Summoner makes me want to quit.

[Pelori]

Then add a few veggies and roast over a grill with a lemon herb butter. Now that's up a notch.

 

[Mai Ikari]

Yes, but crabs don't resist piercing or slashing damage.

Try skewering the crab with a sharp, finely pointed spear - it's going to pierce the shell and cause brutal internal injuries.

That's something I've never understood... Shouldn't peircing attacks be naturally strong vs any defense? Kinda like a permanent Attack Bonus for simply having a peircing weapon. That's why the call it peircing, as in it peirces armor. If this was actually true, DRG would be a lot stronger DD. Alas, peircing is simply another damage type.

 

[Tagrineth]

That's something I've never understood... Shouldn't peircing attacks be naturally strong vs any defense? Kinda like a permanent Attack Bonus for simply having a peircing weapon. That's why the call it peircing, as in it peirces armor. If this was actually true, DRG would be a lot stronger DD. Alas, peircing is simply another damage type.

Agreed. Thief would make more sense in this case, too, as Daggers aren't even meant to "pierce" armour, they're meant to poke into gaps in the aforementioned armour.

Arrows/Bullets are designed to poke right through armour too and strike the very core of a living creature - bullets are even designed to ricochet inside the victim's body to cause additional internal damage.

 

[Shaunessy]

That's something I've never understood... Shouldn't peircing attacks be naturally strong vs any defense? Kinda like a permanent Attack Bonus for simply having a peircing weapon. That's why the call it peircing, as in it peirces armor. If this was actually true, DRG would be a lot stronger DD. Alas, peircing is simply another damage type.

Not really. Piercing against link type armor yes, against plate type no. Ofcourse if you went with that model then blunt would be better against plate than piercing would and slashing would completely own leather type armor. In this game though there are no 2 handed hammers so you can't even compare armors like this. Just imagine the damage a WAR could do against PLD mobs and bones with a big ass 2 handed hammer.

 

[Tagrineth]

Not really. Piercing against link type armor yes, against plate type no. Ofcourse if you went with that model then blunt would be better against plate than piercing would and slashing would completely own leather type armor. In this game though there are no 2 handed hammers so you can't even compare armors like this. Just imagine the damage a WAR could do against PLD mobs and bones with a big ass 2 handed hammer.

A 2 handed Hammer type weapon would make WHM and PLD DD much more viable. It'd be like Staves with a significantly higher DMG capability... actually, thinking about it that way, it'd be great if SE added Hammer-style weapons under Staves... with significantly higher DMG: than other Staves but also somewhat slower Delay... but not so much that their DPS would be hurt compared to regular "combat" staves.

 

[Shaunessy]

But it wouldn't be a staff. It would be a hammer. Are Scyth and Great Axe and Great Katana in the same category, no. The only way I could see where staff and 2 handed hammer would share something would be Rock Crusher and Earth Crusher. Other than that though they are completly different weapons.

 

[Tagrineth]

But it wouldn't be a staff. It would be a hammer. Are Scyth and Great Axe and Great Katana in the same category, no. The only way I could see where staff and 2 handed hammer would share something would be Rock Crusher and Earth Crusher. Other than that though they are completly different weapons.

True, but Hammers are mixed in with Clubs too.

You wouldn't wield a Warhammer the same way you'd wield a Staff, but then again, Spear animations are identical to Staff despite being a different category and significantly different style of weapon - because Spears as a whole have a different damage class than Staves.

Warhammers would be nice to see, I just don't see SE adding a whole new weapon category for it, especially considering that one-handed hammers don't have one.

 

[Zaltana]

Ok, try taking a kitchen knife to a crab. Not gonna work very well.
Try taking a fork to a crab shell. Same thing.
Try taking a hammer to a crab, a little more effective.

The game has SOME physics engine.

QFT.

try being a rng tang. mine is 50 atm and i've shot enough mobs to know the difference to realize my attacks are stronger to some enemies and weaker aginst others. im not talking between shots on both im talking over all dmg per a shot in relation to the mob. my lack of understanding about this is what made me stop playing rng in at first.

take the CN for example. you exp off crawlers, exos, flies, and beetles. my dmg was pretty much the same for the crawlers and the exorays. 80's-90's average on both. the flies made our pld think she was doing a horrible job almost cause she lost hate to me alot. it wasnt the case (she's awesome). my dmg never droped below 100 per a hit. and i use element arrows so my DMG is upped a notch from the elemental dmg as well. when we got to beetles my dmg droped to the 70's for each hit. all these numbers are with food active FYI.

now before you tell me to try being a drg let me say that my goon is 41. i was a drg in my static before i switched to rng at 41. and i noticed similer changes in numbers.

not all mobs are on even footing and some jobs are better at taking out certain mobs then others. you wanna kill undead, no better choise then a monk. you wanna take out a flying mob (bat, flys, ect), a RNG will pin it to the sky or a goon will nail it to the wall. you wanna kill an elemental, call your rdm or blm friends. just a few examples.

 

[Sanjo Renomitsu]

Off topic imo.. lol, but the damage types are fine as is imo.

