The 6th Ministry's Secret: A Summoner's Guide

If you have a screenshot or some proof, I would love to see it. I've never seen a roll higher than 20 for *pet* MAB.


Yes, Frazil is straight up better than Balsam, but not everyone can easily obtain a Frazil, and he was asking about Flaming Crush. Balsam is significantly easier to obtain than Frazil, and for that purpose, they are equal.

http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/44146/eudaemon-alluvion-skirmishes/11/#2693708

So we can assume 21 is cap because it matches Astralwatcher. :)

Think I've actually seen +23 as the top Pet Mab for Keraunos.
After spending over 15 mils of gil into it and never getting anything over 17 with +2 stones when other people get +18 with +1 stones I'm leaning to think that OTHER PEOPLE ARE CHEATING ><

sigh

They don't need to match astralwatcher imho. That's an ilevel 117 Staff. I could see your way of thinking right if Astral was 119 but it's not, so it's only obvious that an ilevel 119 one can be slightly better (slightly more mab and a bit of macc)

Possible, good point. :) But we can also say the higher item level just justifies the accuracy on it too.

Alluvion augments are just horrible. They made a big deal about them being easier to get the augments you want compared to the old augment system but that's a bold faced lie. The higher HQ stones don't seems to have any effect at all and there's so many possible augments for each type of stone you can blow through 3 stacks and never get the augment you're looking for.

iirc the shiva staff should be about the same, with like 120 mab and 20 macc for avatars.
and no stupid random augment. to try and reach it.

Of course I already have Frazil Staff ^^

Results of favor testing:

Carbuncle: Same
Garuda: Same
Titan: Same
Diabolos: Same

None of the others are testable super quick and easily for me.

So... what does this mean exactly from the patch notes?

Maybe they increased the maximum cap?
Should be easy enough to test with Diabolos. Use a few BP wards and see how high the Refresh goes. Test with Caller's Head+2 and without, test with SMN skill and without and see what changes, once you're at cap?

They could also have increased the bonus Avatar's Favor gives to Avatar.
Previously it was a decrease in the Avatar's stats (Acc, Att, etc), now it's a bonus. Maybe that bonus has increased compared to before the patch?

I tested the cap. The maximum effect is the same.

Gonna post what I posted in the update forums:

Garuda's Favor: +Evasion
512 Skill: +22
Caller's Horn +2: +31

Titan's Favor: +defense
512 Skill: +71
Caller's Horn +2: +87

Blood pacts will not cause it to drop potency anymore and 2 high level blood pacts seem to cap a freshly summoned avatar (Hello Apogee). The potency still has a tic effect to reach max potency but blood pacts increase the potency at a faster rate. Avatar's Favor caps at exactly 2 minutes without blood pacts and as quick as 1 minute with bloodpacts. I capped Titan's favor in 1 minute by using 2 Mountain Busters.

Potency is the same. How fast we get to the cap and it staying there has been improved.

The point is:


These two lines are noted as if they are separate changes, when in fact the second line is the only difference.

As far as I can tell, all potencies are the same, and the time it takes to reach the cap without blood pacts is the same; so why does the "increased effect" line even exist?

The "512 skill+Caller's Horn +2" tier can be reached instantly by spending about 430~450 MP.
It's still necessary to keep a heavy smn skill set and the buff briefly disappear/decreases during equipment swaps, these are the most annoying things that remain with the maximum potency of most buffs being still too weak.

Yeah, I thought we were actually going to get a potency increase... this is still very bleh without it.

At least now we can use it reliably without its effect being diminished, I guess. It costs us some refresh and possibly also some pet stats to maintain it, but it works... at least until we have to switch summons (which happens very often).

How many updates is it going to take to fix ONE ability? This is still disappointing. At this rate we're going nowhere.

The japanese text reads:


Which, while I can't read that much kanji, from other translators:


...seems to imply that the buff, the potency, the effect from Avatar's Favor emanating from the pet is increased.

Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's bugged, or, I just don't know why that line exists.

