SMN Pull & AoE questions

[Pounce321]

Please forgive me if i have missed this topic if it had already been brought up.

I have not played SMN in a long time, nor have i played WITH a SMN in an xp pt in a long time and i am rusty on how Carby Pull & Bloodpact AoEs effect links.

1. Carby Pull: Does Carby have to die in order to have a clean pull or can i [release] him and still have a clean pull?

2. AoE bloodpacts: When fighting a mob with lots of neighboring mobs (for example: @Crawlers Nest, fighting Crawlers with Lizards around, or @Boyahda Tree, fighting Crabs with Bunnies around), can i use an AoE bloodpact and be safe from adds? Will the adds only have hate on my avatar or when my avatar dies, will the links come after me?

Please forgive me for not going out and testing this myself. I don't want to put my PT in danger of a simple uneducated experiment. .

Thanks for the help.

[Sagacious Sundi]

Unless they've changed anything, I'm pretty sure these are the answers:

1) You can release Carby, but while the mob is coming back it can attract links. I believe you can Retreat then Release when Carby gets back (assuming the links are out of their normal radius) if this is an issue, although it rarely is I think.

2) Nope, all hate is on the avatar.

[Tirrock]

Sagacious Sundi has it right. I used the retreat+release combo quite a few times. A few other quirks:

If the monster you used assault on dies while your avatar still has links, you can release the avatar (or let it die) and the linked monsters will despawn. (It was an awesome MPK tool before the MPK(BST) nerf. I miss the days of releasing 20 sahagins on RMT in SSG.)

If you use /pet assault, but use retreat before the avatar hits the monster, that monster will not despawn if linked. You're on a hate list, but it's not actually attacking you. I assume that with enough time/distance, the mob forgets you and you can link it like normal.

You can use an offensive AoE blood pact to despawn links the puller got. Center the AoE around whatever target is claimed and release. Or run away a bit, then release, if the party is close to the monster's spawn point. Although I generally find this way too slow unless you happen to have fenrir/shiva/ramuh/diabolos out already when the puller gets back. In pick up parties, somebody else usually does something to the linked monster during the time it takes to summon.

[Vlorsutes]

There are times when the second one doesn't always work, in cases where mob hate patterns are bizarre to say the least, such as where mobs tend to share hate (i.e. Darters in Dragon's Aery, etc), because using your BP would put hate on you, and in doing so that hate is shared throughout the other mobs that were hit by the AoE, thus when you release your avatar, they all have hate on you, thus no despawning or losing interest in you.

[Fng]

if you retreat/release in agro range there is a possibility that the mob will hate you more than Carby. If this is the case the monster will have hate on you, and everything will link and kill you.

It is best to do it out of hate range (tricky on a SMN) or just let carby die. When Carby dies the linked monsters set for a second sort of dumbfounded. If your original target is a caster, and has started to cast a longer spell when released, the dumbfounded links may relink and you end up dead again..

[Spekkio]

if you retreat/release in agro range there is a possibility that the mob will hate you more than Carby. If this is the case the monster will have hate on you, and everything will link and kill you.

It is best to do it out of hate range (tricky on a SMN) or just let carby die. When Carby dies the linked monsters set for a second sort of dumbfounded. If your original target is a caster, and has started to cast a longer spell when released, the dumbfounded links may relink and you end up dead again..

actually, the mob will have hate on you from assaulting it. if carby jumps after an add, even then you'll have hate on it. the difference is that the link sees carby at the top of the hate list when they add after you assault it and select it as a target with a still empty hate list. when carby dies/is unsummoned, it finds no targets to attack and reverts to a "grace" mode, much like when they pop wherein they won't aggro or link for several seconds. in that window, the mob that was targeted for pulling will still track you as a target and run for you while the other mobs are incapable of linking. if, however, a mob that wasn't linked in the first pull catches wind of the mob on the return, it will set its target to you and try to kill you. this is why retreating before unsummoning is often a good idea if you have a tricky pull.

[Fng]

Yes the original monster has you on it's hate list. So long as the link doesnt know you exist, your are safe. I wrote it sort of confusing in manor.

The idea is if the monster is focused on you when the link happens = your dead.

[Nirokun!]

i'm of the school of thought that assault does not give any hate on its own

the initial claim of the monster using assault establishes the hate list with avatar first, and you (the smn) by association, but you can sit there all day using assault without getting hate

my little brother and i duo'd energetic eruca using standard carby kite, with the other summoner assaulting to get his pet on it. we didnt use BPs (until the very very end where we planned to kill it). over an hour (i think) of carbuncles and fenrirs being assaulted on it, and we didnt get hate. i find it hard to believe that we erased the hate of using assault on it after every summoning, so im lead to believe that the only abilities that summoners have that create hate are summoning magic, blood pacts (possibly only rage? unlikely), and astral flow.

