Summoner Improvements

[phaze]

Malamasala:
Keep in mind that avatar HP isn't that high when you have them taking damage for you (soloing, pull tricks, etc). They'll die quite quickly after a few rounds of a monster beating on it, with minimal damage output. Beastmaster will still be a better 'pet' job since their pets are much sturdier for combat, being actual monsters. The changes i'm suggesting for summoner aren't to make it a super-solo'ing job, but to allow the avatar abilities to be used more (less playing your /WHM sub, more playing your SMN).

In the new system, if you wished to have a summon out at all times (not dismissing), you would also not be able to kneel down and rest for MP. If you have a summoner in your party not resting their MP when they should, you need a new summoner.

[Sheila]

Originally posted by phaze
this is hard to test by us end-users, since we can't make our skill number drop to testing levels. Does a summon do half the melee damage (less accuracy, less damage per hit, or both) if summoning skill is half the current cap? If this is true: Does their melee ability continually increase as you level up, or is their melee'ing based on your current skill percentage of the cap? Who knows? =)

If a high-level summoner (who currently has low skill) wants to check their summon's melee damage output, THEN max out their skill, THEN test out the melee damage again: please feel free. I just doubt we'll find anyone able to do this, outside of a test server.

In summary: If the effect of skill is not significant enough, it should be changed. The tricky part is testing it, and then deciding on how much to change it, if needed.

The effect of skill is not very significant but it indeed exists.

I hate to plug my log, but I don't feel like cut-pasting it...

http://rinoa.nu/mymind/2004_07_01_archive.html#108878526987681925

To sum it up, I'm SMN 75 and so was someone else in my LS.

The difference is he somehow has his skill just under that of the cap for 75 at 260~, while mine is a crappy 210~.

We were pimping Spinning Dives on Fafnir. His damage also averaged higher by about 10-50, though sometimes I'd beat him and vise versa, or we'd tie. But overall he still ranged higher.

His equipment also includes various AF2/Austere stuff, while I don't wear anything which boosts SMN Mag skill aside from the Evoker ring. I do wear AF1 pants which have aim up, however.

To be honest I'm sure he must have gotten his skill that high UNnaturally because I've tried and tried and tried to raise this skill ever since the SMN job was added to the game in the first place. Anyone who has tried knows it is ridiculously slow.

At the moment I'm documenting what possible factors to help skill go up faster for my FAQ. Like moon phase, day of week, weather. I still can't make sense out of it.

[Deedlit]

Sheila, thw other day I was leveling summoning skill, and seemed to be getting good results on darksday - this was with cycling through main avatars, not elementals. Yesterday, I tried it again while waiting for my static to get to Jeuno - it was lightning day, and nothing, not a single skillup in 1600+ mp.

[Sheila]

results of my test are similar:

dark day, night > inclined to grow up

but overall I recorded time and such.

Seems we are limited to one or two skill up per real vanadiel day (hour).

[Kamzu]

Wouldn't it be nice if avatars were able to gain TP and use it like a weapon skill?

[Sanguine]

Heh I've always thought the slip should be an HP slip. The Summon feeds off the lifeblood of the Summoner and it's like a poison, so they can't sit to regenerate mana =P

[sudo]

I'm lv 20 smn and slowly slowly lving up skill. So far 53/63 possible.

I run in and out of town mog houses to save on MP regen costs. I've had 4 skill ups within 1 300 MP bar on close to new moon 4% earth day while casting earth elementals. 0.3, 0.3, 0.1 skill up on earth elementals, and 0.2 on air elemental.

The spirit pacts seem to raise my skill fairly well. Carbuncle hasn't given me a skill up in a while. All I have is carbuncle and 3 spirits but it gets the lv up skill part done albeit mind numbingly slow >.<

I have also noticed that carbuncle is much stronger with skill up.
Soloing DC Pygomois (manodraga) in Throngi with carbuncle at lv 14 and lv 18 skill, decided to lv up skill a bit to 24 and got much better results.

I think it does help but for how sucky it is to raise, I don't think I'll pay much attention to it while lving. I'm only going to cap it at 20 so I can have a better time with the avatar fights. Takes me like 4-5 bars of 340 MP each to gain 1-1.5 lv's of skill.

[phaze]

Heh I've always thought the slip should be an HP slip. The Summon feeds off the lifeblood of the Summoner and it's like a poison, so they can't sit to regenerate mana =P

You can't rest anyway, with a summon active. You can kneel while your mp is draining, but once it's time for the first 'heal tick', the game forces you to stand. This 'no rest with summon active' isn't caused by the MP-Slip; you can't rest even if Astral Flow is active (which means no MP-Slip). It's a limitation added by S-E to keep the summons from being too good.

HP-Slip instead of MP-Slip? Even if you ignore the problems from being around undead monsters, you're still taking a job with LOW max HP, and then wanting to drain it over time. I don't see how this could help the Summoner job.


-----------------------------

Sheila: just for clarification, were you seeing improved damage from the actual Blood Pact ability by the SMN with +skill? Or was that improvement only in the normal melee? I'm trying to confirm what the skill is actually affecting.

