Being a Summoner can be disheartening these days :/

Yep, another J/T like Stout Servant, but enhancing base damage/attack/STR/MAB, that kind of thing.

Oh and reduce the cap on BP timer, naturally.

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The bigger point that seems to keep getting forgotten is that the fix should not be coming from gear.

The fixes should be going directly to the pets first, regardless of what gear is equipped.

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This- This is the first action they should be taking, rather than using gear as bandaids.

My proposal is mainly made with the understanding that they're not likely to do the above, even though it's the most sane, intelligent, logical thing to do.

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So... why don't you stop arguing and just use grips (like SE probably wants it to do anyway) for exactly the same thing alhanelem suggests for the staves? Then you can keep your perp staff or melee staff if you want and still increase the dmg of the Avatar. You are way more flexible this way, too. It's not like we have any really good Grip anyway (smn skill+3? MP+? not really needed). I like the direction that SE wants to use grips since it's a slot we don't really needed until now. Implement lowlvl to highlvl grips so SMNs on lower levels can already benefit from it and it's done.

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I don't think you understand the purpose of the proposal. First- they could easily make a grip with perpetuation - on it, thus making it all the more easy to choose a high level staff. Second- Tying avatar damage to weapon damage is not intended to help melee- it is intended to help the avatar. By setting up the system like this way, you ensure that the avatar is always stronger than the player (which is the way things should be.)- You can't increase your melee damage without also increasing avatar's damage, therefore you will always be more interested in using your avatar. This is primarily aimed at improving avatar's physical characteristics, where you may still need another staff for magic enhancement.

Having grips give super stats for the avatar just doesn't make sense. Grips have always been minor bonuses to supplement stats for 2-handed users. Avatars should be improved naturally before any gear is applied. Failing that, the best way to improve them would be to leverage gear we already have. Since basing mage capabilities on the damage of their weapons is common in many other MMOs, it is what made the most sense to me here (This could be applied to BLM too, where the DMG: on the weapon modifies nuke damage. This makes it a lot simpler to find and upgrade compared to the current system).

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

I don't think you understand the purpose of the proposal. First- they could easily make a grip with perpetuation - on it, thus making it all the more easy to choose a high level staff. Second- Tying avatar damage to weapon damage is not intended to help melee- it is intended to help the avatar. By setting up the system like this way, you ensure that the avatar is always stronger than the player (which is the way things should be.)- You can't increase your melee damage without also increasing avatar's damage, therefore you will always be more interested in using your avatar. This is primarily aimed at improving avatar's physical characteristics, where you may still need another staff for magic enhancement.

Having grips give super stats for the avatar just doesn't make sense. Grips have always been minor bonuses to supplement stats for 2-handed users. Avatars should be improved naturally before any gear is applied. Failing that, the best way to improve them would be to leverage gear we already have. Since basing mage capabilities on the damage of their weapons is common in many other MMOs, it is what made the most sense to me here (This could be applied to BLM too, where the DMG: on the weapon modifies nuke damage. This makes it a lot simpler to find and upgrade compared to the current system).

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Oh I understand perfectly what YOU think this does to us, but MY opinion is, that it does more harm than it does good, to tie it to the Weapon. It would cripple our choices in staves. We have different staves for different styles of play and I don't want to give that up becaue i have to wear a certain Staff to make my Avatar useful overall. And unlike you state grips makes PERFECT sense BECAUSE they only gave really minor enhancements to any stat. Because they're replaceable it's the perfect slot. Unlike staves because they already give major enhancements to our avatars like perp cost-7 or Avatar MAB +40 and upwards (well i'd love to have a better stave for physical Blood pacts still, Magian or Soul Scourge aren't exactly giving a huge boost)!

But I totally agree that first and foremost Avatars should be boosted naturally and then by gear, but staves would be IN MY opinion then wrong way, as much as I like that you at least do make proposals as how to change the gear enhancements for SMN.

Just like DDs are crippled in that they have to use a small selection of RMED all the time.

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Oh I understand perfectly what YOU think this does to us, but MY opinion is, that it does more harm than it does good, to tie it to the Weapon.

