Spirits Re-make

[Korpg]

I was looking at the comments Karbuncle and Razushu had made and saw some real value in what they were saying and decided to let the subject drop but then you had to say this, possibly the stupidest comment on the forum!

You must be new here. You haven't seen how Slow is better than Haste for TP gain, melee SMN can do more damage than an Ukon WAR, and Abyssea burning is the same as RMTing. But then again, this follows:

Can't have both on equal standing? Why the hell not!? Why have SCH when WHM and BLM can do its job better, why have RDM when nearly all jobs have there own enfeeb spells/ja...

You accuse what I said as stupid, and yet, you follow up with this....yeah... SCH is great at what it does, MP conservation. They have the best MP per damage ratio, even though their nukes are not quite as powerful as a BLM. They have the best MP per heal ratio, even though they are limited by Cure IV, and WHM/SCH can be on equal footing, if not better footing due to +2 Orison's Panties. But SCH has the ability to change jobs without having to zone into the mog house. They are great at being both a WHM and a BLM, and can outnuke a WHM and outheal a BLM. That is what they excel at. RDM is great at enfeebling, and nothing will take that away from them, at least at the moment. So you really don't invite a SCH to do a RDM's job now, do you?

Hell why even bother having SMN when we have Full on DDs and Support Jobs! So yea you'll have to forgive me about wanting to improve an aspect of a job I love but I remember a time when people used to question the usefulness of our job altogether because we weren't quite a DD, not quite a BRD and no were near a WHM... but now thats changed.

How did that change? We are still not quite a DD, nowhere near a BRD, and nowhere near a WHM. The main thing we can do is deliver TPless damage, and be the best soloist job out there (or tied with BST). We are the job where you can throw bodies at a mob all the time without having to worry about shouting for a raise or waiting for weakness to wear. We are the job that can take full advantage over an element and keep our damage within that same element.

So how about in stead of being a sand-box smn and merely pointing out how Eles are inferior to Avas, you do as the thread title suggests and put forward some decent suggestions on how they could be improved? If you cant... What are you doing in this thread at all?

I'm pointing out what spirits were meant to be. Raz pointed it out too. Spirits are there for lower level SMNs who didn't have all avatars yet, and as the SMN grows, and gets more avatars, the less spirits become. Elemental Siphon as breathed new life into spirits, and actually gave a reason for most (dark spirit mostly). You can't improve them at all because they did what they meant to do. Its like asking for DRGs to still use Jump instead of Soul Jump, or asking BRDs to still use Valor Minuet I/II instead of the current level Minuets. Or asking for a Protect I when you can have a Protect V. Those spells have become redundant, why not ask for a boost to them also? You are basically asking that anyway.

[Elvyn]

You must be new here. You haven't seen how Slow is better than Haste for TP gain, melee SMN can do more damage than an Ukon WAR, and Abyssea burning is the same as RMTing. But then again, this follows:

I'm not even going to hazard a guess and why anyone would say that -_-?

You accuse what I said as stupid, and yet, you follow up with this....yeah... SCH is great at what it does, MP conservation. They have the best MP per damage ratio, even though their nukes are not quite as powerful as a BLM. They have the best MP per heal ratio, even though they are limited by Cure IV, and WHM/SCH can be on equal footing, if not better footing due to +2 Orison's Panties. But SCH has the ability to change jobs without having to zone into the mog house. They are great at being both a WHM and a BLM, and can outnuke a WHM and outheal a BLM. That is what they excel at. RDM is great at enfeebling, and nothing will take that away from them, at least at the moment. So you really don't invite a SCH to do a RDM's job now, do you?

Obviously using any form of comparison is lost on you... so ill stop using them.

How did that change? We are still not quite a DD, nowhere near a BRD, and nowhere near a WHM. The main thing we can do is deliver TPless damage, and be the best soloist job out there (or tied with BST). We are the job where you can throw bodies at a mob all the time without having to worry about shouting for a raise or waiting for weakness to wear. We are the job that can take full advantage over an element and keep our damage within that same element.

