The update is hereFollow

So what's your point? 1 consistent buff is going to be more potent than 1 that fluctuates (especially when it needs to hit 2/11 values to be greater than or equal to the consistent buff). This is the whole reason why ppl prefer a brd over a cor from a buffing standpoint(well that and haste). Still speculation though since we don't know how long it takes the avatar to max out.

Speaking of avatars, SE has never spoken about them as "job adjustments", but rather "new content". They'll have their own update note (if they are coming).

It could also just be a translation error, and these favors are what took 2 years to design and "balance".

A pointless argument since despite a narrower margin the buff is still inconsistent. Snake eye does not guarantee a lucky roll or XI even with a proper roll strategy. You're also neglecting the fact that the ability is on a 5 minute timer when maxed out making it only usable for 1 buff per roll rotation which a cor will often use to salvage a bad roll or save for their more powerful buffs.

I'll ask you again. What is your point? This does not cause a buff to cease to be inconsistent, and if a SMN can reach an equal value to a lucky number in an acceptable time then it will be the more potent buff.

Rolls are "free" but Favors are not. In fact, Favors are WAY TOO EXPENSIVE.

Actual cost:
1) Decrease in avatar performance
2) Perp cost if there is any
Opportunity cost:
1) MP lost by NOT /healing.

But more to the point. Can the Favors reach max effect within the span of one merit fight? Which is what? 30-40 sec?

If not, then you'll have to keep it up for multiple fights and not able to rest. IT's all around bad.

Edited, Oct 21st 2009 6:07pm by taishokukanoki

Although this update will make us more desirable in parties, I'm not sure it makes us desirable enough to warrant choosing a Summoner over a Corsair or Bard for buffing, or even as a support-buffer to work alongside one of those jobs. Unless there are more details to this update that make the situation better, I'm not convinced that it'll improve our ability to find parties. There might be some interest in Summoners at first, but after the average player realizes we can't be healer and buffer at the same time effectively, invites will drop off again.

I do like some elements of this update, but the more I think about it, the only thing it means to me is that with the new ability active and my avatars' perpetuation cost reduced further, I'll be able to kite Djinns for longer before having to rest.

Heya Manifest! Any bets whether they eventually implement a second mode like Sch, or just keep it a single selectable mode like Rdm?

I'm rather curious to see what a Smnburn plays like now (an uncapped Smnburn, not a capped Astralburn). Does each Smn get to pick a different avatar now? Especially if the avatars *can* get these buffs.

Worth noting: Garuda can benefit from her own Hastega, which stacks with Bard March. Garuda cannot benefit from March. Hastega will not benefit other avatars, even other Garudas. Thus, we have a precedent to *suggest* that the avatar will benefit from her own Favor. What would be REALLY nice is if other pets (especially other avatars) can also benefit from the Favor.

Also worth remembering is that glorious 'bug' that let pets receive buffs in Campaign. The coding *does* exist to allow it, S-E just has it set to disallow it.

Isn't SMN already considered a good healer? I'm honestly asking, because I don't merit anymore unless for fun (I've had capped merits for quite some time, well non NIN, but NIN merits suck anyway). I would assume hastega and cure III would be enough in most merit pts. Not to mention dia2 if you decide to go /whm. Instead of trying to be healer and buffer at the same time, why not just pick one? If you're healing, sub whm or sch. If buffing sub cor (up to 17% atk) or brd (ballad) which go along nicely with your new buffs.

Maybe I'm just biased because SCH is basically the last choice for healing in merits because of lack of haste. But SMN doesn't seem bad to me as healer or buffer. I see problems trying to do both at once though.

I'd love to merit with a SMN. I think SCH and SMN work well together, we cover each others weaknesses very well. SMN can hastega and receive weather, and with SCH there, DDs have absolutely no reason to hold back with seigan and /nin. Now with the new buffs, maybe SCH can be accepted as a healer. 35% AoE haste, 1 atk buff + dia2, double attack, and 100% offense from DDs, oh yeah and lol +7 Str. But I'm just a silly SCH with a dream...


Edited, Oct 21st 2009 11:03pm by Fermion

Could it be fair to assume that there would be a part 3 to the update? Since they lumped smn and bst in one? Could the 3rd be...a new... nah.

Smn and a Sch in one party (as is) would be overkill. Good Sch can keep the entire healed as is, and they make claims of being able to allow all DD's to go /sam or /war and go balls to the wall, which they use as an argument to overcome no haste. I've yet to merit with a Sch healer, so I can't confirm nor deny that claim.