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I disagree. It does way more good than harm. It doesn't harm anybody other than those who refuse to upgrade their weapon for the sake of clinging to the past (a past where summoner has always been mediocre at best).

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It would cripple our choices in staves.

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It wouldn't cripple our choice in staves, because outside of choosing whether you want to melee or not, there isn't much of a choice. either elemental staves/prism staff, one of the few MAB staves, or a perp staff. MAB staves would still be completely relevant, and staves with a higher DMG rating would become meaningful for their benefits to your summons. the total number of useable staves would be higher than it is now, not smaller.

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Unlike staves because they already give major enhancements to our avatars like perp cost-7

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Not going to go in to detail, but -7 perp is not a major benefit. It's very minor, as while helpful, it is not absolutely necessary to perform your role as summoner.

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or Avatar MAB +40 and upwards

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MAB staves would still be relevant because DMG: only affects physical attacks.

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But I totally agree that first and foremost Avatars should be boosted naturally and then by gear, but staves would be IN MY opinion then wrong way,

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It's a far better way than putting pet stats on grips. Grips is where the big perp cost - should be. Even that would give more weapon choice.

Again though, all of this is in lieu of addressing the inherent flaws in the avatars. Gear should be needed to push the envolope, not upgrade our pets from shiatty to not-as-shiatty.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

I disagree. It does way more good than harm. It doesn't harm anybody other than those who refuse to upgrade their weapon for the sake of clinging to the past (a past where summoner has always been mediocre at best).

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What the...? I love that we can use staves from various levels, because we don't get pidgeonholed into the "Use this single uberweapon or gtfo!" I don't want this to happen, and to be honest even with powerful grips we're running into this mess. It's still better to use grips for it though, since they're replaceable atm. But it's not doing us any favors whatsoever if our mainsource of avatar power comes from gear. I understand that there should be gear progression since we won't get another lvlcap raise but still, i hate all these RMED only shouts and I'd hate it for SMN, PUPs and other jobs alike if there starts to be shouts like "alternator only" (as unlikely as it is since those jobs aren't exactly popular)

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It wouldn't cripple our choice in staves, because outside of choosing whether you want to melee or not, there isn't much of a choice. either elemental staves/prism staff, one of the few MAB staves, or a perp staff. MAB staves would still be completely relevant, and staves with a higher DMG rating would become meaningful for their benefits to your summons. the total number of useable staves would be higher than it is now, not smaller.

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It WOULD cripple our choices in staves, because I for one like my Perp cost gear. I like that i can use a 5%Haste +3critrate hat for my Avatars and Relic+2body for even more critrate. when i'm gearing towards Avatar Melee i have 9% more crits on avatars and 12%Haste on them. I couldn't do that if i have to wear a Highdmg staff without perp cost, because my Avatars would cost too much to let them melee for longer periods. Oh and having the dmg bonus on Grips wouldn't do that. Why create perp cost grips when there are already staves for this, and staves you have to put time into, to get them? THAT doesn't make sense. and when I want to melee Alongside my Avatar i simply switch in another staff with high dmg and instead more perp gear in other slots. Because I HAVE those choices. Those would be taken away if your proposal would be done by SE. I don't want to be pidgeonholed into only 1 or 2 staves for everything (ok i hate that i have 8 staves for 8 elements, that could be 1 alone and wouldn't be overpowered but i'd still use like 4-5 staves for different situations then)

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Not going to go in to detail, but -7 perp is not a major benefit. It's very minor, as while helpful, it is not absolutely necessary to perform your role as summoner.

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That's so wrong IN MY EYES, -7 perp cost is a HUGE benefit because it frees so many other slots to put in something way more useful for many situations.
Example given above

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MAB staves would still be relevant because DMG: only affects physical attacks.

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I agree on this one

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It's a far better way than putting pet stats on grips. Grips is where the big perp cost - should be. Even that would give more weapon choice.

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I still don't think you understand the thinking of the community as a whole. That's why I say it would cripple our choices in staves, because just like melees are pidgeonholed into "RMED" at the moment we would be pidgeonholed into "new superuberweapon which makes avatar melee useful- only" I for one don't want that to happen. Too powerful grips would do something alike, I know, and I'm not wanting that either but it would at least let us choose which staves we want to use for OUR OWN playstyle. Not everybody does play SMN like you do

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Again though, all of this is in lieu of addressing the inherent flaws in the avatars. Gear should be needed to push the envolope, not upgrade our pets from shiatty to not-as-shiatty.