I lol'd that you think SMN is anywhere near BST is terms of solo... that will keep me giggling all day, thanks ^^

I'm pointing out what spirits were meant to be. Raz pointed it out too. Spirits are there for lower level SMNs who didn't have all avatars yet, and as the SMN grows, and gets more avatars, the less spirits become. Elemental Siphon as breathed new life into spirits, and actually gave a reason for most (dark spirit mostly). You can't improve them at all because they did what they meant to do. Its like asking for DRGs to still use Jump instead of Soul Jump, or asking BRDs to still use Valor Minuet I/II instead of the current level Minuets. Or asking for a Protect I when you can have a Protect V. Those spells have become redundant, why not ask for a boost to them also? You are basically asking that anyway.

Sure why not! Let's also ask SE to breath some life into the old redundant god gear?! Oh wait.. they already did that... or what about the situational AF2.... wait! There doing that as well!

Why not just go the full hog and ask SE to remove eles altogether and just give us an ability so gain mp based on our smn skill w/o having all the faf of summoning a pointless piece of AI.

As you can probably tell iv stopped putting any effort into replying to you... your just going to continue spouting the same old yawp about redundancy then fine, I can't blame you for wanting to close your eyes to the potential of something because its easier than coming up with ways to improve it.

[Korpg]

I lol'd that you think SMN is anywhere near BST is terms of solo... that will keep me giggling all day, thanks ^^

Well, you obviously haven't soloed as SMN on big stuff then. Ever tried to solo Alfred in A-Grauberg as BST?

Sure why not! Let's also ask SE to breath some life into the old redundant god gear?! Oh wait.. they already did that... or what about the situational AF2.... wait! There doing that as well!

Why not just go the full hog and ask SE to remove eles altogether and just give us an ability so gain mp based on our smn skill w/o having all the faf of summoning a pointless piece of AI.

We aren't talking about gear, we are talking about spells.

Gear for 75 that were good at 75 but suck at 90 that are getting redone is one thing. Spells that were good at 1 but suck as soon as you get something better is another. Which is what spirits are, good for those who don't have anything better to use.

I'm still waiting on why you think spirits should be on equal footing with avatars though.

[Malamasala]

Malamasala also has an awesome point eles lack stat boosts of the same lvl Jobs and I don't personally find the casting time of my eles a problem (smn skill @395) but it could stand to do with some tweaking ;P

What do you fight?

My old experiments showed that in a small party with 1-2 melee and 1 SMN using spirits, the monster will be at 20% HP when it starts casting its first spell. If it is DoT, it served no purpose. If it is AM, the mob is dead before it is cast. If it is tier IV, you are overkilling the mob. These were T-VT mobs. In theory you have slightly better shot at nuking a IT mob. However IT mobs will resist you instead, just to spit in your face.

The most basic problem is still the "assault bug". Even if you keep your spirit out 10 minutes, it will take 25+ seconds before it casts a spell after you assault. Why? Because SE decided that it changes "modes" to attacking mode, and it should start at max time because else we wouldn't suffer enough.

Simplest fix to make spirits 250% more efficient is to fix said bug. If I can keep my spirit out 25 seconds and then assault and get an instant spell, it will be so much more worth it than having to wait 25 seconds after assault.

PS. I've bug reported this in March, about my 5th time since 2006. So far, no feedback about if they intend on fixing this, or if it is on purpose that we can't use spirits.

Sometimes I feel that I might as well go make fake error reports, since they do not bother looking into them anyway.

[Secondplanet]

I think the spirits should be redone also, when my wife and i duo stuff i use the light elemental to give us protect IV and Shell IV, This is a great way to get decent buffs but sometimes we're waiting like 5-10mins for the spirit to stop casting regen and haste constantly.

I do believe this needs to be looked into, even if they allow us basic commands like support, debuff or assault. Even with the AI the way it is this would atleast give us the option on how the elementals behave.

