Job Manifesto discussion RE: Summoner

[Tarage]

You both are wrong, and trolls.

Fix the problem.

[Malamasala]

Um.....you need to learn to do math...
You realize Base MP cost * (60- time remaining on recast) means that the longer you wait after a BP the more MP it costs.

60 - 30 = 30 that means 100 MP BP now costs 3000 MP.

60 - 10 = 50, 100 * 50 = 5000 MP....

this also means you're spending less MP if you BP right away, but sadly BP recast starts when you hit the ability and avatars take 5 or so seconds to activate it. So, if you're wearing BP recast gear that means the recast is @ 40sec

100 * (60-40) = 2000 MP...... how are you planning to that many BPs when they cost this much MP?

I might have lost something in my calculations there. It sounds like the formula might look more like (60 - (60 - timer))/60.

At least I think that one gives * 1 at timer = 60 sec left and * 0 when timer is 0 seconds left. I.e. double cost at max time and no additional cost at ready time.

[Dallas]

Dallas, did you even read any of that?

I don't *read* you, pretty much... ever. It's for the best. I can agree with the WAR and still send him berserking with every post, so everything is still working as planned.

Tarage, whatever you are doing with your pets that give them the freedom to attack random stuff, STOP IT. It's you, not the pet.

[Korpg]

Thank you Dallas for agreeing with me about Tarage.

[Tarage]

Trolls agreeing with trolls. Meanwhile everyone else disagrees with you. Go away.

[Razushu]

You realise you have a thread devoted to fighting with each other over this already don't you guys?

For example, we are thinking about something like, “reset the recast time by expending a set amount of MP.” As we have stated in the threads for other jobs, this is just one example.

There is a possibility of the effects being changed drastically, so please keep posting your feedback.

Please don't make it fixed cost, it's a terrible idea, unless the cost is reasonable and the delay reduction is both fixed and sizeable. A good way to do it would be a stance that would add 10% to the cost of a Bloodpact for a minus -15 second delay reduction that breaks cap.

The ability doesn't need to cost much for the sake of balance, as we'll already be spending sizable amounts of MP to activate a Blood Pact. So we would have to manage our MP already, under my example a Summoner using Predator Claws to DD would use 361MP per minute just on these. In fact making this ability free and relying on the cost of the Bloodpact alone would force us to manage our MP, seeing as no one only spams Preadator claws in a group.

An Example with my example idea:

Lets say you're DD/support in a group keeping Crimson Howl, Hastega & Ecliptic Howl/Growl up fulltime while using Rages. Thats 289MP every time you renew the cycle, lets say for argument sake this need to be done every 3 minutes(because Crimson Howl's duration is this) you will use 7 rages inside this cycle Preadator Claws, Eclispe Bite X2, Flaming Crush, then Predator Claws X3 in a 3 minute span using 1142MP. Thats a total of 1431MP expended every three minutes, which is far more than enough to "emphasize how vital the act of managing the source of their magical powers is to summoners."

[Kit_Katz]

By implementing different stats for each avatar, we are afraid certain avatars will be selected disproportionately frequently and the variance of avatars will be limited. There is a possibility of being able to alter the stats of avatars by equipping gear, but basically we would like avatars to be chosen based on their elements.

The devs clearly do not play the game right?

I like the idea of "picking an avatar based on its element" but that has long since not been the case in real play for quite literally almost all SMN. The elemental atribute of each avatar was never profound enough to merit this in the 1st place so I think what is being requested most is to make it actually worthwhile to use any avatar other than Garuda.

It may be prudent for you to inform the Devs that as it stands the most viable (Read: almost exclusively used) avatar has been Garuda for years, regardless of her wind elemental affinity. Plain and simple she dose the most DMG and does so the most consistently. This has been noted by many people and there have been remarkably well done tests regarding this issue by players. Garuda is the best and there is little sign of that changing. This is of course in the realm of physical Blood Pacts, magical Merit Blood Pacts are more comparable between avatars but due to the limit of how much you can merit each, the new found freedom between avatars is diminished to the usual standard (Garuda + Shiva, and maybs some Leviathan here and there).

So to modify the original request maybe just make them stand apart more and make them useable compared to Garuda? That of course does not mean depower Garuda to match the rest of her less desirable brethren, but to power up the others in unique ways. The "Stun" effect on Titan's Merit BP was a start, but it sadly has much too long of a charge up time to stun anything relevant, even -ga II spells, and most everything I use it on seems to resist the Stun.

Even something as simple as changing the damage type dealt between avatars would go a long way towards the Dev's ideal of a sort of "avatar based on situation" style. Very reasonable things like giving Titan more HP or Def to match his Favor and of course Garuda maybe some evasion would really help not hinder the current landscape for SMN.

So I think the issue may not be about diverging from the Ideal the Dev team sees in their head, but that the Dev team is mistaken on the actual landscape they have presented for a SMN to use. It just does not work as an avatar by situation game, it works as a "Garuda for everything that doesn't resist Physical DMG" game, then use her Merit BP & if that doesn't work oh well. It's just a misunderstanding is all , so just inform them of how SMN actually functions in game rather than on paper and in simple stripped down "test servers" that it may be used on at your end.

[Malamasala]

The devs clearly do not play the game right?

I could say the same about you. Their stance on not making Titan the tank, Shiva the nuker, Ifrit the physical attack etc. is very sound, since you'd probably end up just using the physical attacker for everything anyway.

If anything they need to make pacts more similar, instead of different, so that predator claws or rush do the same damage. And to support using different avatars, they should instead be elemental based at the end, with +25% damage bonus if the monster is weak to the current avatar element. Kind of like piercing, blunt and such bonuses, but magical.

[Karbuncle]

I could say the same about you. Their stance on not making Titan the tank, Shiva the nuker, Ifrit the physical attack etc. is very sound, since you'd probably end up just using the physical attacker for everything anyway.

If anything they need to make pacts more similar, instead of different, so that predator claws or rush do the same damage. And to support using different avatars, they should instead be elemental based at the end, with +25% damage bonus if the monster is weak to the current avatar element. Kind of like piercing, blunt and such bonuses, but magical.

I ............................ Agree ?!

Adding Enspells/Spikes for Avatars, as well as a "Bonus" to BP Damage if using the Element > Then the Enemy is not a bad idea (I added enspell/spikes, cause they said they were considering this)

[Korpg]

What they really need to add is the ability to absorb the elements cast on them. I mean, if easy NMs have that ability, why can't avatars? You wouldn't have Leviathan fight a mob who absorbs water magic, is super weak against thunder magic, but casts only water magic if Thunderstorm would always do more damage than Spinning Dive. More consistent damage too.