I read your entire post, and all of the related ones man. If the game is no longer fun, I'd say first give it a break, then if you come back and still don't find the game or changes to your liking, leave. I know everyone's said the same, but it's simple advice and I believe its good advice.

I have to say.. I can undestand how you feel, I loved smn, and I was one of the first NA smn. I got to know liefe a bit and areia pretty well, and I consider them some of the best smn's I've had the pleasure of knowing. (setting aside your personal view of them, I'm reffering to their smn).

PLEASE realize I have leveled smn and loved it the entire way, although eventually I quit it because the healing got to me. I still like smn, although I think they either need improvment or we need a mind set change. I would love improvment for them, and I will explain my reasons for thinking they need to be improved.

I have argued the same point you are also making many many times on these same boards long ag. The simple fact is, smn has it rougher then many many classes and people do not understand, and all this work goes into honestly nothing. The actual job quest is annoying and difficult for a level 30, as well most are anyways. But getting the ruby can be extremely annoying, and waiting for the elements is something you really can't be helped with and is just as annoying.

Finally, you become a smn. As you mentioned, you were surprised to find you had only carby. Turns out you had to do a lot more work. I fought all of the avatars, which required getting pretty damn close to max fame everywhere and god damn norg. Then obtain a level 60 party, for a damn level 1 class, to obtain some of my pacts. Finally they died (thank goodness for sam) and I brushed fenrir off. (I don't remember, but I don't believe he was ingame yet. Not til a bit after my smn career I believe, if I'm wrong sorry.)

I thought I had what I needed. Already, I spent a lot more work on a level 1 class then most people would. Granted, you really won't need any of the avatars for quite some time besides carby.

So finally I set to work leveling smn, it was pretty fun, I enjoy pet classes. Using carby to tank I was kind of hoping this was how it would be forever.
50 levels later, starting my AF, some of the hardest AF I've done btw, utter bullshit I realized something. I had to be the worst smn on the server. I carefully looked at my current smn career. Rarely any invites. People just asking me to heal and me refusing and getting kicked. It crushed me. I started to think I just sucked. Hey, it had to be something,right? Then I sat down to think a bit about the class, how I can make myself more effective as I worked on the EQUALLY as retarded carby mitts quest. (seeing a trend here? All of these smn "needables", although not really needed, are pretty hard to get, no? Hmm....)

I realized it finally. It came to me, and I have believed it strongly ever since. Weither intentional or not, smn are healers. It is an argument many have, but from my experience of being on both sides of the argument, I find I would have to call myself and idiot for not realizing them as healers. At the VERY least the argument is moot until 70 . Even with all these powerful avatars, their melee damage makes me cry. Their blood pacts waste more mp then listed because of the mp used while they are out, and can only be used once a minute. Most of these wear off long before then. Then sitting down and looking through all the blood pacts, I realized most of them are worthless anyways.

Stoneskin and blink are only good in situation cases, the don't really help the tank. Its gone in an instant and imo not worth wasting a party slot just to have, even if all those lazy mages and unskilled melee say it may save their lives when they get hate. Ah well, don't get hate. And if you're melee and need stoneskin to survive getting hate... quit. Now. Hastega is nice, but once again not worth wasting a party slot for as both whm and rdm can do it, and I promise you most of them will be willing to heal. Not to mention rdm can haste on need, dispel, as well as weaken the monster. Whats left? Well I can go through on all the blood pacts, but as a smn you must of realized the rest pretty much suck anyways. Levi's spring water and carby's second teir healing are amazing though, still not worth wasting a party slot for however. Whats left? Fenrir's two buffs and eclipse bite..yes. From time to time the bite does decent damage. Fenrir's two buffs are good, I'll admit that, and they are usually both cast. Its too bad as your timer is up one of the buffs will come down once you finished casting both. Basically meaning if you want to keep them up thats all you will be casting, those two buffs. Oh well, while good, not worth wasting a party spot for. Brd are hands down better. And regardless any other class would likely help you more.

So we basically have the fact that avatars are completly useless in an xp setting for the most part -by themselves-. Now, with the addition of allowing them to SC and WS, its improved a little bit. However, by themselves these abilities are worthless. Blm will outdamage smn without trying. And while SCing is nice, 9/10 times it will be used as a "make it work" effort, as I can almost guarnatee you will not be chosen over a warrior to SC. On top of all this, adding your pathetic damage (which may be good if you have no competition, i.e. no blm in pt ect, or no -decent- blm in pt anyways.) you are also wasting your blood pact, keeping you from keeping buffs up.

Verdict: Not worth wasting a party slot alone or in combination with just buff blood pact/avatar melee damage.

I won't bring up the elementals. Super mp consumption, no control over them, and their willingness to cast crappy spells makes them next to useless. I use them as "oh shit" defense since they are fast cast, when I get agroed with no avatar out.

So what DOES smn have left? Nothing. Even at 70 when smn pee their pants about finally being DD, it is my opinion that the extra damage is not worth it unless you are rich or have like a brd and a rdm refreshing. From my experience it burns mp fast and wastes my blood pact, meaning I can't buff or heal as I have to rest. Most blm at that level can outdo a smn DD by constantly nuking, and then MBing. I havn't parsed it, so it's just an opinion, but it seems very resonable. These DD BP DO have uses however, its high damage for virtually no hate, so its used, just not very effective in xp pt.