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Agreed on this one. And that being said don't understand me wrong I don't want to make your arguments any less important since such a discussion is NEEDED for SMN. I'm just being on another side of opinions than you.

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What the...? I love that we can use staves from various levels, because we don't get pidgeonholed into the "Use this single uberweapon or gtfo!"

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You aren't pigeonholed into use this single weapon whatever. There are a lot of staves out there with good dmg ratings these days, and delve didn't pump that up much so there are still a variety of options that are quite close to each other in power. Currently (short of some creativity) we are pigeonholed into using either a rainbow ele staff or -perp staff for the majority of the time. How is this any better? In fact, for the longest time, all mages were pigeonholed into the elemental staves. Thus, even just throwing the R/M/E weapons in there means more options, but there's more than that- A skirmish staff ursurps my lv90 empy...

TL;DR: There are more options under my proposed system than there are currently (collectively treating ele staves as one thing, collectively treating magian perp staves as one thing- they all do the same thing, they're not really different- I don't consider them "options.")

You seem to think that literally my mindset here is "Everyone must use the relic weapon!" That's not it at all, and that's not what would happen here.

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Not everybody does play SMN like you do

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I'm NOT asking people to play SMN like I do! NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST. I'm asking everyone to play the way they normally do, and have more weapons be possible to do it with. This is NOT ABOUT meleeing with summoner. This is about improving the AVATARS. Please, get your mind past this fact so you can understand my position better. This is about more weapon possibilities and better avatar DPS. You're missing the point that the whole idea is to ensure that the avatar is always more powerful than you are, thus making it so you DON'T have to melee to get your damage to a half decent level.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

You aren't pigeonholed into use this single weapon whatever. There are a lot of staves out there with good dmg ratings these days, and delve didn't pump that up much so there are still a variety of options that are quite close to each other in power. Currently (short of some creativity) we are pigeonholed into using either a rainbow ele staff or -perp staff for the majority of the time. How is this any better? In fact, for the longest time, all mages were pigeonholed into the elemental staves. Thus, even just throwing the R/M/E weapons in there means more options, but there's more than that- A skirmish staff ursurps my lv90 empy...

TL;DR: There are more options under my proposed system than there are currently (collectively treating ele staves as one thing, collectively treating magian perp staves as one thing- they all do the same thing, they're not really different- I don't consider them "options.")

You seem to think that literally my mindset here is "Everyone must use the relic weapon!" That's not it at all, and that's not what would happen here.

I'm NOT asking people to play SMN like I do! NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST. I'm asking everyone to play the way they normally do, and have more weapons be possible to do it with. This is NOT ABOUT meleeing with summoner. This is about improving the AVATARS. Please, get your mind past this fact so you can understand my position better. This is about more weapon possibilities and better avatar DPS. You're missing the point that the whole idea is to ensure that the avatar is always more powerful than you are, thus making it so you DON'T have to melee to get your damage to a half decent level.

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1) It's wrong that Delve didn't do much about staffdmg: Yaskomo's Pole rates @ 150dmg that's around 50 above MYTHIC at the moment, that's a whole lot, if you'd translate that to the avatars. So tell me why they wouldn't say "delve or gtfo" if you have way less dmg on other staves for Avatars

2) you don't seem to read what i write. I was only talking about meleeing alongside Avatars as an option. My mainpoint was that perp staves give me the Freedom to enhance my avatar even further with other Gear (as stated before Haste +12% and critrate +9% FOR MY AVATAR). Just put dmg increases on grips and i can keep those options. (yeah perp grips would do the same, but why create perp grips when you already have perp options available and instead do something on grips which really helps) and do the dmg increase instead on grips)

I don't understand why you insist on doing this on Staves when Grips fit the bill perfectly

I guess we may have to agree to disagree on this matter

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Originally Posted by Herby

1) It's wrong that Delve didn't do much about staffdmg: Yaskomo's Pole rates @ 150dmg that's around 50 above MYTHIC at the moment, that's a whole lot, if you'd translate that to the avatars.

