SMN Questions for merits and BP gear and smn skill

[Questionable]

I just got 75 SMN.. just wondering on a few things..

1. What exactly does SMN SKILL add to Physical BP or Magical BP(Nether blast etc)? Does it add phy. acc + atk and for magical, matk/macc?

2. Barring above, when I use phys BP, do I macro skill gear or "Pet: atk" or "Pet: acc"?

3. Which is better pet: acc or pet: atk

4. Should I merit pet acc or pet atk?

5. Using magical BP, do they resist alot or just stack on pet: Mab (or skill, depends on question 1)

6. Merit which for matk/macc?



I did that ACP stuff for earrings and today I got earring Pet: atk+4, ratk+4, so is this a good one for SMN or garbage? I'm trying to get second earring SMN earring but never on sale.... not sure again if to use smn earring + that pet earring or try ACP get another pet: acc or atk earring, again all counts on answering question 1.

Thanks

[dejet]

1) acc(skill does not add dmg only acc i forget what the cap is 310 skill?)
2)after a point of i think 310 skill you macro in attack/acc(you can macro in -bp at start and end in the acc gear and what not do not forget)
3)that i think can be left up to each. our numbers are so random. i mix and match( however i think it was shown that the pet ACC from af legs and af2 feet do not stack?)
4)i merited magic acc/magic attack i use to have acc/attack but changed it after all the updates(its up to you here)
5) smn in my LS seemed to be landing decent numbers on fafnir (mb) did not seem to have high resits(pre smn magic acc/attack body and all this aug gear)
6) again its up to you i did magic acc/ magic attack depends on your playstyle.

that is good for phy BPs(theres nothing better out there i use smn earring and a +1 pet acc(bad luck on anything higher yet)
if pet+attack and acc is anything like pet+def it is great. seems pet def builds are a lot of good (says a bst who solos in the past on SHNMs) so my guess is pet+attack is almost as good.

[_chuchu]

Skill adds acc to a certain extent if I recall. Merit magic attack, and your bp gear will primarily consist of -bp timers. Think of it as like haste.

As far as resists go, it honestly depends on the mob, but you will end up using Levi, Garuda and Diabolos the most. Smns aren't the most reliable when it comes to successfully landing enfeebles

You can use the acp earring you got for physical bp's.

[dejet]

Skill adds acc to a certain extent if I recall. Merit magic attack, and your bp gear will primarily consist of -bp timers. Think of it as like haste.

As far as resists go, it honestly depends on the mob, but you will end up using Levi, Garuda and Diabolos the most. Smns aren't the most reliable when it comes to successfully landing enfeebles

You can use the acp earring you got for physical bp's.

theres no reason to keep the -bp gear in once it fires off you can drop in as much skill/attack/acc gear you like(if you have it)

if you have teh ACP body(PET: attack/acc or magic attack/acc you drop in YYR for the -5sec BP then macro in the ACP body. you should really do this with all your gear.

the AF2 legs have -2 BP recast. after you use the BP(and your pet is about to use it) if you have ZNM pants you should macro them in for the 5 skill. theres more and mor gear coming out like this i think its good to note that -bp gear as the BP is fireing off from the pet does nothing.

ex) you have YYR the new ACP body(pet:magic acc/attack) ZNM legs.
set a macro that puts the -BP gear(YYR af2 legs) right after you shoudl macro in ZNM legs and the ACP body.

you get the best of both worlds!

[Questionable]

Yeah I have spellcast and use it for bp/skill crap to reduce timer and add the dmg/acc.. so that's not an issue.

So SMN SKILL= ACC only.. and caps at 310 or something? Is there tests on this or how do people know?

I don't have much smn gear yet that's r/e for now, need to dyna and do more ZNM... only have YYR, smn 2af body, ring and that earring i got from the box in jeuno. I heard the mythic pole from ANNM is good?

I don't want to debuff stuff on smn but do I need MACC for merit nukes? or it's constant dmg like diabolos? well of course TP modifies it for nukes but other than that it's always hit or does it resist like blm nukes?