[Spekkio]

i'm of the school of thought that assault does not give any hate on its own

the initial claim of the monster using assault establishes the hate list with avatar first, and you (the smn) by association, but you can sit there all day using assault without getting hate

my little brother and i duo'd energetic eruca using standard carby kite, with the other summoner assaulting to get his pet on it. we didnt use BPs (until the very very end where we planned to kill it). over an hour (i think) of carbuncles and fenrirs being assaulted on it, and we didnt get hate. i find it hard to believe that we erased the hate of using assault on it after every summoning, so im lead to believe that the only abilities that summoners have that create hate are summoning magic, blood pacts (possibly only rage? unlikely), and astral flow.

virtually any action will generate SOME enmity, but the enmity generated by using assault itself is negligible.

to expand on what was said above, saying that assaulting on an unclaimed mob generates enmity is not technically correct. when a pet claims the target, it generates a very small chunk of enmity towards you. this is why the mob comes after you when carby is unsummoned. this tiny bit of enmity can be observed in that the mob is claimed, and enmity is necessary to keep claim on a mob.

i would guess that you never got hate on the mob because you summoned outside of hate range, plus the very minor sum of hate you get from assaulting. having soloed bombs and died enough times when i summoned too close to the bomb, i can say that casting, assaulting, etc does generate hate, just very very little. it's not really relevant, though, to summon pulling, as the initial assault gets the hair of hate on you differently than assaulting with the mob already claimed might.

[Ferien]

There are times when the second one doesn't always work, in cases where mob hate patterns are bizarre to say the least, such as where mobs tend to share hate (i.e. Darters in Dragon's Aery, etc), because using your BP would put hate on you, and in doing so that hate is shared throughout the other mobs that were hit by the AoE, thus when you release your avatar, they all have hate on you, thus no despawning or losing interest in you.

The OP asked about centering the AoE on a mob of a different type from the ones that are linked. In the case of DA, this would mean centering an AoE in the pit on either Fafhogg or a Spider. In that case, the Darters will have hate on ONLY the avatar, and alliance-hate will not apply. You can safely desummon your avatar (or let it die) without having to worry about the other mobs.

[Vlorsutes]

His question didn't establish that the other mobs he'd be around would always be of a type different than of the type that your avatar is engaging and being the AoE target of. He simply gave examples of areas in question where such things may take place, listing crabs in Boyahda Tree and Crawlers in CN (since the camps for these places don't have other members of their family running about). But the AoE BP to despawn the other mob works if the same species is involved as long as they don't share hate (if your party's puller aggroed or linked a crawler in CN, you could use an AoE bp on the primary crawler and then desummon to force the linked one to lose hate and despawn)

[Nirokun!]

i'm of the school of thought that assault does not give any hate on its own

the initial claim of the monster using assault establishes the hate list with avatar first, and you (the smn) by association, but you can sit there all day using assault without getting hate

my little brother and i duo'd energetic eruca using standard carby kite, with the other summoner assaulting to get his pet on it. we didnt use BPs (until the very very end where we planned to kill it). over an hour (i think) of carbuncles and fenrirs being assaulted on it, and we didnt get hate. i find it hard to believe that we erased the hate of using assault on it after every summoning, so im lead to believe that the only abilities that summoners have that create hate are summoning magic, blood pacts (possibly only rage? unlikely), and astral flow.

virtually any action will generate SOME enmity, but the enmity generated by using assault itself is negligible.

to expand on what was said above, saying that assaulting on an unclaimed mob generates enmity is not technically correct. when a pet claims the target, it generates a very small chunk of enmity towards you. this is why the mob comes after you when carby is unsummoned. this tiny bit of enmity can be observed in that the mob is claimed, and enmity is necessary to keep claim on a mob.

i would guess that you never got hate on the mob because you summoned outside of hate range, plus the very minor sum of hate you get from assaulting. having soloed bombs and died enough times when i summoned too close to the bomb, i can say that casting, assaulting, etc does generate hate, just very very little. it's not really relevant, though, to summon pulling, as the initial assault gets the hair of hate on you differently than assaulting with the mob already claimed might.

i'll still tell you, that after an hour of assaulting, and not building enough hate to take it from an auto-assaulting carbuncle, assault gives no hate

[evilpaul]

An initial Assault command gives no hate. If you recast an avatar from far enough away to have it auto-assault before the monster attacks you, you can continue indefinitely without being touched. This is how you can solo bombs (or anything else really with sufficient space to safely recast) as SMN. It's just really slow unless the thing will blow itself up.

If you use Assault after that, it does generate hate and is a great way to get eaten by something your avatar can't do enough damage (or takes too much damage) to tank. Healing Ruby II, Whispering Wind, and Spring Water restore the avatar's HP, but they don't generate hate on the avatar, so trying to have your pet act like a PLD doesn't work really either.

You can also use an AoE BP on your party's mob, hit others, and retreat your avatar out of their roaming area to depop them post MPK patch. Assuming you somehow get your party members to not touch them for 10 seconds.

You can still link and Sleepga/Nightmare an assload of EP mobs to lag the piss out of RMT in SSG post-MPK patch, btw. With low PerpCost and somebody else tanking/holding the one you used to link them all you could probably hold the crowd for ~10 minutes.

In my never ending quest to get a Hocho (0/19), I've outpulled the braindead Hades RMT with Dia II on a few occassions, had Blink/Stoneskin up because I was timing the repop on the PH, popped out Fenrir while getting smacked by the NM, and two Tonberries, and a pet water elemental that linked. Lunar Roar gets all of them onto Fenrir and off me. And they won't re-link when Fenrir dies (unless the NM stands there in front of them tossing shuriken or something). When nobody is there it's easier just to kill the other Tonberries so I'll have ~12 minutes with no repops to kill the NM.