Spirits Re-make

[Elvyn]

I saw your point, I still think it is stupid. You are basically asking for the same thing we already have, but with no control!

Why do you think we, as SMNs, would want that at all?

/facepalm ok your either stupid or a troll... either way... did you read the bit I put in bold "EXAMPLE" doesn't mean it has to be an existing ability. Also as you already stated in your original post you don't think highly of Elementals as nothing more than a pre-requisite to Elemental Siphon... So please feel free to trololol all you want unless you got an idea on how to improve the eles... please do it somewhere else^^

[Malamasala]

At the very least, the magic skill of spirits (i.e. elemental, divine, enfeebling) needs to be raised so they're not interrupted and resisted as much.

I'm quite certain spirits are BLMs with the same traits and skills as any other BLM. The issue at hand is of course that they lack the same merits and armor choices that BLMs use. Not to mention they cast random spells with long waits between.

But I'm sure if you bring a naked, unmerited BLM played by a 3 year old, you'd get the same effects.

[Korpg]

/facepalm ok your either stupid or a troll... either way... did you read the bit I put in bold "EXAMPLE" doesn't mean it has to be an existing ability. Also as you already stated in your original post you don't think highly of Elementals as nothing more than a pre-requisite to Elemental Siphon... So please feel free to trololol all you want unless you got an idea on how to improve the eles... please do it somewhere else^^

Wait, what spells can a spirit use that an avatar can't?

Stoneskin? Got Titan for that
Blink? Got Garuda for that
Protect/Shell? Got Carbuncle for that, and you can have both at the same time!
Phalanx? Got Diabolos for that
Enfire? Got Ifrit for that
Enthunder? Got Ramuh for that
Shock Spikes? Got Ramuh for that
Ice Spikes? Got Shiva for that

Basically, avatars can't cast en-blizzard/aero/stone/water or Blaze Spikes. Are we really missing out on those spells?

Seriously, spirits were not made to be close to or exceed avatars. The ability for spirits to cast random spells is nice, but not really worth keeping them out for the pitiful damage they produce with the inability to control them at all. I rather have an avatar using a BP when I want to do spike damage (and possibility of doing a magic burst if timed right) than having a spirit doing weaker damage and possibility of casting Burn over Flare.

[Elvyn]

Wait, what spells can a spirit use that an avatar can't?

Stoneskin? Got Titan for that
Blink? Got Garuda for that
Protect/Shell? Got Carbuncle for that, and you can have both at the same time!
Phalanx? Got Diabolos for that
Enfire? Got Ifrit for that
Enthunder? Got Ramuh for that
Shock Spikes? Got Ramuh for that
Ice Spikes? Got Shiva for that

Basically, avatars can't cast en-blizzard/aero/stone/water or Blaze Spikes. Are we really missing out on those spells?

Seriously, spirits were not made to be close to or exceed avatars. The ability for spirits to cast random spells is nice, but not really worth keeping them out for the pitiful damage they produce with the inability to control them at all. I rather have an avatar using a BP when I want to do spike damage (and possibility of doing a magic burst if timed right) than having a spirit doing weaker damage and possibility of casting Burn over Flare.

Thats it!!!!!!! Thats the exact reason we want them upgraded! Not so they can exceed avatars in the slightest but so they can be of some use! SE got it almost right by giving LS Banish IV before WHMs got it lol

Malamasala also has an awesome point eles lack stat boosts of the same lvl Jobs and I don't personally find the casting time of my eles a problem (smn skill @395) but it could stand to do with some tweaking ;P

Why should we settle for having our eles be less than awesome... there pure elemental power! I admit i have no issue with having no control but would like high dmg to come with the spells as result, saying they shouldn't be powerful cause we have other powerful Avatars at our disposable is a close minded sandbox summoner who obviously only wants summoner to evolve in one direction.

[Razushu]

Thats it!!!!!!! Thats the exact reason we want them upgraded! Not so they can exceed avatars in the slightest but so they can be of some use! SE got it almost right by giving LS Banish IV before WHMs got it lol

Malamasala also has an awesome point eles lack stat boosts of the same lvl Jobs and I don't personally find the casting time of my eles a problem (smn skill @395) but it could stand to do with some tweaking ;P

Why should we settle for having our eles be less than awesome... there pure elemental power! I admit i have no issue with having no control but would like high dmg to come with the spells as result, saying they shouldn't be powerful cause we have other powerful Avatars at our disposable is a close minded sandbox summoner who obviously only wants summoner to evolve in one direction.

Spirits were designed as low level pets until we got more Avatars than Carbuncle. SE breathed new life into them with Elemental Siphon, and now they see regular use.

Need to Heal.... use Avatars

Need to Buff.... use Avatars

Need a Tank.... use Avatars

Need to DD.... use Avatars

Need to Nuke.... use Avatars

Need MP.... use spirits

As you can see Avatars cover all the bases already, so spirits aren't needed. If there is a buff to spirits it will be pointless if it fills one of these 6 roles. Think of an ability the shares Elemental Siphon's recast, and drains MP from a summoned spirit for a flat 300MP return, it wouldn't get used because a) We already have an ability that does that, and b) It's weaker than the ability we already have.

If SE was going to buff spirits it would need to be something completely different from what SMN can already do to be meaningful. Since our Avatars already cover all the bases(MP refill aside), it's highly unlikely that a buff to spirits will mean anything.

It's fine that they are "less than awesome", although I consider 500MP back every 5 minutes pretty damn awesome. It's not that they shouldn't be powerful just, honestly what would be the point? Avatars are elemental gods made manifest as opposed to just a floating ball of elemental energy, so naturally they would always be more powerful.