I have also noticed that carbuncle is much stronger with skill up.
Soloing DC Pygomois (manodraga) in Throngi with carbuncle at lv 14 and lv 18 skill, decided to lv up skill a bit to 24 and got much better results.

How much better were your results? Better accuracy, better damage, or both? Have you noticed an improvement on normal XP-target monsters for parties (VT-IT)? Need some more info, to back up your statement.

[SlizenDize]

1.
Yes I have also noticed that skillup for summoner equals better melee dmg, I cannot say for accuracy since it's so random.

I'm lvl 20 smn and I got my skill capped and one thing I noticed is that if you are trying to get all skills at once you are way out of line. If you start trying to skill up your smns it will probably go up a little and after a while it will be bigger and bigger intervals between the skillups. I have waisted one and a half houer outside Valkum with no skill up at all! not even 0.1!

I returned a coupple of houers later and it was much easier.
You dont need lots of spirits and avatars to do it all I have is carbuncle and earth spirit. Even so I think that you should not have to do this outside of battles several houers of meaningless summoning. Where is the fun in that?

2.
Anothing thing I want to add is about the no mp-slip and how it wont unbalance the game since
¤ you will run out of mana when using BP as stated before and
¤ You do NOT want to have the same avatars summoned 24/7 you want to switch due to other BP abilities.

Also so that if you think that this method can be abused by Summon the avatar again after it died so that you can have it constant just follow my example.
I'd say that if a summon dies or you release him/her you should not be able to summon it again for maybe 10min unless he got full hp (similar to the one for Dragoons only the cooldown is shorter and you cannot heal the Avatars/spirits). You can still summon another avatar/spirit but not that one you just released.
This would act like some sort of cooldown for the avatars/spirits themselves.

3.
BP abilities basicly have to be changed or you will only feel like a summoner every 60s and that is Boring! If you want I can agree that the high level summoner skills can have the same cooldown because otherwise they would be to powerful but this doesnt mean that all BP abilities need the same cooldown. As said earlier this would be great because now every ability doesnt have to take the exact same amount of time to cast for example how much sens does it make that you have to wait 60s for both "Stone II" and "Stone IV"?
IMO "Stone IV" should have a much higher cooldown.

4.
About avatars/spirits one time mp cost when summoning them.
I dont think this is a good idea, think about it.

You got 2000mp and an avatar cost 200mp to summon.
Basicly what you got is 1800mp and a free avatar because you cant do Anything! with your mp unless you summoned an avatar unless you want to use your subjob as your main.

I'd say that the summons should be free to Summon and if you dont want to use any BPs abilities so that you can have your summon meleeing forever that is fine! People will rather have a WAR in the party then a mp cheap melee SMN! It would just be a waste of character space.

Basicly if the summoner dont use the BPs he wont be doing any good anyway.

Ofcourse abilities will have to be tweaked but the only real thing you will have to tweak is the MP cost of the BP abilities! Make them more expensive to use and the player will think twice about what ability to use anyway.

[SlizenDize]

*Bump*


If we don't get any further with this, should I send an e-mail to SE about it (or maybe someone with a more fluently english should send the letter?)? Because our own little discussion wont make any difference for sure.

Please if you want anything said feel free to do so.

[phaze]

I'd still like to get more feedback on the two major changes that are proposed at the top (removal of MP-Slip, individual BP timers), before sending something in. In particular, I'd really like to hear other's thoughts on how this would change the end-game BPs.

Also, it looks like some changes are already in the works for summoners. While the dev responding to the Q&A was vague, it does appear that the summons are getting a melee boost. If their intention is to use the summons as more of an additional melee unit, then some of the options listed at the top could certainly be used. But as I said before: I'd like more feedback on what other summoners think, particularly those who have reached end-game with summoner.

Hopefully, we can narrow down the options to a single group of suggestions. Currently, I'm leaning towards:
1. Replacing MP-Slip with increased summoning MP cost of 2x your level to summon (to match Astral Flow BP costs).
--- if summon melee is getting strengthened, the cost may need to change as well.
2. Replacing single BP timer with individual cooldown timers for each BP.
--- adjust MP cost (and possibly timer) for each ability to be balanced. Possibly modify some abilities to prevent abuse, as necessary (discussed above).

Thoughts? Comments?

[SlizenDize]

Well boosting melee is really not what I want anyway...
Maybe it make us stronger but thats not what Im thinking of as most important.

My issue is the "Do one thing and wait a min until you may act again".

Hmmm... seems this thread is about to die out?

[phaze]

I've sent in these suggestions via the POL contact form; I realize it's not a very direct way to get feedback to the dev's, but it's a start.

A better choice would be to find a forum/contact point that the Live Team frequents, for feedback. If anyone knows of a good suggestions area, feel free to forward these suggestions on (or post it here, and I can try contacting again, if you want). If you do decide to send in the suggestions, I recommend supplying URLs to this thread (and Oceanfish's related feedback thread), for context.

[poppipo]

what i think they should do is make the mp drain even more, but make the summons waaaaay stronger

[Deedlit]

Originally posted by poppipo
what i think they should do is make the mp drain even more, but make the summons waaaaay stronger

{Job unbalance} {No thanks.}