Summoning Magic Skill

[Medalink]

I have heard/read both sides saying its useless or its the most important. I want to know what does Summoning Magic Skill Affect? I do know it helps with Spell Interuption while casting avatars, other than that I see no differance. So if anyone could shed some light on what it does.

Thanks
Medalink

[silentsteel]

Re: Summoning Magic Skill

Adds to the summons Health, Dmg & I think it might actually help the TP gain, no clue tho.

[tdh]

Re: Summoning Magic Skill

To be completely honest with you, I have no idea, but I do have a theory.

The most of the Avatars have an Elemental spell. (Stone II, etc When casted by a BLM or RDM, their skill level helps against the mob resisting the attack. Perhaps this is what the skill is for. Some of them have attacks that are coupled with status effects. My guess would be that a cap'd Summoning Skill would help land the effect as well as effecting the duration of the effect.

But keep in mind this is just a theory from a guy who is SMN Lv.1 and refused to level SMN until I can fight all the primes. And with DRK51 being my highest job, I won't be fighting them any time soon. (Despite LS members telling me to go now and they'll fight them for me. I don't want a free ride on the avatars. I want to go fight them and be useful!)

[Omni]

Re: Summoning Magic Skill

well i really hope skill is useful. i just spent 3 days lvling smn skill 23 levels. i'm just beginning to play around with smn myself. being only lvl 7, i think it be wise to cap out early and to keep it capped as i go.

[Grissom]

Re: Summoning Magic Skill

I keep thinking it helps avatars skills to not be resisted so much like Fenrir's roars but dunno. I'm also told thouse miss a lot anyways but right now at 35 they're a pain in the ass to stick. I just don't bother anymore.

[Medalink]

Re: Summoning Magic Skill

lol I was unaware not alot of people know, Maybee Icemage does..... Icemage please respond..... Anyone?

lol

Medalink

[kuu]

Re: Summoning Magic Skill

I have heard/read both sides saying its useless or its the most important. I want to know what does Summoning Magic Skill Affect? I do know it helps with Spell Interuption while casting avatars, other than that I see no differance. So if anyone could shed some light on what it does.

Thanks
Medalink

Those words are from an interview with SE people in July04 in warcry. It was concluded with, "We are thinking of ways to improve summoner". Following this in Oct 04 SMN were changed. Then it was further modified a little later for lowering damage on took weak preys.

That's what we know for sure. This basically means whatever the interview claim is invalid and it's back to square 1.

There are arguements and generalized tests from both sides.

Someone said that leveling their SMN skill a lot 130->210 did not effect him. But that's after a month, and never mentioned his playing style, and the test is inconclusive.

Other people say the opposite and it does help in overall avatar stats and thus BP acc. No one has any conclusive tests I've seen.

The closes I've read are judgements based on 6 SMN pts where after a parse and a round of asking, more smn skill did increase efficiency.

We do know for sure that variation in avatar stats exist. There have been many cases of many people taking thousand needles(always the same damage) can show 1 avatar dead while another alive.

IMO, they do increase avatars.

When I started my SMN, I soloed EMs(at that level there isn't much variability). At around lvl 7 my carbuncle was not able to win(not dark/light related) againist an EM(2 or 3 tries). After I trained up my SMN skills (around 20lvls) carbuncle was able to win the EM with a little health left.

Since that time I have always keep up with my smn skill capping every so often. So I can't make any conclusive tests to help.

[Coinspinner]

Re: Summoning Magic Skill

http://ffo.warcry.com/scripts/column...306&colid=4615

8) Exactly how does the SMN "summoning" skill affect avatars?

The summoning skill affects the chance of interruption when a spell is being cast, as well as the casting time of summoned spirits (i.e. Earth Spirit, Water Spirit, etc.).

SE is pretty good about documenting every significant change they make and releasing that info in the patch notes (especially compared to Blizzard.) It most likely has not changed from that unless it's mentioned in the notes. The last part of that response is somewhat cryptic. Is it the cast time of the summoning spell, or the delay between the spirit casting it's spells?