It's not a closed minded viewpoint to recognise what would amount to a useless adjustment and what wouldn't. lets say they spent all their time alloted to SMN until the next update buffing a spirits nukes to the point where there most powerful spell was equal to a lvl 1 merit pact. What would actually happen? Sure now we can use spirits as nukers, but we could already do that with our Avatars, so what did Summoner actually gain in that update? Essentially a new toy, nothing more. Now lets say the Devs instead spent the time between next update enchancing our avatars buff potency, now we have buufs that not only last a reasonable duration, but they have an effect that is impressive enough that we start to become more accepted as party buffers.

No one wants Summoner to evolve on one line only, saying spirits are fine as is and wanting SE to concentrate Avatars, is wanting Summoner to evolve period. Which a buff to spirits would not provide unless it buffed them to a) be more powerful than Avatars(not going to happen) or, b) fill a role that doesn't yet exist(unlikely).

[Karbuncle]

The only problem i see with "They were designed to be used only before we got our avatars" is the "Spirit Perpetuation Cost" merits. Why have merits for something that they intended not to be used after Avatars were obtained?

Me thinks in the long list of Summoner Adjustments, Spirits should be added to the things adjusted. They don't need major focus, But perhaps actually letting them learn the magic they should have gotten already (I.E Teir V Nukes) and give them their rightful Traits (MAB Traits) so they're not 100% Useless.

Could add a "BP" like System where it could be on a 1 min timer separate from normal casting, that when used made it cast a Nuke.

Either way, it should not be very high on the list of things needing repair as it would be a lot of effort for little reward, Development time that should ideally be spent no improving the job in more meaningful ways.

[Razushu]

The only problem i see with "They were designed to be used only before we got our avatars" is the "Spirit Perpetuation Cost" merits. Why have merits for something that they intended not to be used after Avatars were obtained?

Me thinks in the long list of Summoner Adjustments, Spirits should be added to the things adjusted. They don't need major focus, But perhaps actually letting them learn the magic they should have gotten already (I.E Teir V Nukes) and give them their rightful Traits (MAB Traits) so they're not 100% Useless.

Could add a "BP" like System where it could be on a 1 min timer separate from normal casting, that when used made it cast a Nuke.

Either way, it should not be very high on the list of things needing repair as it would be a lot of effort for little reward, Development time that should ideally be spent no improving the job in more meaningful ways.

I think the merits, are there jsut because SE used to be terrible at deciding what to give to Summoner. Those merits are in the same category as Avatar: atk/acc/mab/macc, elemental perp- didn't really fit in there. Maybe they we're thinking of adding a flat -perp in there and decided against.

as for the bolded, I completely argee with you. When our job is fixed to the point of acceptance, by all means SE should look at the spirits. In the mean time though.... focus on improving the jobs performance.

[Korpg]

Why should we settle for having our eles be less than awesome... there pure elemental power! I admit i have no issue with having no control but would like high dmg to come with the spells as result, saying they shouldn't be powerful cause we have other powerful Avatars at our disposable is a close minded sandbox summoner who obviously only wants summoner to evolve in one direction.

Wait, isn't that what you are asking? Buff the spirits but not the avatars? You can't have both spirits and avatars on equal standing, that would be pointless, because why have both of them then?

[Arciel]

i dunno if i should take offense because I'm one of the SMN who chose to merit elemental MP perp cost and still keep those merits to this day.

in defense of elemental spirits and their uses.. at least at lv75, there was considerable use for these summons. they weren't exactly useful, but were definitely not useless.

back then, with a decent gear set for spirits (which meant relic spats + skill gear + perp in remaining slots), you could make your spirits be the most effective that they could ever be - this made them cheap / less effective / possibly more mp efficient options to avatars.
to get straight to the point, they could potentially do a lot more damage from "pure perp cost" mp than avatars did, making them MP efficient in proper situations - key word being potentially because a lot depends on whether they will cast their nukes instead of enfeebles.

one good bad example of this is probably with trying to solo/duo Ule buffaloes. They're weak to magic and you're more likely to run out of MP within each kill if you use an avatar than if you did an elemental spirit. This makes them a lot less MP costly and possibly a lot more MP efficient provided they put out.

The same thing still applies now really, except that in spite of an increase in their natural perp cost, they haven't actually gotten stronger (no new spells), so they've become more inefficient, in a way. However, given that they're so much easier to make free perp-cost wise, any increased casting would greatly improve their efficiency. And this makes SMN nuking wellsprings that would literally not depend on MP at all. The closest comparison we can make to this is nuking automatons and altho they're much stronger they actually have to care for MP management on pet and cannot choose element either, so they each have different trade offs at work.

However, elemental spirits are still outdated. They were only barely useful at 75, so now they've really become redundant

[Elvyn]

Wait, isn't that what you are asking? Buff the spirits but not the avatars? You can't have both spirits and avatars on equal standing, that would be pointless, because why have both of them then?

I was looking at the comments Karbuncle and Razushu had made and saw some real value in what they were saying and decided to let the subject drop but then you had to say this, possibly the stupidest comment on the forum!

Can't have both on equal standing? Why the hell not!? Why have SCH when WHM and BLM can do its job better, why have RDM when nearly all jobs have there own enfeeb spells/ja... Hell why even bother having SMN when we have Full on DDs and Support Jobs! So yea you'll have to forgive me about wanting to improve an aspect of a job I love but I remember a time when people used to question the usefulness of our job altogether because we weren't quite a DD, not quite a BRD and no were near a WHM... but now thats changed.

So how about in stead of being a sand-box smn and merely pointing out how Eles are inferior to Avas, you do as the thread title suggests and put forward some decent suggestions on how they could be improved? If you cant... What are you doing in this thread at all?