Blood Pact Overhaul

[Vyuru]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

Smn are pretty good as is, I think what we need to see is a little more summon independence from the summoner somehow.

Maybe make the summons a little bit like the elementals in that they cast spells independant of the summoner. Maybe make it so that each summon has a different focus on what spells it likes to cast or something as well. So for instance Leviathan may focus on healing/status removal while Garuda would focus more on Haste/DD/healing, and I dunno about the rest. Give Smns a reason to leave them out and leave the BP for the big stuff.

Maybe instead of BP being what summons do they become more of a guide for what the summoner wants the summon to do, otherwise the summon acts independantly of the smn.

Maybe acts independantly of the smn is a bad way to put it, maybe saying the summon freestyles party play unless the summoner uses a BP is better?

Actually it could be fun if you could set the summons to do different things kinda like the NPC system. Go Diabolos tank!

Anywho, just tossing stuff out randomly.

[Sabaron]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

1st to Rainblade. The New SMN update isn't just a method to increase your healing capacity. That's a totally negative way to look at it. For a naked, hume SMN75, as I have mentioned in another thread, you''ll be getting the equivalent of approximately 2.7mp per tick Refresh from Elemental Siphon. This gives you that extra mp that SMNs have been bitching about not having forever that would allow you to keep your avatar out continuously. The restriction of not being able to rest while using Sublimation from /SCH forces you to stand and further boosts your "Refresh" by about 1.6mp/tick naked which is equivalent to about +5.3hMP when resting which, while significantly weaker than resting where a SMN can push 63hMP for first tick or 18.9mp per tick Refresh-equivalent, is much more useful since you can't actually do anything while you're resting.

18.9mp per tick is a bit inflated since we can't rest continually. The question now becomes "What percentage of my time do I have to spend resting to equate to Sublimation's Refresh Potential?"

The answer is subject to your gear of course, but we're going to take our naked, unmerited, vanilla Hume SMN75/SCH37 who has about 890mp (give or take subjob mp). He gets 222mp from sublimation at a rate of 2mp/tick or 333 seconds and has to cast Regen II (33mp) to fix it and we have a 30 second wait in between uses of Sublimation so that's 189mp/363 seconds = 0.521mp/sec (1.562mp/tick).

We have to look at hmp in terms of tick-blocks, and we have to make an assumption or we have too many variables and everything gets over-complicated. We'll make two different assumptions for comparison: a 3-tick block (40 seconds resting yields 63+65+67 = 195mp/40sec or 4.875mp/sec) and a 5-tick block (60 seconds resting yields 63+65+67+69+71 = 335mp/60sec or 5.58mp/sec).

x is the fraction of my time I have to spend resting to make my hMP roughly equivalent to Sublimation.
5-tick block: x * 5.58 = 0.521 or 0.521/5.58 = 0.09 (9%)
3-tick block: x * 4.875 = 0.521 or 0.521/4.875 = 0.11 (11%)

So we can conclude that Sublimation (in the case of someone with +63hMP) is roughly equivalent to 10% rest time (i.e. a SMN/SCH needs to rest about 10% less than a SMN/WHM).

BTW the gear a SMN needs to get that:
Base: Clear mind V: +27
Dark Staff: +10
Yigit Turban: +2
Grandiose Chain/Beak Necklace +1: +2
Errant Houppelande: +5
Hierarch Belt/Qiqirn Sash: +2
Yigit Serawheels: +2
Goliard Clogs: +3
Relaxing Earring: +2
Magnetic Earring: +1
Wizard Cookie: +7
27+10+2+2+5+2+2+3+2+1+7 = 63hMP

I think a nice combination of Sublimation and a nice rest period will end up being the best bang for your buck. For instance Sublimate for 5.5 minutes (333 seconds), and then rest for 60 seconds...

393 second combined cycle yielding 189+335 = 524mp/393seconds * 3seconds/tick = 4mp/tick Refresh Equivalent. Babam... sounds lovely to me.

Remember if you have HQ Staff, using avatar of the day with Summoner's Doublet, Evoker's Ring, and Evoker's Pigachet's +1, you can get -8 Perpetuation or 13-8 = 5mp/tick Big Avatar cost. You want Garuda to fight while you're Sublimating right? Go for it. Your sublimation/rest cycle is paying for most of her and your auto-refresh takes care of the rest. You can use your Siphon to make up for Refresh and if you've got a Bard, you should be overflowing with mp, resting only 60 seconds out of every 6.5 minutes--15% of the time which means Garuda is out 85% of the time. How can you not be a happy SMN?

