Summoning Skill and conversion: How does it work exactely?

[Zhronne]

I'd love a Community Rep to report this to the developers, hoping to get an official clarifying answer in the near future.
Currently the only official post about this from SE is THIS.
It's from 2006 and back then SE descriptions were way more vague than they are in nowadays standards.
Allow me to quote the relevant part:

Blood Pact will now receive different effects when the value added by equipment or merit points exceeds the skill cap for that level.
*Players can experience increased accuracy when using Blood Pact: Rage or lengthened effect durations when using Blood Pact: Ward. The length of the duration increased varies depending on which Blood Pact is used, but will not exceed 180 seconds.

That is extremely vague, as the majority of comments from that time (we're talking about 2006!). Before this patch Summoning Skill only affected the interrupt rate while summoning an avatar/spirit.
So this leaves us with the following question to which I'd love to find answers:

1. It mentions "skill which exceeds skill cap". Does this mean the current cap (417) or the cap back then at 75? (269)
2. Does this imply that skill below cap, whichever it is, is still useless as it was before 2006?
3. There's a talk of "increased accuracy for BP: Rage". Is it a generic omnicomprehensive accuracy? Or just physical accuracy?
4. It says "increased duration for BP: Ward". It's pretty obvious for buff Wards, but what about debuff Wards? Do they get increased duration too?

The game separates between two groups: Blood Pact: Ward and Blood Pact: Rage.
But in reality there are four groups:

1. BP Rage (physical)
2. BP Rage (magical)
3. BP Ward (buffs)
4. BP Ward (debuff)

Having more info concerning this conversion would be really useful to understand how to gear SMN and which pieces of equipment to be looking after.

[Alhanelem]

It mentions "skill which exceeds skill cap". Does this mean the current cap (417) or the cap back then at 75? (269)

It's the cap for your level.

Does this imply that skill below cap, whichever it is, is still useless as it was before 2006?

if your skill is below the cap it is still used to determine Elemental Siphon potency and elemental spirit casting frequency. (as well as spell interruption rate when casting spells from that family, as with all magic skills)

There's a talk of "increased accuracy for BP: Rage". Is it a generic omnicomprehensive accuracy? Or just physical accuracy?

Fairly sure its physical accuracy only but not 100% sure on that. would require more testing than I've done.

It says "increased duration for BP: Ward". It's pretty obvious for buff Wards, but what about debuff Wards? Do they get increased duration too?

Only affects buffs (including Perfect Defense). When Perfect Defense was initially nerfed, all the summon magic skill + in the game couldn't get you to the maximum PD duration, not sure if that's still true or not (haven't kept up to date on new gear)

There is no reason not to have more summoning magic. You should have as much of it as possible, so knowing more about this shouldn't affect your gear planning.

[Zhronne]

It's the cap for your level.

100% sure about this?
Pretty sure my mule level 99 with 320ish uncapped SMN skill was getting over 3mins hastega.
Don't have access to it anymore so I can't double check.

(haven't kept up to date on new gear)

417 base skill +16 merits +127 from gear = 560.
Would need 40 more to reach the previous cap of PD (SE mentioned needing 600 SMN skill)
Of course more SMN skill gear in the future I bet, I went with the currently available BiS options.

There is no reason not to have more summoning magic.

I never remotely implied this.
I'm just looking to find out how/if SMN skill affects BPs and how, other than what's already known.
Namely does SMN convert to Pet Macc? And if it does, does it work for BP: Ward debuffs or just for BP: Rage?

so knowing more about this shouldn't affect your gear planning.

It so does.
Do you put an item with +19 SMN skill or one with +10 Macc in a certain BP set?
A SMN Skill +8 or a Pet Macc+7?
If Skill indeed converts to macc for both BPs it opens a lot of possibilities, whereas if it doesn't then it just doesn't matter wether you equip it or not during those BPs.

[Alhanelem]

100% sure about this?

