Job Vision: Watch paint dry

[Elidani]

I never said it was black and white. I was simply stating that is the way most people play the game. As for meleeing on smn during a party, I have it pretty easy. The linkshell I am with is fairly laid back and we do w/e during Aby exp parties. During serious events we do what we need to to help the team as a whole. We don't usually have smn out unless we mean to use the avatars. I guess it helps when many of the members also play smn and whm. They understand the difference between the two. Personally I mostly soloed my smn to 66, because I refused to be a subpar whm. My point in stating the info about tp is because that is how it was explained to me a few years back when I asked the same question about why my mage isn't allowed to melee even though I can weild a weapon. I'm quite happy in the frontlines as my dancer or on the backline as my whm. SMN I simply prefer playing that as a soloist job or strictly during stress-free ls parties. It makes the game more fun if I am not stressed about being told how to play my job.

[Neonii]

I'll tell you exactly why this is the case and yes, admittedly it's a fault of FFXI's game design.

From /WHM you get Cure I through Cure IV. That's the same amount of healing prowess that any non-WHM Main gets. You also get more than enough Healing skill from the sub, and base MND, to hit the soft cap on all four of those cures. So with a /WHM sub on any job that has native MP, you're basically a mini RDM/SCH/PLD, and if you wear any compatible +MP or +Cure potency or +MND gear, your cures can stack up pretty well. Your cures will never "miss", either.

Melee wise, though, you are very much bound by your main job's prowess. You cannot feasibly, say, go WHM/MNK, equip Trainee Scissors, and expect to hit anything let alone deal relevant damage, since your combat skill is so incredibly significant to your ability to wield and swing the weapon. Even among main jobs, you don't see competent Warriors trying to main Dagger or Polearm instead of axes because the skill deficit just plain hurts too much (that and the severely nerfed weapon selection of course).

Even more relevant example: you never see Dragoons maining Staff. Dragoons are infinitely more capable of wielding a staff well than a Summoner - they get Accuracy Bonus job traits, and their combat skill at 90 is only 10 points below Summoner's. It's just not worth the severe cut to your attack and accuracy compared to a primary weapon.

Puppetmasters are permanently hobbled by their weak h2h skill cap, and it's 6 points higher than SMN's final Staff cap. Even when PUP's skill cap was raised from ~C to B+ it was still considered a bit of a slap in the face, since B+ is still a whopping 13 points behind an A- weapon - that's 13 attack and ~12 accuracy lost.

And that's all before even considering the actual Melee jobs' exclusive gear (SMN maxes out at 23 haste from gear, EVERY dedicated melee can hit 26 comfortably alongside other relevant stats) and job abilities/traits which can't be subbed.


Oh, and if you want to play a real healer, play WHM. Cure V&VI really are THAT important. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Why bother even having a smn or any variety of jobs for that matter? Just level whm and call it a day.

[Sasaraixx]

I must be in the minority on this, but I do not find SMN boring and I've been playing this game for a long time. I can understand the OP's point about "watching paint dry" between BP's but it *appears* that our timer limitation is going to be addressed in the near future. If we can get the timer down to 30 seconds, without it costing a ridiculous amount of extra MP, then I think the issue will be fairly well addressed. (By the issue, I mean being bored in between BP's. There are other issues that obviously need to be addressed.) Splitting the Blood Pacts into 3 or 4 categories would help even more so. I don't think that each BP should have its own timer or that each avatar should have separate timers. Splitting into damage - enfeebling - enhancing/healing would be nice. You could possibly break up the enhancing/healing into separate categories or split damage into physical and magical. Either would be a nice boost.

Everyone has their own idea of how SMN should play. Personally, I don't want to melee on my SMN. I don't want to nuke on my SMN. I have BLM, SCH and RDM for that. I'm perfectly fine with providing support healing from /WHM, /RDM or /SCH and if more healing is required I'll switch to a healing class. I play SMN to *summon* That is all I'm concerned with when I put on that pointy horn. I'm cautiously optimistic that the coming updates will allow me to focus on that.

