Melee vs Support

[Omniblast]

Re: Melee vs Support

Also, remember to check your pet tp <pettp> to see how much that they have before you participate in bursts. The longer you leave your pet out to collect the tp, the more damage they will do on bursts and their "magical" blood pacts.

[Nyru]

Re: Melee vs Support

So the TP works for magic, and not just physical attacks?

[Omniblast]

Re: Melee vs Support

go to http://www.summoner.info and click on the Technical Points section on the left hand side, and you can learn all about it. Also check out Darkhound's sticky.

[Tirrock]

Re: Melee vs Support

I've yet to see any physical blood pact effected by TP. Those actually adds onto the avatar's TP, not consume it. (Double punch is effected as much by TP as spinning dive is. That is to say, not at all.)

A lot of the people who say [SMN shouldn't be DD pre-70] leveled SMN before the extensive changes to low and mid-level BPs.

Guilty. At the rate of necro-ed posts we're getting now, I'm sure somebody will revive a post I made shortly after that patch was put in place. I still don't consider SMN on par with any real damage dealing job in exp, even post 70. With melees spamming 1000+ damage WS...or skillchaining two 800-1000ish WS with a 800+ skillchain...it's hard to compete with that.

However, I do see a use in a summoner trying to help with damage. More magic bursts for the BLM and RDM, for example. The magic bursting isn't too bad, in my opinion. But I'd never invite a SMN just for that and nothing else.

Rambling paragraphs about support moves, put in spoiler tags to make my post look shorter...and because spoiler tags are awesome.

The support moves are usually situational.
- Aerial Armor is pretty good if your tank is taking 180+ a shot, or two people are taking 90 a shot, or three taking 60, and none of them having utsusemi. Also pretty good before a BC, and on things like kirin where blink can save the PLD from large single damage spells.
- Earthen Ward has it's uses... Although it's not all it's cracked up to be. 200HP stoneskin at level 75. That's like 2 hits on a PLD at level 65. Not so hot. Still, it's useful for things that spam AoE and you don't feel like casting curaga. (Loose hate.) Although when things spam AoE moves, it's more efficent just to use healing ruby II instead of earthen ward... I honestly tend to use this spell the most when I'm helping a friend level a low job, since it lasts 10 minutes or 200HP, even on level 1 characters.
- Ecliptic Growl I didn't really care for. +7 to some stats, at best... From a melee and mage stand point, that's nothing really that great for me. (I'd already have enough STR as melee.) For my 45PLD, I wouldn't be too impressed either. ~50+45VIT, another 1 to 7 won't reduce my damage that much. (Although it's difficult to say if 1 to 7 AGI would have an impact on shield/parry rates.) For NIN, I honestly don't know. In any event, this blood pact gets outshined at level 54 with..
- Ecliptic Howl. During the right moon phase, it's at least as good as a BRD madrigal. I've also used it a few times for the joyuse NM kraken, since he hits so fast it makes keeping shadows up almost impossible.

That's it for the main buffs... (I can't talk about diabolos' buff moves from experience.) I'm not going to list them all, but I agree with Karinya's post about so many of those support moves... The only time you'll use most of those is when you feel like wasting MP or looking at a new animation. You'll even get the occasional "I didn't even know avatars had that move" comment.

[Gobo]

Re: Melee vs Support

I'll comment on Diabolos's buffs.

Noctoshield. Phalanxga. Its not as strong as RDMs phalanx, but its the only way to give phalanx to other people. @75 it takes off 13 damage a hit. PLDs love it. It last for 3 minutes and the total damage reduced during the duration really adds up. Less curing on a PLD (or any tank for that matter)=less downtime, always a plus.

Dream Shroud. I really cant comment on how useful it would be in an exp PT, since I got Diabolos a few days after he was released and I was already lvl 75. I'll just throw out a guess that its nice for PTs with SCs and MBing. The magic attack bonus seems decent and the magic defence bonus should help curb a bit of damage from things like Bomb toss and Cursed Sphere.

Shining Ruby. This is actually a Carby buff and one that really sucks when you first get it. It adds 10% to Def and magic def (like we ever know that it is anyway -.-). So at earily lvls, its mediocer at best, but at later lvls its actually quite nice. Adding 10% defence to a Pro IVed, Tav taco'd PLD is a decent boost. Add Defender, Sentinal and Rampart and that a very nice boost in Defence. It lasts 3 min (I think) so you only would have to cast it once every few fights. At later lvls, when you might get to experiance the joy of main curing a PLD (no offence), Shining Ruby makes it much easier.

Interms of DD and MB, if someone tells says that you can't DD cause you suck at it, ask them if they can open any LvL 2 SC and close most of them as well without having to change weapons. All the Physical BPs before 65 can SC, and while they arent always as strong as a melees WS, being versitle can be just as good.

SMN MBs are so-so as others have said. There are some lvls where it makes BLMs cry, like lvl 60, and other times its hitting a giant marshmallow with a pillow. Avatars get really bad resists, since the only way to increase their magic accuracy is with Merits. The only 2 avatars who seem to break this are Carby and Diabolos. Meteorite does good damage thats rarely resisted for low cost and a free avatar and its one of the strongest light "spells" in the game that players can use. Leave Carby out if you have Refresh/Ballad/getting MP back through equip and MB it off of a Fusion or Light SC. Diabolos's Nether Blast does the exact same damage every time, going up a bit every lvl (508 @lvl 75). It is almost never resisted on exp mobs (only things that resist it really are NMs and HNMs). It is MBable, but by the time you get it, people only like to SC Darkness for a few more lvls it seems.

[angelalliforever]

Re: Melee vs Support

I suppose it really depends on your party. I haven't personally played SMN, but based on past experience, we generally would invite a SMN to act as Main (sorry) and/or Backup healer. DD was nice too, mob and avatar depending, but I have to say, Support was really the main function.

/slap /slap /slap /slap /slap the main healing part that is lol. But that's ok most people think that, but i don't do it >.>.

[Tirrock]

Re: Melee vs Support

[ quote]Insert text from other people's posts here.[ /quote]
(Remove spaces.)
Or just hit the quote button located on the person's post... It's sort of hard to tell when you're quoting people and when you're not. ><

[framerate]

Re: Melee vs Support

[ quote]Insert text from other people's posts here.[ /quote]
(Remove spaces.)
Or just hit the quote button located on the person's post... It's sort of hard to tell when you're quoting people and when you're not. ><

Yeah I read her (his?) post on the other SMN thread almost all the way through thinking (I feel like I've read this before... but it was posted today?) and it turned out she just cut and paste a larger thread that I HAD read. I got over halfway through before I realized her comment was at the bottom