I'm pretty sure about this. Why would you have any reason to think otherwise? There would be zero reason to have any summoning magic skill + if you weren't at the level cap if it weren't the case. If you're level 60 and your skill is capped for level 60 and you have + skill, you should be getting increased buff durations. Testable in ballista- if you get the benefit below level 75, then

Do you put an item with +19 SMN skill or one with +10 Macc in a certain BP set?

Skill

A SMN Skill +8 or a Pet Macc+7?

Skill

I've never had an issue with magic accuracy. It seems to be naturally better than physical accuracy, as I haven't been having appropriate-element magic BPs resisting more than physical BPs miss. I try to avoid having to carry around more gear than really necessary when the benefit is likely imperceptible. (Though, the mog wardrobe may change this for me)

Keep in mind, short of doing thousands of samples with both +acc and no +acc, it's difficult to conclusively say here, because /checkparam can't tell you if an effect that only applies during a BP is applied. (and I just realized, that checkparam doesn't show magic accuracy anyway)

And if it does, does it work for BP: Ward debuffs or just for BP: Rage?

If it does, it would affect anything that targets an enemy. (Note that damaging pacts under BP Ward (e.g. diabolos) are still affected by the accuracy and skill as far as I can tell).

Duration of debuffs is testable in ballista, as well. I'd be lying if I said I tested that, but I have not ever heard of anyone reporting increased debuff durations from BP wards.

[Zhronne]

I'm pretty sure about this. Why would you have any reason to think otherwise?

Because of the example I wrote in my post of course
Going by Wiki's and BG's tests + description, each skill over 300 (no matter if skill is capped or not) adds +1 second of duration to BP: Ward buffs, capping at 500 skill for +200 seconds (3mins 20 seconds).
Going according to this the threshold seems to be 300 skill, not your current skill cap.

I haven't been having appropriate-element magic BPs resisting more than physical BPs miss

It was more a matter of the Debuff BP Wards of course, rather than the magical BP Rage. Hardly any SMN with a bit of brains would have serious issues with that, unless I'm being too optimistic.

Keep in mind, short of doing thousands of samples with both +acc and no +acc, it's difficult to conclusively say here

Agreed, but non-conclusive tests are better than no tests at all.
Some comments concerning SMN actually converting to Macc can be found Here and Here.

If it does, it would affect anything that targets an enemy.

Yes, that was my theory/hunch as well, but I never did tests myself.
Appearently it's very likely that things are really like this so I can be only happy about it

Now the questions remains about SMN skill vs Macc in slots which offer both options, but without a conversion ratio or without VERY extensive and unrealistically practicable tests, we'll never know the answer to this.
Altough I feel it's a less important question now that we know that, whatever the ratio, Skill does indeed convert to Macc.

Duration of debuffs is testable in ballista, as well.

Not sure if Skill affects debuff duration as well (might be). Would be hard to test because I think (???) that debuffs, unlike buffs, do not have a fixed duration, but a dynamic one which changes according to pet level/stats and target level/stats/resistances.

Nevermind.
SMN skill DOES affect duration, and the majority of SMN debuffs have a fixed duration no matter levels, resistances and whatever else.

[Alhanelem]

Going by Wiki's and BG's tests + description, each skill over 300 (no matter if skill is capped or not) adds +1 second of duration to BP: Ward buffs, capping at 500 skill for +200 seconds (3mins 20 seconds).

This doesn't make much sense to me, because SE said "skill over cap", and 300 isn't even the cap at lv75- its just an arbitrary number.

[Zhronne]

This doesn't make much sense to me, because SE said "skill over cap", and 300 isn't even the cap at lv75- its just an arbitrary number.

Yeah it doesn't make much sense. If it were 269 (the cap at the time) it totally would've but then again are we really surprised? We're talking about 2006 patch notes, they were super vague and nonsensical.

For all we know the 300 number might be an arbitrary ninja-changed thing that they modified after they raised the level cap.
Whatever the reason, that's how things are atm.