[dev1010] Spirits

[Duelle]

An idea I once had for spirits was to just entirely remove the Spirit's AI and make them untargetable. In exchange, the summoner gets access to a select spell library dependent on the spirit currently out and about. Fire Spirit active? You have (as an example) Fire I-III, Burn and Pyrohelix, but their damage modifiers are all derived from Summoning Magic skill with a small penalty in additional MP costs on top of spirit perpetuation. The downside is that none of that is hate-free (which is basically the benefit of having avatars out).

Spell lists and overall numbers would have to be looked at, but that'd be the gist of it.

[Krisan]

You misunderstand. Having an ability to choose the spells would make SMN a least a little more useful in procing yellow. Why you ask? Because Spirits have all spells a BLM (exception, Teir 3 -ga) and WHM (exception, Banishga II) would have. With the ability to find the element weakness of a NM, you can have a SMN help proc yellow along with the BLM, WHM, BRD, and BLU/NIN.

I simply don't think inside of Abyssea for balance adjustments. Frankly, I don't know why anyone does. Abyssea isn't balanced at all, and hardly any job needs any real adjustment to be viable inside Abyssea (you could throw practically anyone in there and they can half-ass their way to success with the right atma and temp items). I feel it's everything before Abyssea that matters in terms of balance, and of course.. eventually what comes after Abyssea, assuming much of anything ever does come after Abyssea.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice to do this, it would. It'd be handy and it would give SMN something to actually do for a change in the endgame. But I'd rather have something that was more globally useful than something I can only make real use of in Abyssea.

You also forget that spirits also have the same defense structure as elementals. You know how hard it is to whack on an elemental with physical damage only? Technically the same (I say technically because mob damage is different than ours). Also, as spellcasters go, they don't get interrupted (as much) as a BLM when they are getting whacked off.

Reducing the perp cost is a right direction, but reducing it below current avatar levels is just silly. I mean, it is so easy to get free avatars now without doing any of the TotM starves, there is no point in having spirits cost less than the avatars now.

I've honestly never noticed the spirits having defense relative to Elementals. Admittedly I've never used them in a serious encounter before (for obvious reasons) but at the very least.. NPC spirits certainly die a hell of a lot faster than elementals. So unless this is just a player exclusive thing and I just never noticed because they're too unreliable to pull out into a serious encounter.. I don't know. Even with high defense though, I don't think they have considerably high health. From what little I have used them, I seem to recall them dying pretty quickly actually.. but it has probably been years now, so who knows.

And they don't necessarily have to remove perp or make it significantly lower, that was just a thought given how meh they are right now. I do not think they should cost more than the avatars though, and I'm iffy on them costing the same as avatars too.. Maybe a couple of MP less? Something around there anyway, it's silly for them to be so expensive.

[Korpg]

I simply don't think inside of Abyssea for balance adjustments. Frankly, I don't know why anyone does. Abyssea isn't balanced at all, and hardly any job needs any real adjustment to be viable inside Abyssea (you could throw practically anyone in there and they can half-ass their way to success with the right atma and temp items). I feel it's everything before Abyssea that matters in terms of balance, and of course.. eventually what comes after Abyssea, assuming much of anything ever does come after Abyssea.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice to do this, it would. It'd be handy and it would give SMN something to actually do for a change in the endgame. But I'd rather have something that was more globally useful than something I can only make real use of in Abyssea.

Endgame nowadays is Abyssea. It will probably be like this for a while, until we get new or better content. But I still see for at least 3 years that Abyssea will be the new "sky" or "sea."

As for global use, good luck finding a reason to have a spirit out in the first place. Even if we are given the option of selecting spells, BP:Merit will always win out on damage. Elemental Siphon is the only reason why spirits have a use at the moment, and given our choice in spells, the only use outside of Abyssea.

I've honestly never noticed the spirits having defense relative to Elementals. Admittedly I've never used them in a serious encounter before (for obvious reasons) but at the very least.. NPC spirits certainly die a hell of a lot faster than elementals. So unless this is just a player exclusive thing and I just never noticed because they're too unreliable to pull out into a serious encounter.. I don't know. Even with high defense though, I don't think they have considerably high health. From what little I have used them, I seem to recall them dying pretty quickly actually.. but it has probably been years now, so who knows.

And they don't necessarily have to remove perp or make it significantly lower, that was just a thought given how meh they are right now. I do not think they should cost more than the avatars though, and I'm iffy on them costing the same as avatars too.. Maybe a couple of MP less? Something around there anyway, it's silly for them to be so expensive.

The reason why they die a whole hell of a lot faster than elementals is because mobs generally have more HP than players at the levels we fight them, which increase as we increase in levels. Since most pets (outside of BST jugs and Charmed pets) have roughly the same HP as players, don't be looking at staying alive against a NM solo. But the nice thing is, we can do a lot more damage to a mob (usually) than what they can do to us, so it evens out...somewhat.

