Job Manifesto discussion RE: Summoner

[Camate]

First off, thanks for all the opinions thus far, and we wanted to let you know that we passed them to the supervisor in charge of the upcoming changes and had him take a look.

Please understand that we cannot answer all of your questions in one post and some answers may be vague, because this is all content that is still under development.

Please bear with us as we will continue posting about this and other jobs!

※I believe there are a lot of players who are interested in the effects and duration of “Blood Pact” so I plan on addressing it in the follow-up post. (I understand that some of you may be disappointed about this, but please be a little patient!)

Please provide specific details on the effects of “a new ability that expends an additional amount of MP to shorten the recast time for blood pacts.”

For example, we are thinking about something like, “reset the recast time by expending a set amount of MP.” As we have stated in the threads for other jobs, this is just one example.

There is a possibility of the effects being changed drastically, so please keep posting your feedback.

I would like Blood Pacts to be changed to the charge format.

This would drastically change the operation of Blood Pacts, so we have no plans of making this change. We plan on adjusting the timing of Blood Pacts by adding an ability that shortens the recast time.

Is it possible to interlock the avatar’s attacks with the summoner’s weapon skills (as in Wyvern’s breath)?

Being able to issue commands to avatars is a unique advantage for summoners, so it is best to initiate avatar attacks through the summoner’s commands.

I would like the pet command “Stay” to be added.

We have no plans to add the “Stay” command outside of beastmasters.

I would like unique stats added to each avatar, such as increased attack for Ifrit and increased evasion for Garuda.

By implementing different stats for each avatar, we are afraid certain avatars will be selected disproportionately frequently and the variance of avatars will be limited. There is a possibility of being able to alter the stats of avatars by equipping gear, but basically we would like avatars to be chosen based on their elements.

I would like En/Spike effects added to avatars.

This might be good. We will think about this.

I would like the elemental resistances that avatars have to been given to party members.

This is pretty similar to Avatar’s Favor. What about adding this effect through merit points?

Any possibility you can enhance the Evoker’s Ring?

If you have to surpass a challenging quest, then we will look into it. Simply just enhancing it would be a bit hard to justify.

Let summoners use the weapon skills for staff that can only be used by specific jobs/support jobs.

We understand how you feel. We received similar requests for other jobs/weapon skills and we will be looking into it.

[Karbuncle]

If you have to surpass a challenging quest, then we will look into it. Simply just enhancing it would be a bit hard to justify.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th....-BONUS-ITEMS!

You're welcome D:

(And thank you )

[Razushu]

Thanks for the info Camate, some of what you said is intriguing. I think we'll all be patient a little longer after your post. Looking forward to more detail on the new BP delay ability.

[Tarage]

Please PLEASE fix these three things about Avatar AI.

1. Avatars should not ever auto attack sleeping mobs.
2. Avatars should have a larger radius in which a Summoner can use the Assault command and not have the Avatar not listen.
3. If a Blood Pact is used on a mob and it dies before the Blood Pact can go off, please reset the Blood Pact timer.

That's all I ask.

[Korpg]

Please PLEASE fix these three things about Avatar AI.

1. Avatars should not ever auto attack sleeping mobs.
2. Avatars should have a larger radius in which a Summoner can use the Assault command and not have the Avatar not listen.
3. If a Blood Pact is used on a mob and it dies before the Blood Pact can go off, please reset the Blood Pact timer.

That's all I ask.

Please please please PLEASE ignore the first one of the 3 listed here.

[Soundwave]

※I believe there are a lot of players who are interested in the effects and duration of “Blood Pact” so I plan on addressing it in the follow-up post. (I understand that some of you may be disappointed about this, but please be a little patient!)

I was not expecting a follow up, I'm very thank for for this when it comes.

Thank you for the info so far.

I would like the elemental resistances that avatars have to been given to party members.
This is pretty similar to Avatar’s Favor. What about adding this effect through merit points?

I like this idea, please make it possible when/if upgraded though merits it does all avatars and not a single avatar.

I feel that this is only group 1 Category worthy and would make group 3 category seem like just icing on the cake for summoner, if that's what your referring to.

Examplessssss

Group 1 (Upgrade to 15 Total)
Avatar Phys. Accuracy
Avatar Physical Attack
Avatar Mag. Accuracy
Avatar Magical Attack
Elemental MP Cost
**New** Avatar Favor Elemental Resist

Group 2
Meteor Strike
Heavenly Strike
Wind Blade
Geocrush
Thunderstorm
Grand Fall

Group 3
Something new?!

or........