Smn, can also keep the entire party healed and hasted on their own and also use Rages as well. There's really no point (as is) to have both in one party. Each of them separately would benefit more from a Brd, Cor, or Dnc than they would a Sch, or Smn. Now, Smn's more common issue now, is we require everyone to use /Nin to be safe and smooth. It's gotten to the point now, where people have realized Whm and Rdm are both able to support a party while allowing War's to /sam, Sam's to /war and Drg to /sam. Because of that fact, people are a lot less likely to settle for a Smn or Sch as merit healers these days.

Moving on to the update and 100% support role...
Smn/Cor with Ifrit Favor.
Assume you're spamming Crimson Roar every 1:30 (again I'm assuming double BP timer) and using Chaos Roll, as well as the expected 18% Double Attack from the favor.

We're looking at 18% Double Attack, BP ward's 9% Attack plus /Cor's Chaos Roll's Average 8.2%*.
18% Double Attack & 17% Attack.

That would put us dead even with Corsairs for front line buffs, assuming they were using Fighters(DA) + Chaos(Att).
But... Cor can Deal more Damage than a Smn, and with zero MP cost.
Cor can offer Refresh to the back line, as well as hMP or Exp bonus.
Cor can also reliably and quickly sleep a mob.
Cor can also (not optimally) act as a puller.

So even if you wanted to make the statement that a Smn could keep up with a Cor in Damage, the 3 other remaining factors will still justify everyone choosing a Cor and Brd over Smn. Haste is not something we can offer a party unless the main healer is a Sch or Dnc. From a Sch's standpoint, maybe a Smn becomes the #2 option second to Bard. Dnc main healing... Is what I consider an exotic party that you can't make a basis on, along with drg/whm parties. Pre-update, I'd also venture to say that a Dnc was a better support job than Smn, assuming they have 5 merits into Haste Samba. Post update, I'd have to guess that for the typical merit party Smn would be ahead of Dnc now. But Smn can still offer Mana Burns something.

* /Cor Chaos Roll average is based on the theory that you'll Double up on 1-3 and 5. Leaving a possible 4,6,7,8,9,10,11 result, 12%,6%,7%,1%,8%,9%,15% respectively. Combined = 58. 58/7 = 8.2% Attack on average.

If the general feel is that the avatars will be weakened during this ability, it would make no sense for them to gain the favor bonus. If that's the case, it will be pretty disappointing.

In that situation, the SMN would obviously be buffing so /cor would be best.

A 350 hp stoneskin, at the very least -25 damage phalanx really do make healing very easy. Hell throw in AoE blink if you want to make the case even stronger, although I've never needed it. Also, everyone has pro4, it's not a huge difference but defense does matter a little bit when you hardly have any. Usually by the time one person's stoneskin is broken, someone else has taken hate, then by the time their stoneskin has broken, I'm casting another one. The way I do it is when the 2nd person's stoneskin has broken, I cast it again. I rarely ever even use cure, regen 2 is usually enough.

All that means is that SMN is an MP battery; not a better healer. The only reason people want us in parties in a healing role is because we have the MP supply to back up the many, many, many small cures we will have to throw out. And that's based on us not keeping an avatar out.



Edited, Oct 22nd 2009 8:55am by Squintik

It's on all other language versions of the playonline FF11 page. English is the only one that got left without a mention of avatars becoming weakened. I guess they assumed that we'd understand that "channels the avatar's power" means that its power is used to give the effect. I didn't at first, but now I think I see what they meant.

From the French page:


I can't even speak French but I can understand it a bit. I'm pretty sure the beginning there says "Decreases the power of the avatar in exchange..."

An online translation of the German page, since I understand that less, gives:


And someone already mentioned that the Japanese version of the page also says this.



I see what you're saying, and this is how I imagined it would work when I first thought of a system like this (before they announced it). However, it seems to point to the avatar you're currently using in every case.

Edited, Oct 22nd 2009 1:25pm by Ildon

In b4 we find out the specifics like Carby's Regen bonus is 1hp/tick, Diabolos 1mp/tick, Shiva is MAB+2 or something crappy like that. Just sayin... its SE. I'm skeptical.

Edited, Oct 22nd 2009 4:19pm by Hapernack

Even though Mellowy is pointing out some valid criticism, the bottom line is that you guys just got Refreshga. That's pretty sick, and you couldn't do it before this update.

Earthen Ward + Defense Bonus sounds nice.