[EternalSnow]

wtf af legs and relic feet don't stack? I'm confused lol where is that info from?

[dejet]

They are not as good as his nether blast with resits rates.(but I see less then with phy BPs) thats why i went with magic attack/acc builds now.

And im not 100% what the cap is can someone else tell us? Ithink its around 310. i think my skill is at 310(im not a full time smn as Ido not get to play it anymore so iv sorta lost track of the numbers ; ; )

they might stack(Have class so no time to look it up atm) I really need to do some homework on smn its been way to long lol.
it is much harder to test petx shit then normal gear. when i get back from class i will see if i can find where it was(it was on BG might be years back now, guy posted saying the acc is so low on af legs or it just dont stack)

[geno3302]

Has it been proven that the 5 skill gives more ACC then the AF pants? Cause from parsing, though only a small number(150 or so hits on each) carbuncles hit rate went from 88% to 92/93%. It could just be the small sample size, but that would make the AF pants give around 10 ACC. 5 skill = 5 ACC right? Or is because of the assumption that AF legs don't stack with AF2 hands (has that been tested)?

[dejet]

Has it been proven that the 5 skill gives more ACC then the AF pants? Cause from parsing, though only a small number(150 or so hits on each) carbuncles hit rate went from 88% to 92/93%. It could just be the small sample size, but that would make the AF pants give around 10 ACC. 5 skill = 5 ACC right? Or is because of the assumption that AF legs don't stack with AF2 hands (has that been tested)?

i think it was tested way back when. might be worth retesting. also the size has to go way up.

someone got flamed for testing Crit hit rate with what like 5000+ attack rounds.

edit: got class hoping by the time i get back soemone can post the skill cap. and might also have the answer to af legs/af2 feet.

[geno3302]

Yeah, I intend to get a bigger sample size when i find time. I'd test the legs+hands, but I don't have AF2 hands (lazy).

[Ashokan]

Has it been proven that the 5 skill gives more ACC then the AF pants? Cause from parsing, though only a small number(150 or so hits on each) carbuncles hit rate went from 88% to 92/93%. It could just be the small sample size, but that would make the AF pants give around 10 ACC. 5 skill = 5 ACC right? Or is because of the assumption that AF legs don't stack with AF2 hands (has that been tested)?

Were you just meleeing? Skill only applies to Blood Pacts, that's why it's so hard to test. So... Find a 1-hit BP and test the hell out of it or start counting TP on multi-hits. I think most 1 hit BPs have a higher accuracy %, kind of like most 1 hit WSs, so that makes it even harder.

after a point of i think 310 skill you macro in attack/acc

I’m not aware of a cap, perhaps I missed testing for that. I think you're thinking of 60 second BP wards though:

• 90 second wards get +3sec/skill over cap, 299 skill skill caps it @ 180 seconds.
• 60 second wards get +2sec/skill over cap, 329 skill caps it @ 180 seconds.
• 30 second wards get +1sec/skill over cap, probably 419 skill caps it @ 180 seconds.

however i think it was shown that the pet ACC from af legs and af2 feet do not stack?

Perhaps you can find a source, but I don't think this is true. I know people liked to throw that out there, I'm convinced those people were just too lazy to macro extra pieces. I can't think of an "enhances" stats that doesn't stack.

[dejet]

im go ask random Q thread see if i get anything there about smn acc cap. ^^ (with skill)

[Silenka]

wtf af legs and relic feet don't stack? I'm confused lol where is that info from?

They don't even do the same thing...

I don't know if there's a hard cap to smn magic skill/avatar accuracy. There is definitely a cap on how long it will make your ward BPs last, but I don't think anyone has done extensive testing on smn skill cap. The main thing that discourages people from testing that kind of thing on SMN is because no matter what gear and merits you have, physical BP damage is still extremely random. I asked earlier how much +acc is on evoker's spats vs. evoker's spats +1 / herder's subligar and no one could tell me - because no one has tested it (if they have, no results have been published).

