Summoning magic skill-ups and the rate of which we are getting them.

I play SMN in legion and my LS does about 10 runs per week. I get about 1 skill up a week spamming Shock Squall and offensive BPs on the high level mobs found in legion. Yup definitely where summoning skill should be at, at this rate I might hit cap before my job is useless again. >_> Looking at you PD nerf

Yeah, if it is true what the dev team says about skillup rates being higher for smn, maybe we'd be better off filing bug reports. What if we all posted one in sync? That would be cool.

Hello,

Thanks for the additional feedback. I've collected your comments and have passed it along and if we get any more information I'll be sure to let you all know.

That's nice to hear. Thank you, Okipuit. No hard feelings, I know you are just the messenger :).

And I am sorry for the frustration expressed in my post at the bottom of the previous page. I don't usually like being wrong, but in this case I am glad I was.

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Originally Posted by Mirage

But of course, we'll never get another reply addressing our concerns about the first reply. This thread is probably tagged as "solved, do not reply again" by SE now.

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Yet the thread got replied to after this. XD

They did it just to spite your instant negativity!

As someone who leveled their SMN skill from 230 to the level 99 max over the course of a few months, allow me to give some perspective.

It takes approximately 96 hours of doing absolutely NOTHING but summoning in absolutely perfect conditions
That means:
-Constantly summoning and releasing, minding the timers
-Siphoning when MP is low
-Constantly doing BPs, keeping track of both timers
-Casting Refresh on yourself and converting
for a full 96 hours.

Is this what the Dev team really wants?
Don't forget your family, friends, school, etc. but put timesinks like this in the game? No wonder some people are quitting.

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Originally Posted by Sp1cyryan

Yet the thread got replied to after this. XD

They did it just to spite your instant negativity!

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That was my plan all along!

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Originally Posted by Mirage

That was my plan all along!

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So genius, it might just, work.

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Originally Posted by Hashmalum

Okipuit, I hope that you didn't report to the dev team that "some of the posters feel that raising your summoning skill feels slow while others feel that the rate is not too bad", because that's deeply misleading. It makes it sound like a 50/50 or similar sort of deal rather nearly two dozen on one hand versus a couple of people who can't even advance a meaningful and coherent argument on the other.

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Originally Posted by Vold

Oki I am going to give the dev team the benefit of the doubt on this one and say they feel they are speaking 100% truth.

But I'm here to inform you to inform them that there's an error in their coding because in practice that's damn wrong. I suggest they or one of you reps spend a measly half a hour trying to skill up a character using BP only. If they come out of it feeling it's working as intended, well, that's all I can ask for but the RNG happened to be heavily HEAVILY in their favor during that 30 minutes >.>;

You got freebie tester help 24 hours a day. Hell you got freebie tester help PAYING you 24 hours a day. I strongly suggest you take advantage of that more often than rarely.

You know what I want to see for that next magical Job Adjustment stage? Old everything being fixed, rather than a slew of new crap. Because every new thing you add is another current and future priority over fixing the older problems.

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^ this and that, hit like for both posts. Yeah I posted earlier saying how that was misleading.

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Originally Posted by Okipuit

Hello,

Thanks for the additional feedback. I've collected your comments and have passed it along and if we get any more information I'll be sure to let you all know.

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Is there any words about other skills? Thanks for re-replying

I rly dont know why you go fight vwnm for skillup, for me the best place is solo the abyss dolls.

Last time skillup from lvl95> 99, was round 30 min. for new cap.
all ~5 bp a 0,1~0,5
or fight hedjetjet all~2 bps as 0,1~0,5

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Originally Posted by Abbylu

I call BS. If I spend 2 hours killing 3 mobs with nothing BUT bp's and get 1.2 skill ups, even with using skill food, and that earring I spent months and months farming for, then that skill up rate is far from "set high".

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I was told the skill up food didn't work for summoning skill. Was I miss informed? I haven't personally noticed a difference in skill up rate with or without it so I dunno.

