs to be lowered.

Other notes:
- Blood pact recast times are way too long for stuff that's bundled together.
- My SMN is a Taru. I like to mele as much as the next guy. But with my HP the way it is, if there is any AoE damage mele is out of the question.
* If SMN is for burning MP, split up the pacts or lower the recast timers. If SMN is suppoed to mele, give them more HP or damage- and something that converts the damage they deal to MP more efficiently thn spirit taker. These two things are what keep SMN from being useful in all situations.

I know a lot of what I have to say has been said in this thread, but not in this way.

I honestly think square has no intentions of changing smn. They might add stuff 90+ but it is the way it is for a reason. It's bussy work for fanboys who want to be summoners at any cost.

You make a very good point about the job, that SMN is in fact meant to be a rather advanced job. based on the way tools we get are acquired, it is perhaps the most advanced job in the game in terms of having to require another job to unlock tools for this job itself.

Tho, I'd like to put forth my opinion on several points

- We get spells pretty early on through spirits, but a lot of what we get isn't dependable, so its not exactly earliest Lv20.
Also for all intents and purposes, Thunderspark lets you deal magical damage by Lv18 (tho, whether you can obtain him at that point is a different story. Besides that, however, Level Sync has made it so that procuring stuff for your own job later in its levels isn't necessarily a wasted activity)

- Agree on Fenrir and Diabolos. If you're only a SMN, you'll need to be like 75 to get them. However this only matters if you weren't 75 before they were introduced, cos otherwise you'd still not have them anyway.

- Alex and Odin seem a little understated here. They can't be used below 75 so its fair to say that they aren't the kind of avatars that fall under the 'get it with another job' status.

- Evoker's Ring seems rather fair, to be honest. Its a semi-arduous quest back in its level, but avatars are soloable by 75 (by todays standards of stats/abilities) and we have to consider that they weren't meant to be solo fights to begin with anyway.

- Perpetuation needs are kinda like the EXP curve in FFXI. It initially gets steeper and steeper until it hits a certain point (it used to be 55+, then 70+) where the grind is made a lot easier somehow by something special (in the case of perp, EQ, in the case of EXP, camps).. and eventually become non-existent issues at end-game.

Proper gear at lv90 can net you like 4-6mp/tic refresh back with avatar out, which is something totally unheard of before moving past the 75 cap. In reality, this wasn't something that was made possible through more perp cost gear but the abundance of refresh gear options instead. With this, perp cost is no longer an issue for SMN mp anymore, the weight now shifts entirely on BP costs, for which Blood Boon helps in some ways.. but not enough, I think

[Arciel]

melee-mage summoner nonsense

...and...



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

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

This is Square Enix telling you to shut up.

[Razushu]

...and...

melee-mage summoner nonsense


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

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

This is Square Enix telling you to shut up.

So this is what vindication feels like:D

[Dallas]

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


I look to my side and I see an avatar. Also, Arciel, guess where my MP surplus is going? I got more MP than you-ou.

Raz, you feeling vindicated? Wow you're going to hate this game. LOL.

[Korpg]

Mystics who conjure avatars to fight by their sides, then sit back and enjoy the show while paying close attention to their MP as their minions deliver devastating blows to adversaries and provide aid to allies
I look to my side and I see an avatar. Also, Arciel, guess where my MP surplus is going? I got more MP than you-ou.

Raz, you feeling vindicated? Wow you're going to hate this game. LOL.

Green: Conjure avatars, they summon right next to you. Also, the fight by their sides is a play on words, in case you didn't notice.

Orange: What SE honestly thinks a SMN should do. If they melee, that is the Summoner's choice. Can't help the Summoner if they die all the time from AoE though.

Plus, what is MP good for if you have too much of it, melee or not? Its not like neither you nor I are hurting for it.

Maybe with this new job ability, you would realize how much MP you would run out of if they do the job correct.

[Razushu]

I look to my side and I see an avatar. Also, Arciel, guess where my MP surplus is going? I got more MP than you-ou.

Raz, you feeling vindicated? Wow you're going to hate this game. LOL.

Dallas, Dallas, Dallas my silly little friend, SE has delivered unto us what they want SMN to do. Like always you read the first few words and lose focus, your homework from now on will be to read my sig each and every time I post if nothing else. If it sinks in you'll find yourself useful more than 1/10th of the time and on trash mobs. WE all have surplus MP now little guy, there's no such thing as resting for any of us.

You still really think you've contributed to the game, which I have not stopped laughing at each time you post that nonsense.

[Dallas]

It really does seem that you are scraping the bottom of the FFXI experience, Korpg. The rest of us know when we arrive at a mob that should not be meleed. Hopefully not even you believe your tripe.

Raz, post lost.

[Razushu]

It really does seem that you are scraping the bottom of the FFXI experience, Korpg. The rest of us know when we arrive at a mob that should not be meleed. Hopefully not even you believe your tripe.

Raz, post lost.

For a SMN that mob is 9 out of every 10, go zombie something.