[kuu]

Re: Summoning Magic Skill

http://ffo.warcry.com/scripts/column...306&colid=4615





SE is pretty good about documenting every significant change they make and releasing that info in the patch notes (especially compared to Blizzard.) It most likely has not changed from that unless it's mentioned in the notes. The last part of that response is somewhat cryptic. Is it the cast time of the summoning spell, or the delay between the spirit casting it's spells?

Actually, no, SE isn't very good at documenting. It almost never reveals techinical details.

During the last update, the goblin Rush was changed from 1 hit to 3 hits. With no mention in update notes. But anyone xping on them goes wtf.

And as new smn that leveled after the update knows, Titan's megalift throw got gimp without a peep of an update notice out of the blue. On day it was doing 200+ few days later it barely did 32.

In other know factors they have already done things like hidden effects(ele staves etc), not quite exact numbers(damage reduction)


SE only tells you if they think it's important enough to tell. Which I suppose is a good thing.

The post as I said is invalid because we can not know for sure how true it is after a yr+, with a smn specific change.

[Coinspinner]

Re: Summoning Magic Skill

Documenting changes made via patch is different from things like hidden effects on equipment or technical details like damage formulae. Look at their response to displaying the effect of food; they want the players to discover the effects themselves. Same goes for things like elemental staves or Tredecim Scythe. It can be obnoxious (like with SMN skill and the lack of a viewable ACC, RATK, or RACC stat) or cool like the special properties of a fully upgraded Relic weapon.

/em points to "pretty good" and "compared to Blizzard."

Aside from Goblin Rush, how many other omissions can you name? I can only think of the (unintended) change to certain JA/spell ranges (Charm and Stun among others I think) that was quicky fixed. Every time WoW recieves an update the players have to research and compile a list of undocumented (and it often turns out unintentional) changes that can exceeds the length of the official patch notes. Edit:"Pretty good" is relative. ><;

SE likes will put things in the patch notes like "Weather will no longer have an effect on the distance a player can be detected for monsters that detect based on the use of magic." that hardly anybody is aware of and doesn't really affect gameplay. WoW CMs will state for two weeks that something has not been changed, then state that it has always been that way for two more, then finally get QA to respond that a change was made and that it was inteded to be that way all along.

[kuu]

Re: Summoning Magic Skill

Documenting changes made via patch is different from things like hidden effects on equipment or technical details like damage formulae. Look at their response to displaying the effect of food; they want the players to discover the effects themselves. Same goes for things like elemental staves or Tredecim Scythe. It can be obnoxious (like with SMN skill and the lack of a viewable ACC, RATK, or RACC stat) or cool like the special properties of a fully upgraded Relic weapon.

Aside from Goblin Rush, how many other omissions can you name? I can only think of the (unintended) change to certain JA/spell ranges (Charm and Stun among others I think) that was quicky fixed. Every time WoW recieves an update the players have to research and compile a list of undocumented (and it often turns out unintentional) changes that can exceeds the length of the official patch notes.

You answered half your own questions and debunked them.

SE decides what is important to tell and what is not. They will tell about food changes, but not the actual stats of foods(why should they)

They decide to change the damage calculations of one move, and never documents it, but they would do it to something else.

They will get technical on the explanation of the change to XP, but not on the explanation of ranger, etc.

In the end it leads back to a interview which is outdated, and never through official documentations, has to be taken with a grain of salt.

SMN skill was never defined, they could have changed it 100 times over and we would not know for sure, because they had no obigations to document a change for it.

"The damage and accuracy of several avatar attacks have been adjusted."

can mean +15 acc to +15+skill level+ your mom's schedule+ the phases of the moon. For all we know.

And as for results of "tests" there have been results from both sides.

