Spirits Re-make

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Originally Posted by Malamasala

Fine with me. I call it bad at bad levels :)

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Low levels are just a bad time to be a SMN, everything but Carby costs too much to see frequent use.

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Originally Posted by Malamasala

Fine with me. I call it bad at bad levels :)

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Can you ever type anything positive?

Spirits are fine as they are, which is a quick MP fix for us.

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Originally Posted by Korpg

Can you ever type anything positive?

Spirits are fine as they are, which is a quick MP fix for us.

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1. You are trying too hard to troll.

2. There are positive posts, but you seem to miss them. I can only assume you look for something to troll, and when I don't give you a chance to, you leave it and pretend it never happened.

3. On the topic of melee SMN, I believe it is YOU who are the negative person. Also, each time I suggest something new, who drops by to say negative things if not you?

4. What could I possibly gain from going to all the other job boards and say "Stop complaining, your job is fine"? While it is true, exactly what do I accomplish except upset people who think their jobs needs something new? Posting "positive" comments can cause just as much annoyance as negative.

5. I think SMN is fine too. The problem is that my goal is perfection. Spirits used only for siphon is fine, spirits used every time you want to assume the role of a BLM (or WHM) is perfection. And I know your troll instincts now tingle to make you reply "So you want SMN to be as good as BLM and WHM?", which I never said, if you had tried to read instead of troll. What I want is that I can assume the role of a poor WHM or poor BLM. Like my Light Spirit should be able to help heal non-tanks that get hit by AOE, saving WHMs curaga hate and MP. My Thunder spirit should be able to toss half as many nukes as a BLM in the same time period. Kind of like an AFKing BLM who casts when he isn't busy eating food.


You'd do the whole community a favor if you stopped thinking everyone shares your opinion. It is quite obvious by the independent spirit threads that they are a hot topic for more people than just me. SE saying they want to look into the effects of blood pacts also seem to hint that either I've whined so many years they listened to me, or more than just me wish for better pacts.

What are you even trying to accomplish on these forums? I'm trying to improve the job. It seems like your goal is preventing any changes at all. And that is a pretty negative attitude if I ever saw one. Wasting time on a forum to make sure as few others enjoy your job as possible. Not to mention the subtle hints that you don't want to re-learn how to play the job. Spirit updates? Too much for your brain too adapt to. Melee SMN? Also too hard. Same old but stronger avatars? Yea, that will not require you to learn anything new, and just do whatever you used to do.

That said, you'd save a lot of time of your life if you stopped feeling the need to reply to all my posts and complain. It is your time though, so don't expect me to care if you keep replying with pointless posts.

The only issue with number 5. is that we can already do that with our Avatars. Want to play WHM use Carby, want to be a nuker use merit pacts.

Like I've already said any buff to spirits in an area Avatars already fill is wasted dev time, I'm not against a buff to spirits, just not now(there's more important things to work on), and it can't be something we already can do with Avatars(if it's going to be meaningful).

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Originally Posted by Malamasala

1. You are trying too hard to troll.

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I'm not trying at all.

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2. There are positive posts, but you seem to miss them. I can only assume you look for something to troll, and when I don't give you a chance to, you leave it and pretend it never happened.

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I have yet to see a truly positive post from you yet. Most of your posts are very negative in nature.

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3. On the topic of melee SMN, I believe it is YOU who are the negative person. Also, each time I suggest something new, who drops by to say negative things if not you?

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Because the topic IS melee SMN. There is nothing positive about that combination, it gimps the SMN and it gimps the real source of damage. Why even have the avatar out when you can't maintain your avatar without whacking off on a mob.

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4. What could I possibly gain from going to all the other job boards and say "Stop complaining, your job is fine"? While it is true, exactly what do I accomplish except upset people who think their jobs needs something new? Posting "positive" comments can cause just as much annoyance as negative.

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What do you gain to go into every other job board and say "they need to gimp your job to make mine look better?"

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5. I think SMN is fine too. The problem is that my goal is perfection. Spirits used only for siphon is fine, spirits used every time you want to assume the role of a BLM (or WHM) is perfection. And I know your troll instincts now tingle to make you reply "So you want SMN to be as good as BLM and WHM?", which I never said, if you had tried to read instead of troll. What I want is that I can assume the role of a poor WHM or poor BLM. Like my Light Spirit should be able to help heal non-tanks that get hit by AOE, saving WHMs curaga hate and MP. My Thunder spirit should be able to toss half as many nukes as a BLM in the same time period. Kind of like an AFKing BLM who casts when he isn't busy eating food.