Some Favours look pretty nice to me even without increased potency.
Ifrit, Ramuh and Leviathan especially are very nice even with the current (old) caps.
Others like Shiva, Diabolos and Carbuncle are pretty lame but oh well.

They might increase those caps when they'll fix old blood pacts (Phalanxga, Stoneskinga etc), They mentioned doing it.
In theory we still have to see new BPs for SMN (Hastega2 etc), it's not the end of the world.
Small steps every time but we're slowly getting there, SMN keeps on getting better with every patch.
Small steps yes, but better than the past few years' stagnancy.

As far as I know we have absolutely no clue as to the potency of Leviathan's magic accuracy increase. From my (limited) testing, it certainly didn't seem to stand up to Indi-Focus.

Yes, Ifrit and Ramuh are decent.


Just a question of when... it's been a while now since they mentioned doing any of that. They even announced a support blood pact range increase a while ago, and that still hasn't happened. How hard is that to implement?

Yeah, the promised changes all sound good, and I continue to await them, but it's getting a little painful waiting... and waiting... and waiting. We finally got a change we thought was going to be good (Avatar's Favor buff) and it turns out there's no potency increase.

I doubt they ever meant Leviathan's favour to ever be as good as that.
I think at cap it was something like ~25 Macc? Hardly game breaking but with how rare Macc stat is (no food and only -focus spells from Geo affect it) it's a nice bonus.

"decent" is not enough :P They're very potent buffs when they matter. Arguably too strong even, if we accept the fact that SMN isn't meant to be a perfectly viable alternative to GEO, that's asking too much from the job imho. (not that I would complain eh, just that I don't see it happening)


Impatient, aren't we? :P
I can understand you, but my point is that even if SMN isn't "there" yet, it's getting better with every new patch, every month.
If anything we should try to see the glass half full for now, as we keep waiting for the "next patch".
Did they mention range increase on BP Ward? I seemed to recall only an increase in the Favor Range (did it happen actually? Someone mentioned that might be what the "increased effect on favor" was meant to be in this patch, an increased area of effect.)

It's been months since they stated these changes, and Summoner has been waiting years to be viable. It's not being impatient at this point. At least, I don't think so.


http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/42890-Haste-II-and-SMN?p=516375#post516375

"Stayed tuned for details on when it will be implemented"

*4 months later, no implementation, no details*

Maybe the size of the sphere around the Avatar has been increased? And I noticed the fixed the weird enmity bug with Apogee, but at least Favor perpetuation penalty is still effectively zero.

I'm gonna go ahead and be "That Guy"

smn lv 37 since 2005

Serraphicaller drops from a BC, no one wants

I end up with it, and now i'm a smn, with exactly 1 piece of smn gear (well, theres a little crossover from rdm, and i make a habit of storing whatever base relic pieces/-1s i get from dyna)

at this point, I'm trying to get some sets together, but I really just need a "to do" list, and a couple questions answered.

relic reforged 5/5 (according to LS friends), correct?

which AF pieces are worth reforging?

I got the JSE staff, and have the plasm for Tumafyrig path B. any other staves worth carrying around (say nirvana, i dare you)

Merits? are the group 2 merits any good? Just unlock or should i max a particular 1? Group 1?

Anything from abbyssea still relevant?

Thanks in advance

Ok, I just tested Favor distance and it's exactly 10 yalms from the avatar. I never really checked it before the update because I never use Favor but that doesn't seem like an upgrade.

@Shaggnix, Most of the info in the first post is up to date and covers all of that, but feel free to sent me a /tell in game if you have more questions :)

Edit: Garland of Bliss -> Chaotic Strike = Light

Whoa so many questions there Shaggnix!
Most people in here are really awesome SMN players and have high standards, you'd probably be overwhelmed by that amount of "stuff to do" so I'll try to list only the vital stuff, consider it a decent starting point. Just my take on it of course, I'm no SMN sage.

Which sets I need?

