That picture is by far the best thing to come out of this thread. <--- sorry, I didn't read most of the posts between the picture and here. I just thought it was a funny image someone had stitched together. ; ;
AM3 for Mythics is just OAT, it's not all three.
Also, directions to post in the random question thread are in caps in the FFXI advanced forum description. BG's philosophy, as I understand it (not a mod), is that we should make threads for ongoing conversations within the community. Testing that's being done, events we're interested in, etc. Making threads like this one (http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/105...ansion-problem) get you in trouble. Probably not banned, if you didn't do it maliciously, but it'll at least get it unsympathetically locked. Making threads like this one (http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/104...nd-Igi-Ningi-2) get people trying to sex you out of happiness, even if your original conclusion ends up being wrong.
As far as wikis go, as the game dies out, SE adds less and less content but fewer and fewer people add it to the wikis. BGwiki has a huge advantage over other wikis in that Septimus, myself, Yugl, Blackrose and several other members of the BG community have been updating random things since the last patch. We've basically added all the information from the last patch to the wiki, and now I'm going through and adding old testing stuff that never made it to ffxiclopedia (or that they got wrong) and testing more things.
To be frank, the last patch kind of sucked for me. It has almost no content that I am obliged to take part in. The challenging and interesting content that they added (Voidwatch) is also unrewarding unless you go with a much larger crew than I. However, I use FFXI as $12.95/mo AIM so I'm on anyway and just do testing and lazily work on long-term goals/help friends.
Anyway, the basic problem with the whole melee-summoner thing is this, which I'm sure you've been told many many times, by me and others:
* There are three strategic uses for summoner:
1) You need Earthen Armor to mitigate heavy (often AoE) damage.
2) You need Perfect Defense for a zerg.
3) You need a low-hate/low-TP damage source often due to some hate-reset mechanism of the monster. In these situations, you sacrifice kill speed for safety and stability.
The reason that your job is only desirable in those three situations basically boils down to the 45 second recast on your BPs and lack of Haste buffs / competitive DPS for pets. It makes you uncompetitive as a melee damage source, which means you're only desirable in situations where meleeing is impractical. Think of it this way, with your Myrkr argument:
1) If you're using Myrkr (Empyrean WS), you're not using a weaponskill that does damage, but you can maintain avatar + BP full-time.
2) If your Avatar BPs for approximately the same amount that players weaponskill for, we can treat those BPs as the replacement for your empyrean weaponskill. I'm being kind when I say your Avatar BPs for as much as an Empyrean WS.
3) Even assuming that your staff wasn't the lowest DPS Empyrean and you weren't one of the least qualified melee jobs in the game, you're still only effectively WSing once every 45 seconds. Other Empyrean DDs self-skillchain by accident (Skillchain window is ~5 seconds).
4) Now you're left with three components:
* Melee damage from the summoner (less than any other DD)
* Melee damage from the Avatar (does not receive Haste buffs), and does not even compare to your own staff damage.
* BP damage (Less than weaponskill damage from any melee)
So you do less damage than any other melee DD that people would consider bringing. Now, why would anyone bring you along to melee DD? Because you can give them an evasion boost? Get real. A lolmeleeBRD can do competitive damage with you and can do a heck of a lot better than mambo. Also, as nice as a minor evasion boost may be, it's not anything people build a strategy around.
Can you go along on your Empyrean Summoner instead of a non-Empyrean DD in Dynamis have more fun? I'm entirely certain that you can. Will you kill more things and get more currency? Maybe, if you pay more attention because you really enjoy playing Summoner. Similarly, if you play both Warrior and Summoner, do I believe there may be times when you outparse your own WAR on Summoner? Sure! If you like the job more, you play it better. You don't AFK as much. You engage faster. Who comes what job and when is a decision you or your linkshell leader have to make due to an understanding of the personalities involved and game mechanics. I, personally, go Dancer a heck of a lot more than I should for this very reason.
However, it's worth nothing that game mechanics really do not favor melee summoners.
Edit: Also, I chose to support BG wiki basically because I noticed Septimus was still updating it long after I thought the community had abandoned it. Also, with the Gamer Escape/FFXIclopedia split, we lost all the talk pages and the updating community is split between the two websites. FFXIclopedia gets all the random updates with unsigned testimonies about BCNMs and stuff, and Gamer Escape gets people pulling information from my posts on BG. I like BGwiki, because there aren't 10,000 banners I have to adblock and there's a small enough updating base that people don't add incorrect information on a whim. I can't even begin to count how many hours of testing the unsigned Saber Dance mechanism someone threw onto ffxiclopedia set me back.
Edit2: lol1:30 sleepytarus go to bed
