[Armando]

You can probably set it so that the Melee are near the summon, as well as teh mages. But the mages can probably be just out of range of AoEs, but the summon may be close enough to the mages to effect them. It might be enough range if set just right so the Summon can Melee as well and still give refresh to everyone.

I doubt the range will be that forgiving. Even if it were, the only way to pull this off would be for the summoner to stay right between the mages and the melees 24/7. You can't order an avatar to stay put.

[Romyro]

Avatar's Favor (Lv.55 Recast Time: 5 minutes Duration: 2 hours)
Channels the avatar's power towards a beneficial status effect for party members within range. Reduces perpetuation cost while active.

So wait…if you have diabolos out, the smn is getting –perp cost AND party refresh? I’d assume its -1 cost for any avatar.

This might be looking into it too much but…
Would having Avatar’s Favor up mean your BP:Rages would be less beneficial or even unusable? I would think it’s gotta be something like that. Buffs & -perp cost at no risk for 2hours…seems too good to be true? What’s keeping a smn from having this up 24/7?

[Solymir]

Originally Posted by Omgwtfbbqkitten

Also, Evoker's Roll on 11 is 5 MP a tick and 6 MP a tick with SMN in the PT. COR + SMN would be outputting 11 MP a tick in lucky situations and about 8-9 everywhere else. This does, however, make COR+SMN + BLMx4 a very sexy setup, though. Shiva for nuke time, Diabilos for resting and a nice mix of Corsair, Wizard and Evoker's Roll. Mmmmmm.

I can almost taste the awesomeness of this, however I must admit I don't see many end game LS leaders actually doing it. Too many players wear blinders and have a very narrow view point.

[Armando]

Would having Avatar’s Favor up mean your BP:Rages would be less beneficial or even unusable? I would think it’s gotta be something like that. Buffs & -perp cost at no risk for 2hours…seems too good to be true? What’s keeping a smn from having this up 24/7?

It's not cost free. The effect starts weak and grows to full power as the avatar stays out longer. The longer you keep the same avatar out, the less you're not using Blood Pacts from the others. Not to mention that any time spent with the avatar out is time not spent /healing.

[Romyro]

It's not cost free. The effect starts weak and grows to full power as the avatar stays out longer. The longer you keep the same avatar out, the less you're not using Blood Pacts from the others. Not to mention that any time spent with the avatar out is time not spent /healing.

I didn’t say cost free, just said no risk. Such as Berserk of Defender, they raise something, lower the other. And lots of other abilities that DO benefit at no loss aren’t really at a 5m cast for 2h duration. (Although I could be very wrong with that statement…and probably am)

If it does infact start off weak, it’s better then starting out at nothing. And though you may not get the full strength or even mid strength, you can still /heal or swap other avatars. Just seems like whether you use Favor for the specific buffs or not, it can be used simply for the –perp. So again what’s keeping it from 24/7?

if nothing, then awesome!

**By summoning an avatar while this ability is active,** (from OP)
To me, it almost seems to work similar to astral flow. Where the ability is always active for the duration.
Unless its like a Brd Passimino(sp) where you activate, call an avatar then, it’s done when avatar is gone.

[Clever Ninja]

This works out well, not exactly overpowered. Even with a reduced perpetuation cost and assuming Diabolos is out fulltime, SMN can't rest while the avatar is out, so if you do decide to use BP rages it'll eventually drain your mp and require you to release to Elemental Siphon. This is assuming they reduce perp cost to a point where you're still paying prolly 2-3 mp/tic, but still, people have suggested something similar to this before so it's a nice buff.

BST is a nice solution to the Sic problem, since I was curious as to how they were gonna let people choose their Pet TP moves without making the Cactaur jug pet overpowered. For those soloing it doesn't even seem like a big deal, wait 1 minute before engaging if possible, and it'll prolly take around another minute to gain the 100 tp necessary to use a tp move.

[Ketaru]

I didn’t say cost free, just said no risk. Such as Berserk of Defender, they raise something, lower the other. And lots of other abilities that DO benefit at no loss aren’t really at a 5m cast for 2h duration. (Although I could be very wrong with that statement…and probably am)

It's no risk. A lot of buffs in this game are no risk, especially those that are bestowed on other players much like this will. It's still going to be problematic for the SMN. Unlike most other buffs in the game, SMN won't be able to mix and match these enhancements to fit more than one particular need. BRD songs are not limited by this (they can run to the melee and give one effect, then back to the mages to give another), COR rolls are not limited by this, Bar-Ra spells aren't limited like this, most single target spells (and single targets turned into multiple targets via SCH) aren't limited like this.

Not to say this isn't great for SMN to add more dimension to the job, but now that I look at the limitations, I wonder if it's really going to be all that great. At best, I can see that it has the added benefit of stacking with other effects from other jobs rather than, say, Rolling Thunder, which overrides RDM and SCH's Enspell, despite the former actually being less potent than both of the latter. Maybe avatars will melee now. But it will end up being less of a "Because avatar melee is good" and more of "Because the avatar is out, might as well".

[Armando]

And though you may not get the full strength or even mid strength, you can still /heal or swap other avatars.

Odds are that if you /heal, everyone loses the buff until you call out another avatar. And considering how long it takes to summon avatars and use BPs, even though there's little keeping you from switching to Titan momentarily to put up Earthen Ward, you're still going about 20 secs without the party's preferred buff on top of reseting the potency. Sure, it's perfectly risk free, but if the english translation is reasonably accurate then you probably won't get much benefits doing anything but keeping the avatar out.