Hello,

We noticed some of you mentioning that you have been attempting to skill up summoning magic in Legion or have been spending a lot of time using offensive blood pacts on the same monsters for a long period of time.

The rate in which your skills increase depends a lot on your skill level related to the enemy's level. Since the monsters in Legion are extremely high level and there is also a chance that the monsters you are fighting for long periods of time are also quite high in level, you may want to consider trying other monsters if your progress appears slow.

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Originally Posted by Okipuit

Hello,

We noticed some of you mentioning that you have been attempting to skill up summoning magic in Legion or have been spending a lot of time using offensive blood pacts on the same monsters for a long period of time.

The rate in which your skills increase depends a lot on your skill level related to the enemy's level. Since the monsters in Legion are extremely high level and there is also a chance that the monsters you are fighting for long periods of time are also quite high in level, you may want to consider trying other monsters if your progress appears slow.

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I like the dhamal NM in altepa.

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Originally Posted by Okipuit

The rate in which your skills increase depends a lot on your skill level related to the enemy's level.

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Well this isn't news for I assume most everyone here due to our trial and error with melee weapons long ago, but when you're level 99 and looking at the content out there it leaves little room for SMN BP skill ups. Any end game content is uberly high level and even if you look to Abyssea, 1)best of luck getting anywhere with skill ups in exp groups and 2)have you ever tried to solo skill up SMN summoning magic? Yeah it can be done but gosh.

I'm of the opinion that if certain skills cannot auto skill themselves during our everyday activities then there's something wrong. Pretty much everything auto skills itself if it's the priority weapon of choice for the job, except SMN magic. PLD and sword, no problem. THF and dagger, no problem. Healing magic, well okay it's slow but not a problem. Enfeebling magic not a problem for rdm. BLU magic not a problem for BLU. SMN magic, a problem. Because you have to take a time out from serious business to skill it up if you ever want it skilled up. If it were a side priority like staff for WAR or enfeebling for WHM, I might understand not touching it. But it's not.

So I guess my argument is, because SMN uses smn magic as it's main "weapon" to do battle, and because BP timers are as long as they are, and assuming that you're on board with me when I say priority job skills should auto skill themselves due to frequent use in everyday activities, you, whoever "you" may be, must agree with me when I say summoning magic needs some help. The rule of thumb needs to be different for it. Just like parry. Doesn't matter if I can go out to Abyssea, solo dolls, and apparently cap it in due time. The point and issue is, you shouldn't ever have to do that except for side projects, like staff skill ups for WAR or enfeebling for WHM.

I see what he's saying, But honestly, I've been trying to skill up mine on mobs like... Botulus Rex... Ig-Alima... Provenance Fights... Its still so slow i consider stabbing my balls a pleasant alternative.

I thank you for the advice.

If you could only get skill when using a weapon skill, and could only use weapon skills every 45 seconds regarless of TP, then it would take a long time to cap weapons too. The issue with Summoning magic isn't that the skill up rate is terrible, it's that the best source of skill ups is set to a 45 second timer at best. The skill up rate for just summoning an avatar/spirit is pretty bad. I never spammed summons to try to skill up.

As far as skill up foods go, it seemed pretty noticeable when I used food and when I didn't while attempting skill ups on SMN. You have to make sure you're using the right food for your level range though. Check the chart on this page http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Skill_Up_Food it's fairly accurate for the ranges. The only food I can really vouch for is B.W.E pitaru because my skill was already around 350 or so when I decided to really attempt to cap it. I also have the magic skill up earring so your mileage my vary.

I did page 7 in Crawler's nest (King Cralwers/ Vespos) to about 400 I think. They're DC to 99 so you can technically cap on them but skill ups seemed to slow down towards 400ish. After that I did page 8 in Gustav Tunnel (Worms/Turtles) Turtles are a little harder to kill solo so you may want to opt out of doing them. I only did pages to try for skill up prowess. I usually did easier pages till I got at least 1-2 levels of skill up prowess, and then switched to the target mobs.