• Idle Set - Normally people have at least 2 (avatar out, no avatar) but you could merge them into one for starters, I suppose. You can build your own and look for suggestions on page one. You're gonna need Refresh stuff and Avatar Perpetuation stuff. For this latter one don't go above -15

• BP Recast set - One of the BP sets you'll need. BPs normally cap at 60 seconds cooldown, independently split in two for BPWard (Buffs/debuffs) and BPrage (attack). Thanks to gear with "BP Recast -X" gear you can lower that to 45 seconds (which means don't equip more than -15 in gear). With recently added "BP-recastII" you can furtherly reduce that timer to like ~35 seconds total recast. Special JAs like Apogee are a different story of course. Check the pieces you want and build your own set. BP-II is only present in two Reforged Relic pieces, on Incursion augmented SMN cape and on Seraphicaller, iir

• BP Damage: Physical - A composition of gear focused on pet attack, pet accuracy, BP damage and where you can't find anything better, SMN skill (it converts to pet acc/macc). As for the staff to use here I suggest a Path A Tumafyrig

• BP Damage: Magical - A composition of gear focused on pet stats used for magic damage BPs. You'll want to focus on pet magic accuracy, pet magic attack and bp damage. Again, SMN skill where you can't find anything better. I suggest Frazil Staff (drop from Shiva) for this. Alternatively there's Balsam Staff (from AH) and Eminent Pole (bought with Sparks of Eminence). Of course you could also get a second Tumafyrig Path B, or a Keraunos (Alluvion Skirmish) with the right augments if you're feeling lucky

• Other BPs - Other BPs can be either debuffs (requiring pet macc/smn skill) or buffs (requiring smn skill to increase their duration, and/or "Blood Boon" stats to reduce the mp cost). But we're going into details there. For starters you could start with a single set composed of all the pet macc/smnskill you can find. You could also focus on SMN skill mainly and merge this set with the following.

• SMN Skill set - This is used for Perfect Defense (more skill = PD lasts more) and for Elemental Siphon (MP recover JA, more skill = more MP). Can merge with the above. If you don't want to test your luck augmenting Kirin Pole for SMN skill +12, you can use a Tumafyrig (any path) to begin with, it has SMN skill+7

This is basically the core of what you need.
Start from your idle set, precast BP usage with the BP recast set, then midcast to the right BP set according to the BP you're using.


Some random suggestions on gear now. Unless specified I mean 119 pieces of course.

Reforged AF
Head is quite an awesome idle piece with its refresh+2 and I think atm it's the best for smn skill+. Given how Avatar's Favor changed lately though, you'll probably want to idle with an AF3+2 head.
Body is atm the best BP damage option, 2% more damage than the previous one (AF3+2)
I would ignore hands and legs, but consider Feet please. They're one of the best option for BP damage (augmented Hagondes could be better for magical BP, situationally, but with this you'll have a nice option for both in a single piece)

Reforged Relic
Head is a nice option for magical BPs if you're not feeling lucky with Hagondes. (also nice to reach the -15 BP cap)
Body is a decent piece to idle with when your avatar is out, but a perfectly augmented Hagondes is going to be better (are you feeling lucky though?). You're going to want this body regardless though, because of the BP-II
Hands are an inferior but decent idle alternative to Regimen Mitts with the additional utility of -BP and +smn skill.
Legs are quite a nice option for BP debuffs (and -BP!)
Feet are an wesome idle option (avatar out) and one of the two BP-II options.
If you have to set priorities here, I'd start with Body and feet, then the rest.

Hagondes set
All of the hagondes items can be augmented with Pet Macc, Pet Mab and Avatar Perpetuation-.
It can be pretty difficult to get the right augment on Hagondes set because of the very wide list of possible augments.
A dedicated SMN would want the pet macc, but I think you can skip it for now.
Which leaves you with the other 2 options.
Slots where you want to aim for Pet Mab are Head (only other decent option being Reforged Relic), Hands (only other decent option being Nares Hands or the Spurrina Gages, good luck with them) Legs (other option being Ngen Seraweels, drops from Legion, and AF3+2 legs but only for Merit BPs) and feet (situationally better than reforged relic, if you get good augments)
On Body you'll want Avatar Perpetuation -, makes Hago+1 the best Idle body for SMN. If you don't feel that dedicated just settle with reforged relic.

