A Shantotto Ascension Walkthrough

[Armando]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Walkthrough

You don't give a homeless person some money or fresh food and then kick 'em in the Ribs - which is what SE's done here IMO.

Sorry...give me a sec...

Glad to have that out of my system. Let's continue.

Ifrit's Favor: It's a nice buff, but now you're bleeding MP (worse still if you're using pacts and curing) and feeding the mob TP for even more mediocre damage than before. Having a consistent buff is nice and all, but if you have a WAR in the party the COR can just toss out Fighter's Roll for the same effect hassle-free (barring any busts). I wouldn't even dare to compare this to 2x Minuet or March.

Sure. Let's just ignore the fact that fact your teammates are kicking more ass than before; I suppose that doesn't matter to you because it doesn't show up on your parser. Let's ignore the fact that you're not bleeding MP thanks to the perp cost reduction. Let's ignore the fact that "omg you're feeding TP" is a laughable accusation when an avatar will never come close to the rate of TP feeding of a hasted DD. Let's ignore the fact that the 15% damage you're losing on pacts is being made up for in DoT which wasn't going to be there anyways because you weren't going to keep your avatar out before the update. Let's ignore the fact that there's no need to replace Ifrit's Favor with Fighter's Roll because they do, in fact, stack, allowing for even better TP gain, DoT, and random spikes in WS damage. OR better yet, you can take your DA from Ifrit and have the COR use any combination of Chaos, Hunter's, or Samurai rolls.

Shiva's Favor: And this is again where how they implemented this sucks. If Shiva at least got her own buff and/or wasn't gimped by the favor, we could have finally justified keeping her out to gain TP and wail on NMs with Heavenly Strike. She could have easily been the best nuking avatar, but SE took care of that real good.

You dunderhead, Shiva's favor is only 10 MAB. That's not going to make people suddenly go "WAIT GUYS, SHIVA IS LEGIT, LET HER TP THE HNM" especially when it fails to make up for the 15% damage penalty.

Let's also ignore the fact that SMN+COR just became very, very appealing in a lot of ways, and that being able to fill NEW roles (melee buffer or refresher) leads to more party setups in which you can fit in a SMN without having it be the last consideration.

You're being a crybaby and frankly this isn't the thread for it.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Walkthrough

Maybe you need to stop thinking about what you want from it and look at what it does well.
Maybe all SMN is supposed to be is Air Strike in-a-can with good support otherwise.
Maybe they are supposed to bleed MP for all the crazy shit they can do.
Maybe its time to let /WHM go, you guys bitch about it so much anyway.

And maybe, just maybe, SE added Elemental Siphon and Sublimation for a fucking reason. They've already given three sources of MP restoration from within the job, two from subjobs and several external sources. I think if you can't take advantage of these, you just need to hang it up.

Some SMNs just cannot look beyond themselves.

While I like to DD as a COR and its not denied of me, I don't delude myself as to why I'm invited to a party and generally do what's best to enhance that purpose.

Just think COR + SMN for a second here. I have Fighter's Roll, I could use it, but now that SMN is there with Ifrit throwing down Warcry and DS, I could go for Samurai Roll or Rogue's Roll or any other melee option depending on what jobs are present. Another layer of refresh for a MP-driven melee PT from Diabolos - fuck yes.

Ever notice how when changes and additions were made to other jobs how RDM's load got a little more bearable and that they could go back to their specializations? Not just a little?

Or that by making all these ranged adjustments, they just add more reasons for COR/RNG and SAM/RNG to exist?

BST gots a totally new form of enmity manipulation. Used well in tandem with a THF, it can make my pet a damage sponge for others.My pet can become our fall guy if needed. As a melee it just means I'm one of the few melees that a WHM or RDM won't have to sink MP into as much because I can just blame all my enmity on my pet. He's my responsibility to keep alive, not theirs.

Here you are, Mal, looking only at how these changes affect SMN. That just so weak.

[ShadowHolyFlyingDragon]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Walkthrough

And because of all that, 120 damage shaved off a 800 point damage blood pact every 50-60 seconds (which can't be spammed anyway due to the way SMN is already geared to play to its wide-range role of abilities) solves the problem of the "rip in the proverbial thread of the space-time contiuem of the already blatently dis-proportioned" party scheme?

"Laughable at best.."

I'm actually researching though..

[Armando]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Walkthrough

I have no clue what you tried to say just now.

[ShadowHolyFlyingDragon]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Walkthrough

Metaphor.

What I said was that I don't see how taking this insignificant amount of damage off a bloodpact was going to keep the SMN from being disportionate vs other jobs, given all the other things yall mentioned the SMN gets. I think SE is just resulting to their uber-conservative attitude that most fans have always complained they wished SE would let up on.

