alexander/odin speculation

[Tsuko_Asura]

If you want to talk about efficiency, a BRD spamming Foe Requiem for hours on end could do as much damage as a single casting of AMII. 0 mp! Super efficient no?

And that logic cannot apply universally across the game either since that would mean all melee jobs are infinitely more efficient than mages, requiring 0mp at all.

You're taking his argument to a stupid level of extreme. He's absolutely right, and you're absolutely wrong.

And for future reference, melee are more efficient than mages, moron.

Edit: And not that I'd expect you to know anything about this, considering you have next to no experience outside of mid-game, but aside from Einherjar(lol@mages providing damage for that, anyway), what exactly are you doing with such strict time constraints that warrants dumping efficiency completely for the sake of "maek dead fast"?

[Kaylia]

Odin: Will be as useful as BLU's 1000 needles, or death spell in any FF. Don't get your hope up unless it come with "vanish" spell. Hopefully, the dmg on NM will be at least worthwhile.


Alexander: I can imagine having its use against nin mobs or astral flow, or any strong and predictable attack.


I havent seen it in the video, but I really hope you have to be close to be "inside" alexander's shield to receive the buff..it would be kinda nice.

[Tomino]

I can only hope these new avatars have more BPs to their arsenal than just the 2 listed on the update preview.
I think a lot of things from the vanafest video were set as a presentation, like the SMN not using any mp or the avatar dissapearing right after the BP.

I'm actually fine with Odin being summoned once every 2h, it helps recreating the feeling of a powerful avatar and avoids having the Dark Rider chasing rabbits in east ronfaure.
But since Astral Flow lasts 3 minutes and there are A LOT of tactics involved with its duration, it'd be terrible design to simply have Odin do Zantsutsuken and that's it. I hope SE will let SMN use Odin/Alex for the whole 3 mins, that they will have some sort of autoattack (ranged in Alexander case) and even 1 or 2 additional BPs.
Also, both miss their corresponding Avatar buff, which could be sweet.

What I can wish for is : initiate AF, summon Odin, use Zante. Then the summoner has an actual choice to make, either he release and rest mp or he keeps Odin out, refreshes a few mp and uses Odin's other BPs. Since Odin is a "2H avatar" I'd expect his melee damages and other BPs to be much more powerful than, say, Fenrir.
One can dream, can't he?

[Spira]

You're taking his argument to a stupid level of extreme. He's absolutely right, and you're absolutely wrong.

And for future reference, melee are more efficient than mages, moron.

Edit: And not that I'd expect you to know anything about this, considering you have next to no experience outside of mid-game, but aside from Einherjar(lol@mages providing damage for that, anyway), what exactly are you doing with such strict time constraints that warrants dumping efficiency completely for the sake of "maek dead fast"?

BRD example is stupid level of extreme yes, but also a valid scenario to show how DMG/MP is not a useful indicator.

And whether melee are more efficient than mages depends entirely depends on what the relevant timeframe is.
Its basically doing a cost-benefit analysis, except all costs are time-based opportunity costs. It's also situation dependent.
Consider this statement: 1 Astral-burn run is more cost (time) efficient, while giving more benefits (dmg -> exp) than a merit party, in 30 minutes. Then change the timeframe to 2hrs and reevaluate that statement.

The time argument stands because all BCs have time limits, all HNMs have rage timers and everyone must succumb to the constraint of time (IRL)

AND, with Odin, you are dumping efficiency completely for at most 4 minutes. That isn't a lot of time at all. Besides, no one is saying Odin needs to be used given the constraint just as no one is saying a SMN needs to be used at all. But IF it can do above a certain amount of damage to warrant that 4minute downtime, it could still be an efficient move, and if so, a viable option.

P.S. I personally don't like SMNs in Ein other than on Odin. BLMs can be useful, but no one said anything about them being damage source in Ein to begin with.
Also, not that it matters to the argument, but I've done everything in the game save for PW.

[Toth]

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense to me that these avatars do NOT use any MP during their summoning AND BPs. I am going to join the speculation and base it on two things:

1) The video showed no MP being expended when the SMN called both of them and they used their BPs.

2) The SMN himself does not use actually any BP. The new avatars simply appear and use their ability. Normal avatars only drain your entire MP bar when you command them to use their special BP.

