Proposed Summoner Adjustments: Spirits Ahoy

[Karbuncle]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/20945-dev1091-Job-Adjustments-Summoner

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Giving Elementals Tier V spells, and Drastically reducing their Perpetuation Cost. To only cost 7mptic (5mp/tic With our Auto-Refresh II).

I Mean, Spirits are still weak, Have no Magic Attack bonus, and overall prefer to spam Rasp, Choke, Silence, etc over actually nuking... But, At least they'll be free for Elemental Siphon O_O

That and, Protect/Shell V For Light spirit is a win in my book.

Oh: They're also changing Merits of the Elemenal Spirits to "Reduces Summoning Magic Casting Time" (I.E Fast Cast for Summoning) Which, Unfortunately, Will Remain useless. thanks to Avatar Acc, attack, magic Acc, and Matk Sharing the same Merit category.

Overall, Protect/Shell V is my Bright side to this

[Imakun]

Fenrir's adjustment could have been a lot better. What about getting rid of the stupid Moon phase thing and make it's BP based on.. oh I don't know.. Summoning Magic? I guess that would make too much sense.
Spirits I don't care about for the simple reason their AI is apparently run by brain damaged BLM chipmunks. The tier V spells are a total waste considering they should have been there along with their respective level cap rise.
Perp cost I guess is good for almost free Siphon. Shell/Protect V is meh, same reason as above (hi Regen instead of Cure).

Merits to Summoning Cast speed are cute but I'd never get rid of merits into Mag/Atk/Acc. No matter how small their impact can be, it's better than nothing.

/rantoff

[Rakshaka]

Finally! Thank you! For awhile I was afraid that they just weren't able to update spirits at all because of massive spaghetti code issues, but evidently that isn't the case! This was a much needed update, and I'm glad they took the time to fix it. (Edit: they still need to add other spells like a higher regen tier for light spirit; and they also need to fix the magic skill/acc issues with the spirits as well). The perpetuation costs are absolutely wonderful as well. It's amazing that for so long, the spirits costed more than the avatars, which were much much much more useful. I wonder what their original reasoning was for having their perpetuation so high to begin with. In any case, I'm glad it's down to where it should be now. Heck, even low lvl smns might be able to use them to level up now, instead of only using them for a fast distraction while they zone away from a dangerous mob.

Edit: Even with this new update, heavenward howl is still worthless compared to other en-effects (i.e. inferno howl). It just doesn't make any sense, why would you want to drain 10 hp per tick instead of doing an extra 45 damage per hit? Why would you want to have a part time enaspir effect? This assumes that all the mobs you're fighting have mp (otherwise it's worthless) and that the people you're buffing use MP!! How many melees use MP that don't already have their own en-effect? Just one! Blue mages! Why does this horrible ability exist?!! Please enlighten us Community Reps!

[Badieh]

Yo Karbuncle, add the "[dev1091] Job Adjustments: Summoner" in your title por favor.

Also light spirit doesn't get cure 6? But I am grateful for the changes. I'm assuming they are going to tackle the spirits' AI soon. Hopefully this is just the icing on the cake.

[Yygdrasil]

Quick question to those of you who have actually used Spirits... ever...

I don't recall ever seeing a skillup to Summoning Magic when a Spirit would cast a spell. We only get skillups from BPs and the actually act of summoning, correct?

[Badieh]

Quick question to those of you who have actually used Spirits... ever...

I don't recall ever seeing a skillup to Summoning Magic when a Spirit would cast a spell. We only get skillups from BPs and the actually act of summoning, correct?

Yep, that is correct. It would be great if Summoning Magic has a chance to skill up when a spirit uses a spell.

[Yygdrasil]

Thanks. Like I said... I've never actively used them for anything other than Siphon. I'll occasionally pull out Light Spirit before attempting to solo a BCNM or some NM to get a quick Protect IV and Shell IV that I can't do myself... but that's been about it.

[Sargent]

That's just sad.

At this rate the best attacks we're getting post 75 are from Spirits.

[Yygdrasil]

So I had to go back and actually research the formula to calculate Elemental Spirit casting delay... since I've never considered using it until now. As I remembered, it has everything to do with Summoning Magic Skill. Ultimately I wanted to know if my delay reduction would be worth the merits it would cost me in other areas. The answer is yes. The formula looks like this:

(48 + Summoning Magic Skill Cap - Current Summoning Magic Skill) / 3

The current Summoning Magic Skill cap for 99 is 417. My Summoning Magic Skill is 375. Plugging that into the formula:

(48 + 417 - 375) / 3 = 30 seconds exactly

That calculation does not include my gear or merits that augment my Summoning Magic Skill. So I looked them all up and listed them here:

Summoner's Bracers +2
+15

Caller's Doublet +2
+10

Evoker's Ring
+10

Caller's Horn +2
+9

Caller's Pendant
+9

Soulscourge
+7

Caller's Spats +2
+6

Vox Grip
+3

Merits
+16

For a grand total of... +85

Adjusting the formula to include this... I got:

(48 + 417 - 375 - 85) / 3 = 1.666~ seconds

LMAO... there has to be a floor somewhere that you can't go past... but it's nice to know that I hit it already no matter what.

In fact... funny enough... Summoner's Spats have an augment that lowers casting time by 5 seconds. Convenient... because...

48 + 417 - 375 - 85 - 5 = 0

If I could manage to find additional gear that would make up for the 6 skill points I lose out on for swapping pants... I'd be in business.

That makes me smile.

I guess I won't have to put any merits into Spirit casting delay after all. That is... unless the -25% lowers the floor on the timer... in which case... yeah... I will.

[Economizer]

Also light spirit doesn't get cure 6?

I think it does, and if it doesn't it should. Pets/NPCs get more use out of the spell then White Mages do considering potency/MP considerations.