But eh, after talking it over with a collegue that use to play table top games, let it be known that, though I just thought this concept a nuisance, I'm thankful otherwise for everything else that's happened and I'm not complaining for the sake of complaining. After weighing the numbers without having to do all this ridiculous math, I see why SE did it, simply for the fact that SMN is an all-purpose job and it wouldn't be fair to allow them to do everything really well without some sort of nerfing measure for job stance. They buff well, they damage well, they heal well, they DOT well. If the Avatar's gonna be out buffing, it's performing a role and it can't perform two roles simultaneously and do them both well at the same time. One's gotta suffer. That is their historical game play rule.

[Lmnop]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Walkthrough

If the Avatar's gonna be out buffing, it's performing a role and it can't perform two roles simultaneously and do them both well at the same time. One's gotta suffer. That is their historical game play rule.

SMN plays by these rules very oddly, but I think this is quite true. And moreover, they implemented it w/out the use of silly toggle JAs like they've given everyone else.

They can still do more than one role as needed - such as an emergency cure while DDing on HNM or tossing out an earthen ward after a bit of downtime - but it looks like they can choose a role and adapt an "Mp schedule" for that role. And I think that's neat.

[Grizzlebeard]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Walkthrough

Metaphor.

Except it wasn't.

[ShadowHolyFlyingDragon]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Walkthrough

Except it wasn't.

<^> -_- <^> Do something constructive.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Walkthrough

Do something constructive.

---------- Post added at 07:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:48 PM ----------

The following user says "Thank You" to Yellow Mage for above post:
ShadowHolyFlyingDragon (Today)

Wait . . . you acknowledge being a hypocrite?? o_O

That's it, I'm confused now.

[ShadowHolyFlyingDragon]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Walkthrough

Think hard... reaaaaaaaly hard enough to see between the lines and you'll have your answer. But honestly, this tit for tat is getting childish and I tired of it. I'm willing to bury the hatchet but if you and others don't, I can't help you.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Walkthrough

"Do or do not. There is no spoon."

I'll have sprinkles on my Ice Cream Koan, if you please.

[Lmnop]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Walkthrough

Is this entire page a pissing contest? kk just making sure.

[Vyuru]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Walkthrough

Well, back to the OP.

I am now on the final fight, just need to get a group for it. I've nothing really to say except for talking about the Full Moon fountain part. Everything up until then is quite easy and straightforward. The ninja fight is really easy, although I would not try to solo it. I'd go in with about 4 people for that one, just because it makes it so laughably easy.

Our party setup for the Full Moon Fountain fight was: Blu, Rdm, Thf, Samx2, Blm. We did not gather all of the Crystal Sap key items for the fight. The plan was to go in, Blm ES + Sleepga IIs the 8 mobs. We target and kill whatever isn't slept, all but one of the mobs was slept. They are easy to sleep with ES but seem to resist Sleep without ES. As a Blu I was able to keep some of them stunned and unable to call an avatar or get off an Astral Flow, but that was more by luck than anything else. Enervation was easy to stick on them, and they went down really fast. The ones we fought didn't try to AF until they were low on health, so I would recommend doing a nice SC or, if there is a Blu, have them run through the big 3 to kill the mob quickly. We killed 3-4 mobs before they woke up, and our Blm was unable to sleep them due to being hit by a bunch of angry mobs. We killed 4 and almost killed a 5th before we wiped. I would recommend bringing two Blms, one to do the initial ES+Sleepga II and the second to resleep the mobs once they wake up.

Just eyeballing it, but the mobs seemed to have between 6,000-7,000 health. We did not try to kite, and I don't know if I would want to try it due to ~ga spells and other spells, including AM. Someone who is used to that sort of kiting could probably do it though. But if the person isn't careful they'll probably be hit by alot of spells. The mobs did not seem to have any sort of fast cast traits at all, moderate damage to a Blu not geared for defense.

If the party dies, then the remaining mobs will return to their starting positions rather rapidly and regen to full health. Goes without saying to bring RR items and the usual to this battlefield. I would recommend fighting either in the tunnel, or out in the cavern outside of the mob's aggro radius. We fought at the mouth of the tunnel and received no aggro from getting back up and resting.

Not a hard fight at all. The mob's defense seems low, as tossing on Enervation + Dia (I forget which the Rdm used) and Acid Bolts led to an almost exponential increase in damage dealt to the mobs. I don't want to exaggerate, but it seemed to almost double the damage dealt with all the debuffs in place, really noticeable difference.

A Blu with Saline Coat and Diffusion would do quite well here I think, as most of the damage dealt to us was magical in nature.

[Grizzlebeard]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Walkthrough

<^> -_- <^> Do something constructive.

I find educating you is constructive. After all, there's clearly a need for it.