Blood Pact Overhaul

[Karinya]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

Problem is, for the RDM and SMN that didn't mind main healing, the addition of SCH is a major kick to the balls thanks to the last update. You're not needed for healing and if you're not needed for that on ToA mobs, what are you needed for?

Sometimes its complaining for a fix to the situation that screws you more.

That's why I've been saying for years now that ToA mobs and the resulting underhunting chain #infinity parties are the real problem, and all this tinkering with one job or another is only rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

If monsters aren't dangerous, than all the jobs that depend on reducing or fixing the damage monsters can do to the party (dedicated tanks, healers, enfeeblers) will remain redundant crap that you want to get rid of to invite more DDs for faster kills.

There was a time when making your party too DD-heavy would leave your party face down in the dirt. That's when those defensive jobs were wanted. When players can get a competitive amount of exp by fighting monsters that hit back enough to matter, then defensive jobs will be wanted again. Not before.

RDM only masked part of the problem because they could switch from an enfeebling role to a healing/hasting role - and although they bitched about their only A skill becoming useless, they accepted the role shift anyway, because it was the only game in town. But RDMs haven't played like RDMs above level 60 (more than very occasionally) since ToAU came out, and SCH isn't going to change that.

[Malacite]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

if you introducte a new BP timer, MP use goes through the roof like formentioned.

This is such a piss poor argument why does everyone bother to say this? No one is forcing you to spam pacts. Just because the option is there doesn't mean you automatically have to. Other mages can blow through their MP just as quickly if not faster, but they don't so why would SMN?

[Eiyoko]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

I really have to agree with StarvingArtist here. There's no sense in giving any job class capabilities they'd never use. Besides, it might not be the summoner wanting to spam all that. On top of perpetuation, their party might want them to be spamming stuff.

Also, keep in mind that all enhancements that an avatar will use on your party is AoE. Many people I know seem to miss that and whine about how much MP it costs.

[Silent Howler]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

When people are building a party, for healing smn is at about number 4 on this list, after WHM, RDM and SCH.

Puppetmaster is actually a pretty decent healer as well post level 40. Certainly ranked above Summoner. And then there is also Dancer, but it's hard to find where they sit on the spectrum (again, certainly ranked above Summoner though, assuming they can hit the mob).

[Vatic]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

Puppetmaster is actually a pretty decent healer as well post level 40. Certainly ranked above Summoner. And then there is also Dancer, but it's hard to find where they sit on the spectrum (again, certainly ranked above Summoner though, assuming they can hit the mob).

I didnt know about pup, not partied much with them, but I would put Dancer along with PLd, more a front line healer.

But it kinda reinforces I think my under lineing point, SMN at this time doesnt doesnt really have anything that a party can do without. to coin a phrase I read on another forum some where "SMN doesnt have anything that a party really needs, you will never hear a party leader go, you know what, we need is a SMN"

I doint think its a matter of the Blood Packs being the problem, I am finding that the SMN is very situational based, in a XP party, many other jobs will be picked before a SMN will, but, with that said, on things like CoP, having a SMN in the party is very helpful.

Now, this last thing I am going to say, I am guessing I am going to get a lot of stick for, and also, I am guessing that I am just bringing up old trains of thought. But if you think about it, putting the Avatars to one side, and just looking at the Spirts, between them, we do have almost a complete BLM spell list, baring -ra spells. I would suggest that rather than overhaul the bloodpacks, allow the SMN to select the spell the element can cast, but there should be 2 restrictions to this.

1) You can not cast the same spell twice in a row.
2) The Cast timer for spirits doesnt change.

What I would like this is mean is, you summon Thunder Spirit, Set it to attack. Then you go in to the pet ablilties and select the spell you want it to cast. Then once the spirit timer is up, it casts the selected spell.

If you dont set a spell, then the spirit behaves excatly how it does at the moment.

If this was the case, I would consider the idea of having a Light Spirit out while main healing, just for the extra spells, I can only do Cure III, but the light Spirit at my lvl, could do cure V.

Ok, thats my bit said for now, preparing foe lost of people to rip me appart now. lol.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

That's why I've been saying for years now that ToA mobs and the resulting underhunting chain #infinity parties are the real problem, and all this tinkering with one job or another is only rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

If monsters aren't dangerous, than all the jobs that depend on reducing or fixing the damage monsters can do to the party (dedicated tanks, healers, enfeeblers) will remain redundant crap that you want to get rid of to invite more DDs for faster kills.

There was a time when making your party too DD-heavy would leave your party face down in the dirt. That's when those defensive jobs were wanted. When players can get a competitive amount of exp by fighting monsters that hit back enough to matter, then defensive jobs will be wanted again. Not before.

RDM only masked part of the problem because they could switch from an enfeebling role to a healing/hasting role - and although they bitched about their only A skill becoming useless, they accepted the role shift anyway, because it was the only game in town. But RDMs haven't played like RDMs above level 60 (more than very occasionally) since ToAU came out, and SCH isn't going to change that.

Underhunting has always been the trend for burn PTs, even without the EXP bonus from Sanction, it was always better EXP per hour than ramming your head against IT++ constantly with a SC/MB system. I thought by cripping arrowburn back when RNGs were dominant, the problem was solved, but WARs and MNKs just stepped up and took thier place. And this was well before ToA, ToA just made it mainstream. KRT MNK PTs were no different.

But its far too late to go back on fixing most of of this now, its largely why the initial ranged adjustment was so vhemently hated by most players - SE had let it stand for so long that taking it away only made the initial mistake they made it look worse, then they made it look really bad by overnerfing ranged attacks.

SE's adjustments to RNG since have more than made up for the error, but those were two of the largests errors they made with the game. I think they really learned from that.