Not to say this isn't great for SMN to add more dimension to the job, but now that I look at the limitations, I wonder if it's really going to be all that great.

Double Attack bonus is fucking hot. Magic Evasion boost will probably have some endgame uses as well.

[Malacite]

Awesome update SE! Only a couple of nit-picks with the SMN stuff but otherwise superb!

- Where are the new summons? >.>
- Titan should have been dmg reduction
- Ramuh should have been accuracy (so he can be used in a wider variety of situations, +crit is still golden)
- Garuda maybe should have been haste (magical haste though? and with a cap no higher than 10%)

I love the concept though. A few of us have (myself included) have proposed something like this a number of times, glad to see it happen. Now just toss in some automatic enspell damage and I think we're good at long last.


I must say I'm a bit underwhelmed at BST. I was like "OMG WE CAN PICK ABILITIES!" ... but then it was only for Jugs, and some abilities needed more charges than others. Here's hoping charges aren't on a 1-minute timer like they are for COR & SCH (@75). Lack of new jugs is also disappointing.

I wonder if there will be a part 3 though? Or maybe they are saving some extra notes for the day of the update.

[Clever Ninja]

Actually just thought of this, this is gonna start more SMN bashing even more for those who don't have another 75, or get 5 others to carry them through Diabolos Prime. OH SNAP

[Armando]

- Where are the new summons? >.>

It's called a preview for a reason.

- Titan should have been dmg reduction
- Ramuh should have been accuracy (so he can be used in a wider variety of situations, +crit is still golden)
- Garuda maybe should have been haste (magical haste though? and with a cap no higher than 10%)

Wtf no.

I must say I'm a bit underwhelmed at BST. I was like "OMG WE CAN PICK ABILITIES!" ... but then it was only for Jugs, and some abilities needed more charges than others. Here's hoping charges aren't on a 1-minute timer like they are for COR & SCH (@75).

They already said it's a 2 minute timer.

Lack of new jugs is also disappointing.

They never said there WON'T be new jugs. It's a PREVIEW.

[Vyuru]

The Bst thing sounds interesting, but the Smn thing, while good and interesting, makes me just a little bit down. I'm a big fan of Leviathan and Garuda, if I were to have any summon out constantly I would have wanted either or those two. While what they got isn't bad by any means, i already think that it is going to be Ifrit only or GTFO.

[Romyro]

And though you may not get the full strength or even mid strength, you can still /heal or swap other avatars.
Odds are that if you /heal, everyone loses the buff until you call out another avatar.

Yes, I assume that would happen. I understand 100% where you guys are coming from and could not agree with you more. If you are there to beef up mages or melees, yes you’ll want to keep one avatar out and you lose out on /heal or other BPs. But I see how this can be beneficial in an endgame events with multiple different jobs.

The things I do in-game are done more often with other Bsts, Smns and Pups though. So the –prep cost is going to benefit me more then say...Ifrit with double attack (except maybe with diabolos). It seems like the –perp cost stays constant and the buffs become stronger over time. The OP, to me, implied that.. “While active, there will be a –perp cost along with buffs. Oh and the longer your avatar is out, the stronger your buffs are (buffs from the table)”

I guess I just can’t see a situation where I’d NOT have this up… Even if I’m not buffing up a party, I’d have it up for the –perp cost.
I think it’s a VERY helpful ability. I’m just wondering if theirs something behind it.

I think the word ‘channeling’ is throwing my mind in wack. That and I don’t want to work right now.
Wouldn’t ‘channeling’ your energy towards this leave you with less energy for that?

Edit:
Also…(please excuse ignorance on heavy melee jobs)

Double Attack bonus is fucking hot.

Would this out weigh or come close to Minuet/Minuet or Mineut/march…etc

[Clever Ninja]

March is probably, quite literally, the best melee buff in the game, so no. It'll definitely be a nice buff, depending on how much Double Attack it gives you, but nothing compared to March. It's honestly really hard to say at this point how effective it is, people thought Composure for RDM sucked by reading the patch notes, and it turned out to be really awesome.

Until we get some actual numbers for these buffs, and how long the avatar has to be out to get these to their maximum effect, it's tough to call.

[Ketaru]

March is probably, quite literally, the best melee buff in the game, so no. It'll definitely be a nice buff, depending on how much Double Attack it gives you, but nothing compared to March. It's honestly really hard to say at this point how effective it is, people thought Composure for RDM sucked by reading the patch notes, and it turned out to be really awesome.

Until we get some actual numbers for these buffs, and how long the avatar has to be out to get these to their maximum effect, it's tough to call.

I don't mean to undermine what SMN is getting so much as I just wonder about how things will turn out with certain buffs. Double Attack is all well and good, but Ifrit itself is not known for being a spectacular avatar (actually, it's one of the least used). This is of course a perfect balancing factor, as well as in line with the in-game theme of Fire being associated with physical damage dealing.

Meanwhile, sticking with only one buff still restricts the SMN to only being able to really enhance mages or melee. Diabolos is the obvious choice for a manaburn with Refresh and, I think the ability is, Dream Shroud. But Diabolos doesn't really have much to offer to melee.

A random thought crossed my mind, but I wonder, like everything else SMN does, these effects are going to be restricted to the SMN's party, or if it will affect everybody in the area in Campaign.