SMN-Currently How to Fix It+Story

[kuu]

Re: SMN-Currently How to Fix It+Story

A lot of Smns are handly-capped due to being invited underleveled.

If you have a lvl 50pt and your smn is 47, The offensive bp's are going to seriously get shafted. Just like you don't get a melee 3 levels under, same with SMN.

I heard "I saw smn IV magic burst the other day, they suck not even close to blm damage and always resisted" Well yea a blm has magic attkIII and if underlevel doesn't help accuracy, with 3 levels behind, even a blm will get resisted MB.

I always recomend pts lvls being close even if jobs don't fit so well, because the level difference can hurt more then anything at times.

If I as a smn, get brought in and I see everything is IT+++ from my point of view...well that pretty much kills most of my arsenal of DD, and even fenrir's lunar cry...so in that case, it's pretty much a cure/buff whore.

Though really no different elsewhere, if you ask why your blm can't get damage in or your rdm can't debuff...well obviously, "You brought me in 3 levels under, my hands are tied."

[Icemage]

Re: SMN-Currently How to Fix It+Story

Kuu has a definite point. A lot of players color their judgment on specific jobs even when they have a tendency to invite players of those jobs who are underleveled for their party.

When I build a party, I strive very, very hard to make sure everyone is within 1 level. By that I mean that if I'm level 59 and halfway to level 60, I will prefer to invite someone who is just barely 60, or 58 but within a few K of 59. Not only does this mean that XP is optimized from a per-player share basis, but it makes everyone more effective, since everyone is on roughly equal footing versus the monsters.

A few jobs can get away with being lower level. WHM, and BRD, which tend to have less direct interaction with monsters, can usually be up to 2 levels below and not suffer too horribly.

Properly constructed parties with less than optimal jobs are always superior to improperly constructed ones with "good" jobs. I hit level 59 RDM yesterday in a party that was NIN DRG DRK RDM BLM BLM. Not your "typical" party, but we were able to make chain 5 consistently with virtually down time, and everyone had a great time because we were all within 1 level of each other, and knew what we were doing with our jobs. No one felt left out, everyone was contributing, and monsters fell over like dominos from 4-5x magic burst on every skillchain.

In the case of SMN, if you want to play as primary healer only, sure you can be a couple levels under the curve. But for a SMN to do well offensively, they have to be within 1 level of the highest level in the party, just like you'd expect any DD to be.


Icemage

[Jokerboy1]

Re: SMN-Currently How to Fix It+Story

hey ice.. whats mp slip damage.. sorry -_- i dont know much..

[SlizenDize]

Re: SMN-Currently How to Fix It+Story

Oh come now. A statement like this applies to every other job out there.

Sorry if I wasn't clear enough but I was refering to this

Do people really think a Summoner is just a Bloodpact per min and healer?

And I asked if he could give any sugestion of what you could do Between BPs when not counting sub job. The reason I said that was because we all know that between BP's a Summoner is helpless without a sub job. (Ask me the times I forgot to change /BLM to /WHM after I warped back from someplace but thats not the point lol) the point is I wanted to make a statement.

By the way I do realize now that I made a huge spelling mistake in my question "How many of those things you can do between BPs THEN ARE based on sub jobs?" it should ofcourse be "ARE NOT based on sub jobs?" anyway you get the idea. Note how I did not put in my personal opinion on this I did jsut make this one statement to see what people in general think about it.

EDIT:

hey ice.. whats mp slip damage.. sorry -_- i dont know much..

Hes refering to the constant MP slip you get while one avatar is Summoned, they all cost a certain amount of mp every third second to even be able to keep alive.

[Jokerboy1]

Re: SMN-Currently How to Fix It+Story

ohh.. lol thank u for clearing thta up for me

[tazirai]

Re: SMN-Currently How to Fix It+Story

Sorry if I wasn't clear enough but I was refering to this



And I asked if he could give any sugestion of what you could do Between BPs when not counting sub job. The reason I said that was because we all know that between BP's a Summoner is helpless without a sub job. (Ask me the times I forgot to change /BLM to /WHM after I warped back from someplace but thats not the point lol) the point is I wanted to make a statement.

I still dont think we're helpless without sub , maybe its just me ^^

[Bahamut Kaiser]

Re: SMN-Currently How to Fix It+Story

Speaking as someone whos only enjoyed the company of Smns, and wants to be one some day, Smn is probably my second favorite job to have in my party.

Smn can use BP about once a minute, but thier BPs are vastly more effective and unique compared to jobs with simular functions. They get higher lvl black magics before Blm does, they have defense and attack enhancing buffs which are vastly more effective then anything anyone else can do, and alot of these buffs last for more then a minute so the Smn can usually maintain buffs over a good period of time, Smn can use powerful healing spells which cure the entire party and even remove several statuses, they have an almost infalible pull technique which makes them the only class that can pull in a link without drawing a link into the party, they have exceptionally powerful 2 hr which Smns can execute up to 3 times before the timer burns out.............. I could come up with more glories of Smn if i had more time, and less toxins in my system.

On a side note, Erase can be subbed at higher lvls, giving Smn almost all the capabilities of Whm, with even better Buff and Emergency cure techniques. And one of the main specialties of Smn is all those special moves they do with Avatars creates almost no hate for the party, which means Smn can use the most powerful moves in the game without even sweating hate.

