Dev Tracker

[Trigun]

YES to adjusted timers
YES to controlling spirits
YES to better weapon skill
AND YES to new avatars even if its just reskinned Light Ixion and Cait Sith
Let us pray...

Spoiler: show

[Khamsin]

Pet to pet, SMNs avatars have the advantage of choosing which of their abilities to use, at the exact time they want.. But they fare very badly with white damage..
In contrast, pet wyverns don't do very much white damage either but the master kinda makes up for it. Now before we go into a discussion about the ways of a melee SMN, I think SMN would really be better off if BPs didn't have the 45s cap. I wouldn't mind if it was uncapped, or if it started with like 45s, or both. It's too slow now.

But thats besides the point for elementals. This puts fully merited ele cost SMN (like myself lol) perping at 3mp/tic. Perp cost had never been an issue, but this kinda gives us more freedom to gear for spirits at least. Problem is that they need a lot of m.acc to get them to even work decently.. And let's not start on their spell repertoire. In other words elementals still remain a useless feature instead of a benefit to the player. I wouldn't mind if the developed them into SMN pets that excelled in white damage tho. Would at least give us enough of a reason to keep them out.

What the hell is white damage?

[Alkar]

Like Spira said spirits need a lot more work before even considering meriting their perp. Not only do they have horrible accuracy but they're stuck at the 75 cap for absolutely no reason.
You can already have free spirits so what's the point exactly? I feel like Summoner should be redone from scratch. Keep the abilities but come up with a better design that fits 2012. Sadly they don't give a damn.
Oh and BALANCE!

[Spira]

lingo i borrowed from WoW.. its damage that isn't dealt thru a spell, job ability or WS. in FFXI's case, basically auto-attack

[Julian]

The problem with splitting each BP into its own timer, is that, well, it would require each bp to have its own timer, and smn has a shitton of bps.

Maybe after they overhaul their ability recast system.

But I doubt it.

[ringthree]

lingo i borrowed from WoW.. its damage that isn't dealt thru a spell, job ability or WS. in FFXI's case, basically auto-attack

To further explain, auto-attack damage shows up as white numbers in WoW, while anything from a special ability (as Spira said spell, job ability, WS, etc) shows up as yellow numbers. It is a term that has grown in use even outside of WoW.

[Lucavi]

If I were a summoner coming from other games, I'd be a little annoyed at how little "control" I have over my BP. Being able to use a single ability every 45 seconds is akin to being able to "suggest" moves that the Magus Sisters should perform in FFX. Its little wonder that they were made by the same company.

If they want to "balance" (ugh...) BP spam, all they'd have to do is incorporate some sort of fatigue meter that builds up with each command, and degrades rather quickly. Spam 5 things in a row and the Avatar becomes fatigued, ignoring the summoner's commands and ceases attacking until it recovers, but careful management of BPs would allow for relatively rapid ability use.

Anything that puts more control in the hands of the player is fine with me, even if it comes with a very "SE"-like penalty or limiter.

[Ophannus]

I mean inside Abyssea Avatars are pretty strong, Heavenly Strike does 4k+ and I've seen some 8-9k's with set effect/.

[Lucavi]

Every 45 seconds, though. I don't think power alone is enough to make a job feel fun. I'd much rather have a mix of power and control than simply power on a minute timer.

[Byrthnoth]

All of the Riftdross/cinder in Port Jeuno has sold and the minimum price I see now is 1mil. Did they tell the JPs what the tier 1 level 99 trials will be?

[Alkar]

I mean inside Abyssea Avatars are pretty strong, Heavenly Strike does 4k+ and I've seen some 8-9k's with set effect/.

Because Abyssea has Atmas that also work on pets and have huge effects. You don't get nearly the same amount from gear outside compared to other jobs.
Summoner is usually slapped on mage gear and the best they get is either +MP or skill.

[Damane]

I think SE's main problem with Summoner is how strong it is in hard fights without proc systems or relevant time limits. Take Walk of Echoes, for instance. SMN DPS is absolutely horrible, but they can sac pull anything and bore it to death before 45 minutes is up.

SMN Buffs:
* Halve avatar delay
* Double or Triple pre-fSTR Avatar base damage
* Reduce BP recast base to 45 seconds
* Increase SMN skill up rate. (I get 2 levels every 4 Pils or one level per hour spamming spirits... screw that).
* Edit the Sphere/Avatar's Favor code so that the avatar/Sphere user gains the effects of the Sphere/Favor
* Reduce/eliminate the Avatar's Favor penalties.
* Change Fenrir's Favor from M.Eva to Regain.
* Introduce useful Summoner gear (Avatar: STR+40 or something).

SMN Nerfs to stop us from just SMN burning every hard fight:
* Make a Caster's weakness cause any summon to spawn with 50% HP.
* Double Weakness would cause them to spawn with 10% HP.

Honestly, I thought that the whole Avatar's Favor thing was always kind of dumb. It should have been more like Spirit Surge, where you eat your avatar and then *you* provide the sphere for your party (and can call Avatars other than the one you ate and keep doing things like normal). How would giving SMN the equivalent of one song that they have to stay in AoE range to provide be overpowered?

