Summoner Update

[Telera]

Re: Summoner Update

take the time to cap it early... You'll get further behind as you level up. I kept mine capped until level 35... then I got way behind

I kept mine capped up until late 40's/50. After 50 it seemed to really slow down, plus I couldn't seem to find anyone who knew if cap changed after 50. I know for some melees, the amount of points needed to cap per level jumps from 3 to 5, but no one I asked knew if Summoning Magic is the same. I still have no idea. I've looked through FAQs on the job, never seems to get mentioned.

Atm, I'm at 170 summoning magic skill at level 60. I think I'm still horribly off from cap, and I've been working on it with a '3 a day' approach. I try to get 3 points a day, and that's it. Seems to have worked well. I'm hoping at update either the rate will increase, or I can just farm with Carby and make gil while skilling up at the same time. I guess I'll figure out cap when the number turns blue. :p

But yeah, definitely take the time to cap early on, or else you're just going to fall so far behind that it will become a horrendous undertaking to even catch back up, much less cap out.

[Hellrazzor]

Re: Summoner Update

oww lol 66 smn and your smn skill is still above mine the 3a day is good bu for some reson 65+ i can only get 1 skill per hour /sigh as for MP Vs. ninja moves MP is better because it dont cost gil and u dont have to worry about how many u have left or the invent. space the only move that rockson ninja is utsusemi and ven then u have to keep getting more and more whats better the spell Blink or Utsusemi anyone?

[Shirai]

Re: Summoner Update

Hellrazzor I have real trouble understanding what you're writing there.

@ Telera

After level 50 skill ups slow down a lot, I get about 1 level every hour of summoning/releasing if I'm lucky.
Most of the time I'm doing it for 1.5 hours sometimes even 2 or 3 to get one level, which is really annoying.
Sometimes I go through 2 MP pools without getting even a 0.1 skill up.
(1169 MP x2 of just summoning/releasing... ouch that's a real waste of time.)

I'm trying to cap my skill before the update will happen, but to be honest I don't have much faith in getting those last 10 levels.

What I'm really hoping is next to making the BP's giving you a skill up they will also adjust the frequence of the skillups we are gonna get.

[Tirrock]

Re: Summoner Update

I know for some melees, the amount of points needed to cap per level jumps from 3 to 5, but no one I asked knew if Summoning Magic is the same. I still have no idea. I've looked through FAQs on the job, never seems to get mentioned.

It does jump. Cap is 269. I think it's 4 to 5 points to cap after 50. I know a website that can give better information than that though, I just have to find it...

Here it is:
http://www.ausystem.org/~aushacho/gbox/ff/skill-e.html
5 a level from 51 to 60, 4.10 a level from 61-75.

I'm glad they're making summoning magic skill easier to gain. If they kept it the way it was, it'd seriously suck for SMN's on their way to 75.

[Telera]

Re: Summoner Update

@ Shirai

Oh, yeah, the three a day method takes me hours. Sometimes, it's odd, I'll get a bunch of skill ups back to back or within short order of one another and then I'll go an hour, hour and a half with nothing. But I just do it on my days off in dedicated fashion, and try to squeeze in at least one point before or after my work day on days I work. It *seems* the method someone was researching some time back about days and avatars related to that day helps. I've consistently gotten larger skill ups following that method than when I don't. The slowing down after 50 is half the reason I'm so god-awful gimped now at 60. x_x I remember capping before that took a while, but the time between skill ups didn't seem so long. But I'm keeping at it. But you, I pity you. >.< It's got to be even slower at 75. Especially the last 10 as the game is stingy. I haven't levelled in a while, probably will start up again soon, but I'd really prefer to cap before I did that. Here's hoping that it gets faster along with having more ways to do it.

@ Tirrock

Thanks for clearing that up. o.o I've got quite a mountain ahead of me to climb. Tempted to wait until update, but then there's all this time that I'm not levelling and might as well be doing something. Plus, poor, pathetic me still doesn't have Fenrir and I want to feel I'm at least half-assed. I'm horribly self-conscious about the Fenrir thing. This is the job I've wanted to be since FFT. At the same time, I want to actually participate in my Fenrir fight, so I've somewhat Catch 22'd myself. Damned if I do, damned if I don't.

I've found one thing to make skilling up more fun, though. Impromptu summoner skill up get togethers. My traditional skill up spot is outside the gate in West Ronfaure, and one day, one by one, about three other summoners of varying levels joined me and we all chatted and shared stories and advice while skilling. Made it seem to go faster. I need to get another one going. I had alot of fun that day.

Yay, in the time it took me to write this (granted back and forth b/w this, IM, and the game. I'm on PS2, so no Windower worries) I gained a whole .4. :p

[SharMarali]

Re: Summoner Update

It's weird... I completely stopped trying to skill up summoning around level 32 when I realized it served no purpose except to frustrate me.

Yet my summoning skill is higher than a LOT of other high level summoners I know. It's 20 levels below the cap with no equipment, and a couple of levels above the cap with gear. So it's capped for a 70 summoner, anyway.

But I know a lot of other 70+ summoners with their skill absolutely nowhere near mine. I actually have a few friends who leveled SMN together in this weird PT of their own design who just reached 70 last week. None of them has summoning skill over 200. They're all hovering around 160-175.

I can't really explain this at all. I don't really PT very much and HAVEN'T since reaching 75. I tend to solo back lost exp or just eventually get it back over time hunting other stuff like coffer keys or helping others with stuff. I use SMN about .. I'd say 50-60% of the time for endgame activities, using RDM the rest of the time.

Given all of this, I think I summon LESS often than an average SMN who is PTing and summoning every minute or so. Yet my skill is somehow ALMOST capped. Maybe I'm living well, I dunno. :D

[Shirai]

Re: Summoner Update

It's weird... I completely stopped trying to skill up summoning around level 32 when I realized it served no purpose except to frustrate me.