Empyrean Armor
No reforged version out yet, let's see the current options. Talking about +2 of course.
Head ==> Nice idle piece if you're using Avatar's Favour
Body ==> second best option for BP damage after reforged AF
Hands ==> meh
Legs ==> decent damage option for merit BPs
Feet ==> they were a nice avatar out idle option, but now you have reforged Relic.
Neck ==> still useful, get it

Other notable pieces
SMN skill grip (buy on AH)
Evoker's Ring (quested, get it it's nice)
Andoaa's Earring (drops from Calimh)
SMN skill belt (AH, expensive though)
back => one nice option comes from Incursion, the other from 2nd NM in Yorcia Delve. Augmented Conveyance cape is also pretty hawt sauce.
Marduk+1 => There are some nice smnskill+ option, and you can build some decent precast sets. If you already have them or are regularly doing Salvage go for it. I wouldn't bother otherwise
Globidonta Ring ==> from Incursion


I think that's it, I likely covered most of the basic stuff.



It's all a matter of personal choices.
For group one I went Pet Macc/Mabb 5/5.
For group two you'll hear all sort of suggestions. Who would say to go 4/5 in one and then 1/5 in the others, who says to get 5/5 in two, blahblah.
Kinda depends what sort of content you do and hence which avatars you use most. It's hard to give you a definitive answer here.
I went 3/5 Garuda, 3/5 Ramuh and 1/5 in the rest. I kinda swap them somewhat often though.

Thank you for the detailed and extensive reply, thats exactly what i was looking for.

I read through the guide in the meantime and made my lists, then made a few adjustments after reading your post.

1 more question though: for BPs in general, I just realized the recast and dmg sets are separate, so I assume the recast is precast and you want the dmg set on when the BP actually goes off. Timing wise is it similar to how wyvern breaths used to be before they updated? meaning:

/equipset "BP recast"
/BP <wait 1>
/equipset BP damage

should work as intended?

If you're using Gearswap there's a specific function (pet_midcast) that you can use to perfectly time your stuff.
If you're using windower macros or other things precasting your BP- gear and putting a wait of 1 or 2 should do the job.

This of course wouldn't work when Astral Conduit (SP2) is active. For that you need to use the midcast set only.


Either way, hope you'll find your path through the job.
Once you start getting dedicated there's a lot of subtle stuff you'll need to go after, but I find that for "basic" stuff SMN is pretty easy/straightforward to gear up ;)
(altough someone might say that goes for all jobs, hey)

The skillchain boost to our 70 pacts is really nice. As expected, the pacts have level 2 skillchain properties related to the element of the avatar. As someone who does a lot of pet burning, this is a great way to add some significant damage.

Predator claws to flaming crush makes a light skillchain. So those 10,000+ dmg flaming crushes now add an extra 10,000 dmg light skillchain. Throw in apogee and both smns can immediately magic burst afterwards, or just create another light skillchain.

Caller's Sash, Sechs. Forgot one of the more over-looked AF3 pieces!

Just wanted to put up my testing for what skillchain combo's I've found for solo SMN. Only testing with physical blood pacts for time sake. WS and Blood pact were found to be generally reversible. Happy soloing!

Flaming Crush <-> Shattersoul = Fragmentation
Chaotic Strike <-> Shattersoul = Fragmentation
Chaotic Strike <-> Garland of Bliss = Light
Predator Claws <-> Garland of Bliss = Light
Rush <-> Shattersoul = Darkness
Mountain Buster <-> Garland of Bliss = Gravitation
Spinning Dive <-> Shattersoul = Darkness
Eclipse Bite <-> Garland of Bliss = Gravitation

Well magical blood pacts only magic burst anyway and those dont need to be tested anyway. Its only the level 70 blood pacts that have been changed the others are still the same.

Given the right circumstances, Shattersoul > Apogee Flaming Crush (Fragmention) > Flaming Crush (Light) can be a decent combo for solo.