I still stand behind the SMN improvement of adding elemental damage (like an Enspell based on SMN skill) to each of the Avatar's attacks.

I will agree, though, that a few of the more useless pacts are in need of a bit of a boost--even if it ends up making them cost more.

-----------------------------------
One more edit and I promise I'm done (for now):

I hope someone wants to try this (and report back of course). Do a meripo as Main Heal (not Colibri please) SMN/SCH with a BRD refresher. See if you can Parse out your avatar's damage and try to ball park how much time you rest (that's a toughy, I know). Then report back the results. Remember that you need to start resting as soon as you activate Sublimation the second time so that those 30 seconds of downtime coincide closely with your first two rest ticks.

Remember, at Fanfest (can't remember which one), SE stated they wanted SMNs to have a reason to keep their avatars out more often instead of Summon/Banish techniques. Malacite's changes will only increase the Summon/Banish effect which runs contrary to SE's intentions for SMN. This MP boost is right in line with it. I think, like Alan Greenspan and the interest rate, if they need to bump SMN again to get them to whip their avatars out for fighting, I'm hoping for the perma-Enspell upgrade.

[Thoris]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

i need to agree with malacite.

For only able to do 1 attack per min and do really low dmg or even miss.

for example. In the dunes as a lv 17 smn my carby will do poison nails. If he hits him he might do 38 dmg to the mob 1 TIME PER MIN.

That is just retarded, It should at least do like 70+ dmg varying on skill of course. The dmg needs to scale alot higher and there dmg output for melee needs to be higher

[Sabaron]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

i need to agree with malacite.

For only able to do 1 attack per min and do really low dmg or even miss.

for example. In the dunes as a lv 17 smn my carby will do poison nails. If he hits him he might do 38 dmg to the mob 1 TIME PER MIN.

That is just retarded, It should at least do like 70+ dmg varying on skill of course. The dmg needs to scale alot higher and there dmg output for melee needs to be higher

SMN Merits can be used to significantly improve avatar melee output:

• Avatar Physical Accuracy (+3 per upgrade) Max +15
• Avatar Physical Attack (+2 per upgrade) Max +10

The damage does scale with level, but remember that SMN is not intended to be a BST or PUP. SMN has too many other abilities for it's avatars to ever come close to the DPS of a PUP or BST in attack mode.

Carbuncle is also quite weak in comparison to the beefier avatars like Fenrir and Garuda. Reserve your judgment until you see how well you do with more advanced avatars. When you see Predator Claws you'll understand.

[Rain_Blade]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

1st to Rainblade. The New SMN update isn't just a method to increase your healing capacity. That's a totally negative way to look at it.

It wasn't from my point of view. It was imitation from most of the Summoner's reaction to the results.

[Thoris]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

i was a Lv 70 smn, but i quit. i just started over. now pup can buff heal, nuke, melee. Do u think its weird that pup can do all of that and still out-dmg us by a huge margin.

[Sabaron]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

i was a Lv 70 smn, but i quit. i just started over. now pup can buff heal, nuke, melee. Do u think its weird that pup can do all of that and still out-dmg us by a huge margin.

PUP can't buff.

Automatons can only be resummoned on a 20 minute timer if they die.

PUP can't tank or kite as efficiently as SMN.

PUP can't change roles quickly (they have to Unsummon, Re-equip, and Redeploy, resetting their recast timer).

PUP's pet doesn't follow orders as well.


Yes, PUP is powerful, and I'm not disagreeing that SMN needs a bit of a kick in the damage department. I'm just saying that since SE indicated that they want SMN pet melee that increasing pact usage will not be the direction they move in. Thus my hypothesis that the next adjustment will be some kind of melee buff like Enspell damage.

[Thoris]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

PUP can't buff.

Automatons can only be resummoned on a 20 minute timer if they die.

PUP can't tank or kite as efficiently as SMN.

PUP can't change roles quickly (they have to Unsummon, Re-equip, and Redeploy, resetting their recast timer).

PUP's pet doesn't follow orders as well.


Yes, PUP is powerful, and I'm not disagreeing that SMN needs a bit of a kick in the damage department. I'm just saying that since SE indicated that they want SMN pet melee that increasing pact usage will not be the direction they move in. Thus my hypothesis that the next adjustment will be some kind of melee buff like Enspell damage.

