SMN adjustments....seriously?

[Karbuncle]

I still wouldn't merit it either way.

5/5 Attack and Magic Attack :|

[Tawnee]

How about scrapping this idea, and put more effort into getting us Cait Sith and Atomos quicker

[Saiken253]

how about scrapping those jokes for summons and give us something good!

[Alhanelem]

I have another suggestion for SMN as well that hasn't been addressed: Have us commanding our pets to Assault NOT break Invisible.

Sic really should break invisible, because all offensive actions on an enemy, not just assault but any blood pact, strip invisible.

SMN would be drastically more powerful if it could attack and do damage without breaking invisible. I didn't even know BSTs could use offensive Sics, but it seems to me like that should be changed (Sorry!). No other job can attack while invisible, so I don't see how that's fair.

[Babekeke]

I still wouldn't merit it either way.

5/5 Attack and Magic Attack :|

Seconded.

Faster summoning cast time would increase our DoT very marginally as the avatar would get maybe an extra swing on the mob. In those 'oh sh1t' moments when you get agro/your avatar gets 1-shotted or whatever and you're too close to cast an avatar, you cast a spirit because they have low cast time.

[Fyreus]

Just pointing out, LightSpirit has had Cure V since Level 75. And SE will never give Spirits AM2

lol for some reason most people don't know that!

Another thing i want to point out is that most people don't know how to access certain spells from their spirits. if you haste yourself and regen yourself then you get buffs or heals. if you face your spirit's 'face' to another player (monkey in the middle) then the spirit will choose to heal the alliance in range or just that player alone. The biggest use for spirits was the thunder pact because all you'd need to do is stick shock and it would spam spells left and right. we've been asking that SE removes blm dot enfeebles from the spell cast so that we'd narrow down the random 'intelligence' that the pacts use.

I guess i should level sch and try smn/sch to see if shock will work >_> those thunder 4s better be sexy (atma or not!). One thing they could do while they are at is change the initial aggro cast time to instant if we're in trouble. When i used to force AM/t4 it was a pain getting more hate than my spirit. if the spirit had easy hate it would cast nonsense like dia, banish, or choke for example.

[Babekeke]

Light Spirit is actually the only spirit that has been kept even remotely up-to-date, with Banish IV and Holy II since 75.

[hideka]

for all that is holy YES. minus one second per merit. instant cast avatars yes prz.

[Dekusuta]

Got some information from the development team that they would like to hear feedback on.

Regarding “reduced elemental MP cost,” we decided to implement this given that we’re planning on adjusting elementals in the future, as we mentioned previously.

At first, we were considering changing “reduced elemental MP cost” to a totally different effect, “reduced summoning casting time,” so the possibility exists that we change it to this.

However, please note that we wouldn’t use “reduced elemental MP cost” if we switch to “reduced summoning casting time” and that we will need some time to implement this change.

Please let us know your feedback on this.

Why are players being forced to choose between elementals and avatars AGAIN?

Either allow us to 5 more merit slots to put into into reduction in elemental costs, or make the reduction in elemental prepetuation a flat bonus given to everyone, perhaps through a quest or item.

Avatars have been needing a buff in terms of reduced BP timer/increased damage. The reason I mention this is because MANY MANY players have leaned heavily on the Tier1 merits to increase their avatar's power. MAB and ATTK merits is a must for any summoner worth their salt. And now we're being forced to roll back some of these to accomodate an elemental perpetuation scheme with the promose of an 'overhaul' in elementals.

Here's a suggestion, overhaul how you deal with summoners first, because we're quite tired of getting trade off upgrades like avatar's favor (where we gimp our own damage and significantly reduce our flexibility as buffers because the AOE buffs from favour take a long time to max out) or useless addons like the recent BP for diabolos and fenrir while BSTs get new pets and can solo dynamis ad infinitum.

It's great that elementals might get an overhaul, but don't let us choose between two mediocre options. Buff avatars and let us have elementals we can actually command, instead of having to deal with an AI that keeps casting the same DOT spell over and over again.

[Malamasala]

Got some information from the development team that they would like to hear feedback on.

Regarding “reduced elemental MP cost,” we decided to implement this given that we’re planning on adjusting elementals in the future, as we mentioned previously.