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You know, if you want to be a WHM or a BLM, there are 3 jobs that you can level to do so. WHM or SCH for being a healer, and BLM or SCH for being a nuker. Why do you want to turn SMN into a worse nuker/healer job than SCH?

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You'd do the whole community a favor if you stopped thinking everyone shares your opinion. It is quite obvious by the independent spirit threads that they are a hot topic for more people than just me. SE saying they want to look into the effects of blood pacts also seem to hint that either I've whined so many years they listened to me, or more than just me wish for better pacts.

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You would do the whole world a favor by stop being so negative, even the first 5 words in your post quoted was in a negative context. SE is not going to listen to you because your ideas are stupid. Your ideas are the same as the idea of using shark meat for bait for catching minnows.

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What are you even trying to accomplish on these forums? I'm trying to improve the job. It seems like your goal is preventing any changes at all. And that is a pretty negative attitude if I ever saw one. Wasting time on a forum to make sure as few others enjoy your job as possible. Not to mention the subtle hints that you don't want to re-learn how to play the job. Spirit updates? Too much for your brain too adapt to. Melee SMN? Also too hard. Same old but stronger avatars? Yea, that will not require you to learn anything new, and just do whatever you used to do.

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What I'm doing is trying to improve a job without letting the stupid ideas go to SE without showing why they are stupid ideas. This forum is made to have SE look at what the players want, and without opposition, if SE looked at these ideas of yours and Dallas, they would be making melee gear for SMN that nobody would want to use at all. There are already stupid gear out there that only stupid people would wear, why do you want to make stupid people wear stupid items for SMN and make SMN the next loljob?

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That said, you'd save a lot of time of your life if you stopped feeling the need to reply to all my posts and complain. It is your time though, so don't expect me to care if you keep replying with pointless posts.

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You do care, you keep replying. It would save you a lot of time to realize what is really wrong with the job and waste, as you have stated before, years of complaints that SE obviously ignores you about. But this is a new group of devs, and they don't know what players really want, and I want them to know that we, as players, don't want SMN to be melees. They excel at back line jobs, not right next to actual DDs.

Only trouble I see with your "spirits" are only good for a quick mp burst is that the same could be accomplished with a /JA wITHOUT the need for spirits. Since speed of spirits summons is negilable.

As I said once before, I have a long memory...if SE DIDN'T want spirits to expand why allow them to evolve over time matching blackmage lvl casting up until 75 then completely forget them?

The ONLY answer that makes sense is that at higher lvls elementals AND mob Summoners would become quite overpowered. Since for the most part mob Summoners DON'T have access to avatars, this issue isn't raised in the normal scope of things except for the astral flows.
By this same token, giving access to "high level spirtis" to BOTH players AND mob Summoners SE thinks it will overpower BOTH jobs.

The ONLY balance between a BLM and spirit nuking is in Fact, the already established spirit nuke casting cycle and timer.

As far as the silly melee summoner nonsense...every job thinks it can melee. And guess what they can, but they CANNOT do it on par with other "dedicated" melee types. That's game balance. A melee summoner is balanced between the player AND it's avatar/spirit. Whereas, a warrior is balance by nothing other than it's own gear and /ja choices. If you need a number. Warriors are 100%melee damage while a summoner is 25%player damage AND 75% avatar/spirit damage. One can play a little with those numbers but basically both jobs will reach the same quota of damage if player on average.

Now I'm sure a player can "parse" the number to disprove my basic arguments, but will this be taking into all accounts of a summoner buffn/debuff, summoning, mp consumption, etc...all of which slows a summoner damage output. Summoner still argue that they CANNOT melee or make it better despite having access to incredibly distructive AoE astral flow, especially AOE death(Odin).

I think SE needs to breakout their testing server, unlock spirits "full" capabilities and see whether or not both players, mob Summoners and those fighting them can be effective choices(if they haven't already).
if SE believes as I stated that this would be too strong, they should at least publicly state this to drop the spirits upgrade discussion.

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Originally Posted by Covenant

Only trouble I see with your "spirits" are only good for a quick mp burst is that the same could be accomplished with a /JA wITHOUT the need for spirits. Since speed of spirits summons is negilable.