Ok they cant really buff that well, but at kiting they are very good. Fighting krin i had valor kite him with full evasion attachments, Def attachments, and the regen attachment and you have a very good kiter that will still attack and stay alive.

Avatars have very very weak Def, automations have a bit better better withe the right gear. Also dont count at Role reversal and Repair.

There are many smns that i know of that stoped doing sky and sea as smn, and go pup instead.

[Malacite]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

Nah not necessarily Sab.


As it stands, summoning the avatars themselves is fairly cheap. That's something that could (and IMO should) be changed along with the previous proposals. Lower the cost of perpetuation, and change the cost of pacts a bit (some lower, some possibly higher) but jack the cost to actually bring out the avatars.

That, along with a few shared timers (maybe instead of a separate timer for each spell, put more pacts into more categories similar to DNC) should help to stem the trend of summon&release, as well as general boost to avatar DoT (preferably as you said through automatic enspell effects)


My biggest concern is still the job's dependency on SJ and the cast-and-release style. I'm not saying SMN should never sub WHM or SCH to cure people, far from it; just that they could stand to do so a bit less and use one of the 3 healing avatars (particularly Carbuncle) for main healing instead.


Am I the only one who finds it odd that the cost to actually summon these gods is so low? I think the cost to summon and maintain them should scale with level and skill. That is, the higher you get, the more it costs to bring them out, but the less it costs to maintain them once they're out. It kind of hurts a SMN who wants/needs to rip through avatars quickly (and will suck for the lv 20 mini forks ><) but this way it would be more practical to leave them out.

And god forbid they change it so a SMN can rest MP with an avatar out >_>

Maybe give them a new trait (that can be subbed or has to be merited?) to allow them to do so?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

My biggest concern is still the job's dependency on SJ and the cast-and-release style. I'm not saying SMN should never sub WHM or SCH to cure people, far from it; just that they could stand to do so a bit less and use one of the 3 healing avatars (particularly Carbuncle) for main healing instead.

Problem is, SE has somewhat defined PUP is the premire pet healer job now. DRG and SMN still have pets that heal, but not in such diverse ways as the Soulsoother automation.

[Malacite]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

I don't see how that's a problem.

WHM's been the "premiere" healer for ages, even though RDM and SCH can arguably do a better job, and SMN came first.

I really think there'd be enough differences between a SMN main healing with their avatar vs a PUP doing so with the automaton that it wouldn't really hurt PUP. Besides why not have one more job that can heal through its pet? Granted PUP has to cough up quite a good chunk of money and needs lv 50 to get the Soulsoother but still.

Raising the costs of summoning the avatars also helps to deal with one your "concerns" BBQ, which is the fact that avatars are basically expendable. I for one don't think SMN should be exempt from this rule given that PUP and DRG aren't, and BST (to a much lesser extent) aren't.

There are enough tools at SE's disposal to power up SMN in such a way as to make it more fun and shift the focus towards using the avatars and spirits more without over powering the job. It's by no means simple, but SE's had plenty of time to do so and come up with IMO quite minimal results. A series of bandaid fixes and new shinies here and there, but nothing that addresses the fundamental flaw that avatars just plain suck and that WHM has basically been a crutch for SMN to stand on the past 5 years.


The new Syphon ability is a step in the right direction but they really need to do more. Everyone plays SMN for the avatars, so why have they made it so unpracticle to keep 'em out? Just fix it so that we can keep them out more often and rely more on their powers than our sub job's.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

I don't see how that's a problem.

Of course not, overpowering the job isn't a problem at all. Let's just make SMN as MP efficient as DRG/Mage, give them all the single target cures, regens of Automations and let them have raw DD like BST pets. Totally balanced.

I really think there'd be enough differences between a SMN main healing with their avatar vs a PUP doing so with the automaton that it wouldn't really hurt PUP. Besides why not have one more job that can heal through its pet? Granted PUP has to cough up quite a good chunk of money and needs lv 50 to get the Soulsoother but still.

Highlighted for emphasis. Building the best automation takes a ton more work than obtaining all avatars combined. SMN challenges for his power - and SMN gets its best power at endgame, at the end of the SMNs journey (thematic consistancy). PUP has to pay through the nose, do ENMs or Assault like crazy to pimp out that automation.