At first, we were considering changing “reduced elemental MP cost” to a totally different effect, “reduced summoning casting time,” so the possibility exists that we change it to this.

However, please note that we wouldn’t use “reduced elemental MP cost” if we switch to “reduced summoning casting time” and that we will need some time to implement this change.

Please let us know your feedback on this.

Dear Camate.

Are you saying "reduced spirit spell casting time" or are you saying "reduced summoning time"? Because if it is spirit related it sounds logical, but if you change it completely to just pet summoning time, then you are changing what people merited and are just asking for people to quit in rage. (If you want to be that crazy, then kindly change MAB to MAB/Macc and attack to attack/accuracy and Macc to Pet movement speed and accuracy to -PDT. That way we have more and better choices.)

And if you mean spirit casting time, read below as to what the current issues actually are, and how this change in its own are going to be useless unless you announce other changes.

The giant list of reasons why nobody uses spirits

1. Timer reset. Each time you Assault, the timer is set to max delay. This prevents any and all uses of spirits. It is the same as each time you unsheathe your weapon, you get 0 TP. It is like each time you open your magic menu, your MP is set to 0. You are crippled, and the only thing you can do is work up the TP or MP while in battle.

2. Melee AI. All spirits prefer melee over distance casting. This means they can not be used on any enemy that uses AOE attacks, because AOE stun, AOE silence, AOE paralyze and AOE damage can interrupt their casting. However, if they didn't melee, they wouldn't work as "oh sh-t" emergency save pets on aggro.

1 and 2 together completely block off spirits from even casting spells on anything worthwhile. Either your monster is dead, or your spirit just got interrupted. But would you be fighting something trivial enough, the following problems will instead prevent you from wanting to use them.

3. Capped casting delay reduction. Spirit casting time is capped at about 20 seconds. It can't get lower than that, so it means you cast spells very rarely. This also means that +skill items stopped being useful for spirits already at level 75 cap, and these days it doesn't help to wear more skill for spirits.

4. No spells post level 75. I mean what is this about? Why would anyone want to use spirits if you leave them at level 75 spells?

5. Spell Selection. The debuff spells simply do not belong on the spirits. AOE attacks were removed for Balance, but someone should have removed debuffs for utility. I don't think there has ever been a time I wanted a debuff spell. I can actually sub WHM if I need those spells, and fight something weak. If I fight something strong, I wouldn't be using a spirit. And if it is really strong, I'd be in a party and have it covered already.

6. Weak. Tier 4 nukes from spirits tend to do roughly 600 damage. Pretty poor damage for the best damage a spirit can muster.

So if you pass the problem of 1+2, and a spell is cast, you'll suffer from 3+4+5 and have it take a long time and be a useless spell. When you are super lucky, you'll get to face problem 6, which means you did damage, but rather low damage.

Proposed solutions

1. Obviously, do NOT reset timers on assault. This prevents problem 1+2. You can summon a spirit, wait a few seconds to ready the spell, then assault and have it cast instantly.

2. Faster/Split timers. Either make spirits cast very often, so that getting pointless spells isn't as big of a deal, or make them have multiple timers, one for debuffs, one for nukes, one for healing, one for buffing.


The roles of avatars and spirits

They need two different roles, or people will just ignore the one that doesn't fill the same role the best.

I've always liked the idea that avatars should be your main boss combat pet, while spirits should be more for dealing with many underlings.

Example: Spirits should attack often and for a decent amount on weak monsters, but less damage on strong monsters. Avatars should do high damage on strong monsters, but be a worse alternative for killing many weak monsters.

Or in other words. Spirits = Exp/salvage/limbus/dynamis/etc, Avatars = salvage boss/dynamis boss/HNM. I think that would be an ideal situation for using multiple pets strategically. Of course nothing prevents you from using avatars in Exp or so, it is just the whole thing about monsters perhaps dying faster than one per 45 seconds.


Thank you for reading, and please pass it along to the development team. I'm sure they still don't know the timer resets on ASSAULT. I mean it is half the reason nobody uses spirits, so it would be the first thing to change if they wanted to change anything spirit related.