Unfortunately it's time consuming to do that so it's not really viable for people without a lot of play time unless you log out in the dungeon to keep your prowess. Which means you can't do anything else for as long as you want to try to skill up. So yeah, it sucks to skill up summoning magic. Sadly it seems SE is going to be stubborn about the skill up rate so I wish good luck on anyone that still needs to cap. Keep trying and you'll get there eventually, at least it's something that doesn't require 18 people to do.

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Originally Posted by Okipuit

Hello,

We noticed some of you mentioning that you have been attempting to skill up summoning magic in Legion or have been spending a lot of time using offensive blood pacts on the same monsters for a long period of time.

The rate in which your skills increase depends a lot on your skill level related to the enemy's level. Since the monsters in Legion are extremely high level and there is also a chance that the monsters you are fighting for long periods of time are also quite high in level, you may want to consider trying other monsters if your progress appears slow.

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Though my suggestion was before you came on board as a Community Rep. Okipuit, please jab Camate or one of the others to let them refresh you on a little concept called "Gyms of Vana'Diel" :)

But in all seriousness, one can only wonder at how useful those Gyms could have been through all of our level increases and skill up sessions throughout the months of development. Even a year later, Skill ups are still being brought up as an issue from the player base (even after the cool skill up food and rings and such). Technically, the Dev team never came forth and said a solid "No" to the concept, and I don't think there was an official update to weather they considered it possible... soooo.... *cough* /stares at Camate (^.^)

On the bright side, SMN skill is really the only thing SMN has to cap compared to jobs like WAR, RDM, BRD, DRK, MNK, SAM etc which skill up faster but have way more things to skill. Besides Summoning Magic Skill and Staff, there's really nothing else for SMN, so most jobs cap out pretty much around the same time.

I found that I got the best skillups off monsters that were something like 25 levels over my current skill cap. 0.4 and 0.5s. After a while I couldn't skill up very well on Kaggen/Pil/Akvan/Qilin anymore, but I could still get good skillups on Morta.

Anyway, I doubt DC-EM monsters are the answer. Use Ramuh and spam Chaos Strike/Shock Squall on the highest level thing you can fight.

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Originally Posted by Okipuit

Hello,

We noticed some of you mentioning that you have been attempting to skill up summoning magic in Legion or have been spending a lot of time using offensive blood pacts on the same monsters for a long period of time.

The rate in which your skills increase depends a lot on your skill level related to the enemy's level. Since the monsters in Legion are extremely high level and there is also a chance that the monsters you are fighting for long periods of time are also quite high in level, you may want to consider trying other monsters if your progress appears slow.

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But why is it then so easily for weapons to skill up on enemies way above the current skill level equivalent? I was getting skillups on almost every shot when I skilled archery, even though I was at skill level 200 (~lv60 equivalent) fighting level 85 enemies. That's a 25 level difference, which isn't very different from Karbuncle's ~370 summoning skill (level 95-ish?) and the lv115-120 monsters in voidwatch and legion. So unless archery (and other weapons) are bugged and level too easily on high level monsters, Karbuncle's VW and Legion fights should be appropriate targets to skill up on.

So, am I understanding it correctly if the developers are in complete disagreement, then?

If so, is it because:
1. The developers feel that summoning skill levels just as fast as every other skill?
2. The developers feel that summoning skill should not level as fast as other skills?
3. Something completely different?

It would be great if you could ask the developers exactly what the reason is, because I still don't think it's entirely clear exactly why they don't want to consider it. With the above questions, we'd at least get an idea of exactly what it is we and the developers disagree on, because it is pretty obvious that there is a strong disagreement somewhere.

