Astral Flow

[Annalise]

So now that Perfect Defense is nerfed a bit (which was for the most part the main use of astral flow) what about adjustments to astral flow to make it more useful?

There were two potential adjustments I was thinking about for use with Carbuncle/Fenrir/Shiva/Titan/Ramuh/Ifrit/Garuda/Leviathan:

1) Make it so that when Astral flow is activated and MP is consumed, the Astral Flow pact gets an additional Magic Attack Bonus based on MP consumed. This could be, perhaps, 1 MAB per 10 MP spent. If Astral flow is used at 1500 MP, the Avatar would get an additional 150 MAB for the MP spent. Considering the amount of mileage other mages get out of 1500 MP, this doesn't seem unbalanced to me. In fact, it's still probably lower (considering that 150 MAB, stacked with pet MAB and gear likely will only double damage) than what a BLU or BLM will get but at least it is perhaps a nice start.
For Diabolos, he could gain an additional 1% for Ruinous Omen (still subject to normal resists of course) for each 100 MP spent.

-or-

2) Make it so that Astral Flow blood pacts consume level x 2 MP rather than ALL MP. In some situations, a summoner being able to use Astral Flow 4 times (with appropriate -bloodpact gear) might actually have a use. This isn't much different than a Black Mage being able to use Manafont + Manawall and pump out AoE damage as well. This might also go well with the new summoner job ability that is supposed to come out.



Thoughts or other idea?

[Dekusuta]

I don't see them increasing the potency of the regular Avatar's Astral flow significantly given people will just want to do Astral burn parties for higher level content.

What you're suggesting is kind of already possible. With the Augmented Summoner's Horn, which extends AF by another 30 seconds, there's way more possibility to squeeze in an extra Astral Flow move over the duration AF is active with meds, tp wings/empyrean etc. that lets a summoner regain MP back quickly. I haven't done the math, but I'd say 4 astral flows over 3.5 minutes is very doable.

With the new 1 hour ability 'recovering all MP' and removing all BP timer, I can see both 1 hour moves complementing each other quite nicely. Assuming SE allows both to be active at once.

[Annalise]

I don't see them increasing the potency of the regular Avatar's Astral flow significantly given people will just want to do Astral burn parties for higher level content.

What you're suggesting is kind of already possible. With the Augmented Summoner's Horn, which extends AF by another 30 seconds, there's way more possibility to squeeze in an extra Astral Flow move over the duration AF is active with meds, tp wings/empyrean etc. that lets a summoner regain MP back quickly. I haven't done the math, but I'd say 4 astral flows over 3.5 minutes is very doable.

With the new 1 hour ability 'recovering all MP' and removing all BP timer, I can see both 1 hour moves complementing each other quite nicely. Assuming SE allows both to be active at once.

Providing up to around double damage (for all that mp) isn't really going to change things to SMN burn, though. On single targets, a melee zerg will still crush it. And if it's anything where they would want a lot of AoE magic damage, black mage is going to fill that role instead. Also, with option one you need a LOT of MP to keep the damage up there compared to what it is now anyways. At least this might give a reason to expend 1500 MP on a bloodpact.

Option 2 just makes it easier to do what you suggested without having to use meds/devotion/elemental siphon/convert/whatever. It also makes a little more sense, since 198 MP and 2000 MP do exactly the same thing at 99.

4 Astral flows is doable with standard astral flow (Around 0:00, 0:45, 1:30, and 2:15 give or take a few seconds). 5 Astral flows would be possible with the relic +2 (Around 0:00, 0:45, 1:30, 2:15, and 3:00 give or take a few seconds).

And I believe SE said that the new JA would be a separate JA instead of shared timer, so they should be able to combine.

Anyways... I don't want astral flow to become something broken or ridiculous... I just want it to become something that is more useful outside of a few low level capped situations, Abyssea + atma, and now nerfed Perfect Defense.

[Luvbunny]

They should scale up AF to 99, indeed it has been suggested in other threads here as well. But right now, and as it has always been the case in years, summoner is the other step child here. They won't do anything, they won't adjust anything, and we are just have to deal with the cards that have been given to us.... Not to mention the whole mess that is SoA, we are not even getting WoTG contents (Cait Sith and Atomos) after more than 2 years being teased. I would not be surprised if they flat out retract their statement and decide to not give us any new summons from WoTG at all. We are not even getting any summoner specific gears from SoA, it's like the job does not even exist.

[Elphy]

So now that Perfect Defense is nerfed a bit (which was for the most part the main use of astral flow) what about adjustments to astral flow to make it more useful?

PD being the only thing astral flow is useful for?

really?

AF has a myriad of uses, its just situational. If you are not using AF for anything other than PD you are missing out and not playing smn anywhere near its full potential.

Talk to some other career smns who can give you the scoop on AF before making suggestions on how to change it

[Annalise]

PD being the only thing astral flow is useful for?

really?

AF has a myriad of uses, its just situational. If you are not using AF for anything other than PD you are missing out and not playing smn anywhere near its full potential.

Talk to some other career smns who can give you the scoop on AF before making suggestions on how to change it

Funny how I didn't exactly say that it was the only use. It's the main use. Nor did I say that Astral flow was useless outside of Perfect Defense. Reading comprehension.

Yes, it is situational and it can be useful in other situations. Using it for perfect defense is in fact situational. My celestial avatar astral flow (especially Shiva, of course) can one shot a horde of normal mobs in abyssea. This can be useful. It can also be useful when used against multiple monsters (I have used Fenrir's in dynamis before, joys of double dark weather), when one wants free perpetuation/more mp refresh, or killing something in a pinch with odin. People have also used Odin at the start of fights to take off a chunk of HP, though I typically did not do that.

I am a career summoner, so trust me I know about its uses. And my suggestions weren't really much about changing it, but rather boosting it. As Luvbunny has suggested, it should be scaled up to 99. I have read elsewhere that it stops scaling after level 50 due to previous level caps, and not being rebalanced/scaled after the level cap was raised.

Regardless of having its situational uses, I think it could still use a bit of rebalancing at the 99 cap. Especially since Perfect Defense, the main strategic reason of astral flow at 99 (regardless of its other situational uses) was nerfed a bit. I can understand why Embrava/Perfect defense were nerfed a bit, and I am fine with that.
However, considering the main purpose of Diamond Dust/Earth Fury/etc. is to deal damage, the damage is less than that of a merit bloodpact, and it is the 1-hour ability, I think it could use a little balancing. The only thing those pacts have going for them is that they are multiple target, or give access to an element which the summoner does not have merited.

[Luvbunny]

Making them does 1k-2k AOE damage on each mob would be very nice indeed. Also as others have mentioned, BP wards need adjustment big time. And Avatar Favor could also use adjustment.