[Dallas]

Raz, your inabilities are your problem. You and Korpg seem to be the only SMN who get their butts kicked by normal mobs.

[Razushu]

Raz, your inabilities are your problem. You and Korpg seem to be the only SMN who get their butts kicked by normal mobs.

I can melee on trash mobs just as well as you, I could melee on anything T- but they die quick enough anyway the problem here is you insist on meleeing on things a SMN has no business being near and call it contribution(rather than liability).

[Korpg]

It really does seem that you are scraping the bottom of the FFXI experience, Korpg. The rest of us know when we arrive at a mob that should not be meleed. Hopefully not even you believe your tripe.


I don't get what you are saying. Not only did you fail to insult me, but you also admitted that not even you would melee on certain mobs, even though the whole basis of your argument is to melee?

Lets just assume for a minute that you don't melee a mob, but use Regain Atmas to do your WS to recover MP. What purpose does that serve? You gain MP back, true, but at what cost? Even when you don't have your avatar on the mob (BP from a distance) you still use up 3 atmas just for Regain to keep your MP up. Now, in that same situation you are in, I would use Minkin for Refresh +10 (in case you didn't know what it does) and INT+50 (still, in case you didn't know) to do the exact same thing as your 3 Regain Atmas do. Now, I have 2 more atma selections to choose from. Beyond and Ultimate are usually my choice in the matter, but sometimes I'll mix it up and go with Gales instead of Beyond. This is all assuming the same situations (party/alliance, both your and my jobs are to do hate free damage, you are in your melee setup while I'm in my normal setup, but you can't melee because the mob's TP gain would be too great). Now, you are stuck at 2 useless atmas while I have more MP to spare and have atmas that actually help with the damage output. Merited Blood Pacts means that I don't need 300% TP to do max damage either.

Lets assume situation 2. You are allowed to melee now. So is your avatar. Will your added damage benefit the party more when the mob has increased the TP usage even more? Makes procing a lot harder for one, also, depending on the mob, increases the hate-erasing moves from most junk mobs. But then again, I would come as WAR for those situations, so I guess that is a moot point.

Situation 3. Soloing. You have your 3 regain atmas, but guess what, your avatar doesn't survive that long. I have Ducal Guard, so my avatar can last forever. Minkin also means I won't run out of mp either, so I can choose either Ultimate or Beyond/Gales or Mounted Champion if I choose. Either of those atmas increase the killspeed, but I still am able to kill the NM I'm soloing. You can't, because you need all 3 Regain atmas to keep your avatars out thanks to your lack of perp gear, also when your avatar dies, guess what, you are screwed because you have too much hate thanks to the wiffing of your staff.

And you still state that I am scraping the bottom of the FFXI experience? Because I know how to do my job, and I can come as a much better job when the situation calls for it? Because I contribute more the the party than you can ever do? Because I can solo more and harder NMs than you can ever dream about?

On a side note: Have you completed my challenge yet? Do you even remember it?

[Dallas]

Raz, 9 out of 10 mobs are trash mobs. I know your staff skill is gimp and you use a gimp staff, but do you really zombie trash mobs?

[Korpg]

Raz, your inabilities are your problem. You and Korpg seem to be the only SMN who get their butts kicked by normal mobs.

What is the hardest mob you have soloed? Seriously, answer that.

[Dallas]

I don't get what you are saying. Not only did you fail to insult me, but you also admitted that not even you would melee on certain mobs, even though the whole basis of your argument is to melee?

No Korpg. I never said that SMN could melee anything that a WAR could not melee. I said the opposite. You just can't read. That is all.

[Korpg]

No Korpg. I never said that SMN could melee anything that a WAR could not melee. I said the opposite. You just can't read. That is all.

What is your point then?

[Tannlore]

The vision is an interesting thing and frankly that part that you guys are gripping to it just to prove Dallas wrong is frankly frightening. Summoning an avatar and standing there pretty and watching between timers? Does that really sound like fun to you? Please, give me a more active role SE. Give me abilities/spells to use on my avatars, give me more things to do that just "sit back and enjoy the show".

What useless dribble. Frankly I'll never "sit back and enjoy the show" ever.... EVER on smn. The only time I do that is when I'm a corpse on the ground without reraise. There's always something to do, be it swing my staff on the mob's head, monitor my timers, or cure my companions. The heck is this mentality and you guys are embracing this as the sure fire way to go? Just to prove Dallas wrong?

What happened to the summoners while I was gone for a year?


While I think that Dallas' heads on melee only strategy isn't the exact way to go, the middle ground between him and standing back surely is. I do take my staff out and melee next to my avatar and it certainly does help.

Interesting that you guys ignored this part:

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


If nothing else, it means that using a staff like my Hvergelmir will mean more meleeing for more mp for shorting BPs for more damage/wards. One could postulate on a number of ways this works. Will it be an ability you use once with a cooldown?


