Suggestion for Developers: Replace Rage/Ward system with Blood Pact charge system

In the beginning there was the Blood Pact ability. Any and all Blood Pacts made would reset the cooldown on this jobability timer. In this age, the summoner job felt very slow. Being able to only use an ability once every 45 seconds meant that the remainder of the time would have to be spent healing, or in some cases meleeing, just waiting for the BP timer to return.

Then came the age of the Rage/Ward Blood Pact division. This helped immensely with the pace of the job. Summoners were now able to spend more time than not, using blood pacts. We were no longer constrained to only doing 1 offensive or 1 defensive maneuver per BP timer. Note that, at this point in time, there were no charge systems in place for any jobs.

Jump ahead to today. Charge systems have been implemented for various jobs: Dancer (finishing moves), Scholar (stratagem charges), Beastmaster (Ready charges). These charge systems serve to limit the resources of the player, yet allow them to make their own decisions on how to use their resources. They let the player choose between offensive maneuvers and defensive maneuvers. They may decide to use both types of maneuvers with their resources, or they may choose to focus all of their resources on either offensive or defensive maneuvers at a single point in time.

I'm asking that the Summoner job also be allowed to choose between these types of tactics as well. Specifically, I'm asking that the Blood Pact Rage/Ward system be replaced with a single Blood Pact Job ability again, and that this job ability would have multiple charges (currently I'm suggesting 2 charges). I know the Rage/Ward system was extremely helpful when it first came out, but now I think that it's time to revise it again, and I think this is the right way to do it. Right now with the Rage/Ward system, summoners are forced to go the 50/50 route on offensive/defensive maneuvers; it would be helpful if they could focus on one or the other at a single point in time, just like the other jobs that were previously mentioned.

By turning the Blood Pact JA into a charge system, you would be allowing summoners to do the following:
* Summoners that are in a purely offensive role could effectively replace a useless defensive pact with another offensive pact.
* Summoners that are in a purely supporting role would be able to better support their parties, as they could use 2 supporting blood pacts instead of just 1, by replacing one of their offensive pacts.
* Summoners would now have more of a place in fights that are finished extremely quickly, as they would be allowed to use 2 offensive blood pacts during the fight, instead of just 1.
* Summoners wouldn't be unbalanced because they're still constrained to the charge system, which has worked for other jobs.

Please seriously consider this.
Thanks for your time.

I would suggest 3 charges, heck even up to 5(but no higher) for a few reasons:

1) We are still restricted by MP, and spamming that many abilities would be a huge strain on our MP pool.
2) We are the most underpowered class in the game; good melee DPS can use 5 or more WS in the time it takes us to go from 1 BP to another(and do vastly more damage as well).
3) other than our lvl70BPs(and considered our best BPs) our attacks rely on TP to do barely moderate damage(for this day and age).
4) Our BP damage is underpowered in comparison to other DPS.

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Originally Posted by Saiken253

I would suggest 3 charges, heck even up to 5(but no higher) for a few reasons:

1) We are still restricted by MP, and spamming that many abilities would be a huge strain on our MP pool.
2) We are the most underpowered class in the game; good melee DPS can use 5 or more WS in the time it takes us to go from 1 BP to another(and do vastly more damage as well).
3) other than our lvl70BPs(and considered our best BPs) our attacks rely on TP to do barely moderate damage(for this day and age).
4) Our BP damage is underpowered in comparison to other DPS.

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Not entirely true.

SMN does need massive fixes, but the previous statement in bold is not true.

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Originally Posted by Daniel_Hatcher

Not entirely true.

SMN does need massive fixes, but the previous statement in bold is not true.

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While that may hold true under the right conditions where SMN is able to amplify it's output, the same holds true with other jobs--and scales in a similar fashion. There's only so much that can be done to boost an avatar's output. Other jobs simply don't run into the seemingly "hard cap" with their WS and such that avatars are up against.

5 Charges may be pushing it a bit though. You could easily be spamming 4-5k BP's every 10 seconds (can go higher, note I said "easily") under the right conditions, seating all hate on your avatar and not you. Not sure SE would go for that without imposing some sort of penalty to prevent cranking them out too quick.

3 may still be pushing it even. At worst, you could be firing them every 20 seconds. If SE were to implement this, I would expect it to be either 2 charges or they would have either a longer recharge time or impose some penalty for running them back to back or something. They'd find some way to put the brakes on it simply because of how the hate system works with SMN.

I was merely comparing the damage output that SMN can do compared to other jobs of similar "hybrid" status as well as other decent and better DDs. If you compare them, the damage is so distant from SMN and the others that it's quite laughable really... Yes in a solo situation is where SMN shines the most, but in party based events SMN is rarely looked to for it's damage(maybe for it's near-hateless damage, but that's about it). so in those 20 seconds think of what any DD can do with someone who knows what they're doing with that job. You'll find that SMN will do a fraction of what a decent DD is capable of. Yes I know SMN is not a DD only class, but unless they really fix the buffs SMN can do to fortify it as a DD/support class it's quite underwhelming :<

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Originally Posted by Saiken253

I was merely comparing the damage output that SMN can do compared to other jobs of similar "hybrid" status as well as other decent and better DDs. If you compare them, the damage is so distant from SMN and the others that it's quite laughable really... Yes in a solo situation is where SMN shines the most, but in party based events SMN is rarely looked to for it's damage(maybe for it's near-hateless damage, but that's about it). so in those 20 seconds think of what any DD can do with someone who knows what they're doing with that job. You'll find that SMN will do a fraction of what a decent DD is capable of. Yes I know SMN is not a DD only class, but unless they really fix the buffs SMN can do to fortify it as a DD/support class it's quite underwhelming :<

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SMN has decent buffs, you're forgetting SMN is suffering what all Hybrid's bar BLU suffers. Because it is a Hybrid it doesn't do anything all that well.

