Some ideas for changes for Summoner

[Soranika]

With SMN AF+2, any kind of perp staff (NQ, HQ, fay, bahamut or magian elemental staves) can reduce elemental spirits current perp cost to like 1-2mp per tick if you summon that spirit on anyday. Effectively negates on the corresponding day/weather. You'll even see a refresh of 1mp per tick if you continue to deck out refresh gear, like the moonshade earring or sterc subligar with refresh augment. Spirits are perp cost effective to use if you're desire to use them and that was a major set back to you.

[hideka]

1)
It seems to be a rule of this game that light element cannot be powerful. Holy mist is only BARELY better than meteorite.

800 Damage Luminohelix GO!

[hideka]

personally all in all, i think summoner needs a few things

1) the ability to instantly call out an avatar for a blood pact ward*
2) the ability to instantly call out an avatar for blood pact rage*
3) High damage AOE blood pacts. summoners current AOE status is limited to thunder spark, debuffs and 2hour.
4) Removal of Favor damage penalty
5) new avatars (which are coming) that ARENOT in the Line of Odin and Alexander. we need new avatars that can perpetuate and be fairly useful.
6) Filling out the ranks of Bloodpact ward for all the various Summons.**

* This ability would be akin to the call/conjure Command ability, where the summoner would call out an avatar that matches the day, and he would either use a BP rage or BP ward at random for 0 MP cost on the current target.

** rounding out the lists of BP wards for the avatars. some avatars have 4-5 wards, others have 2, but for the most part they all have roughly the same number of rages. (diabolos carbuncle and fenrit being the exceptions.)

[Covenant]

Lol..I like how he said "elemental spirits" and a lot of people translated this into a bloodpact/avatar discussion. If the deve team needs ideas for elemental spirits look at my AvaTar and spirits revamping thread. Not only did I offer a lot of changes, but a lot of people offered their 2bits as wells.

Mostly simply is allow all the spirits to level appropriate.

Or allow the use of dual natured "higher" elemental spirits.

[Covenant]

Maybe offer a different armor/gear set then a shared -perp cost, aimed specifically at elemental spirits. I can think of a set of torgques which boosts specific elemental spirits from casting timers, magic burst bonuses, etc.

[hideka]

oh god why didnt i look at the OP's name... i remember you from the wiki forums... *dropping this thread*

[Juri_Licious]

How about giving Diabolos a new powerful blood pact?

[Malamasala]

Mostly simply is allow all the spirits to level appropriate.

Or allow the use of dual natured "higher" elemental spirits.

I disagree. The biggest issue of them all today is their casting timer system. 25 seconds FROM ASSAULT to cast a spell is just terrible. And this is if you invested all your time into improving spirits, the default is 48 seconds FROM ASSAULT. This always means the moment your spell starts casting, each party member has dished out 2-5k damage. Meaning the only monsters you can even hit with a spirit are mobs with 25k+ HP, or more or less high tier NMs, which will doe AOE sleepga/silencega/stunga/damage and kill your spirit before it casts. And if it casts, it has standard naked BLM skill and INT so it will be resisted on said high level NMs.

The first and foremost important change on spirits will be to make them able to cast faster. Cast before they are silenced/slept/killed/monster died. Any other changes are pointless because even if spirits did 9999 damage, they'd rarely get the spells off and feel like 2 hour moves.

Everything else is secondary improvements. Like less resist, more spells, better AI, etc.

How about giving Diabolos a new powerful blood pact?

I can't promise anything, but I think ALL avatars will have a level 99 damage pact. Hopefully AOE, but you never know with SE.

[gheldhart]

Honestly, summoner is fine the way it is for the most part. My only suggestion would be to add Enspells (as innate traits) to the avatar you have summoned. Garuda (enaero), Ifrit (enfire), etc. Since the DPS for melee attacks on avatars is about equivalent to the staff hit of the actual summoner themselves (kinda sad, but true) it would make sense to give them a bit of an edge in that department. Also, it would be fantastic if Summoning Magic Skill had a bit more use. It's great that they affect things like Elemental Siphon and Buffs but it should also affect accuracy, attack, magic accuracy and magic attack the same way that Elemental Magic skill would.

