My Thoughts on Summoner

[Rain_Blade]

Everyone has their bad/good thoughts, bad/good suggestions, and their bad/good days on Summoner. I've never really posted what I thought on it though so I guess I'll do it now. Obviously, I'm going to expect people that might not agree with me or people who don't like that I say.

The Tier Spells and Merit Blood Pacts

Most people think this is useless. I think it's wonderful sometimes. The more TP we get on the avatar, the more damage the Blood Pact does. That's nice. People mainly think it's useless because...

1. Using it right away sucks. Although I believe that's true, but I don't believe it's bad altogether.

2. It's a waste of time to build up. Yes, it's a waste of time to build TP for if you're only planning to use that spell for the whole fight. You can still use the Physical Blood Pacts while building up TP. Physical BPs don't use up TP from the avatar. I consider the Tier Spells and Merit Blood Pacts to be the Blood Pacts you'd use later in your meleeing when you have TP so that you can do a lot of damage. The problem with this is avatar perpetuation and MP cost of BPs.


A Way to Make Our Avatars Stay Out Longer

Square-Enix said they want our avatars to stay out longer. A lot of people are mad at the fact that they still didn't update us with that. In my opinion, whatever they say isn't to be expected too soon. SE said they'd either need to reduce avatar perpetuation or give us more MP. In my opinion, giving up more MP will give us more invites as Healers. I don't mind healing as long as I don't get invited as healer like 95% percent of the time. Plus, with a rdm it's nice to DD/heal.

I suggest they reduce avatar perpetuation and/or make our MP costs of the BPs similar to Fenrir's MP costs. All of his BP costs (except Eclipse Bite) is around the 20s and 50s which is very nice.


The Elementals

I'm not creative enough to know a way to adjust these, but all I can think of is reduce perpetuation costs of these OR keep the perpetuation table of the elementals and reduce the timers (I want to say by half or 1/4).

Blood Pact Timers and Hmp

I kind of argue with myself whether the Blood Pact - gear is necessary. Most of us /heal after we use a Blood Pact and we want to heal enough for our next Blood Pact. 1 minute seems nice to have time to /heal for your mp. Reducing your timer means reducing the time you /heal between BPs. The ony problem I see with this is that parties sometimes care about you using your BPs faster.

The Wonderful Things about Summoner That I Love

A lot of people talk about the things that annoy them about their job. I'd just like to say my thoughts on what I love about it.

1. I love having summons. I just love being able to summoner a summon by your side and use all kinds of spells.

2. Almost instant cast. As soon as we hit that BP, it'll use it in like 2-3 seconds which is very nice.

3. Free carby. Of course I'd love a free avatar. ^^

4. Our versatility. I love versatile jobs because you can choose from a list of roles of what you want to do.

5. The Damage and the BP looks. I love the damage and how the BPs look. ^^

6. Carby solo. This is just a great thing to do. It's nice finding our what a job CAN solo so that you can solo while looking for party.

7. The AF look. Others may disagree, but I think the AF looks hot. Lol.

8. Being able to still attack with your avatar. Although our melee sucks, I still do it. Lol. I don't do it in parties though.

9. We don't need to buy BP spells. I just love that... That saves me money. Although, fame-gaining makes up for that. Heh.

10. Our Mp pool. Isn't it nice looking at that large MP? Likewise for other job's HP.

11. Just the job itself. I just love it...JUST LOVE IT. ^^

So, those are my 2 cents on Summoner. Hehe. Take care.

[DakAttack]

Re: My Thoughts on Summoner

I was expecting this to be a BRP-style suggest-a-thon.

Good to see that people still enjoy the job. I always thought it was fun until people made me the main heal at level twenty.

[Malacite]

Re: My Thoughts on Summoner

I adore SMN, but I won't touch it until SE comes through with their promises. I want to play with my avatars and not just main heal as WHM v.2 all the time tyvm SE.


That said, I do have a few ideas;

- Increase avatar TP gain. They gain TP *far* too slowly (8 per hit) for their perp cost. Yes, their cost is rather high, but their TP gain is also obscenely low. Also, avatars should no longer lose TP when not engaged (total BS...)

- An overhaul of avatar melee. It's not just their TP gain that's the problem but accuracy and damage too. The celestial avatars should all do elemental damage too with each swing. They're gods after all.

- The base damage on Tier II/IV nukes should be greatly increased. Yes, elemental magic is BLM's domain, but BLM isn't limited to casting once a minute or a god.