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Maybe you missed that SE have said they'll be upgrading the r/m/e to be more comparable to the delve weapons?

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Originally Posted by Herby

So tell me why they wouldn't say "delve or gtfo" if you have way less dmg on other staves for Avatars

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Kind of irrelevant, since the Grip will almost certainly drop from delve as well. If you have access to the grip, you have access to the staff. It'll still be "delve or gtfo" whether it refers to the grip or the staff. The difference being that you'll most likely want the staff anyway, just for the +MAB.

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Originally Posted by Babekeke

Maybe you missed that SE have said they'll be upgrading the r/m/e to be more comparable to the delve weapons?



Kind of irrelevant, since the Grip will almost certainly drop from delve as well. If you have access to the grip, you have access to the staff. It'll still be "delve or gtfo" whether it refers to the grip or the staff. The difference being that you'll most likely want the staff anyway, just for the +MAB.

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If you read my earlier posts you would see that I already said that Grips aren't the best solution either, i just think they're the better choice, since it wouldn't make older weapons outside of R/M/E obsolete, and I know about the revamp to R/M/E99, but R/M/E99 are still extremely diffcult to obtain for a large number of people. So it's stilll "have x/y/z or gtfo" and that bothers me

It's kind of cute that some of you think you're not pidgeonholed into a very small selection of staves. Either you have a perp staff, or you have a "make avatar stronger" staff, or you have a melee summoner staff. Where is the variety, really?

Cure Potency Staff. You have 4 Weapons more or less, 6 if you're really hardcore (Pure MAB Staff like Delve-Craftable, and Macc/MAB like Delve Point Staff, and a Dark M.acc Set for Impact's added effect, which SMN can use and is quite nice for some Delve bosses if you're /sch). This is still more than most DD.

IDK who's side you're on(Or if you're on any at all lol), so I'll clarify that I'm on the side that pretty much wants SMN to not become another "RMED or gtfo" job, which personally, it is right now, as no one cares about anything but your SMN Skill or your ability to competently use Shock Squall...

Plus, IDK if the definition of Pigeonholed has changed lately, but having a 6+ Staff variety for the hardcore is Pigeonholed, does that make melee Dragonholed?!

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Originally Posted by Karbuncle

Cure Potency Staff. You have 4 Weapons more or less, 6 if you're really hardcore (Pure MAB Staff like Delve-Craftable, and Macc/MAB like Delve Point Staff, and a Dark M.acc Set for Impact's added effect, which SMN can use and is quite nice for some Delve bosses if you're /sch). This is still more than most DD.

IDK who's side you're on(Or if you're on any at all lol), so I'll clarify that I'm on the side that pretty much wants SMN to not become another "RMED or gtfo" job, which personally, it is right now, as no one cares about anything but your SMN Skill or your ability to competently use Shock Squall...

Plus, IDK if the definition of Pigeonholed has changed lately, but having a 6+ Staff variety for the hardcore is Pigeonholed, does that make melee Dragonholed?!

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To me, the thing that affects me more than anything else, is inventory space. Especially since magian staves can't be stored on porter moogle.

Right now I Use Chatoyant and Soulscourge. Chatoyant is basically the Jack-of-all-trades staff for SMN. -3 perp, cure potency, dark accuracy (for drain/aspir as well as impact when /sch).

But I can't remember the last time I played SMN outside of WoE right now, so I don't need the SMN skill build as much.

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I don't understand why you insist on doing this on Staves when Grips fit the bill perfectly

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Grips don't fit the bill perfectly. Unless grips say "Avatar: DMG+X on them" (good luck with that) they arent worth it. A +stat animator like item isn't going to solve summoner's problems. A perp - grip, on the other hand, would free the weapon slot to perform other purposes, like the ones I'm suggesting.

The thing grips should be doing is having the things like perp- and bp cooldown - to free both weapons and other gear slots from those things.

Grips alone won't solve our problems, especially if they don't open up gear choice elsewhere. The things they seem to want to do with new items are things that should be done by simply buffing the avatars.