So what does this mean..? Well, that smn itself sucks as much as pld does. That is to say,they do much better when depending on a sub. And in this case, it is whm. All I have explained above will suddenly become much more effective if smn would just main heal! You will also get many many more invites. After realizing what a loser I was, I began to only main heal. My career as smn went much better. But did I just heal? No. I worked with the group, this is what the game is about. I summoned at the begging of fights with a buff, before anyone really needed healing. I'd set it up with the bard or rdm to take over healing for a few sec as I cast the second buff or recast a buff that wore. (usually I just cycled fenrir's buffs). It worked wonderfully. I main healed and bestowed upon them my avatar buffs. Much like a whm would bestow haste and protecta, or teleports. Its a class "perk", and class perks I consider nice things that don't make a class. Whm despite banish, dia, teleports, protects, shells, is still a healer. And this healing is what makes them ...well.. them.

I strongly think it's the same for smn. You can MB, SC, and buff all while main healing and become a much more effective and loved smn, you'll def. get more invites. Still, to tell you the truth I hated it. I still did it, it was my job. I needed the power of gaining levels, and I did it because I knew that outside the party I could go back to being what I was, a summoner. I'd go and farm by summoning and tanking with my avatars, I'd help lower levels by doing the same.

Thats why everytime I see a smn/blm, or a smn who refuses to heal, I get pissed and feel sorry for them at the same time. Every smn I see, I know they will likely have a rough future ahead of them. Some of them will quit smn. Some of them will quit the game. Some of them will realize what the unpleasant truth is, and will deal with it and adapt. Others will simply wait, and hope S-E changes the class.

Weither you want to see it or not, Smn make amazing healers. Its stupid to argue against it. No high level protect or raise may be cons, but its not cons of being a healer, its cons of not being a whm.

I have healed all the way to to DD BP and continued to heal, while doing my smn thing. To all of you who say it's not possible, you're wrong. I have had no problems with mp or hate healing even around the 70's with only cure 3. Since when have you seen a whm spaming cure 4 to heal. Its retarded. And you know it. Any emergency that would require a cure 4 can be dealt with the blm\brd helping toss in a cure 3 or the rdm cure 4ing. Or divine seal can be used. As for status effects, while not fast, Spring Water usually does the trick. I healed petrify without a problem in Den of Rancor liz camp, it took a few sec longer and screwed up my buff casting, but I main healed, the tank was stoned for less then 5 secs and held hate throughout, and my mp was fine. I'm aware I'm limited to one stone cure a minute, but thats better then nothing. We made fantastic xp/hour, about 5k an hour, and I main healed without a glitch. That is proof smn are excellant healers. Now I just wish smn would realize that.

What I believe S-E should of done, was give us three additional job abilities with 15 min recast. One would bump our BP timer to 5 min a use, and increase the mp cost for BP slightly, yet our cost over time in mp for having an avatar out would drastically decrease. Our avatar's melee damage and defense would sky rocket. This mode would be good for SCing and melee combat.

Another ability would be the reverse, our BP's timer goes down to like 40 sec, mp cost to keep out goes up, avatar attack and defense virtually no existent, and BP cost goes down slightly. This mode will allow smn to act more like buffers, keeping several buffs up yet keeping their class balanced and not overpowered. This mode would be good for MBing and buffing.

And the third mode would turn smn back to what they are now, a decent mixture of both.

Thats my opinion on a remedy.

Anyways, if you read all of these, pat yourself on the back and feel free to slap me ingame for making you read it all. Thank you very very much. This smn argument is something I feel strongly about. Forgive the spelling errors, I'm too lazy to spell check.

 

[Kyp]

Well the question then becomes standards. Not to confuse this with a black and white issue, but let's just do a little substitution.

If you invited a Paladin to your party, and you asked them to tank, and they refused, would you consider kicking them? Maybe they have more fun with sniper rings, full attack gear and a great sword.

They can make the argument... Why should paladin be tank? They don't even have provoke except for their subjob. And it's only a half level provoke! (provoke being half level matters just as much as healing magic being half level!)

At the same time, SE has provided a paladin EVERYTHING towards tanking and even given them new abilities to make it easier. While also saying that they want Summoners to keep avatars out for more than a bloodpact. Though they haven't "fixed"* them yet for that purpose.

I will grant to you, having been a paladin and knowing how they do at damage unless there's another tank and his skills are capped with the gsword, that is not worthwhile. On the other hand if I can't find a DD for pt (LOL!) they make suitable substitutes if the Gsword skill is capped for the level. However refusing to tank when that is their main purpose would most likely cause me to remove them. The difference here is a Paladin has a clear and defined purpose by definition where the Summoner does not.

They don't even get defender til 50!

Why can't a Paladin just sub THF and DD?

Well maybe a static party of people like yourself who have no regard for exp and want the most fun possible won't mind this DD paladin.