I have found the following guide to be very effective for skill ups. The goal is too find targets approximately 7 to 9 levels above your current skill level. skills grow best when keeping in this range.
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Sk...uide_by_Kyrial

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Originally Posted by Okipuit

Hello,

We noticed some of you mentioning that you have been attempting to skill up summoning magic in Legion or have been spending a lot of time using offensive blood pacts on the same monsters for a long period of time.

The rate in which your skills increase depends a lot on your skill level related to the enemy's level. Since the monsters in Legion are extremely high level and there is also a chance that the monsters you are fighting for long periods of time are also quite high in level, you may want to consider trying other monsters if your progress appears slow.

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This is like calling a helpline for a computer hardware issue and being asked if you have "turned it off and then on again" after already being on the phone for 20 minutes with the person.

Summoning skill ups are slower than other skill ups in this game and pretty much unbalanced in the face of how anything else in this game skills up faster. It is that simple, and since it has been made clear the Dev team does not wish to change that. Then why not just lock the thread so people stop asking?

Because its entertaining , while unable to play, working to pay for my real "job"? Dont lock the thread! /sarcasm

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Originally Posted by kingfury

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Though my suggestion was before you came on board as a Community Rep. Okipuit, please jab Camate or one of the others to let them refresh you on a little concept called "Gyms of Vana'Diel" :)

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You should bump that thread or re-post it if bumping isn't possible. It's been, what, over a year since it was active? It's worth another go.

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Originally Posted by Okipuit

Hello,

We noticed some of you mentioning that you have been attempting to skill up summoning magic in Legion or have been spending a lot of time using offensive blood pacts on the same monsters for a long period of time.

The rate in which your skills increase depends a lot on your skill level related to the enemy's level. Since the monsters in Legion are extremely high level and there is also a chance that the monsters you are fighting for long periods of time are also quite high in level, you may want to consider trying other monsters if your progress appears slow.

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I would attempt to skill on anything and everything from EP-IT and not at all in Legion. It simply didn't matter. The skills came at a very low rate against everything. It doesn't help that we can only BP: Rage once every 45 seconds at best. I realize we get skills from summoning and BP: Ward as well, but as stated those proc at an even lower rate than BP: Rage. Increasing the rate at which those can proc skillups would help.

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Originally Posted by Camiie

I would attempt to skill on anything and everything from EP-IT and not at all in Legion. It simply didn't matter. The skills came at a very low rate against everything. It doesn't help that we can only BP: Rage once every 45 seconds at best. I realize we get skills from summoning and BP: Ward as well, but as stated those proc at an even lower rate than BP: Rage. Increasing the rate at which those can proc skillups would help.

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Offensive BP wards proc at thesame rate as bp rage. eg. shock squall, somnolence, diamond storm, sleepga, slowga etc.

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Originally Posted by Babekeke

Offensive BP wards proc at thesame rate as bp rage. eg. shock squall, somnolence, diamond storm, sleepga, slowga etc.

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Yeah, that's true. It'd be nice if buff-type Wards would get a higher rate though.

Well they just delivered another bad news for summoners everywhere with the recent "adjustment" to Perfect Defense. And conveniently NOT doing anything to this thread when we are asking that skills up to be improved at faster rate.

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Originally Posted by Luvbunny

Well they just delivered another bad news for summoners everywhere with the recent "adjustment" to Perfect Defense. And conveniently NOT doing anything to this thread when we are asking that skills up to be improved at faster rate.

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I was just coming in to say the same thing. I'm currently stuck around the ~420 mark with gear (about 350 without) and I was capped at 75 and didn't leech a single level of SMN ><

Leaves me with a 51 second PD

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Originally Posted by Babekeke

I was just coming in to say the same thing. I'm currently stuck around the ~420 mark with gear (about 350 without) and I was capped at 75 and didn't leech a single level of SMN ><

Leaves me with a 51 second PD

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Funniest thing about this is, they set the cap for PD @ 600 skill. I know of no legit way to get SMN skill that high!
I'm @517 skill and there's not much room for a higher number with gear.

Nice way to troll SMN even harder after the cait sith delay...

