Blood Pact Adjustment: A Suggestion

[Yygdrasil]

A lot of people are posting in this forum about making radical changes to the way we play SMN as a whole. I think... with a few minor changes we can drastically improve SMN's playability.

The current BP timer starts out at 60seconds and can be capped as low as 45. It's great if you can get it that low... in fact... it's really not all that hard to do it these days. The only problem I see with it is that even if we can reduce the timer to 45... we are still drastically out-damaged by everyone... and our versatility as a Jack-of-all-Trades doesn't really make up for it in the long run.

Long-term damage output is one of the main focuses to the suggestions that people are posting... but what if we keep the damage output/BP the same... and just allow us to cap out our BP reduction at a lower number... like say... 30 instead of 45.

15 seconds makes a big difference when you think about it in terms of a longer fight. This reduction will allow a few things... namely:

1: It will make acquiring the Avatar Specific ToM Weapons more... useful... since they offer such a drastic reduction to BP timer all by themselves.

2: It will allow (if recapped closer to 30) more BPs/minute... which equates to more damage/minute.

3: It will allow us to rotate and keep more buffs on the party if we want.

4: It will (again... if recapped down to 30) allow up to 4... or 5 Astral Flows/2hour.

5: It will make Wings of the Goddess more desirable to players who have not yet tackled the missions/quests further in... because of the BP reduction atma offered upon completion of the Windurst Quests.

6: It means we wont need a new ability... or new spells... or an overhaul of the BPs we already have. More BPs in a shorter period of time = better... plain and simple.


Try not to think of it in terms of "I'd rather just get some new colossal avatar that deals whoop-ass loads of damage" and think of it more in terms of a realistic solution. Correct me if I'm wrong... but wouldn't that make everyone happy?

Also: I do agree that our 2hour needs a bit of an alteration... but I can't really think of anything to suggest besides an adjustment to the damage modifier. Maybe just adding a 5-10% damage increase to the BPs would offer up enough damage to make people happy with it. I mean... especially if this BP recap were to come into effect... that would mean +10%damage/BP... with 1-2 additional BPs/Astral Flow.

[Yygdrasil]

(*shameless bump*)

50 views and 1 thumbs up. Seems on par so far. I would accept any and all forms of critique here. If I'm missing something crucial that would cause my idea to break anything... I want to know. So far... I see nothing.

[Lilia]

the new ja (time- for mp) i rly want

[Herby]

Actually I think that's what SE should have done ages ago. I mean, every Mage can reduce it's recast by 50% max, why can't SMN do that. 30 secs per BP wouldn't be broken by any means. Atm a pretty good geared SMN is sitting on massive amounts of MP and because of the BP timer we have actually like infinite MP, if I don't get sloppy i never get out of MP (OUTSIDE of Abyssea).

I'd really love to see fundamental changes to the whole BP system though.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Because Blood Pacts are Job Abilities, and not spells?

[Evilvivi]

Actually I think that's what SE should have done ages ago. I mean, every Mage can reduce it's recast by 50% max, why can't SMN do that. 30 secs per BP wouldn't be broken by any means. Atm a pretty good geared SMN is sitting on massive amounts of MP and because of the BP timer we have actually like infinite MP, if I don't get sloppy i never get out of MP (OUTSIDE of Abyssea).

I'd really love to see fundamental changes to the whole BP system though.

Yes, every mage can reduce recast by max of 50%...on spells. BPs are abilities, outside of MKD head for waltz recast, SMN is the only job that gets gear to lower ability recast. Also if you take into consideration originally Third Eye which originally had a 1min recast at max merits got down to 50, the 45 second cap on Blood Pacts is a gift.

[Herby]

wow... just wow... how observant...

despite the fact they're only TECHNICALLY Job Abilities and PRACTICALLY act as our spells, it's just not fair that other mages can reduce their recast by 50% while SMN can only do that by 25%, no?

[Neisan_Quetz]

Your spells are your summons. Blood pacts are Blood pacts. Stop getting them confused. Summoners are called heretic mages for a reason, they don't follow standard patterns.

Oh and unlike other mages BP Timer isn't affected by weakness or slow.

[Ihnako]

Then what does your SMN do while it's bloodpackt timers are not ready?
Technicaly SMN is a mage job who is just able to do something evey 45 seconds.
Even my Lv5 BLM can do more than that.

[Herby]

okay, then i go by your Logic:

SMN can only do 2 BPs at a time and then have to wait 45 seconds to do ANOTHER DAMN THING. Mages can just switch to another spell... oh wait then you will say SMN dmg is hateless blabla... THAT STILL DOES NOT ERASE THE FACT that SMN is too slow nowadays, it may have worked a few years ago, but SMN needs means to speed up their gameplay, that's ALL I say about it! Don't you wanna understand? I DON'T CARE IF IT'S a Job Ability, it's still our natural (inb4 use /WHM or somtehing like that) source of damage/buffs/healing as SPELLS ARE FOR OTHER MAGES!! I played SMN long enough and don't need some wiseguy to tell me that.