Defender is used in emergency really, at least in my experience. I've never HAD to use it unless things were going extremely sour.. also this may just be me.. but it seems that it generates no hate from the mob to use it.

I don't have thief high enough to sub, but I could guess that SA would put their sword damage on par with a DD lol.

And it's not that I have "no regard for exp" it's that I understand cold, hard efficiency gets boring. There's no spice when you follow the known road.

But in a pickup party there are basic, minimum standards.

I'm not saying they need to be packing millions and millions in gear. Not saying they must be using HQ food. Not saying their strategy must be perfect. I'm just saying they should expect as a paladin when invited to a party to tank.

God knows i've never managed a pickup party where anyone followed any standards most people that I have picked up with had sub par gear, and food was almost non-existent. Strategy is perfect? *shakes head* But I do agree a Paladin should expect to tank. It's the nature of the job. However they are versatile enough to deal damage with a Gsword if they are capped. I have been invited for it before.

When you invite a dark knight to a party, you should expect them to DD. If they have the option of subbing whitemage and healing, that's fine. But they should be willing to DD.

If a SMN WANTS to DD, that's fine. They should be WILLING to main heal, because that's what they're best at. If they want to find a static party with them doing whatever it is they want to do for fun, sure. If they want to seek as a DD only, and their party leader is ok with them DDing, then so be it. But for christ sakes, don't complain that not so many party leaders are ok with it. I'm sure most of the ones who are are the ones who don't know a damn thing about SMN. I sure as hell know most of the ones who invited my SMN to DD didn't know a thing about SMN.

Dark Knight is obviously intended to do damage, every ability they have raises attack level in some way. Subbing any mage job other than blm considering their given spells seems kinda silly. But in my experience most DRK wanna see a high damage number.. so they use every ability at once and end up DRK-Paste on the floor.

They were just like, "Don't worry we got a WHM so you don't gotta heal!"

"So what am I supposed to do?"

"Dunno, just do whatever it is SMN do! " << Here they expect me to be overjoyed.

I watched SMN closely while leveling with many as my other jobs. I saw the good ones(few and far between), I saw what the shitty ones did wrong. So I learned what worked and what didn't. By the time my SMN was level 2 I knew how I was going to play it in party. My strategy is good. If you want a good exp with a SMN in your party, you'll prefer they use it. If you want flashy lights and lots of cool special effects, you'll get someone else.


And by the way, not getting past chain 3 because your party consists of instead of 6 members, 5 members and an avatar, is not fun.

Like I said, I personally haven't leveled summoner very far. I don't have any real avatars. Carb and Earth Spirit. But from the summoners I have seen that like to attack when they can using the avatar for the current Vana'Diel day seems to produce more damage unless the mob is naturally strong against that element.

As for that last statement, why would it be 5 members and an avatar since an avatar doesn't take up a party slot? The summoner may have to rest more often keeping them out but I've rarely seen a summoner who couldn't make it through a chain in any case. (Maybe if i'd ever seen a Galka Summoner, dunno)

*"fixed" SEs "fixes" scare me. I really hope they plan them out well..

 

[Zaltana]

not bad. not bad at all.

 

[Firestreak]

At the same time, SE has provided a paladin EVERYTHING towards tanking and even given them new abilities to make it easier. While also saying that they want Summoners to keep avatars out for more than a bloodpact. Though they haven't "fixed"* them yet for that purpose.

If squaresoft wants Summoners to keep avatars out, they shouldn't have avatars drain mp while being out. It's pretty stupid to declare you want the game to be played a way and at the same time punish players for doing that.

I will grant to you, having been a paladin and knowing how they do at damage unless there's another tank and his skills are capped with the gsword, that is not worthwhile. On the other hand if I can't find a DD for pt (LOL!) they make suitable substitutes if the Gsword skill is capped for the level. However refusing to tank when that is their main purpose would most likely cause me to remove them. The difference here is a Paladin has a clear and defined purpose by definition where the Summoner does not.

No, a paladin does not make a decent substitite... even with capped G-sword, DD gear and berserk on... they aren't going to be very good.

Defender is used in emergency really, at least in my experience. I've never HAD to use it unless things were going extremely sour.. also this may just be me.. but it seems that it generates no hate from the mob to use it.

I don't have thief high enough to sub, but I could guess that SA would put their sword damage on par with a DD lol.

And it's not that I have "no regard for exp" it's that I understand cold, hard efficiency gets boring. There's no spice when you follow the known road.

To be honest if I was DDing as PLD I would do it as WAR. Pld/thf is pretty gimp, I only use for farming purposes, and /war at least gives double attack and berserk.

God knows i've never managed a pickup party where anyone followed any standards most people that I have picked up with had sub par gear, and food was almost non-existent. Strategy is perfect? *shakes head* But I do agree a Paladin should expect to tank. It's the nature of the job. However they are versatile enough to deal damage with a Gsword if they are capped. I have been invited for it before.

Paladin weren't always used as tanks.

Dark Knight is obviously intended to do damage, every ability they have raises attack level in some way. Subbing any mage job other than blm considering their given spells seems kinda silly. But in my experience most DRK wanna see a high damage number.. so they use every ability at once and end up DRK-Paste on the floor.

