Nerf SMN

[Hawklaser]

Didn't think of AV, good catch. ^^ However, even then, that's only 15x abilities that it had to care about. There's a helluva lot more than 15x BP.Rage abilities, which could potentially be too much to process server-side on each and every JA/spell used, possibly including all sources rather than avatar-only. And yeah, I'd bet that it really would require that much work, PS2-limitations etc. most likely limit what can be done at this point.

They don't have to watch for all the BP rage abilities, really just Astral Flow and Astral Conduit are the ones as they pretty much signify the Smn is about to unleash hell. That is if they want to deter smn burning content.

Totally forgot that the family types of pets are checked/separated within Voidwatch, (I've never done them as PUP/DRG/SMN and BST pets are only ever referenced as generic "pets",) so it actually might be possible to do something with this. Instituting any anti-SMN damage penalty would still only lead to SMN getting excluded from groups. Historically, the general attitude would probably be "SMN got nerfed? Don't care what the nerf was, I'm not using them then." That happened with the BST nerf btw, even though actual damage output was not touched in the slightest. ^^;;

Avatars are part of the Elemental family IIRC, which doesn't have a native killer effect. BGwiki has them listed as "Unclassified" though, so might be wrong. Even if added though, intimidation does not interrupt JAs like Ready, so I doubt this would have any significant impact.

People tend to knee-jerk to anything, and migrate to whatever else becomes the Flavor of the Month if they were not playing it because they liked it in the first place. Happens all the time when things get adjusted in the pursuit of balance.

They may not have anything listed on bgwiki, though ffxiclopedia does have them tagged as "avatar", but consider that almost every mob in the game has been associated with some family type as evidenced by Blue Magic and that when the avatars are enemies outside of specific battlefield fights they are often called xxxx avatar. And some of the odd ones, like sea mobs, I have to wonder if they were typed before or after Blue mage was released. Which makes one wonder if avatars indeed have a unique family type. While intimidate doesn't stop ready(which is a status granted from the bst), I do remember seeing pets get intimidated after using ready and sometimes not using a skill. If they have a family type, it doesn't have to be a killer effect, but more like the defense/resistance bonuses the circle JA's give. Heck, if I remember right, some mobs even intimidated players too.

Damage type wouldn't work as a good filter, since a lot of the heavy hitter BP.Rage's are physical or hybrid. Anything that relied only on magic damage type would hit all pet jobs and nerf the already middling magic damage output of BST and reduce PUP to a point where it wouldn't even be worth trying for. A PUP who's geared for automaton magic damage actually can produce some impressive MB numbers, though I've heard it's a serious PITA to do so. Targeting phys damage would be even worse.

Agreed, going after specific damage types from pets would likely cause the most problems overall.

Enmity works differently in SOA+ zones/content than in earlier areas. Old areas use the old enmity formulas and it's basically impossible for a tank to hold agro vs any type of DD player. I've done UNMs with a top-end geared PLD and even if I did not touch the mob for 30sec while he popped all his enmity tools, one WS/Ready would be all it took to snatch hate. SOA+ zones/content use a new formula to allow good tanks to hold agro against BLMs MBing for 99999, melees WSing for 50k (plus 99999 skillchain), etc. and is absolutely necessary to allow for jobs to do their things while using the best gear. (Do note that not-good tanks will struggle to perform well in that situation though. XD)

Emnity fell apart around the time of abysea, mostly thanks to how much damage ramped up around then. It still works fine in normal areas until you cross a certain gear threshold. And as long as not good tanks loose agro to a smn going full out I have no problems, and the agro isn't also gaurenteed to go on to the smn's avatar in that case. Good tanks could hold or easily take back agro from things like benediction back in the day as well without the use of SATA.

Since ilvl was introduced, BST has not had to worry about any of the issues you mentioned, but instead we now have to worry about pets taking agro from not-awesome tanks. ^^;;; Since we now have to totally rely on jug pets (the vast majority of ilvl NMs and instanced content do not involve any charmable mobs,) it is a bit simpler compared to the old-school style. Every BST I knew BITD favored the {Over there.} style of gameplay, which the devs nerfed a while back citing their "vision" for the job being master+pet fighting side-by-side even though there are no JA/JT/equipment to support that playstyle in ilvl content and have yet to add anything to allow it to be a fully viable playstyle... (Yes, I'm a bit bitter about this issue. <,<;; Sue me. lol)

I have yet to get bst to 99 and ilvl content, but I know I found the melee with pet style to be far more enjoyable while I was leveling it. Bst has the axe skill to do well in melee, so its more of is there gear for both bst and pet to function effectively. I heard about that nerf... and that the range for the abilities is too small now for some races.