Will it be a "mode" you activate like favor that you can stay in for a while?
Example: You blood pact, and then you could immediately issue a new one right away for a GREATLY increased cost that goes down as your timer ticks towards the end of what would be your normal BP timer (45 seconds assuming you geared it) until it cost normal mp. OR that just allows you to toss off another BP maybe every 10 seconds for that greatly increased cost?

If this is the case, Dallas could have quite an important point here. What do I care if I blow my entire load of MP in a few BPs if I can get all of it back with a sekkanoki WS or a few back-to-back normal Myrky? Ponder this for a moment if you will. While contrary to the "vision" SE stated, the very mention of this ability + the Emp. weapon they gave us directly contradict this.

There are far too many factors still to deal with before you can start tossing SE's vision at anyone as a weapon or a defense. Until they give more update details I would hold back slinging any more arrows and stones and wait to see what these new abilities and what Atomos and Cait Sith will be. They could be two MP free avatars we get to "sit back and watch" do things. Would it be tragic... if we summoned them out and couldn't pull our staves out or cast any spells with them summoned? Only BP and and use JA?

This would fall right inline with that vision yes? Careful what you wish for.

[Razushu]

Raz, 9 out of 10 mobs are trash mobs. I know your staff skill is gimp and you use a gimp staff, but do you really zombie trash mobs?

No but I'm sure you do.

[Razushu]

The vision is an interesting thing and frankly that part that you guys are gripping to it just to prove Dallas wrong is frankly frightening. Summoning an avatar and standing there pretty and watching between timers? Does that really sound like fun to you? Please, give me a more active role SE. Give me abilities/spells to use on my avatars, give me more things to do that just "sit back and enjoy the show".

What useless dribble. Frankly I'll never "sit back and enjoy the show" ever.... EVER on smn. The only time I do that is when I'm a corpse on the ground without reraise. There's always something to do, be it swing my staff on the mob's head, monitor my timers, or cure my companions. The heck is this mentality and you guys are embracing this as the sure fire way to go? Just to prove Dallas wrong?

This is an ongoing discussion, my standpiont for those late to the game is... that SMN like every other job can be geared to melee and can do it occaisionally(although SMN is the weakest at it). The thing about Dallas is he is arrogant, ignorant and incompetant, so it's amusing to tear him down and point and laugh etc.


What happened to the summoners while I was gone for a year?

Nothing happened to me I've been like this since '08 :D



While I think that Dallas' heads on melee only strategy isn't the exact way to go, the middle ground between him and standing back surely is. I do take my staff out and melee next to my avatar and it certainly does help.

On some mobs yeah sure go for it, Dallas however flip flops between it's the only way to play SMN ever and "I can't melee everything".


Interesting that you guys ignored this part:

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


If nothing else, it means that using a staff like my Hvergelmir will mean more meleeing for more mp for shorting BPs for more damage/wards. One could postulate on a number of ways this works. Will it be an ability you use once with a cooldown?

It's not being ignored, it's being discussed elsewhere. No one is hurting for MP at all right now, only thing it means is I'm going to have to quit procrastinating on leveling /RDM and +2ing my AF3 and problem solved.



Will it be a "mode" you activate like favor that you can stay in for a while?
Example: You blood pact, and then you could immediately issue a new one right away for a GREATLY increased cost that goes down as your timer ticks towards the end of what would be your normal BP timer (45 seconds assuming you geared it) until it cost normal mp. OR that just allows you to toss off another BP maybe every 10 seconds for that greatly increased cost?

I'm hoping it's a mode like Favor that adds to BP cost and -delay while active.


If this is the case, Dallas could have quite an important point here. What do I care if I blow my entire load of MP in a few BPs if I can get all of it back with a sekkanoki WS or a few back-to-back normal Myrky? Ponder this for a moment if you will. While contrary to the "vision" SE stated, the very mention of this ability + the Emp. weapon they gave us directly contradict this.

Nah like I said MP is a non-issue atm for pretty much everyone. +2 AF3 head and finish WotG I get another +2 mp per tick and /RDM gives an extra 100MP a minute over /sch so SMN will still be good for MP unless this cost is ridiculous, and still keeps in line with SE's vision of SMN.


There are far too many factors still to deal with before you can start tossing SE's vision at anyone as a weapon or a defense. Until they give more update details I would hold back slinging any more arrows and stones and wait to see what these new abilities and what Atomos and Cait Sith will be. They could be two MP free avatars we get to "sit back and watch" do things. Would it be tragic... if we summoned them out and couldn't pull our staves out or cast any spells with them summoned? Only BP and and use JA?

This would fall right inline with that vision yes? Careful what you wish for.

I wouldn't call it tragic lol, and my quoting of the vision is more to do with a discussion woth the OP of this thread who claimed SMN = DRK, BLU, DRG

[Malamasala]

Having read their vision, I'm suddenly more worried than usual.

They honestly thought it would be a good idea to make a job where you replace your own melee and 5+ abilities, with a pet with a single ability?

