Avatar Stats

[Mokeil]

There's actually been a pretty good deal of testing on avatars over on the Allakhazam forums over the years. Here's some of the more recent tests. All credit goes to kegsay for his awesome dedication to finding these things out for us.

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.htm...24050111674199
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.htm...&num=10&page=1
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.htm...&num=38&page=1
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.htm...&num=24&page=1

Let's see if I can remember some of the other things that have come up... (I may be remembering some of these things wrong, so please feel free to correct me.)

Essentially, all of the celestial avatars are Black Mages; good ole Carby is a White Mage. They have Job Traits appropriate to their jobs. For example, Carby gets his Auto-Regen exactly at 25, the same level a White Mage does.

The avatars, while undeniably having very hefty individualized elemental resistances, all have identical physical stats (Str, Dex, etc) This means that Ifrit does not have higher Str than the others, that Shiva does not hav higher Int than the others, and so on. Carbuncle does less damage than the others because of the way his damage is calculated (which is covered in the first link I provided).

All of the avatars have the same attack delay, bar one. Fenrir actually has a lower delay than all the others. Garuda can even it out with her Hastega, however.

That's simply because of the elemental day/weather bonus. Elemental spells and abilities gain damage and possibly accuracy boosts with matching day. This applies to everything, including the spells our avatars use (like Wind Blade, for example).

I don't think this one ever came up formally. So far as I can tell, (annecdotal evidence only, I know, but backed up by years of being a Summoner) this is the only effect that weather and day has on an avatar.

[Arcon]

Thanks for providing those links!

Let's see if I can remember some of the other things that have come up... (I may be remembering some of these things wrong, so please feel free to correct me.)

Essentially, all of the celestial avatars are Black Mages; good ole Carby is a White Mage. They have Job Traits appropriate to their jobs. For example, Carby gets his Auto-Regen exactly at 25, the same level a White Mage does.

This is quite correct. Elemental avatars also get Magic Attack Bonus just like regular BLM (+40 at Lv99), which further supports that theory.

[Mathieu]

The avatars, while undeniably having very hefty individualized elemental resistances, all have identical physical stats (Str, Dex, etc) This means that Ifrit does not have higher Str than the others, that Shiva does not hav higher Int than the others, and so on. Carbuncle does less damage than the others because of the way his damage is calculated (which is covered in the first link I provided).

None of the tests show this. All it shows is that Fenrir and Garuda do approximately similar damage and Carbuncle does less than either. Fenrir and Garuda also have roughly equivalent Strength. That is the only attribute that was tested. You are making a huge jump right there. In addition, the testing methodology used completely eliminates secondary attributes, which have a substantial impact on fighting level appropriate enemies.

Having the same damage ceiling does not mean they are functionally identical outside elemental resistances. The person doing the testing even mentions that Fenrir might have a built in attack bonus, since it was the only way to explain why Fenrir was demonstrating higher damage consistently in another test that wasn't just checking the damage ceiling.

They might end up being functionally identical when fighting enemies far below your level because secondary attributes don't come into play anymore, but that's not the same issue. All this test demonstrates is that Garuda and Fenrir use the same damage formula and have approximately similar Strength values. You could say the same thing about Paladin and Dark Knight.

[Mokeil]

None of the tests show this. All it shows is that Fenrir and Garuda do approximately similar damage and Carbuncle does less than either. Fenrir and Garuda also have roughly equivalent Strength. That is the only attribute that was tested. You are making a huge jump right there. In addition, the testing methodology used completely eliminates secondary attributes, which have a substantial impact on fighting level appropriate enemies.

Well, you've got me there. I've been trying to remember where I saw this and can't for the life of me recall. I almost wanted to say that I saw that here, of all places, with a reply from SE stating that they made them all even stat wise so that we would choose them for the appropriate situation based on their element, and not just use Ifrit all day because he had higher Str. A quick perusal of the 11 pages here didn't turn up anything promising, though.

I'll see if I can dig up some testing to back up my claims during my down time at work this week. If I can't I'll add a disclaimer to that post.