It's not a DD, Enhancer, Healer, Nuker, Enfeebler etc.... Personally Hybrid's don't belong in MMO's, they're near 99% of the time done badly.

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Originally Posted by Saiken253

2) We are the most underpowered class in the game.

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Hey Saiken, the Red Mages called, they said "get in line."

I originally suggested 2 charges, because that's the closest thing to the current system that we have now. Specifically, we're able to perform 2 blood pacts every 45 seconds (currently it's one Rage and one Ward though). I would be perfectly happy with 2 charges, assuming that at some point the minimum BP cooldown time was lowered.

not a dd? @lvl 75 the avatar dmg was not bad vs ddws

but now after new ws, empweapons, new haste,str,ws dmg gear for dd and melees.....magicatt+, fast cast+ for mages....
only the smn fight with 70/75 bps and OLD 45 sec. cap

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Originally Posted by Llana_Virren

Hey Saiken, the Red Mages called, they said "get in line."

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except SMN is the more broken(in the bad way) job out of lets see... all of them. So it would make sense that it needs more attention to be brought up to par with the rest of the jobs.

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Originally Posted by Daniel_Hatcher

SMN has decent buffs, you're forgetting SMN is suffering what all Hybrid's bar BLU suffers. Because it is a Hybrid it doesn't do anything all that well.

It's not a DD, Enhancer, Healer, Nuker, Enfeebler etc.... Personally Hybrid's don't belong in MMO's, they're near 99% of the time done badly.

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Yes, our Hastega is good, but the rest is seriously lacking, at least with the level cap increase. there have been numerous threads pertaining to fixing SMN, but SE apparently doesn't want to have their job made easy with the players suggesting completely reasonable ideas to fix their jobs...

i like the charge system.. but seeing as how implementing that would affect BP delay reduction gear and be affected by the whole BP out of range timer reset thing, i think the best way to introduce a charge system to BPs is to do it thru a new command.

make a new JA command for SMN that instantly resets both BP timers, like a 100% random deal on them, and allow that to have charges. 3 charges would mean you could fire 4 BP rages in a row. Set it to something like a 4minute timer in total, and you have a much more speed / zerg friendly SMN.

Astral Flow BPs still follow old rules, and you can probably effectively zerg back to back BPs with a COR with well timed Random Deal > Wild Card > Random Real..
ultimately your bottom lime shifts to become MP, which is something players can work at, instead of an arbitrary cap

edit: used defensively for ward, can be used to stun lock mobs and lay down debuffs asap if the first one misses

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Originally Posted by Saiken253

Yes, our Hastega is good, but the rest is seriously lacking, at least with the level cap increase. there have been numerous threads pertaining to fixing SMN, but SE apparently doesn't want to have their job made easy with the players suggesting completely reasonable ideas to fix their jobs...

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So we're ignoring the rather powerful favours are we?

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Originally Posted by Saiken253

except SMN is the more broken(in the bad way) job out of lets see... all of them. So it would make sense that it needs more attention to be brought up to par with the rest of the jobs.

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No it's not.

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Originally Posted by Arciel

i like the charge system.. but seeing as how implementing that would affect BP delay reduction gear and be affected by the whole BP out of range timer reset thing, i think the best way to introduce a charge system to BPs is to do it thru a new command.

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I'll clarify my original idea. My original idea was for the current rage/ward system to be replaced with a charge system. This charge system would still work in the same way that the rage/ward system works, except that now all BPs would again be classified under the same job ability, the same way that most scholar abilities are classified under "Stratagems". The cooldown of the charges would still be affected by BP cooldown reduction gear. For example, the default cooldown for BPs would still be 60 seconds. Assuming that SE keeps the 45 second minimum BP cooldown timer, you could still use BP cooldown reduction gear in order to make the cooldown for the charge that you used be 45 seconds instead of 60 seconds. Please let me know if this still isn't clear.

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Originally Posted by Rakshaka

I'll clarify my original idea. My original idea was for the current rage/ward system to be replaced with a charge system. This charge system would still work in the same way that the rage/ward system works, except that now all BPs would again be classified under the same job ability, the same way that most scholar abilities are classified under "Stratagems". The cooldown of the charges would still be affected by BP cooldown reduction gear. For example, the default cooldown for BPs would still be 60 seconds. Assuming that SE keeps the 45 second minimum BP cooldown timer, you could still use BP cooldown reduction gear in order to make the cooldown for the charge that you used be 45 seconds instead of 60 seconds. Please let me know if this still isn't clear.

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Good idea, but they would not allow BP- gear to work. Would probably end up level based like SCH.

@daniel most of the SMN favors are pathetic at best. Shiva Ifrit and Diabolos are really the only good ones. but remember, we suffer a -15% damage on our pets while it's active! I did not forget about them, they are just not worth using, especially since they reset each time our pet is desummoned.

Also, I can guarantee that if a rdm wanted to, they could out heal and out damage a smn at the same time. simply because of the time constraints we are limited to.

@ last post, if that is the case, we would definitely need more charges than 2.

If they also cut the charge time in 1/2 so, 30 seconds a charge and kept the -15 second cap that would make BP's have really only an MP constraint. and 2 charge cap would be completely acceptable. they could even get rid of the out of range buff if that is too difficult to code.

For favors, your pet WILL be killed by AoE damage on most mobs you would want to keep your avatar around DD for, limiting useful favors to diabolos and shiva(blms don't stand near the mob). If the mob doesn't have AoE then Ifrit and Ramuh are good.