I'd agree, if they gave us split timers. Then I'd view the job as "Stand back, let the avatar use plenty of abilities like a normal job". Well, I'd get bored and melee anyway, but at least I'd understand SE. As it is now, it is like trying to listen to a childs goo-goo-gaa-gaa and try and understand.

[Dallas]

Mala, you need to assume that Myrkr was not an accident. Sure, our new and improved WS deals no damage, but it gives a truckload of MP that allows you to "sit back and enjoy the show." It's a much different view from the top of the food chain.

I hold back. Why? Because my avatar can't keep up. I use a bunch of -enmity to allow my avatar a 60% damage discrepancy. What happens if I can spend more MP to increase my avatar's damage by 60%? I stop holding back and my MP goes up even more.

Everyone hates BP timers, but almost no one values MP management. SE released an emp staff that is 5-7x more powerful than Convert, and yet the loudest voice in these forums argues that MP has no value anymore. I proposed a solution: make SMN more powerful, but make it cost so much mp that only the best SMN can ever achieve it. It's almost like SE reads these forums.

I can't lose. I applaud SE.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/8320-Where-are-our-new-Blood-pact-rages?p=106169&viewfull=1#post106169

[Arciel]

The vision is an interesting thing and frankly that part that you guys are gripping to it just to prove Dallas wrong is frankly frightening. Summoning an avatar and standing there pretty and watching between timers? Does that really sound like fun to you? Please, give me a more active role SE. Give me abilities/spells to use on my avatars, give me more things to do that just "sit back and enjoy the show".

What useless dribble. Frankly I'll never "sit back and enjoy the show" ever.... EVER on smn. The only time I do that is when I'm a corpse on the ground without reraise. There's always something to do, be it swing my staff on the mob's head, monitor my timers, or cure my companions. The heck is this mentality and you guys are embracing this as the sure fire way to go? Just to prove Dallas wrong?

What happened to the summoners while I was gone for a year?

While I think that Dallas' heads on melee only strategy isn't the exact way to go, the middle ground between him and standing back surely is. I do take my staff out and melee next to my avatar and it certainly does help.


I think you are quite mistaken. Dallas is the one who is gripping to his idea that melee-mage SMN is the right way to play and that everyone else is doing it wrong. Clearly, we know this has always been incorrect, and SE's vision here is an affirmation of what we as a community know to be true about our job - the main source of whatever a SMN is capable of doing is always the avatar.
And thus, this manifesto validates my assertion that SMN is a job which is process oriented, not function.

Now, do understand that this being a manifesto, represents what SE wants, and not necessarily what we already have - and this shows quite clearly in their vision for certain jobs that doesn't match their current state, but definitely not with SMN.

I wouldn't be one to take their wording too literally. To "sit back and enjoy the show" to me is where I can do as I please as a master to my avatar - it doesn't necessarily mean doing nothing entirely, but you could be casting magic on allies, debuffing or even meleeing if the situation permits. It's not like anyone really runs back and /sits either.
Point is, you don't have to do anything in between to do your job well - anything of that sort is dessert and not the main course.



Interesting that you guys ignored this part:

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

If nothing else, it means that using a staff like my Hvergelmir will mean more meleeing for more mp for shorting BPs for more damage/wards. One could postulate on a number of ways this works. Will it be an ability you use once with a cooldown?

Will it be a "mode" you activate like favor that you can stay in for a while?
Example: You blood pact, and then you could immediately issue a new one right away for a GREATLY increased cost that goes down as your timer ticks towards the end of what would be your normal BP timer (45 seconds assuming you geared it) until it cost normal mp. OR that just allows you to toss off another BP maybe every 10 seconds for that greatly increased cost?


This seems to me like it will be a stance instead of a one-time effect, and is something that myself and a bunch of other SMNs I know have theorized to imagine if it would work out well.

The underlying issue such a JA would be addressing is that SMN is a slow job - constantly being locked into slow-burn mode. Unlike other jobs, it really can't force out its actions in a pressing situation to speed things up - and this is its greatest weakness.

With a 'speed stance', it'd at least give us the option to do something of that sort, but at a cost we're willing to bear.

Even if MP cost for BPs were doubled, but timers reduced to like 20s (and further reduced to 5s by eq), being able to crap out 4-5 BPs in a short period of time would be well worth the trade-off and opens SMN up to a whole different set of strategies.

As for MP to cope with the increased BP cost, a Hvergelmir doing Myrkr is but one solution to the issue. But players without it won't exactly not be able to cope. Same goes for /RDM and Convert and popping ethers to keep you going.
And on the flipside, even if you had these tools, you won't necessarily be able to cope either.

What will happen is that SMNs will now have an option to throw out a lot more damage in a short time at the risk of having to spend time recovering their MP after the fact - which hopefully opens SMN up to being more zerg friendly. If the situation doesn't require full speed on BPing, practising restraint would likely be enough to help you last the battle without additional sources of MP.

Thats what managing MP is about.



