Some ideas for changes for Summoner

[Soranika]

Self-sufficiency pretty much comes at high levels with gear while at low levels, the concept of leveling was for every one to rely on each other. SMN at low levels in a party setting were to be complemented by RDM, COR, or BRD with their abilities to give a refresh status. It's really hard for me to get behind adjustments to perp cost, even for lower levels. I do, however, only hope they don't drastically increase perp cost from 95-99. Not to mention avatar favor lowers perp cost, which seems to be almost never mentioned because focus lays on the the reduction of accuracy and power which I think only really hurts magical blood pacts (I only eyeball damage. I don't know the math in this.) I'd rather see avatar favor stay in full effect and not blink/reset when using a blood pact... that's the hugest hindrance to making it remotely useful.

All in all, I personally don't see much point in several of these adjustments. Maybe I'm gear whoring about that though cause a lot of gear corrects some of these issues. Increasing range on ranged blood pacts would be greatly appreciated. Increasing radius on Carbuncle's soothing ruby needs to be a definite must, and apparently undermentioned.

One thing I'm confused about is elemental siphon bonus based on elemental TP. If you're keeping summoning magic capped or near cap, with or without additional summoning magic equipment would net you over 400-500+ MP. Spirits typically aren't out long enough to gather TP* there for if you're using mana ceed, not only are you wasting 100mp, the gain may not even be beneficial. Not every SMN has caller's bracers +2 to make it useful and you're wasting a job ability better well spent on quickly increasing merit or healing blood pact potency.

*I tend to use elemental spirits in VW to aid HV elemental magic proccing early in the fights. Generally depends on luck and hoping the VWNM doesn't use silence. I've gotten particularly lucky on several occasions. As some people noticed though, Light Spirits have gotten an update and using higher tier offensive magic, although their buffing is a little less to be desired. I haven't touched elemental spirits outside of VW, aside from elemental siphon (which I use pretty rarely now acquiring Hvergelmir). If the other elemental spirits have obtained new magic, I'm not really sure since vw tends to be hectic and I do more than just eyeball what magic my spirits cast.

[Malamasala]

Overload is worse for the PUP than perp cost is for the SMN. Perp cost is trivial, overload is not. There are many times when PUP is only using the automaton, and meleeing is too dangerous, thus negating your alleged benefits.

Maybe you should learn how to play PUP then. I've never had problems with overload. The fact that you can negate it completely by being good at the job makes it far less of an annoyance than perpetuation which can only be negated by level 90 armors.

And I must say I've never seen a PUP wear full time 5-10 sets of -overload armor. While seeing a SMN with perpetuation all over the armors is more of a rule than a common occurrence.

[Kensagaku]

I fail to see the problem of wearing -perp gear. After all, plenty of it comes with MP+ or other bonuses. I won't lie, I'd like a little more avatar stats on my perp set like attack+ or some more pet haste, but even so I feel it doesn't hurt as much as you make it sound like. I don't have wtf gear, maybe a few good pieces here and there, but even so I feel it's not hard to perform adequately. For example, with my perp gear, I not only negate perp cost, but I'm actually gaining back 3MP/tick (4 if I have day/weather to boost Caller's Bracers +2), looking at only my gear and barring atma. Not only that, but my set comes with huge MP bonuses, some avatar attack, some accuracy. For those who'd ask:

Fay Crozier (Perp-3, Pet: Atk/R.Atk+6, MAB+3) / Vox Grip / Nothing / Hedgehog Bomb (should get Esper Stone)
Caller's Horn +2 / Caller's Pendant / Moonshade Earring (Refresh + M.acc+4) / Gifted Earring
Caller's Doublet +2 / Caller's Bracer +2 / Evoker's Ring / Bifrost Ring
Summoner's Cape / Hierarch Belt (need the Obi!) / Augur's Brais / Caller's Pigaches +2

Yes, I've got some decent gear, mainly in the +2s and the Gifted Earring. The rest of it isn't all that hard to get. And even with all my perp- gear (-13 Perp cost total), I see various bonuses: +413 MP, +3 MP/tick Refresh (5 if you count Auto Refresh II), Avatar Regain, Avatar Acc+, a little emnity-, a boost to Avatar's Favor, etc. If you're /SCH, the hands will cut you an extra MP/tick of Refresh (I guess that means my perp cost is 2? I could prolly switch in Nash gages if I ever get them for the same effect, but I like the MP and acc boost) for several avatars, and at 99 it'll do so for all but Ramuh, Carby, and the Dark elemental avatars. I sorta wish we'd get Thunderstorm as I actually use Ramuh but meh. Work with what you've got, right?