Think about it. The abilities must be powerful enough to warrant the high recast time of 2 hours. 3 minutes of a powerful Sentinelga effect to protect your party members in the event of an emergency or 3 minutes of Odin using his AOE or strong attack (notice that Odin remains after he uses Zant. and only vanishes when he is desummoned. He may do his special move at set intervals over the course of the Astral Flow duration) to thin out a crowd or wear down a powerful NM.

Just some thoughts.

[Nevex]

I find somewhat weird that Alexander can't use his signature attack (Divine Justice) when summoned by players. Perhaps they'll adjust them in the future and give them more options.

On the other hand, if they ever add Atomos it wouldn't be surprising if it worked like Odin/Alex as well with his Soul Vacuum attack (but of course that would suck unless it reduces stats to 1 like it does in the BC fight).

[Shin Volcano]

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense to me that these avatars do NOT use any MP during their summoning AND BPs. I am going to join the speculation and base it on two things:

1) The video showed no MP being expended when the SMN called both of them and they used their BPs.

2) The SMN himself does not use actually any BP. The new avatars simply appear and use their ability. Normal avatars only drain your entire MP bar when you command them to use their special BP.

Think about it. The abilities must be powerful enough to warrant the high recast time of 2 hours. 3 minutes of a powerful Sentinelga effect to protect your party members in the event of an emergency or 3 minutes of Odin using his AOE or strong attack (notice that Odin remains after he uses Zant. and only vanishes when he is desummoned. He may do his special move at set intervals over the course of the Astral Flow duration) to thin out a crowd or wear down a powerful NM.

Just some thoughts.

Right, but let's try to break this down to try to better explain WHY it's fair that he is a 2 hour only avatar.

1st: Odin lets look at all his TP moves and you all can judge for your self of what would be a more "fair" option in this lis (copied from wika)


* Gagnrath: Front-AoE damage and Terror. (seriously? the ability to terror mobs..)
* Valfodr: AoE damage and Curse + Silence. (lol come on now, this ALONE is broken in all shapes and form)
* Ofnir: AoE damage. (Might be magic damage)Verification Needed (this is actually the only subtle tp he has)
* Yggr: Gives Odin the ability to Intimidate players. (oh how fun it would be to be constatly intimidating a mob nonestop while he freely beats on it)
* Geirrothr: AoE damage similar to 10,000 Needles plus bind. Used every time 25% of his HP has been lost. (LOL i don't even NEED to explain this one)


* Sanngetall: AoE damage and dispel that dispells all buffs. Used every time 10% of his HP has been lost. Will use this a total of 7 (maybe 8) times. (Aoe damage plus a full dispel how delecious would that be...)

*

* Zantetsuken: An Astral Flow like ability. Will be used when approximately 9% of his HP is remaining. This move will deal death to all members within a 30' radius around him. (obviously this is what we are getting, now i am still concerd of what he will be doing after he's used his ability. again, waiting for update, but this is the only one that he was givin as far as we know, if you think about it, it's the least broken one to acttualy give him aside ofnir)

Now you look at all that shit and tell me how extreamly powerful a SMN would be with any of those moves at thier disposal and explain to me if he was a normal summon and not just a 2 hour, again, we don't know what else he will be able to do while he is out. he may very well get another one of those, or he just may keep using Zant.


Alexander:

Divine Spear: Low Damage single target move which has an additional effect of attack -


Radiant Sacrament: Targeted AoE physical damage (200-400 damage), wipes Utsusemi and Additional Effect: Magic Defense Down.

Mega Holy: Area of Effect light damage. Extremely large damage radius.


Void of Repentance: Single target Terror for several (over 15) seconds.


Gospel of the Lost: Heals Alexander for around 900-1100 HP and removes debuffs.


Divine Judgment: AoE 1000+ damage with very large AoE radius, and clears Utsusemi.
# Perfect Defense Complete immunity to magical, physical, and/or ranged attacks for a short period of time.

Now i will agree that his TP moves are far LESS broken then Odin,s and in all honesty, i wish he had just gotten divine judgement, because god knows we already have 2 dark based avatars (soon to be 3 now apperently..) and really REALLY needed a stronger light based one because while carby serves as a excellent body guard and (emergency avatar) his attacks are patheticly weak and not worth the effort for pure damage, Alexander would have been a great addition as a normal avatar, but again, we don't know what else they will be able to do while they are just sitting out.

But even still. perfect defense will obviously needs tests to see how potent it is.