If this is the case, Dallas could have quite an important point here. What do I care if I blow my entire load of MP in a few BPs if I can get all of it back with a sekkanoki WS or a few back-to-back normal Myrky? Ponder this for a moment if you will. While contrary to the "vision" SE stated, the very mention of this ability + the Emp. weapon they gave us directly contradict this.


Once again, not true, because in this case you are assuming that Myrkr is the only decent way to regain MP for SMN. A ton of options exist that can be used effectively alone or in a party. Also, unless you've got yourself some serious Regain or Wings going you'd also have to assume that you're able to melee the mob, which also isn't the case on end-game level mobs.

On easy stuff you can solo, I'd agree the Myrkr would in fact be the best option, however, you probably don't need to use that stance either.



There are far too many factors still to deal with before you can start tossing SE's vision at anyone as a weapon or a defense. Until they give more update details I would hold back slinging any more arrows and stones and wait to see what these new abilities and what Atomos and Cait Sith will be. They could be two MP free avatars we get to "sit back and watch" do things. Would it be tragic... if we summoned them out and couldn't pull our staves out or cast any spells with them summoned? Only BP and and use JA?

This would fall right inline with that vision yes? Careful what you wish for.

Not quite. The vision encompasses all aspects of the job, even the parts that are already included now. Two new avatars that function in a totally different way wouldn't, and from past record (with Odin and Alexander), hasn't changed any of that.

For that to happen, they'd need to overhaul the existing mechanics of the job, which is something that has never happened in the 9 year history of FFXI. One would believe not only would it be a stupid thing to do at this point in the games life, its also too much of a hassle to even bother.

[Dallas]

This wall of text brought to you by Arciel: the anti-melee SMN begging for a Hvergelmir just in case. It's a shame KI died.

[Malamasala]

Mala, you need to assume that Myrkr was not an accident. Sure, our new and improved WS deals no damage, but it gives a truckload of MP that allows you to "sit back and enjoy the show." It's a much different view from the top of the food chain.

You have to think as twistedly as SE to know what they are doing. My bet is that they added TP from nukes to SCH and BLM and thought "Now they need to convert the TP back to MP!" and gave us Myrkr. I could almost promise you that SMN was the last job they had on their mind when adding Myrkr.

SMN has a long history of benefiting from stuff SE overlooked, rather than the direct updates.

[Arciel]

This wall of text brought to you by Arciel: the anti-melee SMN begging for a Hvergelmir just in case. It's a shame KI died.

this coming from the melee mage who is begging for everyone to believe that he's right. whether I have a Hvergelmir or not doesn't change the fact that you're full of fail, Craftermath.

[Razushu]

Mala, you need to assume that Myrkr was not an accident. Sure, our new and improved WS deals no damage, but it gives a truckload of MP that allows you to "sit back and enjoy the show." It's a much different view from the top of the food chain.

I hold back. Why? Because my avatar can't keep up. I use a bunch of -enmity to allow my avatar a 60% damage discrepancy. What happens if I can spend more MP to increase my avatar's damage by 60%? I stop holding back and my MP goes up even more.

Everyone hates BP timers, but almost no one values MP management. SE released an emp staff that is 5-7x more powerful than Convert, and yet the loudest voice in these forums argues that MP has no value anymore. I proposed a solution: make SMN more powerful, but make it cost so much mp that only the best SMN can ever achieve it. It's almost like SE reads these forums.

I can't lose. I applaud SE.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/8320-Where-are-our-new-Blood-pact-rages?p=106169&viewfull=1#post106169

Like you've ever seen the top of the food chain, No one is hurting for MP(maybe you on any number of non-exp mobs you can't melee). I have unlimited MP as is and I've yet to level /RDM adding convert and refresh and I've yet to finish my +2 AF3 which I could do easily enough. Even if this doubled the BP cost no one is going to suddenly find themselves low on MP anyway, peddle your myuths someplace else

[Neonii]

Mala, you need to assume that Myrkr was not an accident. Sure, our new and improved WS deals no damage, but it gives a truckload of MP that allows you to "sit back and enjoy the show." It's a much different view from the top of the food chain.

I hold back. Why? Because my avatar can't keep up. I use a bunch of -enmity to allow my avatar a 60% damage discrepancy. What happens if I can spend more MP to increase my avatar's damage by 60%? I stop holding back and my MP goes up even more.

Everyone hates BP timers, but almost no one values MP management. SE released an emp staff that is 5-7x more powerful than Convert, and yet the loudest voice in these forums argues that MP has no value anymore. I proposed a solution: make SMN more powerful, but make it cost so much mp that only the best SMN can ever achieve it. It's almost like SE reads these forums.

I can't lose. I applaud SE.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/8320-Where-are-our-new-Blood-pact-rages?p=106169&viewfull=1#post106169

That would not be cool. Average smn should be able to achieve anything smn has to offer. I don't believe game designers should design anything with a vision to exclude folks. Everyone from the most powerful to the weakest link should have access to smn abilities. Sure for the best smn maybe some token edge but I would not adocate designs especially to exclude folks.

