Summoner Merits

[Tortalius]

When do you need the Skill on your SMN if you want to make a spirit cast faster? When it's summoned? Before the elapsed time (that is to say if +50 skill made the spirit case in 10 sec you would need to have the 50skill on for those first 10 sec)? Anyone know?

[frodnonnag]

When do you need the Skill on your SMN if you want to make a spirit cast faster? When it's summoned? Before the elapsed time (that is to say if +50 skill made the spirit case in 10 sec you would need to have the 50skill on for those first 10 sec)? Anyone know?

i believe it is either constantly or when the spirit casts a spell.

[Spira]

Man, if spirits casted more often and didn't suck so much mp I might have done that. I can see getting macc merits for spirits, but I think their perp cost would still be pretty high, some of the slots you can get -perp in you end up having to fight between smn skill (which lowers their timer) and -perp. I love using light spirit for big alliance fights when the whms run out of mp and shit starts going bad, but outside of that rare occasion or just fucking around, I never see a use for them. I guess if they were popping off AM left and right I might be more inclined to use them, but as it stands there's no way to get them to use tierIV/AM over, say, casting choke over and over again lol. =(

Yea.. they'd be nicer if they didnt have such poor casting AI..

however at 5/5 elemental spirit merits, their perp cost is at 13mp/tic which is identical to celestials, so you can reduce it a fair bit.

Also depending on how you look at it, each perp cost reduction can be seen as an equivalent of 1 smn magic skill if you're using eles only for siphoning. It's more if you can't macro everything and release within like 3+ seconds...
because i perp at 5mp less/tic, I'm effectively saving that 5mp, which would be deducted from the siphon total anyway... I don't think its possible to summon an ele, siphon and dismiss without at least incurring 1 tic of perpetuation...

[Silenka]

It's funny you can make the argument that you are saving 5 mp per siphon thanks to your 150k xp in merits, yet people get all worked up over saving an extra 1 mp/tic with the -2 perp on RR like it's the worst thing in the world. Just kind of amusing to me.

@Tort, the spirit casting timer is dynamic. You can switch gear while it's out and it will readjust the calculation for the spirit's next cast time. So say my spirit's initial spellcast timer when I first cast it (half normal time) is 18 seconds. If I were to put the relic pants on right away after I cast, it would knock it down a flat 5 seconds. I guess that means that if you still have time on your timer and your gear knocks it down to where the spirit will cast, then it will readjust and cast right then.

[Not Kuno]

Oldschool summoner here. 5/5 physical attack and acc. I have blm so I have no use for the magic side of the job, although I have them all unlocked at 1/5.

[DAKPluto]

Currently sitting at:

3/5 P.Attack
2/5 M.Acc
5/5 M.attack

5/5 Grand Fall
5/5 Wind Blade

And I have to agree with Spira....even with the redingote, I'm not completely happy with the 2 m.accuracy. Been thinking about going 3/5 or even 4/5 m.acc lately.

[nitsuj]

Currently sitting at:

3/5 P.Attack
2/5 M.Acc
5/5 M.attack

5/5 Grand Fall
5/5 Wind Blade

And I have to agree with Spira....even with the redingote, I'm not completely happy with the 2 m.accuracy. Been thinking about going 3/5 or even 4/5 m.acc lately.

You guys have my interest with this argument. I'm going to have to do a lot more testing before I finalize my T1's.