Group 1
Avatar Phys. Accuracy
Avatar Physical Attack
Avatar Mag. Accuracy
Avatar Magical Attack
Elemental MP Cost

Group 2
Meteor Strike
Heavenly Strike
Wind Blade
Geocrush
Thunderstorm
Grand Fall

Group 3
**New** Avatar Favor Elemental Resist

[Dallas]

We understand how you feel. We received similar requests for other jobs/weapon skills and we will be looking into it.

Deathga win! LOL. Did anyone re-suggest AOE BPs? Does a SMN no good to get WS that target more mobs than the pet...

[Alhanelem]

If you have to surpass a challenging quest, then we will look into it.

I like this idea. In this case though, I would rather it be a shorter but somewhat harder quest (compared to the original).

This would drastically change the operation of Blood Pacts, so we have no plans of making this change.

Does the dev team realize how weak the summons are overall? A summoner that puts on some "melee" gear with a good weapon can easily outdamage the avatars right now. This shouldn't happen. The avatars should be strong enough that no summoner should feel like they have to do that.

I really don't see how adding say, a 2 charge system would drastically change the operation of blood pacts. If you have 2 charges each with the usual recast, you're not using more blood pacts, you're just using them with better timing. I ilke the idea of more ways to reduce the delay, but I hope SE realizes- FFXI is much "faster" than it was years ago. 1 min (reducable to 45 sec) between abilities is now an eternity in this game.

[Imakun]

By implementing different stats for each avatar, we are afraid certain avatars will be selected disproportionately frequently and the variance of avatars will be limited. There is a possibility of being able to alter the stats of avatars by equipping gear, but basically we would like avatars to be chosen based on their elements.

You have to know that this never happens anyway. Elemental properties of the Avatars don't matter outside of what? Merit Blood Pacts?
Even when fighting monsters that have specific elemental attacks/resistance we basically just use Garuda for Predator Claws or Shiva for Heavenly Strike (since everything on Vana'diel seems to hate ice but very few exceptions).
If you want us to use ALL of our Avatars give us a reason to. Add elemental resistance auras when they're out, enhance their resistance against their opposite element, give them unique abilities based on their element.
And no, Avatar's Favor is not what we're looking for. Considering the radius of the Favor, the need for the Avatar to stay close to the mob to execute a rage BP AND the negative effects it has on the Avatar's strenght.. it's just a free -Perpetuation tool for kiting.

This is pretty similar to Avatar’s Favor. What about adding this effect through merit points?

Just don't make it part of Avatar's Favor >>;

I would like En/Spike effects added to avatars.

Good but again don't make it part of Avatar's Favor.

If you have to surpass a challenging quest, then we will look into it. Simply just enhancing it would be a bit hard to justify.

I'd gladly take that. I loved all the quests involving Summoner!

[Kegsay]

For example, we are thinking about something like, “reset the recast time by expending a set amount of MP.” As we have stated in the threads for other jobs, this is just one example.

There is a possibility of the effects being changed drastically, so please keep posting your feedback.

Since the devs have stated clearly they don't want for whatever reason to do a charge system (which I personally feel is absolutely required in the age of FFXI post-75), then this ability will need to be used exceptionally frequently. As such, what are the ideas for the recast time of this mp->bp delay ability? Furthermore, SE must understand that the lack of a being able to reduce the BP time to below 45 seconds is the single biggest hindrance to this job as a whole, so this ability MUST be relatively powerful.

There is no mention of the level this JA would be obtained, nor what the ratio of mp:bp- would be. I personally feel that BP time is a fundamental flaw in SMN mechanics, so this JA should be introduced early, such as Level 50 (the first level which cannot be obtained using /SMN).

The MP requirement is not listed either, I can't imagine you would be happy letting a Level 50 expend 100MP to reset, as well as a Level 90 expend 100MP, but whatever scaling system is used it has to be extremely reasonable.

In summary, the level of the ability must be low (e.g. 50) , since BP time is a fundamental flaw in the Summoner job. The ratio of time:mp must be reasonable (at maximum 100 MP, so I figure 2MP:1sec). The recast time must be non-existent, it should be ready for the next time I want to BP. Remember, the whole idea behind this is speed which a long recast timer would destroy this potentially good JA.