[Razushu]

That would not be cool. Average smn should be able to achieve anything smn has to offer. I don't believe game designers should design anything with a vision to exclude folks. Everyone from the most powerful to the weakest link should have access to smn abilities. Sure for the best smn maybe some token edge but I would not adocate designs especially to exclude folks.

Don't mind Dallas he thinks everyone should act as he does, and will desperatley cling to anything he feels would push someone in the same direction as he's following

[Korpg]

Mala, you need to assume that Myrkr was not an accident. Sure, our new and improved WS deals no damage, but it gives a truckload of MP that allows you to "sit back and enjoy the show." It's a much different view from the top of the food chain.

I hold back. Why? Because my avatar can't keep up. I use a bunch of -enmity to allow my avatar a 60% damage discrepancy. What happens if I can spend more MP to increase my avatar's damage by 60%? I stop holding back and my MP goes up even more.

Everyone hates BP timers, but almost no one values MP management. SE released an emp staff that is 5-7x more powerful than Convert, and yet the loudest voice in these forums argues that MP has no value anymore. I proposed a solution: make SMN more powerful, but make it cost so much mp that only the best SMN can ever achieve it. It's almost like SE reads these forums.

I can't lose. I applaud SE.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/8320-Where-are-our-new-Blood-pact-rages?p=106169&viewfull=1#post106169

SE made a staff like that for the very few people who would melee as those jobs listed on that staff. BLMs should never melee at all, because the damage done from melee hits is too weak to justify losing the +10%/+25% damage increase from spells. SCHs shouldn't melee for the same reason. SMNs can melee, but that is still debatable on most NMs.

Besides, how can you hold back if you are not a SMN? You keep throwing numbers without proof.

Besides, if a BP costs 300-400 MP to use, you of all people would hurt the most from it because you either have to stand back and not melee just to keep MP up, or have to use that WS at 100%, which hurts your DoT (or so you claim that you have) because you have a lower ODD rate.

I swear, you are the most lost person in this world, and you never leave your room either.

[Korpg]

You know, even outside of abyssea I have yet to have a need for Convert on most NMs? Some I converted on accident, but still.

I'm still wondering what the hardest mob Dallas has ever soloed. Because I doubt he has solo'd anything worthwhile or challenging.

[Dallas]

That would not be cool. Average smn should be able to achieve anything smn has to offer. I don't believe game designers should design anything with a vision to exclude folks.

Think of most SMN as a large pile of SAM who never melee, and only use a WS when Meditate is up. It's not SE's fault that the playerbase chooses to be gimp.

Raz, yes, SE made the best staff for the best players.

[Razushu]

Think of most SMN as a large pile of SAM who never melee, and only use a WS when Meditate is up. It's not SE's fault that the playerbase chooses to be gimp.

Raz, yes, SE made the best staff for the best players.

Yeah it's called Nirvana. There's no such thing as a SAM who doesn't melee(unless they're /RNG on something like the ACP boss). That analogy doesn't work as SAM is supposed to melee. If you look at it like this, if a SAM /WHM and insisted they could main heal and should be accepted as such. This is the arguement FOR SMN melee

[Dallas]

SMN aren't supposed to sit on their rears for 45 seconds. You just choose to do it.

[Razushu]

SMN aren't supposed to sit on their rears for 45 seconds. You just choose to do it.

No one sits around for 45 secs. SMN isn't supposed to sit around weakened 90% of the time either.

[Dallas]

You said yourself you don't heal and don't melee. Whatever you do, it is not in FFXI.

[Razushu]

You said yourself you don't heal and don't melee. Whatever you do, it is not in FFXI.

When did I say I don't heal? Between BPs ward and rage I back up the party and help it go smoother with my Subjob abilities. Which includes healing, removing debuffs etc. not waiting for raise after my 3rd death on an NM.

[Miera]

Sorry but I have to admit that after you got to comparing PUP to SMN I lost interest.

These jobs are completely different from each other and any SMN who wants to melee needs to be Tarred and feathered and fed to the lions.

Want to melee? Go play MNK or something.

[DrForester]

I'd like to see the strength of SMN's increased during melee. BP damage is good, but the performance of the avatars in between those BP's are pathetic.

[Razushu]

I'd like to see the strength of SMN's increased during melee. BP damage is good, but the performance of the avatars in between those BP's are pathetic.

If the new ability is good enough Avatar's weak melee may not really matter any more

[Neonii]

I'd like to see the strength of SMN's increased during melee. BP damage is good, but the performance of the avatars in between those BP's are pathetic.

What he said.

[Korpg]

I'd like to see the strength of SMN's increased during melee. BP damage is good, but the performance of the avatars in between those BP's are pathetic.

They do about as much damage as a MNK without any good gloves on. Like Destroyers or such. Plus, the damage done between BPs are blunt damage anyway, so the avatars melee like a BLM without a staff, but with good H2H skill.