[Medalink]

Re: Summoning Magic Skill

Thanks for the responses, I will do some major testing myself to try and find out what happens with a low SMN Skill and a cpaed one, I will be trying this from lvl 35-50. Thanks for the info.

Medalink

[Icemage]

Re: Summoning Magic Skill

Sorry Medalink, I have no idea what summoning skill does, aside from the spell interruption bonus already mentioned. There's a lot of theories, but no proof that I've seen, and the SMN75s I know on my server all seem to have their own theories (I've asked). Some think its useful, others think it's pointless.

Can't test it myself, since I haven't touched SMN at all since I acquired the job 2 years ago.

Just from personal observation, I don't see any noticeable difference between SMNs who focus on Summoning skill vs. other stats, either in offensive BP damage or otherwise, so if it has any effect on those things, it's either really random or really subtle.


Icemage

[Medalink]

Re: Summoning Magic Skill

I have done a few tests. All equips where the same with no food used. All where on lightsday.

Summoner Level: 37
Summoning Magic: 60
Carby Melee Damage: Conistantly 6-9 on EP Gobs in Rolanberry Fields.
Carby Killed most Gobs after 2 Recasts with 3/4 HP left on 2nd cast.

Summoner Level: 37
Summoning Magic: 75
Carby Melee Damage: Conistantly 8-10 on EP Gobs in Rolanberry Fields.
Carby Killed Most gobs with 1 cast.

Summoner Level: 37
Summoning Magic: 90
Carby Melee Damage: Conistantly 9-12 on EP Gobs in Rolanberry Fields.
Carby Killed most Gobs with 1 cast and 1/4 HP left.
NOTE Carby seems to hit more acurately at this lvl.

I killed about 40 Gobs each run. It does apear that it helps.
I will be doing some magic testing soon aswell.

Medalink

[SharMarali]

Re: Summoning Magic Skill

It's difficult to conduct a truly conclusive test of whether summoning magic skill makes a difference, because it generally has to be the same person using the same avatar and the same equipment and at the same level, but at two vastly different skill levels for it to truly be an accurate test.

For one thing, I believe in the theory that each of the primes is "linked" to a stat such as MND, STR, DEX, etc, and that based upon your own stat in that area, the avatar is stronger or weaker.

The reason I became a believer in this theory is because of a run I did on the marlboro KSNM in Horalis Peak. We had 6 SMNs. I don't completely recall the exact lineup of races, but I can tell you we had at least one mithra, at least one taru, and I believe there was another elvaan besides myself. We were instructed by the one person who had done this before to all use Predator Claw. After doing this once, the NON-elvaan SMNs reported having done massive amounts of damge. I, on the other hand, did some piddly damage barely worth mentioning. I tried her again (we did the fight about 4 times I think) and again, did piddly damage not worth mentioning. I tried Leviathan and finally did some significant damage. One of the non-elvaan SMNs decided to try Leviathan after that and reported that Garuda did a lot more damage.

Garuda, logically speaking, would be linked to AGI, which elvaan is horribly low in. Leviathan, logically speaking, would be linked to MND, which elvaan is ridiculously high in. This supports the theory that stats actually do make a minor difference. Not enough to really be worth mentioning, mind you... At worst, you'd want to slightly adjust your play style so as to use the avatar best suited for your highest stats when trying to deal damage in a fight where the monster's TP gain is not a major issue.

But I'm off-topic.

Unfortunately I don't have a lot to add in the debate about whether summoning skill matters. Truthfully, I haven't made much effort to raise mine. I figure it will eventualy catch up as I continue playing, and I've seen no significant reason to go out of my way, boring myself to tears, to try to raise it faster. I just wanted to interject about the relative difficulty of obtaining conclusive results in the testing process. I wish SE would release some information about EXACTLY what summoning magic skill does, but they still haven't gone so far as to actually tell us that VIT affects max damage taken in addition to just affecting overall defense, DEX affects critical hit rate in addition to just affecting overall accuracy, etc... And these are things we KNOW to be true.