Yet my summoning skill is higher than a LOT of other high level summoners I know. It's 20 levels below the cap with no equipment, and a couple of levels above the cap with gear. So it's capped for a 70 summoner, anyway.

But I know a lot of other 70+ summoners with their skill absolutely nowhere near mine. I actually have a few friends who leveled SMN together in this weird PT of their own design who just reached 70 last week. None of them has summoning skill over 200. They're all hovering around 160-175.

I can't really explain this at all. I don't really PT very much and HAVEN'T since reaching 75. I tend to solo back lost exp or just eventually get it back over time hunting other stuff like coffer keys or helping others with stuff. I use SMN about .. I'd say 50-60% of the time for endgame activities, using RDM the rest of the time.

Using summoner a lot and soloing a lot has really helped me to keep skill on par a little.
I solo'd or duo'd/trio'd 90% of my 55/60>75 career on bombs/snolls which helped keeping skill up a lot by resummoning carby/avatars whenever they died.
As far as endgame activities go, my LS asks me to use summoner more then my white mage.
I still solo a lot indeed to get lost exp back.

Given all of this, I think I summon LESS often than an average SMN who is PTing and summoning every minute or so. Yet my skill is somehow ALMOST capped. Maybe I'm living well, I dunno. :D

As far as partying on smn goes I only do that either in an all smn KRT/Aura pot party or when I am really desperate for exp.
In parties I don't get to summon much at all, occasionally a Carby for healing Ruby II.

[Telera]

Re: Summoner Update

Early on in parties, I didn't summon much. But I'd say... eh, around about the time of Earthen Ward, maybe a few levels before that, I was allowed to summon alot, if only for buffs and MB. There was a party in Yhoator that let me open a SC. :p Despite that, in the last few parties I had before I stopped levelling for a while, I would still only gain maybe .2 or .4 total for the whole time. And that would be back to back summoning. Garuda- Blink (because my b/f seemed to have an affinity for letting Colibri eat him on the way back to camp) and Titan- Stoneskin. Over and over. At first I was trio rotating that with Hastega, but we had a Red Mage friend of ours in the party, and he said to just let him take care of it. After a while, I got to do some Meteorites with Carby, and occasionally used his little healing move just to top someone's HP off and save the whm a little MP.

Most of what I have gained in summoning magic has been from duos with my b/f to either regain lost exp, or when we just weren't in a party mood- playing around while farming/helping on quests, and chain summoning outside with nothing better to do.

Makes me feel odd that my summoning magic is above those 70's that Shar knows. o.o I thought I was horribly behind. Well, I am...but I'm working on it. Working last night I got to 174. I think I'm .6 into 175, standing in the dunes skilling up yet again atm. I'd like to cap before update, but I really don't know if it's going to be possible, even w/ my 3-4 levels a day method.

[Hellrazzor]

Re: Summoner Update

whats better Ususemi or Blink(spell /whm)

[Telera]

Re: Summoner Update

Utsusemi. Blink is rather selective and sporadic with what it blocks. Utsusemi just blocks the first 3 (or more, depending on the spell) hits. Unless it's a -ga spell or an Astral Flow or somesuch. That usually rips all shadows off at once. I think some other attacks do that as well.

[Shirai]

Re: Summoner Update

Utsusemi. Blink is rather selective and sporadic with what it blocks. Utsusemi just blocks the first 3 (or more, depending on the spell) hits. Unless it's a -ga spell or an Astral Flow or somesuch. That usually rips all shadows off at once. I think some other attacks do that as well.

Utsusemi-Ni has 5 shadows but only when it's used on Ninja main job.
Subbed it has the same amount of Shadows as Ichi does, 3.

As indeed the difference between Blink and Utsusemi,
Utsusemi blocks the first 3 hits, and indeed AoE's can strip a couple or even all shadows.

Blink from a WHM or RDM spell gives 2 shadows which randomly absorb an attack which can be either the first 2 or none at all before you kick the bucket.
Garuda's Blink (Aerial Armor) gives 3 shadows, but has the same properties as the regular Blink spell, although in my experience it stops just a tad more then the spell.
Next to that the regular Blink lasts 3/4 minutes while Aerial Armor lasts a total of 15 minutes. (Pre-patch)

As for soloing on summoner if you would be going there I'd say keep your whm subjob for anything checking Decent Challenge or Higher.
The cure spells, reraise (66+), self teleport capabillities (72+), status cures (Poisona,Paralyna,etc.) and Bar- element spells are just too valuable to sacrifice.

[Lmnop]

Re: Summoner Update

Utsusemi-Ni has 5 shadows but only when it's used on Ninja main job.
Subbed it has the same amount of Shadows as Ichi does, 3.

Utsusemi: Ni is 4 shadows NIN main, 3 subbed.

Just a small correction. Carry on.

[Hellrazzor]

Re: Summoner Update

lol when is the update ????? like the real date

[Tirrock]

Re: Summoner Update

As far as I know, they haven't given one. People are guessing the 23rd though. Some people believe that FFXI usually does updates on mondays, and the same people believe they would have announced it by now if it was next monday. 23rd sounds as good of a date as any to me though.

I don't remember what my summoning skill was at when I first hit level 75. Probably 180-200. It was just too much of a hassle to really bother with. I decided to not really worry about it (since I saw for myself it did nothing) and just let it take care of itself.

[Grandsummoner_Kairos]

Re: Summoner Update

I've seen some times where they didn't actually announce the update until the day before. We'll just have to wait and see, but SE should know that i don't really consider the 23rd "mid-otcober" as that date is damn near "late-october"