Only sad thing is that the avatar swings faster than a melee SMN. Unless the melee SMN would only haste themselves (not use Garuda's Hastaga). Avatars are also more accurate and hits harder than a melee SMN too. Unless you have emp staff, then the ODD swings edge out the avatars barely.

Not comparable to a Ukon WAR though.


Want to melee? Go play MNK or something.

[Dallas]

Only sad thing is that the avatar swings faster than a melee SMN.

If you had enough knowledge about SMN to do the math, I'd ask for you to substantiate this wild guess. As it is, you are a religious zealot who doesn't care about the accuracy of his hate. Carry on.

[Korpg]

If you had enough knowledge about SMN to do the math, I'd ask for you to substantiate this wild guess. As it is, you are a religious zealot who doesn't care about the accuracy of his hate. Carry on.

Want to go the naked route? Or geared and buff route?

[Malamasala]

Sorry but I have to admit that after you got to comparing PUP to SMN I lost interest.

These jobs are completely different from each other and any SMN who wants to melee needs to be Tarred and feathered and fed to the lions.

Want to melee? Go play MNK or something.

I truly love people like you. Lets continue this play. If I compare PLD and NIN tanking, will you correct me and say PLD and NIN are nothing alike, so one of these CAN'T be a tank? Because that is what you just did with the PUP and SMN comparison. They differ, so they can't share the same role.

PS. Remember that you can't compare WAR and MNK either, because one uses a G Axe and the other H2H, two completely different systems. I just love this way of thinking, since you are left with balancing jobs by making comparisons like "PLD vs PLD, perfect balance!".

[Razushu]

I truly love people like you. Lets continue this play. If I compare PLD and NIN tanking, will you correct me and say PLD and NIN are nothing alike, so one of these CAN'T be a tank? Because that is what you just did with the PUP and SMN comparison. They differ, so they can't share the same role.

PS. Remember that you can't compare WAR and MNK either, because one uses a G Axe and the other H2H, two completely different systems. I just love this way of thinking, since you are left with balancing jobs by making comparisons like "PLD vs PLD, perfect balance!".

Mala PLD and NIN are both front liner's and they both can tank, the only differnce is in how they tank PLD is a meat shield, NIN is an evasion tank. You're still trying to compare a backline pet mage job to a frontline pet melee job, SMN and PUP respectively. These two jobs were designed to function entirely different from the ground up, the only similarity is they both use pets. That's not what they did and I think you know it, they may have been more than a bit rude in how they said it, but PUP and SMN are two completely different job types.

MNK and WAR again were designed as frontline jobs so you can compare them. They both excel as frontline DDs and can even tank, because that's how they were designed different jobs that fill the same role. IOf we were comparing two pet jobs like this it would be BST and PUP never Smn and PUP. When you melee on PUP you are fulfilling a main part of how that job was intended to function, when you do it on SMN you are nothing more than a mage meleeing. That's not to say you can't melee if you want, any job can be geared to melee. Although that doesn't mean they were designed to melee.

[Karbuncle]

Honestly reading over this thread i can safely say the arrogance displayed by you and Korpg have actually started to make me believe more in Dallas, despite his inability to prove anything.

Its nothing more than a childish fight between the arrogant and the more so.

To be frank, Summoner melee does have a place. Its not as lavish as Dallas claims but its not as pointless as you and Korpg seem to claim.

There are some situations, some, where a Summoner would likely be better off swinging his staff than picking his nose like SE's lame "vision" for it is.

Hint, their visions suck, Their THF vision is us putting our daggers up our ass and throwing enmity around like a monkey flinging poo. They know almost nothing about how their players play the jobs, if thye did, They wouldn't continue to try and force-feed Enmity control and Loot-whoring down THF's throat, when its clear the community does not want it.

Point is, using their words on SMN as a defense for your argument is as illogical as claiming you discovered an Atma long after is was discovered. You're arguments are no more valid than his.

SMN melee is obviously not very effective above most trash mobs, Inside Abyssea they can compliment their strengths by stacking DD atma, and not fall hard because of BP like PC. Outside its obviously a different story.

Yes, He may be arguing "Its good on everything" which is wrong, But by saying "ITS GOOD ON NUFFIN" you're equally as wrong.

[Razushu]

Honestly reading over this thread i can safely say the arrogance displayed by you and Korpg have actually started to make me believe more in Dallas, despite his inability to prove anything.

Its nothing more than a childish fight between the arrogant and the more so.

To be frank, Summoner melee does have a place. Its not as lavish as Dallas claims but its not as pointless as you and Korpg seem to claim.

There are some situations, some, where a Summoner would likely be better off swinging his staff than picking his nose like SE's lame "vision" for it is.

Hint, their visions suck, Their THF vision is us putting our daggers up our ass and throwing enmity around like a monkey flinging poo. They know almost nothing about how their players play the jobs, if thye did, They wouldn't continue to try and force-feed Enmity control and Loot-whoring down THF's throat, when its clear the community does not want it.