But in endgame/party situations SMN had no real use out of there 2 hour other then a free pet, this now gives them a reason to want to use it, but people saying "omg this is garbage/not good enough/terrible idea need to just stfu, of course people will find any damn thing to whine and complain about it, but this is just stupid considering they are not out yet, nor do i think it's a bad idea considering what else they can do.

[Thorny]

I mainhealed a "no healing magic" floor 100 boss with lightspirit before, the glowball is worth it.

but did you have a light staff

[Hanyoko]

- Use of an item (offering) in addition to MP cost to call Alex/Odin to you. These are two ego-driven avatars so the Yojimbo approach could have worked here.

"Summoning Alexander requires and consumes 1 Alexandrite"

[Tomino]

Since people started wishing for Odin, others had this habit to paste Ein Odin abilities as proof he won't ever be summonable.
That was never really the point since SE is free to tune every single ability up and down, just like Diabolos Nightmare that was quite nerfed in the summonable version.
Einherjar Odin intimidates? a SMN Odin would intimidate 75% less, and so on.

Now, what summoners had always been asking tho is an avatar they could actually USE. As a summoner myself, I enjoy having my avatar out here and there because as any other pet job, havign the pet to your side is a little yet valuable emotional component, at least imho.

Ok, running around with a Dark Rider might sound "too imba" but that could be easily fixed with an extremely high perp. cost for example. Even the need of AF.
But please, SE, let summoners have Odin to their side for at least 3 minutes, bashing foes and BPing once a minute.

[Spira]

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense to me that these avatars do NOT use any MP during their summoning AND BPs. I am going to join the speculation and base it on two things:

1) The video showed no MP being expended when the SMN called both of them and they used their BPs.

2) The SMN himself does not use actually any BP. The new avatars simply appear and use their ability. Normal avatars only drain your entire MP bar when you command them to use their special BP.

Think about it. The abilities must be powerful enough to warrant the high recast time of 2 hours. 3 minutes of a powerful Sentinelga effect to protect your party members in the event of an emergency or 3 minutes of Odin using his AOE or strong attack (notice that Odin remains after he uses Zant. and only vanishes when he is desummoned. He may do his special move at set intervals over the course of the Astral Flow duration) to thin out a crowd or wear down a powerful NM.

Just some thoughts.

i must be slow because only now does what you're trying to say sink in to me.

If this no mp consumption thing is intentional and not just part of debug mode, then the only cost incurred from using Alex or Odin is the 2hr timer and their summoning spell cost.

And that the effects of both avatars depend on the remaining MP of the SMN, but do not consume all of it...

am i right?

but in the video, which isn't very visible, it doesn't appear that either Alexander or Odin have MP costs to summon either since the MP bar doesn't ever seem to change.
Unless their MP cost is 0, the only way to explain it is through it being a developer demo debug mode where normal rules don't apply.
Also traditionally speaking, a classic call-only summon in FF does actually expend MP, so this seems abnormal (although it does 'waste' the rest of your astral flow)

But if what you think it may be is ture, then the new avatars would definitely be a lot more useful, in effect being 2 new free 2HR options... but at the same time, that seems too good to be true coming from SE.

It's really a matter of choosing to believe the video or not.

[Hanyoko]

In the video that was posted; perhaps i'm not seeing it right cuase i've never run on a JP client. But did the smn only get exp for the Jnun and not the fly that Odin also killed?

[Hioki]

nvm. mentioned

[ronin sparthos]

1st: Odin lets look at all his TP moves and you all can judge for your self of what would be a more "fair" option in this lis (copied from wika)


* Gagnrath: Front-AoE damage and Terror. (seriously? the ability to terror mobs..)
* Valfodr: AoE damage and Curse + Silence. (lol come on now, this ALONE is broken in all shapes and form)
* Ofnir: AoE damage. (Might be magic damage)Verification Needed (this is actually the only subtle tp he has)
* Yggr: Gives Odin the ability to Intimidate players. (oh how fun it would be to be constatly intimidating a mob nonestop while he freely beats on it)
* Geirrothr: AoE damage similar to 10,000 Needles plus bind. Used every time 25% of his HP has been lost. (LOL i don't even NEED to explain this one)


* Sanngetall: AoE damage and dispel that dispells all buffs. Used every time 10% of his HP has been lost. Will use this a total of 7 (maybe times. (Aoe damage plus a full dispel how delecious would that be...)

