SMN adjustments....seriously?

[Dallas]

Both SMN magic and perp gear should be full time for spirits. If you think you have a great spirit build, you are probably alone.

[Malamasala]

Right you misrepresented/remembered incorrectly the findings.

That's significantly different from your assertion that Attack merits has no effect. As the tests clearly show they do. Also with Attack gear like the trial staff, You're looking at +35 attack; that's not including enhance avatar attack gear.

Most melees spends millions for +~6% attack output. But a SMN with full +attk gear is going to be putting out significantly more +attk.

Doesn't change the fact that the damage increase on anything difficult is too small to be worth it. If I have the attack gear, I'd equip it of course. But I wouldn't merit or hunt for gear that does so little difference. You'd do far more damage if you melee on SMN and use Garlands Bliss, than if you go full avatar attack. (It could be more efficient to just Dia II the mob though, I have no track on how the WS and spell compare)

[nitsuj]

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.

Leave elemental perp cost as a merit, make them actually worth using... Then add a T3 Merit category that includes things like "Reduced Summoning Cast Time".

[Dekusuta]

Doesn't change the fact that the damage increase on anything difficult is too small to be worth it. If I have the attack gear, I'd equip it of course. But I wouldn't merit or hunt for gear that does so little difference. You'd do far more damage if you melee on SMN and use Garlands Bliss, than if you go full avatar attack. (It could be more efficient to just Dia II the mob though, I have no track on how the WS and spell compare)

Garland of Bliss is not a reliable alternative for def down half of the high def mobs that require it would be too dangerous. Dia would be your best bet but that's assuming no one in your party is spamming bio.

I'd take attack any day, because its always on.

[Rakshaka]

My bad. I forgot that tier 1 merits don't include additional job abilities; that's for T2 merits. So, I'm scrapping the Elemental Detonation idea.

How about this:
Elemental Skill Increase: Boosts all magic skill levels of all elemental spirits by X per merit.

One of the core issues with the poor performance of elemental spirits is their lack of magic skill. I was told at one point that the spirits have as much elemental magic skill as a naked black mage of their own level. This would pose a serious issue when trying to land (accurately) any magic attack on a high level target. So, here's a solution, boost all of the magic skills for all elementals by a certain amount per merit. This would help nukes land, enfeebles stick, and the potency of cure spells by light spirit.

Think about it!

[Babekeke]

Doesn't change the fact that the damage increase on anything difficult is too small to be worth it. If I have the attack gear, I'd equip it of course. But I wouldn't merit or hunt for gear that does so little difference. You'd do far more damage if you melee on SMN and use Garlands Bliss, than if you go full avatar attack. (It could be more efficient to just Dia II the mob though, I have no track on how the WS and spell compare)

For a melee SMN, you don't know much about melee SMN. Shell Crusher is twice as effective for def down as garland of bliss. Shell crusher = 25% def down for 60-270 seconds. GoB 12.5% def down for 60-120 seconds. And if you're fighting something worthwhile, you might as well get the WAR to use Armour Break if it's that important as they won't be getting 1-shotted

[Aequis]

The biggest limiting factor on avatar damage is that they are black mages (thanks mellowy for reposting what i assume we all should have researched lol) and the base str is pretty bad and there is no way to add +stats outside abyssea atm. This is why i'd like them to add summoner's gear stats to pets.

This is true, and also the fact that they have no sub job somewhat also negates the natural -PDT avatars have. They're going to have lower VIT, AGI, DEX, HP etc. due to no sub and the fact that they are Black mages. It used to be the same with older jug pets like Carrie. They were weaker than charmed pets of the same level, so they weren't reliable to use for much outside of farming EPs.

I suspect avatars were made Black mages as a purely balancing measure to begin with. Making them anything else could have proved problematic in that they'd have "side effects" like Double Attack, Store TP, Killer Effects etc. They need rebalancing again in my opinion.

[Byrth]

Avatars are not cleanly any one job. They have some Black Mage job traits (like MAB) at the same level as Black Mage, but they also get things like Critical Attack Bonus I/II and, I believe, a different tier system for MB Bonus than BLM.

Overall, SE's largest disservice to Summoner is how weak all of its Avatar gear is. The difference between a summoner with equipment you could acquire in a day with little effort and a perfect summoner with over 400mil in equipment is about 10~12% (Phys) or 30~40% (Mag) damage on an attack that only happens once every 45 seconds.

If there was powerful/useful Summoner gear in the game that was difficult to obtain, SE wouldn't have to worry about a bunch of scrubs Abyssea-leveling summoner and then SMN burning everything. The job would have a use for those who invested enough effort into it but it wouldn't be very useful for those who didn't, just like every other job.

For instance:
Summoner Hat - Refresh +2, Avatar: Haste+10%, STR+20
Summoner Body - Perp -5, Avatar: STR+50, Attack+50
Summoner Hands - Avatar: Haste+10%, Attack+20
Summoner Legs - Perp -1, Avatar: Store TP+30, STR+20
Summoner Feet - Perp -3, Avatar: Haste+5%, Critical Hit Rate+10%

"OH MAN THOSE LOOK RIDICULOUS!!" Okay, but every melee subs another DD job, gets 16 slots to improve themselves with, and gets merits. Do 90 STR, 70 Atk, 30 STP, 25% Haste, and +10% Critical Hit rate really improve an avatar's performance nearly as much as equipment/merits/subjob improves a melee's? No. Even this extreme example falls far short of that.

[Draylo]

Play previous FF games, then play this one and wonder what happened to the powerhouse SMN was!

[Divinechild]

Play previous FF games, then play this one and wonder what happened to the powerhouse SMN was!

Thank you.
Finally someone else said it.

FF 7 had "Knights of the round" 12 Summons each doing 9999 on a mob or group of mobs in a single attack.
FF 8 had good GFs
FF 9 had a major part of the story having to do with the second main char's mother taking her summons from her, atomos & bahamut i believe. disc 1 and disc 2.
FF 10/10-2 was all about helping Yuna get the summons to defeat the creature plaguing the land. capable of doing 99999 damage ( just saying...)
FF 12 great game, great Espers. Espers Lent the princess their powers to help her get back her throne.
FF 13 not so great game, but still kick ass Eidolons

FF 11 .... Even Kingdom Hearts that Disney/SE team up game has a better summoner class than 11. Dumbo i Summon you.

All the Numbered Final Fantasy Games smn has always has a major part of the game and story line. Any fan of the Series would know this. FFXI is a numbered final fantasy game, smn shouldn't be last place in the job ranking. Where's the balance they are always talking about. If there was indeed balance all jobs would be somewhat equal.
I forgot to mention final fantasy 6 that featured a half human half esper(avatar).
If you read up final fantasy you would find the series is famous for Storyline, Visuals(for the time its released), gameplay, Battle system, and summons.
Any comparison to other games is meant to show how vastly different summoners are being treated in this game.

HELL, FF 14 doesn't even have smn job(atleast not yet i hope) and it already Have a Ifrit battle.