[Kaych]

Does anyone know if SE has commented on the "Spirits-beeing-useless-subject"? To me it seems like SE only answers the topics they want to. When its touchy topics like Spirits, RDM mele etc, I feel they just dont have an aswer and therefore choose to not say anything. It would be nice for a change if they actually said: "We are aware of the Spirit's-situation, but we can't look into this at the moment" or "We know that the spirits are useless, but at the moment we have no idea how to fix it/balance it" or whatever...

(After a month of not being able to write on forums due to problems with playonline ID transfer, I am finally back, so forgive me if anyone has asked this. Cant read through all comments on all threadsXD)

[Kaych]

Btw Secondplanet, I do beleve if you cast regen on yourself and haste, your spirit wont cast it. Have the spirit only facing one of you. That makes it easyer to get protect and shell. When you have gotten what you want, u make it face your wife and then cast regen and haste on her. Also if you dont have acess to haste, just stand still till it casts protect. It never casts the same spell again on you. (until it wears off)

For some reason, if u cast Regen II, it will cast regen I on you O.o? so dodnt do that ^_-

[Razushu]

Does anyone know if SE has commented on the "Spirits-beeing-useless-subject"? To me it seems like SE only answers the topics they want to. When its touchy topics like Spirits, RDM mele etc, I feel they just dont have an aswer and therefore choose to not say anything. It would be nice for a change if they actually said: "We are aware of the Spirit's-situation, but we can't look into this at the moment" or "We know that the spirits are useless, but at the moment we have no idea how to fix it/balance it" or whatever...

(After a month of not being able to write on forums due to problems with playonline ID transfer, I am finally back, so forgive me if anyone has asked this. Cant read through all comments on all threadsXD)

SE have been fairly vocal on SMN as of late, but no mention of spirits. I don't think it's a case of the reps avoiding touchy subjects(although I do think they skip threads full of bickering), I think it's more like they know what subjects are currently on the table and what ones are on the backburner. This is probably easily gleaned from the manifesto, i.e RDM is an enfeebler so it's unlikely the reps will be sifting through a 100+ page RDM melee thread to bring these things to attention in the near future.

SE's vision is for SMNs to rely on our Avatars, so this will likely explain the silence on spirits, while we are getting some good updates on Avatars and BP delay etc. I would say that lack of input from SE on the subject of spirits points to one of two conclusions, either 1) they're aware but the devs are focusing on making us better through adjustments to Avatars, or 2) They know how some of us feel about spirits, but spirits are currently working as designed* so they're not going to do anything with them.

Both are equally likely to be true, and both mean it will be unlikely that SE gives word on what they think about spirits in the forseeable future, although one could argue they've as much as told us with their silence, and the fact they mention Avatars specifically when refering to us using pets

*Which in this case would be low level pets until we get Avatars, then an MP management tool.

[Razushu]

Btw Secondplanet, I do beleve if you cast regen on yourself and haste, your spirit wont cast it. Have the spirit only facing one of you. That makes it easyer to get protect and shell. When you have gotten what you want, u make it face your wife and then cast regen and haste on her. Also if you dont have acess to haste, just stand still till it casts protect. It never casts the same spell again on you. (until it wears off)

For some reason, if u cast Regen II, it will cast regen I on you O.o? so dodnt do that ^_-

I've never seen it do that, I must be lucky lol. Thanks for the info

[Covenant]

I think the trouble with most Summoners on this thread is that they are viewing avatars AND spirits from the viewpoint of a lvl 90 summoner. They are incapable of viewing the job lvl 1-90. If SE DIDN'T want spirits to evolve why did SE lvl and adjust them up to lvl 75? Razuho and kropg treat them as it they are tier 1 fire spells that no one uses anymore.

I don't think direct command is the answer to spirits or bloodpactting, though I wouldn't mind it. Simply allowing them to lvl to 90-99 with all appropriate stat adjustments would do wonders. I still have hope for improved avatar functionality in the "multiple effect" Bloodpacts, but still view spirits in the melee/tank/nuke role.
The speed casting could be address via special "spirit gear" but with the casting caps and stupid IE(though ailment resists is because their MaB is so low) I doubt players would adjust their play unless a bloodpact AND garunteed nuke could both be used in a 1min timer.