I'm really interested in Magic Evasion, but I think it's basically just getting a huge Barspell boost, and if it is, that's pretty valuable. Only WHM has Barspells that reduce damage through MDB, the rest just increase the chance of a resist. This will help that hopefully.

Enhanced MAB is definitely nice as well.

The rest are not that great, but I'm sure Ifrit will see a fair bit of use in melee heavy parties.

Also, the -perp is just neat to have in general. Even if you're just walking around and the lessened avatar power (whatever that turns out to be) isn't a factor, you can maybe have a couple free full-time avatars if it turns out to be awesome.

Also, Regenga is a very nice bonus to have for nothing more than just keeping Carby out while walking around.

Sure this doesn't fix SMN, but it's all good, and there's more coming since they are releasing avatars eventually.

The trouble at this point is, we don't know enough about this update. We know what Avatar's Favor can do, but we don't know the exact intensity of the perks, nor the costs for using the ability. So far we're all assuming the perpetuation reduction will be significant enough to make some avatars free (or close) - but knowing SE, it'll probably be only -1 or -2 at most, and even Diabolos' refreshga at maximum potency won't be enough to stop our MP from falling. In any case, while the ability is in use, we'll be severely limited in what we can do - and in a matter of time, we'll be low on MP and will need to rest, which means dismissing our Avatar and depriving the party of their bonus effect for at least a couple of minutes at a time. It's not going to take long for parties to notice that downtime, and realize they should've gone with a COR or BRD instead.

But like I said, we don't know enough at this point. Things might be better than we think - but then again, they might be worse.

Like I said in another post though, not all COR or BRD buffs are "good" either. There's a reason CORs roll Chaos and Evoker's constantly, and rarely touch more than half of their Rolls. Here's the breakdown:

(4) Commonly used DD rolls - Chaos, Hunter's, Fighter's, Samurai
(3) Commonly used mage rolls - Evoker's, Healer's, Wizard's
(2) And a couple nice general utility rolls - Corsair's, Dancer's
-------
(9 of 20) Commonly useful rolls

(10 of 20) Uncommonly used, but possibly situationally useful rolls
Half of COR's rolls fall into this category: BST, PUP, DRG, THF, SCH, RDM, BRD, NIN, BLU, MNK. They might be good for a particular event (see: Monk's Roll on Chariots in Salvage, Drachen on an Astral Burn focused strategy), but they aren't commonly used. Some are simply overshadowed by other rolls - Rogue's Roll is a good example, Crit+ is simply rarely as good of a melee buff as Atk+, DA+, Acc+, or Store TP, so it doesn't get used not because it's useless (more crits is certainly a good thing!), but because other Rolls are just plain better for the vast majority of parties/events.

(1 of 20) Garbage rolls.
Hi Gallant's Roll, nice to see you!

****************************

For SMN, they get about the same ratio of useful to situational only Favors:

(3 of 9) Really nice ones - Ifrit gives Double Attack for general melee buffing, Diabolos for Refreshga as a general mage Favor, and Shiva for MAB in events.
(1 of 9) Nifty general utility Favor - Carbuncle (Regen)
-------
(4 of 9) Commonly useful Favors


(4 of 9) Uncommonly used, but possibly situationally useful Favors
Garuda (Evasion), Ramuh (Crit+), Leviathan (M.Acc), Fenrir (Magic evasion - and I wonder if this isn't just a funky update note that actually means traditional MDB, like Magus's Roll). They might have their place in some events, but will typically be overshadowed by the more commonly used benefits of the previously mentioned Favors.

(1 of 9) Crap Tier.
Titan. Who uses DEF+ for... anything these days? There's probably always a better choice. Maybe if you have somebody super-tanking a bunch of stuff. Even then, you're probably gonna be better off using your Favor to buff other party members to kill faster. It's probably less useless than Gallant's Roll, but it still seems like the worst of the lot.

Edited, Oct 22nd 2009 7:56pm by Anza

I actually think all of the favors are good. Some are just more situational than others.

I am reserving judgment until I find out exactly how the avatars are "weakened." I pray that it is just an increase in the blood pact timer. If they also receive their own favor then this update is awesome.

If they are weakened power-wise, then we will have to see my just how much.

It's also a fair assumption that FFXIV would cannibalism enough of FFXI's subscription to make a full time dev staff for FFXI not feasible. It'll mostly be ran on life support with the occasional update to gear and dungeons. It's what happened to EverQuest and Lineage.

And lets face it. FFXI is a dated game. It kept enough subs to be profitable but overtime, it's expected to die out as people move on.

