[dev1010] Spirits

[Korpg]

Back when 75 was the level cap I actually used spirits for quite a great deal. With 5/5 elemental perp cost merits I found spirits at that time to actually be better then carby or other avatars for the long pet kiting solos. With the right equipment, sublimation from /sch, and even non-weather/day matching elemental siphons I could keep the spirits out indefinite. In those situations, though their damage was less than avatars, their mp cost per damage dealt was much more efficient esp if you used spirits that either only nuke or cast 1 enfeeb(thunder and fire spirits).

In addition it was much better in longer solo fights to use spirits because the action of spirits casting spells adds absolutely zero hate to the player, as opposed to issuing a BP command with an avatar which generates a minimal value of hate but hate none the less.

Back when the cap was raised to 80 I remember reaching 80 and taking the earth spirit out, since they added stone V, and was disappointed when I saw it start to cast stone IV. In my irritation I immediately called gm to report it as I saw it as a bug since previously spirits got the same level spells as their BLM counterparts. The gm told me that the situation was nothing that wasn't already known, and was "working as intended." And from that point I /shutdown'd and quit the game for the rest of the summer >.>.

I'd definitely be down for an update so spirits, even if just adding the recent tier V(or VI for cure) spells to them.

You have a very...."interesting"....way of spending 5 Group 1 SMN merits.

Please enlighten us why you think making the cost of spirits the same as level 75 Avatars was a good idea and more useful than Carbuncle when he was one of the only 4 Avatars you could get for free at the time.

I mean, sure, you could siphon the mp cost away every 5 minutes, but why do you argue *in another post* that physical/magical attack merits are "worthless?"

[Ophiuchus]

You have a very...."interesting"....way of spending 5 Group 1 SMN merits.

Please enlighten us why you think making the cost of spirits the same as level 75 Avatars was a good idea and more useful than Carbuncle when he was one of the only 4 Avatars you could get for free at the time.

Oh don't worry I have since redone my merits since then. Also I noticed spirits didn't get interrupted all that often, maybe 30-40%, which may seem like a bit much but they still casted more often then they were interrupted. Mind you I didn't find them useful on higher lvl nms/fights, to a level 75. I just found them to be a nice substitute instead of carby kiting on certain nms.

At the time my gear wasn't the all around best and I was only in a social shell that only did missions if everyone happened to be on the same page. So I felt contempt with just messing around with spirits. Nowadays I feel I've grown much more as a player, I don't carry my old stubborn "Gearing for haste is useless!" mindset anymore. I'm not saying that spirits are a untapped godsend to SMN. I'm simply stating that I had found some miniscule and highly situational uses for them and they are not flat-out "useless."

On the debate I feel the "developmental time" could have been better used to attempt to fix or add something to spirits instead of give us a new JA that only has one use every 5 mins for a little extra damage. Though I do feel the BP recasts issues still have higher priority over spirits adjustments.