AF or austere/penance gear?

[Mephisto]

Originally posted by Akiro
>_< i find this so retarted if your going to be a summoner then be one, use your summons you didnt just fight them and waste your money just to be a damn back up healer, if that was the case then you should of just stuck with white mage/black mage, healing a party is actually okay but if thats all your going to do and not use your summons then what the hell is the point of fighting them

no, youre wrong. Until 70 SMN really is just a backup healer, avatar attacks dont do shit. If you dont heal, you're just taking up a spot that could've been better used. Go make a PT with a retarded SMN using insanely gimped bloodpacts and see how it is. SE made it this way, and you've gotta conform to it. You wanna go rape shit with smns? play console FF, or play through the pain of backup healing until 70.

[Akiro]

then you play with rather stupid summoners that have should of never started the class in the 1st place

[poweryoga]

Originally posted by Akiro
>_< i find this so retarted if your going to be a summoner then be one, use your summons you didnt just fight them and waste your money just to be a damn back up healer, if that was the case then you should of just stuck with white mage/black mage, healing a party is actually okay but if thats all your going to do and not use your summons then what the hell is the point of fighting them

do you have any idea what you're talking about? Summons are free. The uncapped prime avatar fights are so ridiculously easy that you can do it with 3-4 people most of the time and have 2 people just leeching, there's NO reason to not get them.

lets see... provided you have carby's gloves you can keep carby out for free. Thats fine.... but carby has **** for damage.

Most summoner's bloodpacts take over 100+ mp. At lvl 54 I have about 700-730 mp.

That's 6-7 pacts.

If you're a summoner and you DON'T heal, you're useless for 75% of the fight because bloodpacts take 1 minute to cool down. (55 sec with JSE) Most of the pacts get resisted 50% or more, rarely will you ever hit 100% damage especially if you're fighting IT ++ mobs for good exp. Carby has zero useful party buffs and no good offense until lvl 55. (Note i'm 54)

Don't get me wrong, I like summoning and my party loves the buffs. Sometimes its just not possible to pop those buffs on if your tank is taking damage and you're on chain 3-4 and running low on mp. (say 300~ mp by chain 4)

I also find myself lacking in MP if i cast more than 2 bloodpacts a fight. I'd rather someone else be the bottleneck for chaining.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't find the -bloodpact delay useful, but the - perpetuation cost certainly is good.

[Akiro]

thats you, but what about all the other ppl that acutally put alot of gil soloing them, are you basicly telling then that they did all that work just for a freaken light show?

[Darkedge]

If someone solo's an avatar, 99% of the time they aren't doing it to unlock the Avatar.

Why would anyone solo anything in the first place? Fun, challenge, an item they need that they cant get help with?

Getting off that note, we've gotten 50+ SMN to respond, but can you answer my question: Do you need Austere gear the entire time to get blood pact timer reduction, or do you need it equipped only when you use the blood pact?

[poweryoga]

For those people that spend a lot of time soloing them... that's fine but unnecessary. There's always parties going off to avatars from jeuno and its easy to catch a ride on one.

not sure what you mean by light show, but most avatars have some use for their bloodpacts and i use them all fairly actively except for ifrit. Nowhere in my post did I say "I only heal lolololol", read more carefully.

edit: I'll test out the JSE gear on friday and let you know.

[Kalel]

Actually with Avatars having TP they do normally 25-600 dmg, yes thats right 600 with regular Blood pacts. And this is as level 53 summoner not 70. So smns are not required to be main healers, only optional if party really needs one. Oh by the way, I rather hae whm as healer than smn and I play both. Smns can have major mp but what if you need high lvl cure for whole party in emergency than party is dead.

Take it from me SMNs are like RDMs now they back up heal but are more efficient in there probably jobs.

[SlottyM]

blood pact timer is taken away at time of usage. With penance robe and austere hat, when i use bloodpact, new timer starts at 54.

Use austere/penance, seems to have a hidden + damage effect on avatars. My avatars consistently hit harder than my friends by about 10% (we parsed it for several hours) he has higher summoning skill.

[Ampidire]

I as 50 summoner had the full Austere Set as I had previously purchased it, then the same night I hit 51 and was able to use all 8 of my elemental staves (my dark staff is HQ), I also have Fenrir and Carbuncle's Mitts as well.

After that party I went and did my AF2 (pants) and sold my Austere Pants for the fact that they suck. At level 54 I had my bracer's all ready to use, and the Austere cuffs and carby mitts and I still just use the Austere cuffs and Carby Mitts (when summoning carbuncle only as my macro's have automatic /equip for my staves and carby mitts).

At level 56 (I am currently 55), I will sell my Austere feet and use the AF pants since they give more MP and they have no other bonuses the AF can't really beat/tie anyway.

At 58 I will have my doublet ready but I for the most part will only wear it around jeuno for looks since the -perpetuation and -delay of my Austere robe beat it hands down.

At 59 I have a Vermillion Cloak ready but I will only use it while resting and when I do not have an avatar out for MB'n or SC'n (again I will rely on /equip macro's). For me this is a hard decision because I love my vermillion cloak when I use it with my 60BLM (deleveled from 61) but I don't see how much use it will have compared to my Austere gear except that it continues the -perp/refresh effect w/o and avatar out.

At 60 I will have my horn but again i'll just wear it for lack of it being more fun that my BLM's errectile dysfunction hat around jeuno. I'll mostly be using austere and verm cloak for exp and all around solo/farming (which i don't do since I hate it with a passion).

Things all summoners will need eventually are all 8 staves, they REALLY REALLY help, no matter how much you think just having light and dark staff or even just dark is 'ok' you will need to get all 8 eventually, they are amazing, right now all my avatars cost 4MP to keep out, Carbuncle costs 0 with auto refresh having no effect, and fenrir costs 2MP (pluto's staff). My SPT will have a bard so with ballad 1 and 2 on (which it will be at all times) my avatars will be free (w/o extra refresh), I will refresh 4 with carbuncle out, and I will refresh 2 with fenrir out.

I Like having all of my AF just for completion purposes but as far as overall usefulness goes, the Austere beats it in all aspects hands down.

If there were any pieces of penance gear on my server (Midgardsormr) besides the hat (and only one exists and it sold to the maker for 3 million gil), I would do my best to get a Penance robe, the -2 perpetuation is amazing and if it were on my server, it would beat verm cloak for the best summoner equip.

This might sound kind of like I'm bragging but it's my take on summoner equip up until 60 and someone will find it useful to hear it from a summoner that does in fact have it all. I will update when I get all the other 7 HQ staves and reach level 60 to have all of this gear able for me to use.


*Yeah and sorry for reviving a seemingly old thread but this issue is ongoing and more people need to hear about it*