*

* Zantetsuken: An Astral Flow like ability. Will be used when approximately 9% of his HP is remaining. This move will deal death to all members within a 30' radius around him. (obviously this is what we are getting, now i am still concerd of what he will be doing after he's used his ability. again, waiting for update, but this is the only one that he was givin as far as we know, if you think about it, it's the least broken one to acttualy give him aside ofnir)

Once again I use Diabolos as an example as to how Odin could have been done.

Diabolos' Pacts in Waking Dreams/Darkness Named:

-Nightmare: AOE Sleep + Bio.
-Camisado: Damage + knockback.
-Somnolence: Damage + Gravity.
-Ultimate Terror: AOE status drain
-Noctoshield: Phalanx-ga effect.
-Dream Shroud: AOE MAB/MDB boost.
-Nether Blast: Ranged magical damage.
-Cacodemonia: AOE Curse.
-Ruinous Omen: Damage = % of HP.

Odin's pacts:

Gagnrath: Damage + Added Effect: Terrorize. We've been here before with Jettatura and terror basically translates to a Stun effect. So basically it'd be like every other avatars damage + effect pact.

Valfodr: AOE Silence + Curse damage. Sounds familar, see: Cacodemonia. (They removed it from the summonable Diabolos)

Ofnir: Magic damage. Nether Blast Beta.

Yggr: Intimidation. Translate that to "Grants a random set of killer effects to all targets in range" and it turns into yet another situational pact that every avatar has. See: Ifrits Warcry, Shiva/Ramuh's Spikes, Garuda's Hastega, Diabolos' Phalanxga, Carbuncle/Fenrir's stat boosts etc.

Geirrothr: Sounds like a candidate for a level 70 Blood Pact. Throw spear, deal piercing damage. Pew. Pew.

Sanngetall: AOE dispel. An evolution on something Fenrir's had already.

Zantetsuken: explains itself.

Nothing Odin would have brought to the table would have been remotely overpowered based on how SE has handled super-powered moves in the past.

When Diabolos was a mission battle only, Ultimate Terror seemed broken and so did Nightmare but how did that turn out? Yeah....

[Toth]

i must be slow because only now does what you're trying to say sink in to me.

If this no mp consumption thing is intentional and not just part of debug mode, then the only cost incurred from using Alex or Odin is the 2hr timer and their summoning spell cost.

And that the effects of both avatars depend on the remaining MP of the SMN, but do not consume all of it...

am i right?

but in the video, which isn't very visible, it doesn't appear that either Alexander or Odin have MP costs to summon either since the MP bar doesn't ever seem to change.
Unless their MP cost is 0, the only way to explain it is through it being a developer demo debug mode where normal rules don't apply.
Also traditionally speaking, a classic call-only summon in FF does actually expend MP, so this seems abnormal (although it does 'waste' the rest of your astral flow)

But if what you think it may be is ture, then the new avatars would definitely be a lot more useful, in effect being 2 new free 2HR options... but at the same time, that seems too good to be true coming from SE.

It's really a matter of choosing to believe the video or not.

Yup, exactly what I was thinking. SE already said you cant summon Odin or Alexander unless AF is active and it will use it for you if you try to summon them. Then, once called, they remain active for 3 minutes using their abilities. The next question could be is if there is a MP charge every few seconds for them being out as opposed to the flat out MP = 0 effect of other special BPs. This should be an interesting situation regardless.

[Indalecia]

"Summoning Alexander requires and consumes 1 Alexandrite"

Ha! I'd do that in lieu of 2hour if they kept potency the same.

Geirrothr: Sounds like a candidate for a level 70 Blood Pact. Throw spear, deal piercing damage. Pew. Pew.

Very much needed, imo. But on a base avatar. Having to wait 2 hours to FINALLY have a decent piercing bp is kinda bs.

[SargentRemora]

One of the points I'd like to know is whether Perfect Defense/Zantetsuken is effected by either MP as a figure or as a percentage. Coz Dalma might suddenly seem half useful.

[Miroku_Asura]

My bet on the Smn's mp not going down is that they were given 'God Mode' by the programmers- They did that back at Fanfest 07 when we were able to test out Sch and Dnc for the first time. SE did say that Alex's and Odin's BP strength would depend on the amount of MP spent didn't they?

[Pendas]

I don't know about you guys, but the fact that I will be able to /rdm and use refresh to have no mp cost on any avatar could out weigh anything these avatars bring to the table.

This is the only enlightening and relevant thought to come from this thread.

[Indalecia]

Not sure how...avatar perpetuation goes up with levels. Sure it will be cheaper with refresh, but I highly doubt it will be gone.