Dark knight have a task that they excel at most. They excel at it because the game has been balanced that way. If the game suddenly changed their name to "Dark Healers", and declared they should sub WHM and cure, while changing NOTHING about the balance, would you expect all the current DRKs to start doing that?

Like I said, I personally haven't leveled summoner very far. I don't have any real avatars. Carb and Earth Spirit. But from the summoners I have seen that like to attack when they can using the avatar for the current Vana'Diel day seems to produce more damage unless the mob is naturally strong against that element.

Here's the cold hard facts. I know what SMN are "supposed" to be. Their job is supposed to be centered around "summoning".

Here's the problem.

What does "summoning" do for my exp? Does "being a summoner" increase my exp per hour? I know what a tank does. The tank minimizes the party's damage, allowing the chaining to continue. The healer keeps the party alive, allowing the chaining to continue. RDMs and BRDs keep MP flowing, allowing the party's chaining to conitnue. And DDs kill the mob... bringing in exp.

You either help continue the chain...

..or you deal damage.

Now what does "being a summoner" do?

By "being a summoner" and having my avatars out, and "doing stuff" with them... do I deal damage effectively? Do I help the chain go on by throwing random defense buffs every minute or that or that? DO SMN have a refreshga BP I forgot about that continues the chain? You'll have to forgive me I can't find it on my list.

All you're really saying is that this is about fun not efficiency.

And the "fun" is playing the job as it's intended to be played.

And we should listen to what squaresoft declares the job as, and ignore the way that they actually coded it in?

When your avatars are out... you lose MP, QUICKLY. You can't be resting for mp. You are essentially, FUCKED. You can get refreshed and Balladed and buy tons of HQ staves and break even!

Which brings me to my next point.

As for that last statement, why would it be 5 members and an avatar since an avatar doesn't take up a party slot? The summoner may have to rest more often keeping them out but I've rarely seen a summoner who couldn't make it through a chain in any case. (Maybe if i'd ever seen a Galka Summoner, dunno)

*"fixed" SEs "fixes" scare me. I really hope they plan them out well..

You're breaking even MP at maximum with millions of gear and ballad+refresh. All you are.. is an avatar. If you main heal and use your BP once a minute.. then you are a summoner and an avatar. If you keep your avatar out, your avatar is all you can use.You can't regen MP while you have avatar out, so every cure spell you cast is subtracted and can't be returned.

And then everytime you use a BP, you lose huge chunks of MP and you can't regenerate them. Far more MP than you could ever hope to get back between fights if you decide to throw away your TP and go for "less damage".

And what is your avatar? An extremely high maintenence, DD that has all the melee damage of a thf, with no accuracy, no JAs, shitty BPs that often miss and NO WAY POSSIBLE to make them stronger.

When you invite the SMN playing "the right way", that's what you are getting.

 

[Kyp]

If squaresoft wants Summoners to keep avatars out, they shouldn't have avatars drain mp while being out. It's pretty stupid to declare you want the game to be played a way and at the same time punish players for doing that.

No, in game design this is what is referred to as a "shadow cost" the problem is, it is unbalanced and that is the fault of SE. They should balance that cost of mp with the damage a summoner can do with an avatar. That is the ideal situation when you create a cost like this. Perpetuation cost is far too high for what they do offer and that is why summoner is shoehorned into healing.

No, a paladin does not make a decent substitite... even with capped G-sword, DD gear and berserk on... they aren't going to be very good.

meh, it's not as strong as a regular damage dealer.. but then it's not intended to be. So no, a paladin isn't the equal of a dark knight in damage dealing. But then.. why would it be since the only attack bonuses they can receive come from food or a subjob.

To be honest if I was DDing as PLD I would do it as WAR. Pld/thf is pretty gimp, I only use for farming purposes, and /war at least gives double attack and berserk.

I am of the opinion i'd do it with sub war too, you'd hit harder over time instead of just on the WSes, I really don't understand the thf sub on a damage dealer. But then I just saw the differences really between sam/war and sam/thf. The sam/thf had high damage ws but parsed less overall than the sam/war.

Paladin weren't always used as tanks.

No I remember war/nin being a big thing for tanks, but you can't really argue that based on abilities that is what a paladin is designed for, the only obvious flaw is lack of a provoke type skill without the war subjob. But then that's what the "enrage" thing I heard about would be i'd imagine? then again that might have something to do with some of the aht urghan mobs I haven't seen.

Dark knight have a task that they excel at most. They excel at it because the game has been balanced that way. If the game suddenly changed their name to "Dark Healers", and declared they should sub WHM and cure, while changing NOTHING about the balance, would you expect all the current DRKs to start doing that?

No, I wouldn't but then again I would imagine you'd do the job they are designed for, even if not necessarily balanced properly. There are many MMOs that are balanced incorrectly on the professions they have designed. This is shortsightedness of the developers and/or lack of clarity in the design document when it's being designed.

Here's the cold hard facts. I know what SMN are "supposed" to be. Their job is supposed to be centered around "summoning".