Raising the costs of summoning the avatars also helps to deal with one your "concerns" BBQ, which is the fact that avatars are basically expendable. I for one don't think SMN should be exempt from this rule given that PUP and DRG aren't, and BST (to a much lesser extent) aren't.

Raising the cost of summoning, combined with the existing perputation cost, isn't helping SMN and forcing the summon/release trend you want to avoid even further.

There are enough tools at SE's disposal to power up SMN in such a way as to make it more fun and shift the focus towards using the avatars and spirits more without over powering the job. It's by no means simple, but SE's had plenty of time to do so and come up with IMO quite minimal results. A series of bandaid fixes and new shinies here and there, but nothing that addresses the fundamental flaw that avatars just plain suck and that WHM has basically been a crutch for SMN to stand on the past 5 years.

Again, SMN gets the peak of its power at endgame, touch that, try to bump it up in the eariler levels and you've unbalanced it for the rest of the game. SMNs gain ultimate power in exchange for frailty, that's always been the theme

And, for the millionth time, what better subjobs are there for SMN than WHM and SCH? You never answer this, you just come up with "fixes" that steal directly from other jobs.

[Malacite]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

Yeah because using Carbuncle to heal instead of Cure is sooooooo broken....

Raising the cost of summoning, combined with the existing perputation cost, isn't helping SMN and forcing the summon/release trend you want to avoid even further.

Yet again you're not even listening. I threw out raising the cost to summon them while lowering perpetuation costs relative to skill level as an idea. I don't see you offering anything other than criticism. Your last point isn't even valid, given that I'm not talking about changing what subjob should be best for SMN, but rather it's dependency on it. BIG DIFFERENCE.

Furthermore, this wouldn't do anything to SMN's power curve. It would still gain the better abilities as it goes along. I'm just calling for more accessibility to those powers. "YAY I CAN SUMMON A FREAKING GOD THAT DOES JACK SHIT WHILE MY TIMERS ARE DOWN!!!" >_>

Seriously there's just no fun in that. Oh yay, I get to do one or two things that are cool once or twice a minute then go right back to being a WHM... aww what's that? The BLM just did double my DMG with the same spell my avatar used? Well damn...

Aww look at at that, the DRK just shredded that mob while my avatar was doing less damage than I would have and feeding it 10 TP a hit...


etc. etc. I don't see why you're so opposed to the notion of keeping avatars out and relying more on their abilities. Why don't we just take provoke away from WAR while we're at it, or axe utsusemi altogether. Yeah that'll be fun...

Or maybe you'd like to see BRD and COR get a major nerf to lessen their impact on parties.

[Eiyoko]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

I don't see what all the fuss is about with Summoner. I think it operates just fine. Sure, SMN could probably use a boost, but it doesn't need anything drastic if you ask me.

As for the initial suggestion, it's good that SMN will get more to do at once in a small amount of time, but the downside is if we decide to use a good number of those abilities in a small amount of time, we can pretty much kiss our MP goodbye.

Also, an avatar is still considered a "pet". If you made the avatar too powerful, then to balance the job then the summoner itself would likely have to be weakened in some way or another...otherwise you're basically having two players for the price of one, and that'd be pretty unfair.

Also, considering the AI control SMN has over its pets compared to other jobs, I think the tradeoff works just fine.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

Yeah because using Carbuncle to heal instead of Cure is sooooooo broken....

Considering you can resummon Carbuncle as much as you want and a PUP can only resummon an automation every 20 minutes, it would be extremely broken. You don't seem to get the fact that other jobs have deal with large timers, spend notable sums of gil or both to make pet melee happen. SMN sits on its butt and resummons a god in far less time.

You claim to understand the differences between the jobs, but you're not showing it.

Yet again you're not even listening. I threw out raising the cost to summon them while lowering perpetuation costs relative to skill level as an idea. I don't see you offering anything other than criticism. Your last point isn't even valid, given that I'm not talking about changing what subjob should be best for SMN, but rather it's dependency on it. BIG DIFFERENCE.

You're not listening to your own ideas. EVEN IF you lowered perpetuation costs, the high cost of the avatars would force the MP issue. SMN just got two means of negating these costs further - you haven't even tried them yet, your SMN is only like 30, completely without Spirit Siphon - who are you to judge?

And my last point is extremely valid. You claim /WHM and /SCH defines SMN and that is a problem. What subjobs could redefine SMN? What does it really need to define it as a main job (sans the typical nostalgic BS)? Answer the question, stop dodging it.