Quoting you, Mala: "Maybe you should learn how to play PUP then. I've never had problems with overload."

Maybe you should learn how to play SMN then, I've never had problems with perp cost and still keeping fairly useful bonuses.

[Malamasala]

Maybe you should learn how to play SMN then, I've never had problems with perp cost and still keeping fairly useful bonuses.

To get a perspective, imagine a BST wearing full SMN empyrean +2.

-Perpetuation, so that no BST pets cost MP. (They didn't from start, but hey, same result as a SMN shouldn't be brushed off!)

Enhances pet macc. Great. All BST pets who do magic moves will have better accuracy. SCORE!

+skill. Well, that is kind of like +ws accuracy for BST sic commands. Awesome!

Enhances siphon. Well, BST doesn't use siphon so lets assume BST version instead have "enhances heel command".



See my point? No other job would think SMN stats were good. It is just SMNs who've never once had a decent armor that go "Wow, this is much better than old armors! This one has for example def 27, my old had def 19!"

Just take a moment and think and it should be clear to you as well. (Like if ALL your bonuses were WS only on a melee armor set, would you wear it full time? No you'd want a TP set. SMN has no TP set, only a WS set we full time.)

[Kensagaku]

To get a perspective, imagine a BST wearing full SMN empyrean +2.

-Perpetuation, so that no BST pets cost MP. (They didn't from start, but hey, same result as a SMN shouldn't be brushed off!)

Enhances pet macc. Great. All BST pets who do magic moves will have better accuracy. SCORE!

+skill. Well, that is kind of like +ws accuracy for BST sic commands. Awesome!

Enhances siphon. Well, BST doesn't use siphon so lets assume BST version instead have "enhances heel command".



See my point? No other job would think SMN stats were good. It is just SMNs who've never once had a decent armor that go "Wow, this is much better than old armors! This one has for example def 27, my old had def 19!"

Just take a moment and think and it should be clear to you as well. (Like if ALL your bonuses were WS only on a melee armor set, would you wear it full time? No you'd want a TP set. SMN has no TP set, only a WS set we full time.)

..........

Did you just compare a SMN's style of play to a BST? I have both level 95, and play both fairly regularly, and I have the sense to know that the playstyle is completely different, so different armors apply to different situations...

But to use your own (poorly chosen) arguments:

-Comparing an Avatar's reduction in perp cost is like a reduction in how much gil jugs cost. Sure, there are those that craft jugs, but leveling a craft is about equivalent in effort to getting avatar perpetuation gear, nullifying costs in both ways... hey look, you have to do work for a job, shocker! It's not like SMN can't summon a new pet every 30 seconds versus BST getting one every few minutes, and oh, don't forget, you're not limited by quantity of jugs you have on you! And if you're having MP issues, you're doing something wrong.

-Enhancing pet M.acc... again the different style of play comes in. Avatars have a large number of magical BPs, and as a result improving their M.acc means less resists and more damage. BSTs, on the other hand, focus more on melee. Yet look, none of our AF3+2 has "Enhances Pet Accuracy". Thankfully the mantle makes up for that. Complain less, SMN gets a buff that's relevant to one of their damage styles (unless you're one of those WoE SMNs that throws Garuda at skeletons...)

-+skill has multiple uses, or don't you know how to play SMN? BP Ward duration (I love keeping Earthen Armor, Hastega, etc up for longer), Elemental Siphon boost, and SMN M.acc/P.acc for BPs. It's more than just WS acc.

-Enhances Siphon: Oh hey look, extra MP is bad for a job that is MP reliant. I forgot.

You can't just willy-nilly compare jobs that have completely different playstyles and applications. You're just looking for an excuse to play the "Oh, SMN is terrible" victim card. SMN has plenty of great equipment; it's just that its relevant applications are few at the moment due to the community's style of play.

An afterthought, now that it came to mind: You mentioned that SMNs are in a full-time WS set? Are you kidding? If you fulltime something like the set I have above, then you're doing it wrong. You should be switching into a bunch of different gear for both physical and magical BPs. For magical, get a Shareeravadi+3 for Pet: MAB, as well as a Caller's Sash, Tiresias' Cape, Summoning Magic gear, etc. For physical, get a Soulscorge or the Shareeravadi+3 on the fire path (I didn't bother to do another because that would mess up macros), then add pet: attack (Mujin Obi, Summoner's Pigaches, etc), accuracy, and skill to make up the rest.

