Job Adjustments for the Next Version Update

[Chimerawizard]

@Theytak of course was long. You spelled out exactly what is wrong with PUP and gave your opinion of what would fix it. (I happen to agree with you)

SMN has a few issues that need reviewed. Bloodpacts being at the forefront of the job and the issues. Spirits are just an issue.

I am not nearly as good at listing my points and solutions so I'll keep it brief and let the mountains of threads in the smn subforum do the rest.

Bloodpacts:
45sec floor on recast when that is the only thing a smn can do that isn't something from our subjob.
Rage does really well when they are first available but scale horribly as level increases.
Ward only affect 5 other players (except during certain events)
Effect is almost always lower than what another job can output, except enfire.

Spirits:
Have been useless since the job was introduced.
Abysmal magic accuracy and magic atk.
Absolutely impossible to control actions.
AI, is there even one for this pet?
Were given a reason to purchase but only to gain more BP before running out of MP.

Aside from that are a few other issues:
Abysmal melee damage from all pets.
Inability to make light or dark skillchain with pets (no tier 2 element BPs)
Incapable of making full use of Avatars Favor since that makes a pet far weaker on melee & to maintain a good bonus, one cannot use BPs.

A more permanent fix would include

Removing BP timers in general or making them charges similar to SCH.
Make all avatar AoE true so any player/pet within range gains the benefits unless under certain effects preventing outside help.
Increase weapon DMG rating on all pets to variable level based on SMN skill when summoned.
Add BPs with dual element skillchain properties, one per avatar would be fine.
Allow players to control spirits casts, giving the spirit a set general recast regardless of spell based on smn skill when summoned in addition to individual recast timers. (no general recast floor)
Give spirits m.acc equal to smn skill when summoned & MAB on some raio of same.
Avatar's favor starts out at 90% max and does not reset until avatar dies.
Avatar's favor does not incur negative effects. (aside from pet feeding TP in order to be close to DDs)
Adjust rage formulas to make DMG rating a major factor in BP dmg. (thus smoothing rage dmg as pet gets stronger)

Still came out kinda long and I didn't even cover everything.

[Duelle]

Spirits:
Have been useless since the job was introduced.
Abysmal magic accuracy and magic atk.
Absolutely impossible to control actions.
AI, is there even one for this pet?
Were given a reason to purchase but only to gain more BP before running out of MP.

This is a long shot of ridiculous proportions, but here goes:

Redesigning Spirits

Instead of being placed in the same category as avatars, spirits could be summoned to the player's side alongside avatars. Player characters would be limited to one Avatar and one Spirit at the same time.

Entirely remove Spirit AI and perpetuation. In addition, make Spirits not targetable and scale their model down and treat them as "attachments" to the player character (have Spirits move with the player instead of /following them like avatars).

Have spirits grant the summoner a list of abilities and spells based on the spirit the summoner has called to their side. Potency of abilities/spells gained through spirits scale with Summoning Magic Skill. Abilities/spells gained through Spirits scale up to their appropriate ranks depending on the level of the Summoner. An example would be that fire spirit could give the SMN access to Fire. At lv13 that fire spell is Fire I. If a 75 SMN were to summon their fire spirit, the spell would instead be Fire IV (so no, SMNs would not be able to downrank spells the way other mages can).

Samples:

Fire Spirit
- Fire I-IV
- Addle
- Trait: Fire Affinity

Water Spirit
- Aquaveil
- Water I-IV
- Poison
- Trait: Water Affinity

Light Spirit
- Dia I-II
- Cure I-V
- Trait: Light Affinity

The balancing aspect of spirits is that spells gained through them cost more than their BLM/WHM counterparts (ideally it could be something like baseline spell cost + half of the summoner's current level). They would also gain less potency per point of Summoning Skill compared to what they'd get from Elemental/Healing Skill. As an example, if Fire were to gain 1.00 potency per point of Elemental Magic Skill, Fire would gain 0.85 potency per point of Summoning Skill.