These are simple changes that would make a drastic change in any summoner. Also, it would greatly show the difference between someone who takes the job seriously and someone who leeches xp in abyssea til they are max level. Skill should equate to effectiveness. The perpetuation is fine, doesn't need to be touched. If you are having trouble keeping your avatars out, perhaps you are not playing the job very wisely. I get 3 MP back with any avatar out at 95 so I don't see how this could be considered a problem.

I will say that the blood pacts that exist right now are hit and miss. Some of the buffs are decent..but also not really that great. For instance...Earthen Ward, while AoE stoneskin is great, having it block a measly 300 damage at level 95 is hardly useful at all. If these sorts of buffs were also related to summoning magic skill, they would be a lot more useful. For instance, if you are level 95 and you use earthen ward with 430 summoning magic skill, is it unreasonable to have your stoneskin block 1,000 damage? I think not. Just some thoughts from a LONG TIME player. Have a good day! ^-^

[Annalise]

lol. Avatar Favor I think he was thinking of. Unless he still also believes Shiva's Heavenly Strike is better than anything else cause Shiva has more INT.

No, the reason Garuda is more dominantly used is because predator claws is known to deal out more raw damage. Coupled with whispering wind, Garuda has both power and survivability that most avatars do not have. Only SMN that have Karura Hachigane are the ones that bothered to ZNMs.... which is surprising low amount. Caller's Horn +2 easily replaces that or even Summoner's Horn for those subbing /sch.

Predator claws and Garuda being the cheapest when ZNM was new was definitely what made Garuda the most popular. Couple in hastega being buffed, blink, and AoE healing and it just made her more popular. People merited wind blade because she was the cheapest avatar to use (and also the fastest at generating tp, with haste).

This has persisted over time, and people think Garuda is still the best choice. She is still a solid choice, but as always, it's situational. It's no different than beastmaster. Many people thought that CourrierCarrie was the jug of choice, when she was really just the cheapest. Lots of jugs such as LifeDrinkerLars outperformed carrie. CourrierCarrie was essentially the 'meat mithkabob' of jug pets.

Shiva does not have more intelligence than the other celestial avatars (they all had 82 int at 75), and garuda does not have higher evasion or agility than all of the other celestial avatars. Fenrir is actually the odd one out, with the highest base damage and the lowest delay, giving Fenrir the highest DoT (though obviously losing in spike damage to others).

Everyone where you look there are summoners. Soloing NMs in abyssea, creating a wall of Garudas on skeletons in WOE flux 11. (LOL, never played SMN but pretty sure Garuda isn't best choice on skeletons.) The job doesn't need a thing.

You're right but they don't known any better. Could you imagine a dozen or so Titans out there though? Lag would be the last thing others will complain about.

I've used Chaotic Strike, I've used Mountain Buster, I've used Flaming Crush, and I've used Wind Blade in WoE. Which generally performs consistently and the best? Wind Blade level 5. I never used Heavenly Strike on them because skeletons are strong to ice.

The skeletons spam AoE blind, which is going to hamper your physical pacts a bit. Does this affect wind blade? It only lowers tp a bit from misses. The difference in a few tp is nothing compared to missing say the first hit in chaotic strike.

Garuda can also haste and heal everyone around, which is a plus, especially if people are soloing.

If they're using Predator claws, they're doing it wrong.

If they're using Garuda, they aren't necessarily doing it wrong. Yes, skeletons aren't weak to wind, but they're not strong to it either. I didn't have any resistance issues with Wind blade, and typically it outperforms physical pacts on those skeletons. Even should you get a triple critical Chaotic strike, a level 5 magical pact (from anything aside from Shiva) is over time going to outperform it on those mobs. Just as it was at 75 on stronger mobs (e.g. dolls and golems in sky) merit bloodpacts (outside abyssea) outperform physical bloodpacts over time. This is why I killed dolls in sky faster with wind blade than other people did using predator claws (and no, dolls do not get a blunt bonus, that's magic pots).