I think they realize that if they break the burn trend by changing mobs and such now, it won't be very well recieved, so instead, they're advocating people take a smaller approach to PTing, what's more is that the Signet and Sigil buffs actually encourage you to not go 6/6 in each PT, but with less.

The WotG stronghold camps actually offer mages a chance to play thier roles to the fullest, I think. Nothing in those zones are terribly weak and you can just walk in to a place like Castle O and work the place from bottom floor to top and make about 15k on your way up. The VT mobs there are pretty tough too, they WILL link. SC/MB will bring them down faster than going without. The mobs won't croak as easily as colibri, either.

The opportunities are out there, its just a matter of whether you've chosen to take the easy way out (ToA) or not.

[Malacite]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

Yet again you take it to the extremes...

Spamming pacts = a lot of enmity on the avatar and you basically blow through your MP. Now, by spamming I mean hitting those DD pacts back-to-back alongside the healing and whatever else you may wish to do.

It's really hard to say whether or not there ought to be penalties for the SMN itself for relentlessly using pacts (apart from the insane MP expenditure) because on the one hand, it's one of SMN's biggest advantages (no enmity for the SMN) but at the same time, it has potential to become very broken.


As for what to do between pacts, yah obviously SJ abilities or simply waiting while your avatar beats on the mob comes to mind. Like I said, I'm not saying we should axe /WHM's usefulness (why blow the MP on spring water just to remove poison from 1 PT member for example) just reduce the dependency on it.

[godsaiyan]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

Well IMO the smn is ok the way it is. Sure from lv 30 avatars get ridiculas with perputation cost but they skills become very gud. Take ifrit's Double punch as an example, on a EV mob or lower (havent tried toughs yet with this move) it deals around 300+ damage. I solo the smn and though im only lv 33 i tend to solo in a unique way, that works for me very well. And from lv 50 a gud smn shud never really run out of mp (got a mate whos lv 75 smn) as u are able to get the greatest gear of all imo, the penance set. Lv 51 gives u the elemental staves with their hidden effects and not to mention with lv 50 u get the job ability Elemental Siphon which gives u 100s of mp back in an instant.

I must admit i did feel at one point that smn was a bit gimped (seeing as it is my personal fave) but after seeing my mate reach 75 as well as looking at penance gear smns can in fact gain more mp than lose even with an avatar out, and also cut the cooldown time between each blood pact move

[Nataka]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

Well IMO the smn is ok the way it is. Sure from lv 30 avatars get ridiculas with perputation cost but they skills become very gud. Take ifrit's Double punch as an example, on a EV mob or lower (havent tried toughs yet with this move) it deals around 300+ damage. I solo the smn and though im only lv 33 i tend to solo in a unique way, that works for me very well. And from lv 50 a gud smn shud never really run out of mp (got a mate whos lv 75 smn) as u are able to get the greatest gear of all imo, the penance set. Lv 51 gives u the elemental staves with their hidden effects and not to mention with lv 50 u get the job ability Elemental Siphon which gives u 100s of mp back in an instant.

I must admit i did feel at one point that smn was a bit gimped (seeing as it is my personal fave) but after seeing my mate reach 75 as well as looking at penance gear smns can in fact gain more mp than lose even with an avatar out, and also cut the cooldown time between each blood pact move

Wow, okay,

1. Penance is NOT a gear set that is easy to get. Penance Robe costs 8m on my server and is never on the auction house.

2. "It's fine at 75" is a really bad thing, actually. I think most would say SMN is good at 75, which is great, all jobs should be good at 75, but how do you get to 75 if you suck from 1-74? I knew someone, and i wish I would stop giving bard and black mage as examples but whatever, that would not invite bards until levle 55+ because he deemed them useless before that. Assuming everyone thought like him, how would a bard get to level 75? Black mages suffer a similar problem in that after a certain point, no one wants you. They want you when you need to do end game but before that you're SOL. Paladins have it to, once a paladin hits ToAU TP-burn levels no one wants you, they want you at 75 with EPIC LOOTZ already so that you can tank gods but they wont invite you to a merit party.

I dont know what the fix summoner needs is, I'm not a developer for this game. I just know that summoner needs SOMETHING to give it a reason to be in a party besides as a healer, since now more than ever there are much better healers available, especially with the advent of level sync one is almost always available. It doesnt even really need to be as a DD, if they could just boost their healing capacity I think we'd be set. Maybe have Carby's healing BPs on a smaller timer and heal for more, I dunno.

[Armando]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

Paladins have it to, once a paladin hits ToAU TP-burn levels no one wants you, they want you at 75 with EPIC LOOTZ already so that you can tank gods but they wont invite you to a merit party.

It's been about a year since I hit 75 on PLD but everyone and their mother wanted to invite me. I got invites even when not seeking. Not as much as I imagine a BRD would get, but I never went hungry for invites.

Your example still holds for BLM, was just throwing that out.

[godsaiyan]

Re: Blood Pact Overhaul

Wow, okay,

1. Penance is NOT a gear set that is easy to get. Penance Robe costs 8m on my server and is never on the auction house.

Well I admit it is an expensive set but the normal qulaity , the Austere set is a lot cheaper, like 30k on my server 4 the robe and is on the AH about 1-2 times each week. The smn is a great job and there r ways with the rite gear where u can cut the cooldown time. smn doesn't need wot ur suggesting, coz as another person said, i forget who, if SE were to do that, the smn wud b over powered. I wud love the smn with more avatars, which is unlikely to happen but other than that, it is a great job the way it is. just look at wiki and some smn gear. ull then understand y so many r against any more improvements for the smn