What they are "supposed" to be is what they should be balanced for, unfortunately as they were added they were implemented incorrectly. So people have decided to use them do fill another type of job to make up for the inadequacy of the way the job was designed.

What does "summoning" do for my exp? Does "being a summoner" increase my exp per hour? I know what a tank does. The tank minimizes the party's damage, allowing the chaining to continue. The healer keeps the party alive, allowing the chaining to continue. RDMs and BRDs keep MP flowing, allowing the party's chaining to conitnue. And DDs kill the mob... bringing in exp.

You either help continue the chain...

..or you deal damage.

Yes, going with "what works" instead of "whats intended". This is the fault of the developers and not the players. There's no reason to black-ball someone for them wanting to play the job as it's intended vs how it works currently because of a bad design.

Now what does "being a summoner" do?

By "being a summoner" and having my avatars out, and "doing stuff" with them... do I deal damage effectively? Do I help the chain go on by throwing random defense buffs every minute or that or that? DO SMN have a refreshga BP I forgot about that continues the chain? You'll have to forgive me I can't find it on my list.

You can deal damage, the problem is it's not enough to satisfy some people's standards.I remember partying plenty without refresh and still doing ok, if not the best xp possible.

All you're really saying is that this is about fun not efficiency.

Important distinction here, I'm saying "a game is about fun, not efficiency" not trying to make the argument for the job.

And the "fun" is playing the job as it's intended to be played.

No sir fun is at base defined by the individual player, if they enjoy something then it's fun. That is part of why so many games that are released suck. Developers aim at something *they* think is fun which some players don't find fun at all. One good example of this would be the promyvions of CoP. There are a lot of players that haven't completed CoP because it's incredibly difficult in certain parts, but there are some players that derive enjoyment and "fun" from being challenged so. You, based on what i've read, derive your fun from doing well. Classifies you as an Achiever I would imagine. You have fun when you complete things and do them quickly and efficiently.

And we should listen to what squaresoft declares the job as, and ignore the way that they actually coded it in?

They should fix the job if they want players to be able to play it as intended. I'm sure they will do something towards that in the balance stuff coming up. As I said, this kind of thing is the result of the design team and the programmers (the design document) not being properly in sync or in touch.

When your avatars are out... you lose MP, QUICKLY. You can't be resting for mp. You are essentially, FUCKED. You can get refreshed and Balladed and buy tons of HQ staves and break even!

I can't make a valid argument to this as I don't have summoner that high, but this relates back to shadow costs above as well. The ability of the avatars needs to be adjusted to reflect the cost OR the costs need to be adjusted to reflect the ability of the avatars. They are not in balance.

Which brings me to my next point.
You're breaking even MP at maximum with millions of gear and ballad+refresh. All you are.. is an avatar. If you main heal and use your BP once a minute.. then you are a summoner and an avatar. If you keep your avatar out, your avatar is all you can use.You can't regen MP while you have avatar out, so every cure spell you cast is subtracted and can't be returned.

Ok, something needs to be done here too. The costs of keeping the avatar out shouldn't be so high that they cannot be overcome with the outside assistance of your party. That's broken based on the ability of the avatars, if they dealt a LOT more damage then that would be ok.

And then everytime you use a BP, you lose huge chunks of MP and you can't regenerate them. Far more MP than you could ever hope to get back between fights if you decide to throw away your TP and go for "less damage".

And what is your avatar? An extremely high maintenence, DD that has all the melee damage of a thf, with no accuracy, no JAs, shitty BPs that often miss and NO WAY POSSIBLE to make them stronger.

When you invite the SMN playing "the right way", that's what you are getting.

Based on everything in this last broke you're just saying in a long way that the job is broken from what it's intended to be, and many would be inclined to agree with you. By far there are a lot more summoners who would like to do the job as it should be vs. the job it is because.. well would you want to be a black mage if you didn't cast damage spells? Would you want to be a monk/drk/drg/sam etc if you didn't deal damage. Would you want to be a white mage if you couldn't heal? Would you want to be a tank if you had no abilities to help maintain your hate?

Simply put, when you take up a profession you expect it to work as it's designed.. in the interest of doing your job would you do what the party needed vs what your job does? Would you main heal for your party if a whm or another healer was unavailable?

 

[Sabia]

Kyp, if you're not summoning in your party (ie doing your job, as in SUMMONER) you're a shitty summoner. If you're not using bloodpacts during a battle, you're a shitty summoner. However what Fire is saying is, what makes you an efficient party member is what you do between that little 1 min timer.

If SE wanted summoner to be a DD, they'd give avatars more accuracy, higher damage Bloodpacts, IV spells that are equal (or at least comparable to BLM), good melee damage for the actual summoner (like how a bst melees beside their pet), more HP, no 1 min bloodpact timer, boodpacts would cost less mp and here's the big one - avatars would NOT cast MP to keep out. You would not be punished for keeping them out if SE wanted you to keep them out.

You keep talking about the way the job was 'intended' to play, from the over 2 years I've been playing the game (most of the time on summoner) everything I've done has lead me to think that square wanted me to main heal ninjas, and in some cases, really good Paladins.

