Avatar (GF) Junction?

[Raydeus]

Is no secret I'm a big fan of VIII and that I would rather have SeeD than all the WotG and Aht Urgan jobs put together, but I digress.

Anyway, in VIII you junction with GFs (along with magic) to gain stat boosts and abilities. Now, even though that would be difficult to implement on XI I was thinking maybe a good way to make it more desireble for SMNs to keep their avatars out (instead of the MP waste they seem to be for the most part outside BPs) would be making the Avatars enhance elementally aligned stats/attributes for all party members withing xp range (or maybe smaller range, it would really depend on the implementation).

This would also depend on the Vana day of the week.

(Disclaimer: The following bonus amounts are for explanatory purposes only. Also note the bonus would need to be based on SMN skill by tiers and not stackable if another SMN or /SMN has the same avatar out too, so only the stronger bonus would apply)


Say you have Shiva out, Ice alligned stats include INT and M. Att, so, if you had Shiva out everyone in the party could recieve an INT +10 and M. att +10 bonus on a regular day, +5 on Firesday and +15 on Iceday. As well as elemental resistence bonus/penalty with the amount varying depending on Avatar/day combo.

This would give smn a good excuse to keep avatars out (probably fighting) while providing tangible benefits to the party depending on the setup/situation.


I'm thinking on the lines of something like this:

Ifrit - STR/Att/R. Att
Shiva - INT/M. Att/(M. Acc?)
Garuda - AGI/Evasion/R. Acc/Enemy Critical rate down
Titan - VIT/DEF/physical dmg taken -4% (-2% and -6%)
Ramuh - DEX/Acc/Critical hit rate up
Leviathan - MND/M. Def/Resistence to status
Carby - CHR/MaxHP/Auto-Regen (+3HP/tick)
Diabolos - MaxMP/Dark magic bonus/Posibly Refresh (1mp/tick) or something
Fenrir - Lower boost to all stats (+4?) with said bonus varying depending on day of the week (+2 to +6), and direct bonus to acc/eva (+20 total) with distribution depending on Moon phase.


Also need to make the bonuses good enough to be worth the MP spent on keeping Avatars out instead of saving it for Cure III and Erase.

What do the SMNs here think about it?

I kinda hate the job as it is right now, but if something like this was done I think I'd like to play SMN again.


PS > Sorry if I got stat/element correlations wrong, I'm typing this from memory with very limited time. Yay work bored at work.

[Tomato_Kai]

I kinda like this idea. I think it's way too powerful to be implemented, as the avatars in their current state are already reasonably useful (In my opinion, the problem with SMN has more to do with community opinion than actual class imbalance) and so would most likely need to be toned down as a result... but a bonus like this could indeed go a long way towards making them more reliable.

Also: I didn't understand your stat corellations until I remembered the lvl 14, 36, 72 ring series that matches them. Each stat has an element, each element has an avatar... and you seem to have matched them up well. So, I can't complain based on that alone.

[Selphiie The Enchantress]

Can you tell im a bigfan of FFVIII too? *coughmyname*

I loved the Junction system it was so unique...i wish they would use it in another FF sometime down the road...

[Neomage]

I like the idea, but +10 is way to much. As much as I would completely love to get 10 M. Atk just by having Shiva out, it would just be completely OP. 2/4/6 would be more reasonable.

I also, however, think that SMN's problem lies not within the job, but within the community. Especially when you can get free (or almost free) avatars, there is no reason not to have them out. It's the same problem that PLDs have as "MP Sponges", BLM and WHM as "Limited Usefulness", and BRD and RDM as "Refresh Whores"

[Pteryx]

This isn't the first I've heard of such an idea, but geez, a flat +10?! That would be more than a bit overpowered. 1/40th of your Summoning Magic skill, maybe, tops. -- Pteryx

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Rather than scam from the system in FFVIII, why not build the idea around an existing system in FFXI?

BLU's Set Points

[Raydeus]

Onion, Pteryx, read the disclaimer.