Now there are plenty of other issues that need to be addressed. Avatar DOT, BP delay (buff hopefully incoming), avatar's favor, Ward potency, and I'm sure I've forgotten others. These are the areas I'd like to see SE focus on.

I also don't want to have to sub WAR to give my avatars double attack. They should have it naturally. I shouldn't have to sub BLM to improve nuking damage. They should already be powerful. Our subjob should be used to provide utility to the party and ourselves (MP recovery, survivability, etc). SE decided not to give us native spells and magic skills and that may have been a poor design decision. I don't see it changing after almost 10 years and I'm fine with that.

And perhaps it's because FFX was my first Final Fantasy game but I liked that the Aeons were all unique, not just in their elements/attacks but also their stats. (I know. I'm a late comer to the series!!) I can definitely see the advantage of all the avatars being roughly the same as it allows you more flexibility in which avatar you use. If Shiva was clearly the best nuking avatar, then there would be less reasons to use Garuda or Titan for that purpose. Even acknowledging that, I still wouldn't mind a little variation. Fenrir, Carbuncle and Diabolos have some nice unique quirks. I'd like the other avatars to as well. This could be done by giving them their respective avatar's favors and removing the penalties or just giving Shiva extra tiers of the MAB trait or Garuda a higher evasion rating. Again, that is just a personal wish of mine

[Korpg]

And when you've made the perfect team, you'll notice healing on SMN is not needed. And we are right back on my initial post, watching paint dry as we do nothing. Melee isn't desired, Healing is pointless.

You forget the whole reason why the SMN is there. They are there for 2 things: Deal TP-less damage and to hold a pop set.

Does dealing TP-less damage worthless? Heck no. SMN is the only job that can do it. And holding a pop set is more important than wiping a party/alliance because you feel like whacking a mob. But you don't have to stand back and do damage from afar on most stuff. Go ahead and melee on Aquarius. Just don't melee on Isgebind (seen too many people wipe on that Dragon because they had too many melees on it. That dragon is not zergable yet).

I agree with you when you got a crappy team though. Then you do not want mages to melee.[/QUOTE]

[Tagrineth]

Why bother even having a smn or any variety of jobs for that matter? Just level whm and call it a day.

I dunno. Blame Abyssea with its 2-3k HP totals and NMs that can thwack players for 1-3k damage on a whim. Keep up with that damage using only Cure IV and don't die in the process from all the enmity!

[Dallas]

Cure IV on one of 2 mage combinations that has no native Fast Cast: SMN/WHM, BLM/WHM. Worst cure whore ever.

[Razushu]

Cure IV on one of 2 mage combinations that has no native Fast Cast: SMN/WHM, BLM/WHM. Worst cure whore ever.

I know it's almost as bad as meleeing on the weakest class in the ga.....

[Dallas]

Meleeing as RDM, BLM, or SCH? No, much more pathetic than that. 23% haste (mage) versus 26% haste (melee) is much closer than Cure 4 is to Cure 6.

[Razushu]

Meleeing as RDM, BLM, or SCH? No, much more pathetic than that. 23% haste (mage) versus 26% haste (melee) is much closer than Cure 4 is to Cure 6.

I was talking about SMN, it's ok it's forgivable for you to forget it(seeing as you don't have it leveled). Outside Abyssea Cure IV does fine. There's lots more factors that go into making an effective melee than haste, if you ever level a job you'll learn this. Don't worry we were all new once.

[Leonlionheart]

Meleeing as RDM, BLM, or SCH? No, much more pathetic than that. 23% haste (mage) versus 26% haste (melee) is much closer than Cure 4 is to Cure 6.

RDM can cap haste, which is a big deal with marches. Although I agree, the difference between Cure IV and VI is just... well Cure VI is 300% better.