This all being said it is your game, you do pay your monthly fee, but don't complain when people want you to play the job as a main healer/buffer because they want an efficient party member and are looking for a main healer to, you guessed it, level. The faster most players level the happier they are. My beef with bad smns who melee with avatars (I've partied with them) is they are the reason I sit there and get no invites for 4 days, I know this because I've heard the trash talk on my whm. The nice thing though is I get lots of compliments from incredible players, stuff like "Sorry guys, I didn't play as well tonight - I'm tired" "It's okay sabs, you're like one of the few good summoners I know"

And I'm not making that up, they say this because I utalize both my subjob and main to help my parties do what they invited me to help them do - gain levels.

PS: In most parties I manage to bloodpact every single minute while main healing. I definately use my main more than my sub....

 

[K. Ishitar]

To echo sabia...

How can one "know" how a job should be played when they didn't even work on teh game?

Its like ppl trying to make a cookie cutter mold for blu and its only been out 4 weeks, i mean its so versatile it can do anything like smn

/end rant

 

[Zaltana]

dont forget sabs SE never intended to make nin's tanks either. players managed to fit them into that roll. and yes SE said that they didnt intend for smn's to be healers. but they did a poor job at it. which leads me to wonder when they intended for smn to be anyway? someone mentioned before that our first set of AF is mainly defencive minded but the relic set is more offencive based. 2 parts of it cut the perp cost down and all of it shaves some time off the BP timer. this leads one to think SE wanted smn to be more offenive based in the later lvls. but relic isnt obtained in a day (in alot of cases u can go months and get nada) so that still leaves you at square one. till the makers of this job make up their mind i'll keep the balance that i've come to.

 

[Firestreak]

Based on everything in this last broke you're just saying in a long way that the job is broken from what it's intended to be, and many would be inclined to agree with you. By far there are a lot more summoners who would like to do the job as it should be vs. the job it is because.. well would you want to be a black mage if you didn't cast damage spells? Would you want to be a monk/drk/drg/sam etc if you didn't deal damage. Would you want to be a white mage if you couldn't heal? Would you want to be a tank if you had no abilities to help maintain your hate?

Alright, most of your argument is about the same(not an insult), so I'm not going to respond to every point because I'll just be repeating myself over and over.

First I'll say I've main healed before as all of my jobs. SMN, WHM, BLM, PLD and even NIN(that was quite a party). Why? Because I was asked, and given the circumstances of the party that I was in's needs, I agreed that would be the most useful thing for me to do.

The only aspect of FF I find boring is waiting in my mog house with seek up. So if a party wants me to DD as my WHM or heal as my BLM I will do it. I leveled many different jobs so that based on whatever task I was needed for I could be the most efficient job for it. That's also the purpose of meriting, buying good gear, doing endgame activity.

When you start the game you're a naked level 1 warrior with a sword made out of a smelly vegetable. You're useless, no worse than useless. To the community around you, you're a burden. You need help to get yourself to the point you are useful.

Therefore, this game is not about instant gratification. If I wanted that, I'd play grand theft auto 3 and run some minorities over with a tank.

That being said, if I absolutely hated being main healer, I'd quit SMN and move on with my life. I'd play one of the many many other jobs where I could get to 75 without ever main healing.

That being said, I don't invite people based on pity. So the odds are, I'm just not going to invite any SMN to any exp parties I make. My chances of getting a good one are against me and I don't kick people from my party unless they're being an asshole. The only way I'd consider inviting a SMN is if they had "main heal" or something like that in their search comment, and they were either rank 10 so I could assume they have fenrir or they put it somewhere.

This is because I want to gain exp and main healing between Fenrir's BPs is good exp.

SMN have the ability to do this. Now if they don't want to, they don't have to. I'm not gonna send them /tells to get their ass in gear. I'm not Vang I'm not going to go around calling people gimps. But I'm not going to party with them.

That means, it's ok, if you are all about instant gratification fun, playing any job any way for fun. You can invite all the SMN you want and have them play however they like. Everyone has the right to play the way they want. My way, includes kicking a lot of ass, and as long as I'm not in some way hurting people, I'll do it by any means needed.

Hence back to the beginning... SMN complaining about lack of invites and their hatred of main healing.

It's ALL about the community. When I party with a Japanese SMN, they always expect to be main healer. This is not some stupid 'Japanese are better than us' argument. This is simply a deductive comparison.

>>Japanese SMN expect to main heal.
>>Japanese SMN don't spend hours seeking for party.

Within their community they main heal, and then within their community they get invites.

If everyone saw SMN as a main healing job before unlocking it, only the people willing to main heal would play it. People who won't main heal, would pllay another job. People who love main healing may become drawn to it.

The problem is, everyone in this community sympathizes with the SMN who doesn't want to main heal. Why? Just play another job!

If we spread the message loud and clear, "SMN are main healers!" then people who hate main healing will stop wasting their time as SMN. They'll play a job where they can do what they want to do(which seems to me like BST), and the SMN who prefer to main heal will get quick invites.

just a suggestion.

