Summoner/White mage GAH!

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Summoner/White mage GAH!

For better or for worse, smn is a hybrid/versatile job like rdm. With few exceptions (70+ and Astral Flow in early-mid game) it's never going to be able to deal damage better than a dedicated DD job like blm, nor is it as good of a healer as whm or as good of a buffer as say brd or cor. What it can do is provide all three of those things in smaller doses and shift its focus to give the party whatever it needs the most.

Speaking on the buff issue just for a moment, COR and BRD are very position oriented with their buffs and in most cases, it works out and isn't awkward.

The way SMN is teathered to thier avatar to initiate any buff is absolutely retarded and very awkward, to the point of being more of a nuiciance than a melee RDM ("I'll refresh myself hurhurhur"). This is, at least, from my experience working with SMNs as COR and BRD.

SMN makes pacts with gods. I think SMN can afford having a greater distance from which to command thier avatars than a BST or PUP would thier pets. BST and PUP getting more up-close an personal makes sense. Since SMN's buffs are good for just about anyone, couldn't SE widen the range of these buffs to like, I don't know, maybe 33% wider than BRD's Harp range? Make it obnoxiously huge AoE.

SMN shouldn't have to run into the midst of the fight to buff people, they should be able to have thier avatars do it while they're safely on the backline and that AoE should still reach the backline.

Some new buffs for various avatars would be nice, too. Garuda, Titan, Leviathan, Diabolos and Fenrir seem to have really good ones, but Shiva, Ifrit, Ramuh and Carubuncle are a little lacking. I'm at a loss as to what they could be given to be more useful, but they need to have a little more action since i never see them called save for Astral Flow and really its only Shiva out of the four of them I see that for.

[Rain_Blade]

Re: Summoner/White mage GAH!

The way it's typically been with summoners in past FF games has been that to get their really powerful summons the character must beat the creature in battle first. In this way FFXI summoners really aren't that different.
The thing that frustrates me so much about playing summoner in XI is that without my summons I can do nothing. I have no other magic (from my main job) that I can call on which doesn't drain MP rapidly (I'm only 35 right now so my access to -perpetuation equipment is...limited at best). Plus I'm physically weak so melee is pretty much out of the question. And we all know how frustrating it can be to sit back and watch your avatar whiff four times in a row while you just spent all that MP on perp.
Actually now that I'm thinking of it, has anybody compared the resist rates of blm spells versus the acc of our avatars? Every time a blm's spell is resisted it's lowers his damage per MP ratio, and every time our avatars miss it lowers our damage per MP ratio. I'm betting that the blm would still outclass us on damage per MP, but that might be what SE was going for.

The part in bold is the exact same thing I thought. I think that's why they may be giving us Scythe in the WotG expansion since a mithra in full Summoner AF was wearing a scythe. Most likely it'll be around a Blm's Scythe skill or lower.