As I said once before, I have a long memory...if SE DIDN'T want spirits to expand why allow them to evolve over time matching blackmage lvl casting up until 75 then completely forget them?

The ONLY answer that makes sense is that at higher lvls elementals AND mob Summoners would become quite overpowered. Since for the most part mob Summoners DON'T have access to avatars, this issue isn't raised in the normal scope of things except for the astral flows.
By this same token, giving access to "high level spirtis" to BOTH players AND mob Summoners SE thinks it will overpower BOTH jobs.

The ONLY balance between a BLM and spirit nuking is in Fact, the already established spirit nuke casting cycle and timer.

I think SE needs to breakout their testing server, unlock spirits "full" capabilities and see whether or not both players, mob Summoners and those fighting them can be effective choices(if they haven't already).
if SE believes as I stated that this would be too strong, they should at least publicly state this to drop the spirits upgrade discussion.

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They could have given us the /ja as a non-conditional ability, but I don't think they would consider that balanced. Elemental Siphon over time will give us back MP comparable to Convert, if it were to work withut needing to call out the appropriate spirit it could be called OP. As it works now to Siphon we need to dismiss our Avatar(which can be dangerous solo), which loses us things like Avatar TP, Avatar hate built up, and favor charge. This is balanced against the likes of Convert in battle.

They never matched BLM casting, they got the same spells at the same level as wild elementals(iirc), I think sE was updating their spell lists up until 75, because the wilds were getting spells up until this level too, I don't think SE has completely forgotten them, it's more a case of they weren't really doing anythiong with them in the first place, they already served their purpose.

Another answer that makes sense is that spirits are supposed to be weaker, hence why regular mobs use them, while NMs opt for Avatars. I don't see how higher level spirits could OP either, Avatars are already far stronger in both cases. The behaviour of SMN monsters, could be a clear indication of what SE thinks of spirits, and their uses.

SE could breakout their testing server to do this but honestly what would be the point? Spirits might close the gap some when it comes to nuking power, but would would SMN actually gain from this? Lets say you're fighting a monster that is weak to fire in a small group and a lvl1 merit pact and a spirit tier5 do similar damage. First off an update like this gains SMN nothing they still have the same nuking capability, just another pet to do the same damage, but then you add in the fact Ifrit is giving enfire and warcry fulltime to everyone in the group, the spirit once again falls behind leaving SE to say whoops, and the people demanding a buff to spirits scrathing their heads wondering why they thought it was such a big deal in the first place.

If SE is going to buff spirits, it cannot do it in a capacity an Avatar is already filling better than a spirit or it's a waste of time. It will be interesting to see what they do, if anything regarding spirits in this lin of thinking.

I wonder why people keep making Odin out to be some bad ass as an excuse to assume SMN is over powered. Especially coming with a DRK with access to something like the Twilight Scythe.

Sorry, typing out loud.

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If SE is going to buff spirits, it cannot do it in a capacity an Avatar is already filling better than a spirit or it's a waste of time.

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The interesting part is that you think a spirit beating an avatar would mean they are better in all situations. It is actually possible to make spirits better DDs than avatars, on monsters who do not resist magic or cast stunga/sleepga/silencega. Because Avatars would still be better on those. And as long as avatars are better, there is nothing to complain about, is there?

Still the most simple solution is to just combine/merge spirits and avatars with some kind of favor or something (spirit's favor), since then everyone wins. Both pro-spirit and pro-avatar. The only problem is if SE thinks it is unbalanced with siphon pet always available, and two pets to absorb damage (I doubt they'd be able to fight two different monsters though).

The possibilities with spirits are endless, but it requires someone to actually work on them.

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Originally Posted by Razushu

I've never seen it do that, I must be lucky lol. Thanks for the info:D

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Yeah, it just says "No effect" tho. But its annoying if you want another spell^_-

Without going into the whole TP argument...in between bloodpact and blood ward a player has a few seconds to play with. Why not summon a spirit to "wishfully" cast a strong nuke also, then continue with pacts and wards? This is especially so when Summoners are in the support role. The straight damage role is the avatar/summoner dual combo.