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(yeah perp grips would do the same, but why create perp grips when you already have perp options available and instead do something on grips which really helps) and do the dmg increase instead on grips)

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Because the grip slot is a better place to do this- it frees up a more important item slot from having to be used for it- it makes more sense to take an item that's already about doing damage and have it help your damage more, than it does to take an item that doesn't have anything to do with damage basically and making it start doing that.

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1) It's wrong that Delve didn't do much about staffdmg: Yaskomo's Pole rates @ 150dmg that's around 50 above MYTHIC at the moment, that's a whole lot, if you'd translate that to the avatars. So tell me why they wouldn't say "delve or gtfo" if you have way less dmg on other staves for Avatars

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Staff got the smallest overall increase in the delve weapons- Some weapons increased in damage by nearly double the commonly used weapons before the expansion. The staff damage increased by less than 50% of the most used melee staves.

Maybe you guys don't realize tihs, but it's common in other MMOs for mages' weapons damage directly affect their magic, rather than baving low/no damage and having stat buffs. Under this design, weapons usually have a much more meaningful impact to your performance than when they're simply stat sticks.
Imagine if WHM cure potency and blm nuke potency was based on weapon damage- All you'd have to do to cure more is get a stronger weapon. It makes things a lot more straightforward.

Obviously, its a very drastic system change, but it's one I have a preference for having played other games (such as FFXIV0 that do it this way.

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(yeah perp grips would do the same, but why create perp grips when you already have perp options available and instead do something on grips which really helps) and do the dmg increase instead on grips)

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Inventory space would certainly be a nice bonus to come from this as well.

Sooo... about 'dem new upcoming SMN AMMO items in the new version update... Maybe they're adding Grips AND Throwing items? XD

looking forward to the new gear but also hope we get some fundamental gameplay changes to suit the current playstyle.
based on last info it seems SMN will only be getting at least 2 ammo slot pieces purchasable with bayld and plasm.

a grip would also make sense because we don't have that many options available. Vox for that +3 skill or if you're looking for refresh/perp theres Oneiros Grip which is pretty nifty.
then again the last thing SMN probably needs is SE telling us to get a grip :p

The plural part of the statement is what makes me hold my breath a little. When we were told we would be getting a new grip, they said 'don't worry, there won't be lots of avatar-specific ones'. However, noone said this about ammo items. Hopefully there's 1 for physical and 1 for magical, and nothing more.

Edit: or 1 for BP rage damage +10%, and 1 for BP ward duration +10%

And they're better both have 50 MP on them.

It would be nice if we could get a quick clarification about this grip/ammo thing. Are we getting both? Was it changed from one to the other? Was this just a slip while typing? I'm fine with any of those, but it would be nice to know!


What I'm hoping that what they mean here by stating there will be multiples is that the items (grip or ammo or whatever) will simple be available at multiple item/content levels. As in, each will do more or less the same thing, just that one from higher content levels will offer higher boosts.

The idea being that a smaller boost <item> easily available from, say, Bayld, would be used to give Summoners the leg up they need to get into Delve in order to work on the higher end boosting <item>.


I guess we'll know the answers to all of these questions for certain in a week... (And then 2-3 weeks after that once people have gotten the items and done testing to know what the "Boosts Avatar Performance" on the item description actually means....)

You know, even without Alternator, Puppets were way ahead of avatars already interms of flexibility.

Originally, the trade off for having a more flexible survivable pet was the pet timer, but with Deus Ex Automata the gap was pretty much wiped out. And their other 1hr ability they are proposing for pups is supposed to grant puppets the 1hr abilities of their respective puppet jobs.

Summoner's don;'t come close on our naked pet. I do feel a bit miffed that they think we're only upset by the Alternator buffs.

That's the straw the broke the camel's back, a back with a long line of grievances they haven't bothered to address.

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Originally Posted by Mokeil

It would be nice if we could get a quick clarification about this grip/ammo thing. Are we getting both? Was it changed from one to the other? Was this just a slip while typing? I'm fine with any of those, but it would be nice to know!

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As I understand it:

The grip that they mentioned was supposedly coming from delve (bought with plasm). This was supposed to be alternator-like boosts to all avatars in general.