It's easier for me to explain what I'm talking about using big numbers.



BLU set points like, how would that work?



Edit >

Another thing I'd like to see:

BPs without the need of an extra command after Summoning. (I'd be surprised if this one hasn't come out many times before)

Say you don't have an Avatar out and want to use BP:W Whispering Wind on the party, then just with /pet "Whispering Wind" <me> or even <t> you would start summoning and the Avatar would perform the BP as soon as the animation ends (and stay out unless he/she is released)

[MrMageo]

Blue set points would be useless, besides why steal from another jobs ingame thing.

Stealing from past FF games is what SE has done mostly all along (with a few exceptions i.e. blu set points *except in FFIX*)

I think this idea i great one and if it were implemented i may level SMN (can bear the thought of leveling another "main healing" job for a long time)

From what i can tell your elemental/trait list looks to be correct.

I would suggest maybe the SMN being out gave you the ability on a 1/3/2 basis where the stat like MAB is the lower teir # and INT is the higher number, with MACC being in the middle. Great Idea tho, i personally didnt like FFVIII much thought it was kinda cheese dick i was more a fan of FFIX but to each there own.

Also SE hinted at some type of augment ability with Elementals so it could be kinda like what your thinking.

Cheers.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

OK, so lets say each new pact you unlocked was counted as a "set spell" with an according point value and if you combined certain pacts from spirits and avatars, you'd get beneficial effects to yourself and the PT for doing so.

So lets say you set a fire spell from the Fire Spirit with one of Ifrit's pacts, and you gave a +40 attack buff to the PT so long as Ifrit was summoned. Pair up Wind Elemental's Wind Spell with a Garuda pact for a percentage of Haste while Garuda is out that stacks with her Hastega. Pair up pacts from Light Spirit, Leviathan and Carby to enhance MND or Cure Potencey and so on and so forth.

If you see what I'm going for here, sort of to give a SMNs a first tier buff not terribly unlike what a BRD gives, but summoning the avatar gives them the ability to add another tier of buffing, the old pacts. At the same time, keeping in the spirit of SMN and the theme of sacrifice, to obtain such buffs, a set of stats must be lowered in exchange. So if you geared set your avatars to supply attack buffs and bonuses, then you take a hit to your MP and MND, thereby limiting your curative abilities somewhat. A boost to curative abilities would mean a loss of INT and HP and so on.

Blue set points would be useless, besides why steal from another jobs ingame thing.

It wouldn't be stealing from BLU at all, were just taking a design element of one job (a good one, at that) and applying it to another. If this were SMN stealing from BLU, then COR's Quick Draws are going to be stealing from SCH's strategems.

But that would only be true if Quick Draw and Strategems were the same thing. They're not. Quick Draw is getting the "charges" Strategems get, they're not getting the same effects.

[Malacite]

Actually, I had a thought a long time ago (that got rather horribly shot down on Alla -.-) that instead of Astral Flow enabling the avatars signature attacks, it should instead transform you into the avatar you are summoning.


First of all, that's what it means to be an avatar in the first place; a vessel for another spirit. And who among us wouldn't want to run around as Fenrir or Diabolos and just pwn face for 3 minutes?

[MrMageo]

lol mal that would be an awesome ability, being a taru id take titan itd be like

Dr jekyl/Mr Hyde

Hulk Smash.

In FF8 when you used the summon it did one attack the was gone, here the Avatar's come out to assist the SMN/Party by adding damage and abilities. While they are out it would make more sense to have a passive boost to the stats, as opposed to simply "Setting" them as you would blue magic. Besides if you could run around with so many +STATS on SMN would become more of a power house than it is without them (I.E Blue Mage, without set spells they are useless however). The trademark of SMN is to summon and avatar for assistance not to set it in a point format.

[Malacite]

To be honest, I'd say the current Blue Magic system is the closest thing to Junctioning we'll ever see in FFXI. Hell why not just bring back Materia while we're at it >_> (Actually that might be a cool idea if they do another online FF in the future)