Edited, Oct 22nd 2009 11:14pm by taishokukanoki

I've been thinking a lot about this update recently. It sort of reminds me of the other big SMN update (BP timer split/ SMN magic skill), in that on the surface it seems amazing, but when the dust settles SE managed to dance around the important concerns while making SMN marginally more effective.

Now, I'll gladly eat crow if these abilities also apply to the Avatars. Hell, if it came down to it I'd rather have the abilities effect only the avatar and the summoner as opposed to the party. IT would be great to add a little diversity to the avatars; maing Levi. and Shiva the best pets for nuking, and Ifrit/Ramuh the best for 70 pacts.

But it seems like the avatars will not get the abilities, which is very disappointing. Newsflash SE, we didn't -just- want to keep our avatars out to stare at them (which this update will do), we wanted to actually USE them.

But I can't really justify getting too worked up over this, after all it's better than nothing. After the huge WHM overall recently, you'd think SE would be a little more liberal..

Still seems like a good boost from all avatars, maybe Ramuh's, but I've never seen many worried about critical hit rate or even cared to ask for it over other boosts from other jobs. But I can see Titan's being used if needed. That's just me though, even on my other jobs that can party buff I cast thngs that seem a little odd but I've gone through an event so much that I know the limits of my melee's vs the time to live on my pld or ninja tank.

I hope that the negatives aren't as bad as people are putting out there. I do not think it's ovef powering to have our avatars at full stength and give out a buff that we most likely won't even get. Though if we do get the boost from the favor, I wouldn't mind the bit of reduction it would seem fair. Ifrit gets an attack - on him, but gets the double attack buff and if needed a /COR pet roll might just help bring up that negative side.

But I guess it wouldn't make sense to have all of those favors go to the avatar too...what would Diabolos do with Refresh? Maintain his MP that I can't use already? That Siphron should work on avatars too. My pet gets aspir casted on him and I see MP taken out and I can't help but think "why?"

Edited, Oct 23rd 2009 8:41am by Unclear

The issue is larger than so. I don't mind crappy favors, I mind them being bound to avatars.

I don't see any CORs needing to change to pirate's gun because they wanted DA on the party. Neither do I see them needing to change to Fire Cards. Neither do I see DA limiting your other rolls to just 2, out of which both happens to be poor choices.

A COR's only restriction on rolling, is rolling itself. A SMN's only restriction should be favors themselves. We should not be able to use refresh and DA at once, and that would be identical to what you are arguing about, and I would agree with you.

I disagree with one thing here. I don't think we have any crap tier rolls. It depends how much end game you do, but i end up in parties with 2-4 blu in my linkshell all the time when we do Dark ixion and certain upper tier ZNM. I always wished i had something to give them more than shining ruby (even though +10% def is a nice boost for cannonball. Now i'll be able to put shining ruby up and leave out titan both to keep them from being wiped out and to boost the damage cannonball does. When we do PW now, my ls leader was considering our new blu parties consist of blu x4 smn x1 brd x1 (whm pop in for protectraV and drop, then smn put up shining ruby and titan def boost, brd double minne)

It seems to me that we just have good rolls and situationally useful roles. As far as the Magic evasion i'm sure fenrir will give magic evasion and not MDB. Usually they say what they mean when it comes to these two things and they've been using the term magic evasion a lot as of this year. Magic evasion is like an all in one resist stat to all enfeebles and magic. It increases your chances of resisting spell damage (1/2 1/4 1/8, etc) and reducing the potency and duration of enfeebles or resisting them all together. This could be good in tank parties which are fine on everything else and the tank needs to withstand elemental damage attacks often.

Heh, I was hoping it would be a penalty to "critical" things to avatars like CHR, INT, AGI, and evasion. you know, the things SE seems to load up AF armor with on jobs that it totally makes sense for.

Dear SE:

Congrats on keeping the SMNs interest up. Avatar Favor looks interesting but its a 50/50 shot if its gonna suck or you guys just plain @#%^ it up. Having the avatar buff the party while staying out is one thing, but lets not hurt their ability to much, no SMN just wants to be a buffer/healer...they want to do other things as well and not be expected to go into 1 roll it seems.


Also on a big note...

You guys at SE better get off your asses and announce some kinda surpise or something else for releasing those avatars. If you keep making all the SMNs wait then it had better be worth it. Otherwise your gonna see a lot less SMNs for making them wait this long... or at least some nasty posts/mail.

The ball is in your court SE.... dont dissapoint.