- Resting while an avatar/spirit is out. Currently the game forces a SMN to get back up. It would be great to be able to keep an avatar out adding to the damage. Just because they drain MP isn't really all that good an excuse to me.

- Change the level 70 BPs so that they can form skill chains, preferbly light and darkness with respect to each avatar's element. e.g., Flaming Crush will open/close Light, while Rush will make darkness. Any two BP's of the same category should work too, so long as it isn't the same BP (e.g. Chaotic Strike to Flaming Crush)


EDIT: Okay, that last one might be a bit extreme, but I do think they should be able to chain (maybe not 2 BP in the same category as I said above; we don't want to eclipse SAM here)

[Vyuru]

Re: My Thoughts on Summoner

- Resting while an avatar/spirit is out. Currently the game forces a SMN to get back up. It would be great to be able to keep an avatar out adding to the damage. Just because they drain MP isn't really all that good an excuse to me.

Actually I think this would be great, if you could rest while having an Avatar out I'd think it would be a non issue to have it out meleeing.

I can't think of any negatives to it at any rate, you are still limited by BloodPact timers.

[Malacite]

Re: My Thoughts on Summoner

Subtle Blow for avatars wouldn't be a bad thing either. As it stands they give I believe 10 TP last I heard per hit to the mob?

[Rain_Blade]

Re: My Thoughts on Summoner

The resting while mp is drained is nice. I just wonder if ppl will start envying that and ask for /healing during dia, poison, bio, etc effect. Also, I didn't know Subtle Blow gives TP to them every hit. I thought it decreases the foe's TP each hit by a certain percent. I could be wrong. Also, those are nice ideas, Malacite.

[Gobo]

Re: My Thoughts on Summoner

Also, avatars should no longer lose TP when not engaged (total BS...)

I just tested this, since I didn't think I had missed something after playing SMN for 2 years, but this is completely untrue. Avatars keep TP until they are dismissed or use a Healing/Nuking BP.

The problem with the Skillchain thing is that even with the ones at lower levels, few people use them and even worse, know that Avatars can do that. With the current trend of TP burn type PTs (seen it happen at lower levels too), the Skillchains wouldn't really offer much that would make them more appealing.

The nukes, for their level, are perfectly fine. Until ~65, coincidentally, they are on par with BLM single target nuking and MBing (obviously meaning the lvl 60 nukes). At least that was my experience while leveling SMN.

For the resting thing, while I can see it being very useful, I can also see it being game breaking. If I sent my avatar out, then rest, it wouldn't be very long before my HMP started to counter the MP drain. Then an alliance of SMN can just send 18 Garuda at things and have a Whispering Wind rotation to keep the Garuda alive, while their MP stayed nice and healthy, in case all hell broke loose.

If Avatars either attacked faster (like actually equivalently to a weapon that gives 8% TP a hit) or gained TP based on their attack delay (i think its equivalent to a GK or GS), it would be a nice step in the right direction.

(Also wouldn't mind if the merit BPs had an innate 100% TP bonus hehehe)

[Rain_Blade]

Re: My Thoughts on Summoner

I just tested this, since I didn't think I had missed something after playing SMN for 2 years, but this is completely untrue. Avatars keep TP until they are dismissed or use a Healing/Nuking BP.

The problem with the Skillchain thing is that even with the ones at lower levels, few people use them and even worse, know that Avatars can do that. With the current trend of TP burn type PTs (seen it happen at lower levels too), the Skillchains wouldn't really offer much that would make them more appealing.

The nukes, for their level, are perfectly fine. Until ~65, coincidentally, they are on par with BLM single target nuking and MBing (obviously meaning the lvl 60 nukes). At least that was my experience while leveling SMN.

For the resting thing, while I can see it being very useful, I can also see it being game breaking. If I sent my avatar out, then rest, it wouldn't be very long before my HMP started to counter the MP drain. Then an alliance of SMN can just send 18 Garuda at things and have a Whispering Wind rotation to keep the Garuda alive, while their MP stayed nice and healthy, in case all hell broke loose.

If Avatars either attacked faster (like actually equivalently to a weapon that gives 8% TP a hit) or gained TP based on their attack delay (i think its equivalent to a GK or GS), it would be a nice step in the right direction.

(Also wouldn't mind if the merit BPs had an innate 100% TP bonus hehehe)

I think Malacite said it as an idea. For now, I just enjoy Summoner while it's still there to play. ^^