The ammo(s) are from Bayld, and by pluralising it, I get the impression that they will be more specific (hopefully not to each avatar, but maybe to ward/rage or phys/magic, or potency/duration)

Actually I think the Bayld one(s) is/are slightly weaker ones for people who can't join delve yet. It would make sense with all their "Gear Progression" Ideas. There won't be too specific pieces imo.

Edit: Also I don't think we're getting any Grip now they simply changed it to the Ammo/Ranged Weapon slot.

The thing with them being weaker ones, is that if the delve one is indeed a grip, both can be worn at the same time.

While I would have no complaints about that, I doubt we will be so lucky. I think it far more likely that either the dev team changed their minds from grips to ammo for some reason... or some one made a mistake while preparing that info to be posted.

It's most probably that it was early in development and they didn't really decide which slot it would become. The Bayld and the Delve one will almost 100% be in the same slot. There will be no equipping both. Don''t set yourself up with Disappointment.

It's probably just the same as the alternator. Has some really nice stats. Let's us comfortably solo again outside Adoulin but won't set the world on fire. SMN will stay in it's niche. SE clearly doesn't want SMN to shine beside jobs like MNK DRK SAM.


Edit: Hate to be right but the SMN delve item is a bit underwhelmingas of yet. Yes, it does boost our dmg but not nearly as much as needed to be desired (doing 4,4k Heavenly Strike on Fernfelling Chapuli and around 100-140 melee dmg). Still have to test if it boosts our Wards like Earthen Ward though

So... SE dev/community rep guys... I see there are some job changes in the works for the next update. Beastmaster is getting some tweaks. Blue Mage is getting some tweaks. Those guys need some love, so good for them. But there is no news for Summoner, and that is distressing.

Sure, we've gotten lots of nice MAB (only useful once every 45 seconds), even some potential -perp pieces (if you win the Augment Roulette - I know I still haven't), but we're still so far behind nearly everyone in actual usefulness that I'd have given up long ago, if my friends weren't nice enough to occasionally indulge my whims.

I mean, OK, I know that we've kinda got that Jack-of-all-trades thing going on, and we shouldn't be as good as a specialist. Of course we shouldn't. That would be silly! But the problem is that we're not even half as good as the specialists, who can likely also fill at least one other role (damage, buffs/debuffs, and healing) at least as well as we can.

Our DoT is so non existent I'd be able to bore myself to death long before a mob falls over from it, our spike damage is so far apart I have time to go make a quick sammich before it's time to use the next one, our AoE damage is almost exclusively tied to Astral Flow (which wouldn't be half so damning if the first two things I mentioned weren't an issue), our buffs are outclassed 95% of the time (with even our very best being match-able by others), our cures no longer keep pace with the kinds of HP players now have nor the damage they take, the one debuff that looked like it would have been useful (Evasion Down) has been neutered by the piles of +combat skill that have been slapped on every weapon...

The sheer breadth of our abilities is staggering, but they're just so darned ineffective! The very second you have both a dedicated healer and a dedicated support person on the team, the need for those aspects on a present SMN is instantly destroyed, as most of our buffs don't stack and we're better off healing from our support job anyways. This leaves us only the need to do damage... which plenty of other jobs do far, far better. Similar arguments can be made if the Summoner is supposed to be playing a support role - damage and healing are covered, and there are far better jobs to fill the support role who won't have buffs that entirely overlap/are outclassed by the healer.

So c'mon, SE! SMN still has a ton of problems that need looking at! To name five, off the top of my head: BP Timer, Ward potency, Favor, Spirits, and auto-attack damage. Tweaking any of those five things might just tip us back over into being useful again. Is there any hope at all for us? Even a simple "Hey, we see there are problems and we're working to get them taken care of in the next 1-2 updates" would be nice... Just to let us know we weren't forgotten.

(Like Cait Sith apparently has been. I mean, how long ago was that preview video shown? You know, the one that showed us how super diligently you guys were working on that for us?)

Bah. Sorry for the griping without trying to provide something constructive. I know it's not up to my usual standards, but, as it says on the tin, being a Summoner can be disheartening these days.

I completely agree. Summoner has always been one of my favorite jobs - throughout all of the struggles it has had in this game.

It's completely disheartening when you're trying to join end-game content and they won't accept you because you're a summoner. Too bad it's ruled by oats monks.