They didn't set the cap at 600, They just used it as an Example.

(The JP Side had a follow up, We'll see it soon).

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Originally Posted by Karbuncle

They didn't set the cap at 600, They just used it as an Example.

(The JP Side had a follow up, We'll see it soon).

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Well that's at least SOMETHING, though they should consider their wording better, before posting something like this then.

I can't read Japanese and the english wording doesn't sound like this was an example.

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Originally Posted by Karbuncle

They didn't set the cap at 600, They just used it as an Example.

(The JP Side had a follow up, We'll see it soon).

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Originally Posted by Camate

First, there is a question about the cap on summoning skill being 600 being a mistake; however, this is the correct number. While it might not be currently possible to reach this number, the development team set the cap to 600, so consider that there may be room to increase this in the future.

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IDK, I think this follow-up is pretty clear.

Except that Follow up was mentioned after My post by some significant margin, and was not worded as such in the JP post...

Regardless, Its still rather troubling, Even at pure best, Its a 30 Second less duration than Pre Nerf. Though, I expected something like this. I'd say I was happy they didn't touch the potency, But with the Decay set as is, the Potency is technically nerfed too.

It'll still be a vastly useful ability, Will just need to be more properly utilized and require capped or near such summoning Magic.

So, how many are going to cap azure, pearl, then rely on spamming the new Special for skillups?

Random Question. May not even be the right place for it. But noticed talk about smn skill now effecting the duration of PD.

Personally i'm sitting at 528 Skill. So should put me at almost 56 Second Duration.

Here's my Question. The Relic AF Horn that's fully augmented gives additional bonus time to Astral Flow. With the idea of allowing for another Special BP during it's Duration.

So, will it affect PD's timer in any way if it's equiped when summoning Alex?

May lose some skill in your goal for max potency, but extending the "Special BP/Allowing Additional Benefits" of Astral Flow seems fair to me.

If not affecting PD, will the Relic Horn effect the new "2 Hour Ability" Since originally they were going to be an either or I'm assuming that the bonus on the horn would eventually affect either choice.

Guess that brings up an interesteing question for alot of the jobs and special Relic Augmented +2s.

Naw, I highly doubt it will effect PD. It's to make the 2hr last longer so doubt it's gonna extend duration of PD.Once you use Alex it removes your 2hr effect.

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Personally i'm sitting at 528 Skill. So should put me at almost 56 Second Duration.

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From my understanding on the test server it's much worse then that. It's 30s of invulnerability that then wears off for the rest of the duration (24s in your case). This means that even with some as-of-yet-reachable 600 skill, your still only at 30s of immunity to the NM annihilation moves. After that you reach an ever increasing chance of dieing en-mass. Makes ADL a 50% win rate due to it wearing once you kill the first clone, and makes other events VERY sketchy at best. We're back to stun locking things and hoping that SE doesn't re-introduce stun resistance rapidly building mobs.

without gear/merits im @ 335 skill with gear/merits im at 424 Takes forever to freakin lv this damn skill up! been playing smn for a long time now lol. They really need to change the rate on skill ups for smn magic

I havent actually used my summoner in a while but i appear to be 34 skill levels behind. i have 399 naked with full merits. I am pretty sure i was capped at 95, and most of that was just from me soloing Iron Giants in abyssea via summoning but more often pacts.

Someone near the beginning of this thread said it was difficult as enhancign magic skillups and one good place was in gustav vs turtles and worms. in which someone said it wasnt working for them. What im curious about is... I was attempting to level my pld (with my whm mule) in gustav and try for the skillup earring from the caskets there. i was doind a crab goblin and skeleton page and i got several levels of skillup prowess. So since i had the skillup prowess i decided to try and see if i could cap enhancing while i was there on my whm who had pretty low skills. i ended up cappin pretty fast. Then i moved on to healing jsut curing myself over and over and it also capped fast. So did the person who tried cappin summonin magic there also get the prowess for skillups?