Point is, using their words on SMN as a defense for your argument is as illogical as claiming you discovered an Atma long after is was discovered. You're arguments are no more valid than his.

SMN melee is obviously not very effective above most trash mobs, Inside Abyssea they can compliment their strengths by stacking DD atma, and not fall hard because of BP like PC. Outside its obviously a different story.

Yes, He may be arguing "Its good on everything" which is wrong, But by saying "ITS GOOD ON NUFFIN" you're equally as wrong.

I've said several times that SMN can be geared to melee and it's ok to do it on some things. I've been arguing against two things this whole time, neither of which is that melee on a mage should never be used.

1) that melee SMN is some how completely useful o0n everything and is the only way to play, and is somehow so efficent that it completely changes how the job should be played. Is somehow magically the only way s SMN can keep up their MP.

2) That SMN was designed as a frontline job comparable to DRK.

[Korpg]

Honestly reading over this thread i can safely say the arrogance displayed by you and Korpg have actually started to make me believe more in Dallas, despite his inability to prove anything.

Its nothing more than a childish fight between the arrogant and the more so.

To be frank, Summoner melee does have a place. Its not as lavish as Dallas claims but its not as pointless as you and Korpg seem to claim.


I guess I got caught up in Dallas's BS that I forgot to mention what you mentioned.

I melee on SMN only if the situation requires it to (soloing and for blue procs only). Stating that I have to do something that the job is not designed to do, otherwise I'm a waste of space is something I will not tolerate.

[Karbuncle]

I guess I got caught up in Dallas's BS that I forgot to mention what you mentioned.

I melee on SMN only if the situation requires it to (soloing and for blue procs only). Stating that I have to do something that the job is not designed to do, otherwise I'm a waste of space is something I will not tolerate.

Well i acknowledge you realize a place, However its not as black/white as you claim it to be. Summoner is massively inefficient inside abysse, low Damage compared to other jobs/etc, If we're talking about a Perfect Utopia ya, It really doesn't fit into the picture. However not everyone follows a perfect Utopian example of MNK+WHM Onry and Genocide the non-believer jobs.

If a Summoner is invited to DD, for whatever reasons the leader may hold, Its better off fulfilling its roles and meleeing in that time, So long as the mob has no crippling TP moves. TP feed is less important in Abyssea but its still important on some mobs to keep splash damage down. Obviously this would be a bad situation for SMN to melee.

I acknowledge the rest below >_>


1) that melee SMN is some how completely useful o0n everything and is the only way to play, and is somehow so efficent that it completely changes how the job should be played. Is somehow magically the only way s SMN can keep up their MP.

2) That SMN was designed as a frontline job comparable to DRK.

Two points i agree with. Summoner was not designed as a Frontline job (in my eyes), and i dont think Meleeing unlocks some huge potential.

Truthfully, I think SE had intended in the beginning that All jobs would likely melee at some point, Even mages. They intended to have down time for Mages to recover MP/etc... Its also why they gave WS like Moonlight, and Energy Drain, and Spirit Taker... all designed to recover MP through Melee.

However its the players that advocated against it, for good reason, its mostly trash.

[Razushu]

Well i acknowledge you realize a place, However its not as black/white as you claim it to be. Summoner is massively inefficient inside abysse, low Damage compared to other jobs/etc, If we're talking about a Perfect Utopia ya, It really doesn't fit into the picture. However not everyone follows a perfect Utopian example of MNK+WHM Onry and Genocide the non-believer jobs.

If a Summoner is invited to DD, for whatever reasons the leader may hold, Its better off fulfilling its roles and meleeing in that time, So long as the mob has no crippling TP moves. TP feed is less important in Abyssea but its still important on some mobs to keep splash damage down. Obviously this would be a bad situation for SMN to melee.

I acknowledge the rest below >_>



Two points i agree with. Summoner was not designed as a Frontline job (in my eyes), and i dont think Meleeing unlocks some huge potential.

Truthfully, I think SE had intended in the beginning that All jobs would likely melee at some point, Even mages. They intended to have down time for Mages to recover MP/etc... Its also why they gave WS like Moonlight, and Energy Drain, and Spirit Taker... all designed to recover MP through Melee.

However its the players that advocated against it, for good reason, its mostly trash.

Abyssea is a playground pure and simple, it's kind of like Vegas. In the way that anything goes if all participants are ok with it and for the most part what happens in Abyssea stays in Abyssea i.e certain jobs meleeing.

I'd say they wanted it to be an option for whatever reason, we'll never know. As you say on most things it's trash, it'll always come back to the point if you're gonna have someone hitting the mob make it something thats specialized /good at hitting things.

For the record Moonlight is rubbish I died a little inside first time I used it.

[Dallas]

Want to go the naked route? Or geared and buff route?

Competent melee only, thanks. That means knowing and acknowledging that the SMN gets access to gear where the pet does not. Of course a 2h weapon base speed is slower than a 1h avatar.