As for merits, I used to have 5 avatar phys acc/attk, but I dumped acc in favor of 5 magic attack instead (+ the ACP body with 7macc/mattk). This would be my advice on merits: if you're planning on getting the ACP 7macc/mattk and upgrading your 75BPs definitely merit magic attack, up to you whether you want to merit magic accuracy though (I didn't, and probably won't). If you have merited 8 SMN magic skill and have a bunch of +skill/acc gear, you won't hurt at all from losing those phys acc merits. Whether phys attack merits help a lot is debatable, again, BP dmg is really random, but I believe they help enough to be worth meriting.

As for gear, I think it's pretty much been covered, but the golden rule is: idle in YYR/whatever, set off your BP in -timer gear (yyr, relic pieces, austere/penance hat), switch to +skill/acc/attk/macc/mattk gear for when the BP actually hits, keep your avatar out to TP if you wish with -perp gear (-2 perp on penance or ACP body, evoker's feet+1,nashira gloves, etc).

Pretty simple really ^^

[Ashokan]

They don't even do the same thing...

lol Good point. Pretty sure they meant af legs/relic hands. Although, that wouldn't matter since relic hands have smn skill on them. I'm fairly certain af legs/relic hands stack anyway.

[Silenka]

It's pretty much a moot point, get ZNM legs ftw. I doubt the acc+ on the AF pants is much more than that.

[dejet]

people saying there is no skill cap in the random Q. so i will edit that out. maybe we should do tests on the ACC from the feet/legs.(i wont have time for give or take 2 weeks with finals.

[Nirokun!]

i dont know what this 310 number is, the "cap" is an over-the-cap bonus. This bonus is achievable by going beyond the base smn magic skill cap. Having skill merits and smn skill+ gear are the only things that give you this over-the-cap bonus. The bonus adds a variable amount of accuracy/macc? (depending on how far over the cap you are) to your rages (and possibly somnolence, being that it is a magic damage ward BP). This bonus also adds to the duration of some buffs as described above. i'm sleepy~

[Questionable]

So it's better to merit MAB> macc?

I think for the TIER 1 merits I will be doing 5/5 and 5/5, I don't really like it incomplete because of maximizing a specific area. So do the merit BP's get resisted or is it like Diabolos's blast? I don't see a point on macc if it doesn't get resisted and I don't think I'll be using enfeebles BP like slowga/sleepga/nightmare or whatever else.

Now for physical...

Alot of people saying the damage is random, it is, I've noticed from average 900-1000BP on exp mobs to like 1800 possible with PC. So does that mean atk is useless (only 10 in merits right?) or is acc useless too because randomness? Well I'm using this ruby earring with pet: atk4 and I don't really notice difference to be honest. So really hard to decide.

So I guess SMN skill is just ACC for phys? Is it just macc for magic too? I don't think anyone really responded. Thinking weather to HQ the evoker's spats or just use oracle's legs to BP for phsyical. Damn Acamoth

[geno3302]

Were you just meleeing? Skill only applies to Blood Pacts, that's why it's so hard to test. So... Find a 1-hit BP and test the hell out of it or start counting TP on multi-hits. I think most 1 hit BPs have a higher accuracy %, kind of like most 1 hit WSs, so that makes it even harder.

Yes, it was just melee hits. I didn't test an ACC boost from 5 skill to the AF legs, it was from wearing AF legs for 150 hits restarting the parser then removing them for 150 hits then equipping them again to see if acc would slowly go up again, and it did. It was a small sample size, so I can't say anything from it, but from what I saw it gave about +10ACC. If 1skill=1acc then it doesn't matter if skill is only for BPs cause 10 ACC is still better then 5skill=5acc. If 1 skill = 2acc, then the AF legs and +5skill pants are the same for physical BPs.

[_chuchu]

So it's better to merit MAB> macc?

yes