[Karinya_of_Carbuncle]

Do avatars/spirits benefit from the SMN's atmas in Abyssea? Has anyone tried, say, ice spirit with Ultimate+Beyond? You may not be able to predict precisely what it will cast but you know it will be ice, so it will get the extra benefit from Beyond.

I always thought the reason spirits had higher perp is that the cost of their spells don't come out of the SMN's MP pool; if you want to have an avatar cast a spell you have to BP and use MP for it.

[Korpg]

Do avatars/spirits benefit from the SMN's atmas in Abyssea? Has anyone tried, say, ice spirit with Ultimate+Beyond? You may not be able to predict precisely what it will cast but you know it will be ice, so it will get the extra benefit from Beyond.

In theory, yes, that would work. Have I tried it? No.

I always thought the reason spirits had higher perp is that the cost of their spells don't come out of the SMN's MP pool; if you want to have an avatar cast a spell you have to BP and use MP for it.

That could be the reason why spirits cost so much to use.

[Malamasala]

I see people got into discussing some about why spirits are as they are. I'll toss in my theories I've built up over the years.

1) Perpetuation.

I believe spirits were added around level cap 50. SE knew Freeze cost like 300 MP, so they attempt to use this as a guideline to set spirit perpetuation. It may also be pure chance that a spirit usually drained 300 MP post 50. And while 300 MP for a spirit freeze and 300 MP for a BLM freeze seems very fair and balanced, you have to keep in mind that you can also get 300 MP binds. This is something SE Developers apparently didn't think of.

If we on the other hand want to assume that perpetuation is not linked to spell costs, then we can assume SE simply choose an arbitrary value that was higher than avatars to A) prevent you from kiting things with spirits for long times and B) Make you more motivated to beat the high level avatars and use them instead.

2. Spirit Defense

While true it has 50% physical damage reduction, you also have to keep in mind they have the same def as a SMN. When you take 350 damage, the spirit will "only" take 175 damage. Spirits also have roughly 1k HP at 75. (And probably not much more at higher levels).

In addition even with 50 skill over cap, a spirit's interruption rate is terrible. Any damage over 30 has a large chance at interrupting the spell. Meaning spirits are TERRIBLE at trying to solo something to death through spells. Light spirit wins here with their 0.5 seconds Holy.

3) Ancient old cripple bug

Or rather what I call a bug, since it prevents you from playing. In reality all spirits have two modes. Defensive and Offensive. In Defensive Light spirit casts cures and buffs. In Defensive, all other spirits just hum around because SE didn't want to give them enspells or stoneskin or anything else useful. Well, they probably have them, just that they only cast spells on things they see, and they can't seem themselves.

The thing is, in defensive mode they have HALF spell timer, and in offensive full. So SE designed it so that on assault the spirit turns into offensive mode with full spell recast delay, and on release it goes into defensive mode with full spell recast delay.

Pros: We get self-attacking spirits guarding our weak Summoners.
Cons: It is counter productive to give spirits any commands, since it sets spell timers to max.

If you compare to puppets, they only have one timer system that never resets, but instead they do not auto-defend their masters. The question is... do you want to use your pet for damage, or for fleeing? Summoner has flee pet, Puppet masters have DD pets.


That is more or less my theories from over the years. SE made some clever code, that backfired. I'd gladly only have carbuncle as bodyguard and lose spirit bodyguards for working assault commands. Though I'd be even happier if they didn't cast random stupid spells as well.

[Saenomo]

Personally, I would love to see Dual-type Elementals from Abyssea for Summoners.

A few light changes like spells for 76-99 and possibly a Ward or Rage option just to say "Buff" or "Nuke" for next cast. Don't actually give any control on the specifics or timing, but just sort of "Nuke next please" or "Buff next please" possibly with a target option like "/Ward <p2>"

[Dallas]

Do avatars/spirits benefit from the SMN's atmas in Abyssea?

Yes. I've had quickcast from Apoc proc on ancient magic. The spirits do NOT immediately cast again.

The problem with L90 spirits is that they dont actually seem to *be* L90. The stats look no better than L75.

[Eri]

Spirits hmmmm well one thing for sure some Spirits do get Spells i didn't ever see a player got...
light my Lightspirit cast Banish 4....

BUT except the bad recast times and the sheer randoness of Spells. They are not really helpfull on procing
like... they can yes... with a lot of luck... Personally i would like to see another Bloodpact thing aplying on spirits only so a seperate timer... where you can pick the Spell the spirit would still have like a min recast timers but you could actaully use the spells to proc... nerver found em useful outside of Abys. Ever.

Then again i totally would support some kind of Update... it better be a good one!

For the Atma thing ... i tryed adding a lot MAB atmas on Spirits. They do Apply... if only Spirits would nuke *glares at Sprit casting rasp* .

Or gimme at least that weird Abyssea Spirit things pretty please!

[Selzak]

The issue is so severe it should have highest priority, borderline emergency maintenance level, and yet it seems to not even be considered. I've reported this issue every single year, and it seems like I'm wasting my time.

Sure, it needs to be adjusted...but lol'd.