My summoner is dusty, but all the AoE tend to be short lived unless a player is "significantly" geared passed the skill cap. War cry is one of the shortest, though the doulbe attack favor is nice. When a summoner is buff player groups, dropping a strike and wards takes 1min each..usually back to back. That leaves players with around 45-50 seconds of "down time" or regular avatar melee. Since spirits are super quick to summon, you know have an opportunity for at most 1 spell. Unfortunately it'll be a enfeeb which makes spirits useless. If it were a garunteed nuke, more player I think would whip it out. If the cycle was nuke > enfeeb > nuke etc.. More players could factor this in as a "free" bloodpact.
I'm reminded of BLM camp against mob Summoners... 9/10 an elemental will lead with the "big nukes" while player spirits 9/10 will lead with a buff or enfeeb.

When a summoner player is playing solo, then yes it'll be pointless to play the summon/dismiss game.

Spirits are unreliable, even during the down time. There's no point to summon an avatar to use BP: Rage then release to summon a spirit that probably would take that full 45-50 seconds before it even starts to cast a spell. You'd be better off switching between avatars for BP: Rage and BP: Wards for buffs/enfeebs respectfully. With timing, you can reliably pump out a rage and ward blood pact without any less than 5-10 seconds of downtime. With perfect pacing, you can summon a spirit for elemental siphon without breaking your stride.

Elemental spirits are still vastly weak and the player SMN spirits aren't as great as mob SMN spirits.

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There's no point to summon an avatar to use BP: Rage then release to summon a spirit that probably would take that full 45-50 minutes before it even starts to cast a spell.

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I like your mistake there, since it does actually take 45-50 MINUTES if you are fighting easy prey mobs that die before the spirit starts casting. (Actually it takes infinite time, but 45-50 minutes is more funny since it is meant to be seconds)

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Originally Posted by Malamasala

The interesting part is that you think a spirit beating an avatar would mean they are better in all situations. It is actually possible to make spirits better DDs than avatars, on monsters who do not resist magic or cast stunga/sleepga/silencega. Because Avatars would still be better on those. And as long as avatars are better, there is nothing to complain about, is there?

Still the most simple solution is to just combine/merge spirits and avatars with some kind of favor or something (spirit's favor), since then everyone wins. Both pro-spirit and pro-avatar. The only problem is if SE thinks it is unbalanced with siphon pet always available, and two pets to absorb damage (I doubt they'd be able to fight two different monsters though).

The possibilities with spirits are endless, but it requires someone to actually work on them.

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I think you're misunderstanding me, I don't for a second think SE will ever buff spirits to surpass in any area, from a storyline pov, and the way only NMs and Dyna SMNs get Avatars(the other chumps are stuck with spirits). Avatars already get better magic damage choices than spirits, both in reliablity and potency.

I'm not against a buff to spirits, like yours mentioned here, it does satisfy both parties, and it buff spirits in a way that doesn't fill an already filled role. Which is the only way work on spirits wouldn't be wasted in the long run.

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Originally Posted by Malamasala

I like your mistake there, since it does actually take 45-50 MINUTES if you are fighting easy prey mobs that die before the spirit starts casting. (Actually it takes infinite time, but 45-50 minutes is more funny since it is meant to be seconds)

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LOL yeah I meant seconds, not minutes. xD

Spirits should just take less time to cast less... end of Story.

Oh ya and not be dumb about it.

The only things spirits need are:

1)A fix to their AI (no you don't have to spam burn/choke/frost/etc. over and over again)
2)The new tier spells that have been added post 75

Their casting times are just fine as they are now. Are you staking your skill/gear like you should to encourage them to cast faster? Or are you using what ever you have on, and tossing out any old spirit contrary to day/weather as you see fit?

What I don't understand is..... Why on earth would you want these things to come close to the level of your avatars? In all honestly they were put in back in the day for people to use when they couldn't GET the avatars to begin with. I know this is entirely hard to imagine now, but back then when they came out it was HARD to get them. Hell, having Fenrir was a massive achievement all unto itself. Not everyone had people who could run them to the cloisters to get the avatars for them, and back then those fights were difficult for people to accomplish until gear/skill improved.

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1)A fix to their AI (no you don't have to spam burn/choke/frost/etc. over and over again)

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I've always said they need a spell cycle. Starting point should be unknown, but it should go something like debuff > nuke > debuff > nuke. And since starting point is unknown, it is possible to go nuke > debuff > nuke > debuff. It should only depend on when summoned, since if it depended on assault, you wouldn't be guaranteed the next spell after a debuff is a nuke if a monster died between.