 

[Sabia]

Oh burn Firestreak! I really need to get rank 10 =(

 

[Kyp]

Alright, most of your argument is about the same(not an insult), so I'm not going to respond to every point because I'll just be repeating myself over and over.

First I'll say I've main healed before as all of my jobs. SMN, WHM, BLM, PLD and even NIN(that was quite a party). Why? Because I was asked, and given the circumstances of the party that I was in's needs, I agreed that would be the most useful thing for me to do.

The only aspect of FF I find boring is waiting in my mog house with seek up. So if a party wants me to DD as my WHM or heal as my BLM I will do it. I leveled many different jobs so that based on whatever task I was needed for I could be the most efficient job for it. That's also the purpose of meriting, buying good gear, doing endgame activity.

When you start the game you're a naked level 1 warrior with a sword made out of a smelly vegetable. You're useless, no worse than useless. To the community around you, you're a burden. You need help to get yourself to the point you are useful.

Therefore, this game is not about instant gratification. If I wanted that, I'd play grand theft auto 3 and run some minorities over with a tank.

That being said, if I absolutely hated being main healer, I'd quit SMN and move on with my life. I'd play one of the many many other jobs where I could get to 75 without ever main healing.

That being said, I don't invite people based on pity. So the odds are, I'm just not going to invite any SMN to any exp parties I make. My chances of getting a good one are against me and I don't kick people from my party unless they're being an asshole. The only way I'd consider inviting a SMN is if they had "main heal" or something like that in their search comment, and they were either rank 10 so I could assume they have fenrir or they put it somewhere.

This is because I want to gain exp and main healing between Fenrir's BPs is good exp.

SMN have the ability to do this. Now if they don't want to, they don't have to. I'm not gonna send them /tells to get their ass in gear. I'm not Vang I'm not going to go around calling people gimps. But I'm not going to party with them.

That means, it's ok, if you are all about instant gratification fun, playing any job any way for fun. You can invite all the SMN you want and have them play however they like. Everyone has the right to play the way they want. My way, includes kicking a lot of ass, and as long as I'm not in some way hurting people, I'll do it by any means needed.

Hence back to the beginning... SMN complaining about lack of invites and their hatred of main healing.

It's ALL about the community. When I party with a Japanese SMN, they always expect to be main healer. This is not some stupid 'Japanese are better than us' argument. This is simply a deductive comparison.

>>Japanese SMN expect to main heal.
>>Japanese SMN don't spend hours seeking for party.

Within their community they main heal, and then within their community they get invites.

If everyone saw SMN as a main healing job before unlocking it, only the people willing to main heal would play it. People who won't main heal, would pllay another job. People who love main healing may become drawn to it.

The problem is, everyone in this community sympathizes with the SMN who doesn't want to main heal. Why? Just play another job!

If we spread the message loud and clear, "SMN are main healers!" then people who hate main healing will stop wasting their time as SMN. They'll play a job where they can do what they want to do(which seems to me like BST), and the SMN who prefer to main heal will get quick invites.

just a suggestion.

Yeah I realize a lot of that last post was repetitive, but there was no other way to make it. Simply put i'm applying a design persepective to it. Only that they say they intend to keep it out. Sabia pointed that they wouldn't create a cost to keep your avatars out. I'm saying simply that the cost should be balanced with the effectiveness and it's not. A Shadow Cost is best defined in other types of games but it's the same thing.. one of my design books really talks about it in reference to an RTS, it refers to some units costing rare materials for the special abilities like being able to fly over mountains so you have to seek materials before you can produce them. I don't have anything against having a summoner as a main healer if they are willing to do it. I just don't play the game for pure efficiency's sake. I play it to have fun, and I derive that fun from making friends, being social(to a point) and to a much lesser extent making good experience.

I would also agree waiting with seek up is the most boring part of this game, but if I want to party and wait more than about 40 mins I start looking to set something up or go solo for the meager experience I can earn that way.

As far as SMN goes, I could agree with you on the way it currently works, but as you do the quests for it it sounds like it's going to be completely based on summoning. Someone who designs the job either needs to make it clear that it's intended to be a main healer or fix the broken parts so someone can do the job efficiently and not be entirely dependent on the subjob for 95% of it's experience gained.

 

[Sabia]

Someone who designs the job either needs to make it clear that it's intended to be a main healer or fix the broken parts so someone can do the job efficiently and not be entirely dependent on the subjob for 95% of it's experience gained.

The job is not broken, it's a fantastic job and is fine the way it is. It's an extremely efficient job in the role it's best at playing. Main healer in low maintenance parties with great buffs. What's so broken about that?

And as I mentioned in my above statement - your bolded text up there is completely wrong. Main healing on summoner is NOT 95% dependant on it's subjob and if you're playing it like that you're a terrible summoner, just as bad as a summoner who melee's with carbuncle the entire battle because they can. Summoner is about 50% reliant on it's main and 50% reliant on it's sub, which all jobs shoud be, as your subjob is HALF the level of your main. Your role in a party is to buff the shit out of them (Like i'm talking 3 lines of buffs here) and cure them when and if they get hit. I don't see how that' 95% white mage right there?