If you're fulltiming your set for BPs, then it's the equivalent of a WAR using Ukko's in their TP set... reduced potency, and overall a poor choice of gear.

[Soranika]

=\ I find it incredeble that you parade around so long as SMN being your #1 job and hate pretty much what make the job what it is. Perpetuation cost is a necessary crutch that will only hinder you if you let it. All of summoner specific gear has been about augmenting and enhancing avatar performance. AF3 set not only addresses perpetuation cost pretty much extensively, all the pieces increases avatar performance greatly, save for blood pact time reduction. It's really hard to actually see validation in your argument against the set and perpetuation cost.

And it's really hard to compare to jugmasters... lol I mean beastmasters, who have their own things to deal with, like finding charm and charmed pets utterly useless to the job. Their set of issues as a pet job is unrelated to SMN issues as a pet job.

[Camate]

We are currently looking into enhancing elemental spirits.

However, rather than simply adjusting their behavior, we feel that everyone might enjoy things a bit more if we were to do something different, so we feel this is a bit low on the priority scale. However, if you feel differently please let us know!

[Malamasala]

We are currently looking into enhancing elemental spirits.

However, rather than simply adjusting their behavior, we feel that everyone might enjoy things a bit more if we were to do something different, so we feel this is a bit low on the priority scale. However, if you feel differently please let us know!

You have no idea how much this post means to me. (But since I put it in my sig, it may be a hint).

My personal priority list would be:

1. Ward effect scaling with levels (or summoning skill), and no moon phase/time of day reliance

2. Splitting Global BP timers into more timers (but I guess I'll settle for that coming -BP ability, if it will work)

3. Spirits

4. Cait Sith and Atomos (Because frankly we all expect these to just be clones of carbuncle and diabolos and be mostly useless)

X. More armors with +pet haste/double attack/triple attack combined with master haste/accuracy/attack/STR/double attack. ("X" as in can be implemented with any of the coming updates since it is just armor bonuses)



Anyhow, can you share any information about what the current developer ideas are for Spirits? I have a hard time imagining a new different system since I've always focused on them just being the same but not worthless.

We have been brainstorming some on these forums before of course. With things like comboing avatars + spirits so the spirit kind of tags along and nukes while the avatar fights. Or stuff like summon spirit, gain access to all BLM or WHM spells of their element as your own spells. Considering we are on 50% of all the BLM and WHM armors, perhaps that wouldn't be a bad system to make us use the armors we are given.

Also, any timeframe on this? I'm assuming -BP timer and new avatars for march level 99 cap raise, so perhaps after summer?

[Kensagaku]

We are currently looking into enhancing elemental spirits.

However, rather than simply adjusting their behavior, we feel that everyone might enjoy things a bit more if we were to do something different, so we feel this is a bit low on the priority scale. However, if you feel differently please let us know!

Eh, I feel it's pretty low there, Camate. Don't get me wrong; I'd love my little ball of energy to be useful once in a while. Voidwatch, sometimes there's a lot of spells and since we don't bring a DRK I use my Dark Spirit for Absorb spells. If I'm in the outside party, I use Light Spirit for buffs. The rest? Our BLM or RDM can handle them, it seems pointless to use them for anything else but Siphon. I don't really see a point to enhancing them, even if you do open up their spell lists a bit more. I mean, I'd appreciate it on Light Spirit (Protect/Shell V {Yes Please} ;~; ), but for the most part, I hope this gets dropped on the priority list.

Mala's list is a pretty good feel of what I'd like to see, though I'd bump armors with pet boosts up a few notches to above Spirits (They'd be great for BPs or slots where you don't have to worry about -perp... hell, I'd be willing to go make a ToM staff for them if the slots are good enough. I just hate going from four staves back up to eleven again for SMN. ;~; ) and then bump the rest of the list down one.

[Soranika]

I must be one of the few don't really see anything to take out of this.

Enhancing elemental spirits low on the list of priorities for SMN as a whole... sounds like it is. There's other things many of us who play SMN are looking forward to more than enhancing elemental spirits and I'd like to hear something in regards to those things before responding to it.