I agree with all the above but I would do some other change to add, basicly overhaul the whole job:

- Demolish Bloodpact: Wards and add those Bloodpact as Summoning spells to the spell list of the SMN.
----> for example Hastega will be availabe in the spell list, as a summoning spell. The magic is cast via Summoning animation and the avatar shows short up to buff said person with that spell (or sleep said mob with spell whatever)
----> those spells are only dependend on summoning magic skill and each has their own recast/casting time (since they are spells)
----> an avatar doesnt have to be out for those spells, infact you can have an avatar out and use a bloodpact:ward spell from another Avatar.

- Reduce Bloodpact: Rage timer to 45 sec, makeing it possible to hit 15 sec with apropriate gear (enhance the cap)

- add a Job ability that lets the SMN fuse power frome the Avatars by giving him spells to cast (conept light light/dark arts). in this case the Spell list of the SMN is extended by spells of the element same as the avatar. This ability needs an avatar out.
----> haveing Carbuncle out and useing this Ability grants you: Cure I-VI, holy I-II, Banish I-IV, Banishga I-III, Dia I-III, Barluminra etc. in the spell list.
----> the effectivness of those spells however is dependent on enhancing, healing, dark, elemental, enfeebling and divine magic skill and NOT on summoning magic skill.
----> your avatar will recieve a penalty upon this (same penalty as Avatars Favor applies now)
----> dependant on which type of elemental spells you want or which spells you want determans which avatar you take out.
----> ability timer should be something around 1 min recast and 2 hour duration to allow for flexibility.

I dont know those 2 changes are drastic but would add way more flexibility to the job.

[SargentRemora]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...548#post267548

I am disappoint. Whoever meritted Elemental MP cost in the first place is a complete retard.

Because Abyssea has Atmas that also work on pets and have huge effects. You don't get nearly the same amount from gear outside compared to other jobs.
Summoner is usually slapped on mage gear and the best they get is either +MP or skill.

To be fair, since the 75 cap Summoner has been given a lot more gear options, even more so with the Synergised Abjuration gear (they actually made Zenith/Hadean useful for Summoner). It's pretty noticable when you pull out a 2k Heavenly Strike on some Voidwatch as opposed to other SMNs 1k (no set proc, and 1 Atmacite)

[arus2001]

If they want to "balance" (ugh...) BP spam, all they'd have to do is incorporate some sort of fatigue meter that builds up with each command...

I know I can be snarky at times, but I'd call that MP.

[NynJa]

the problem with BP- timer stuff, is while it coincides with the 26% gear haste cap, melee's and mages have other methods of getting more haste (JA/magic haste for melee, fast cast / magic haste for magic recast), whereas theres no other method of shortening BP timer delay. SE should allow BP-delay to go to 50% cap, to compensate for the fact that theres no other methods to further reduce BP delay.

[Kyte]

Avatars favour is also pritty useless, because of the range of it (and the bonuses arent that strong either). This job needs so much fixing I dont even know where to start lol. Its not flexible, it doesnt do good dmg, its slow. The only advantage it HAD was hatefree dmg, which in the age of "Hatereset-moves-spam" is pritty much pointless anyway.

Some are actually pretty strong (for example, Ifrit's favor can reach 24%+ DA, equal to that of the corresponding COR roll roll with a WAR in the party) - but ya, the range needs to be increased and the -attack and -MAB effect on the avatar should just be abolished.

Titan's should be reworked into PDT
Shiva's just needs to be strengthened or turned into straight magic attack.
Diabolos's is fine
Carbuncle's is fine
Ramuh's is fine

and the rest are too inconvenient to test.

[Greatguardian]

Just ditch the existing BP system and make BPs "Spells" that the summoner insta-casts on a monster/player to designate it as the target for a corresponding Avatar BP. This would allow Avatars to scale their BP timers based on the Summoner's Haste value, which is the single biggest issue with the timer system as it is right now.

If they just let Summoners BP every 22 seconds, they'd be extremely powerful unbuffed/solo. If they leave it as is, they'll stay extremely weak when compared to buffed melees. A static timer in general is really dumb and I have no idea why they ever thought it would be a good idea.

It will never, ever happen because it requires actual work but neither will any real overhaul to Summoner for the same reason so it's all good.

[Taint]

All of the Riftdross/cinder in Port Jeuno has sold and the minimum price I see now is 1mil. Did they tell the JPs what the tier 1 level 99 trials will be?

JPs were shouting last week for Dross and Cinder and bought up everything super fast.....

[Lucavi]

I know I can be snarky at times, but I'd call that MP.

Wouldn't it regenerate too slowly to be considered fatigue?

[arus2001]

Well, you were basically fishing for a balancing factor to keep SMNs from spamming BPs indefinitely. As long as they cost MP, they'll eventually run out. Conceptually, the BP timer isn't much different than recasts on spells. Some of the BLM ones now can leave you looking at 25+ second recasts with MP costs generally greater than most BPs. I'm okay with the BP timer cap being upped a bit, but MP management can and still should be a factor as long as avatars are still on-demand pets.