Yeah, I feel sorry for you girl friend pal, she must be realy unnappreciated, heaven help you if I come along and show her how "special" she realy is =)

P.S. Smn is the opposite of Drg, look it up in the Windurst Library, see page 67.

[LadyPeorth]

Re: SMN-Currently How to Fix It+Story

I still love SMN and still plan to take it to 75, but the hike after 60 is proving very painful. I don't mind main healing...heck I'll do it very nicely, but the main problem comes when the RDM doesn't help. Almost always I'll be in a PT with a RDM and most of the time, not all, but most of the RDMs I PT with won't help Cure...and when they do, it's only because I'm outta MP. Spamming Cure III on a Protect 2ed Tank can only do so much. I'm not saying SMNs can not be treated as a main heal...I just wish people would not think of SMN/WHM as WHM/BLM(RDM,SMN)

[Karinya]

Re: SMN-Currently How to Fix It+Story

Interesting thread. I soloed SMN to 20 shortly after the solo prime fights came out - because I thought they would be an interesting and fun challenge. (They are, although Ramuh is a tough old bastard. Took me 3 tries.) Recently I got Fenrir, Carbuncle Mitts and Light Spirit and now I'm looking at leveling it some more, so this is an interesting set of perspectives on the job and its role in parties.

It does seem like a lot of (bad) parties are unwilling or unable to step outside the WHM BLM RDM mindset - anything else is either a substitute WHM or a substitute BLM (or for BRD, a substitute RDM). And I do see how SMN comes up lacking as either of those.

But isn't that a result of trying to put a square peg in a round hole? Having been in a RDM BRD BLM static for many levels, I'm pretty familiar with the way unconventional party setups demand that everyone adapt their tactics to the situation and not just do the same thing they would in WHM BLM RDM. This is especially likely to be a problem with the BLM, who are not often called on to be flexible. Fortunately in a static, they have plenty of time to learn, but if you had this setup in a pickup, a BLM that did fine in more conventional setups could easily turn into the weak link. Is this also the case for something like SMN BLM RDM? You expect more support from the BLM and RDM and don't get it?

Blue mage may very well have the same problems. Or open people's eyes to the fact that the backline *as a whole* has to fill certain responsibilities, but they don't have to be divided along the same lines in every party.

"SMN is fine at 70" does not equal "SMN is fine", though. If it has certain level ranges where it is a weak exp leech - then it needs to be improved *at those level ranges*, even if you can already outgrow the problem by leeching exp until you get <useful ability>. Game balance shouldn't be defined by the endgame, but should exist at all levels.

Also, are spirits really complete junk or is this a myth?


It's amusing to see a summoner describe RDM as a rare job, though. I see at least 3 RDMs for every SMN, probably more like 5... On Carbuncle I would describe only three jobs as rare: BRD, SMN, DRG.

[Tubbers]

Re: SMN-Currently How to Fix It+Story

SMN as I have experienced it is far less broken than you think. I'm currently leveling PLD with my LSmates who are raising NIN and SMN for the Promy missions (we all quit for about a year right after COP came out) We went from 20-28 in about 7 hours with the setup SMN, PLD, NIN, DRG, THF, THF. The THF were both /NIN and after level 24 we basically played the hate bouncing game off of shadows after I'd initial voke for the SA's. No mob lasted more than a minute ever, from Land worms (duh) to clippers, to pugils, to Mandies to Goblins. The only downtime we had was after bomb drops on Goblins, those SOB's. It worked out extremely well, SMN would do either a MB or SC off every battle. Red Lotus Blade > Burning Stike = Fusion, or Poison Nails (needed to save MP somewhere) > Blade: Retsu = Distortion. Between those BP's he would heal a few times then rest, it was all in all a VERY good party. Our first hour in Yuhtunga we got ~6500 exp, would have been a lot more but we constantly ran out of things to kill. This is partially because we had 6 members doing damage, and between the absorbed hits and fast kills healing wasn't a problem. SMN MP never went below half. With any other healer we would not have gotten nearly as much EXP, as the summoner consistently did about double the damage of either myself or the NIN each fight.

I know this is low-end game, but there was clearly a unique SMN element, the SMN said it was a lot like being, "a magical Samurai, with the SCs and MBs." And I think thats about right, because of the SMN we were able to do a SC every battle and even burst on the Fusion one (max was a 45 Banish, woot Divine Magic skill) and the SMN was still able to keep everyone healed.

I have no playing experience with SMN past 33, but I much preferred them to WHM when I was leveling DRK, the multiple Buffs, decent damage and main healing ability are more than enough to get them a slot in my party BEFORE level 70, BEFORE level 65, BEFORE level 60!

If people look at summoners as just another WHM, they are wrong, summoners are summoners, white mages are white mages, they are two different jobs with often overlapping duties. If a party leader can't see that, then make a party yourself, you can be laughing at them when you have a 5-6 summoner party and you're owning Bombs ~lvl 52 or you're serving up some mountains to the skels in KRT 70+.

If I've learned anything from wasting my time reading this topic its that instead of complaining about how they need to improve summoner, send me gil.

And you definately didn't hear it from me... but if you go to a site that rhymes with moogle, and look around for something with "Bloodpact Timer" you can fix that problem, but you didn't hear it from me, you heard it from that creepy guy who lives down the street and offered you candy.