My Favor Experience in Nyzul IsleFollow

After Salvage was canceled tonight, a friend of mine asked for help with a floor 100 run so he could get his Death Sickle. Since it was a group of friends running together, I thought it would be a good time to test out the new favors.

Our setup was:

SMN/SCH (Me)
WHM/SCH
WAR/NIN
DRK/NIN
SAM/NIN
THF/NIN

So, as you can see, my role was support. When we entered, I started the run off by using Earthen Ward. It was an all floor, so we went to work. The WAR requests Ifrit's Favor, just to check it out. So, I apply Ifrit's Favor. Before the favor could reach full potency, the WAR was already commenting that he seemed to be double attacking more often than usual. So, I kept it up for about three minutes. Then, the WHM's MP was getting low (As was the DRK's), so, I bring out Diabolos. At this time, the WAR pulls out his Rune Chopper that he keeps on him for rare occasions. After about two minutes, we clear the floor and the WHM says that his MP is fine (and also comments that his Sublimation charge is ready). We floor up. It's a specified single enemy floor. At this time, my MP is at around 65%, so I use my full sublimation charge to restore some MP. I bring out Ramuh to see if there's a noticeable difference in critical hit rate. The WAR did a 1700 damage weapon skill afterwards (I am assuming that he used Raging Rush because he did not specify which weapon skill he used.). I also use Chaotic Strike for no apparent reason which dealt nearly 1000 damage despite the weakened attack from the favor. After the enemy is defeated, we floor up. The next floor is a pudding family, so, I continue to use Ramuh. At this time, I use Rolling Thunder to help out with the puddings. We finish this floor quickly, and floor up.

At this point, things start to go downhill a bit. I release Ramuh because the WHM's MP is around 50%. Before I summon Diabolos, I summon spirit to use Elemental Siphon. Then, I summon Diabolos to help out with MP. The floor is a lamp floor, do not destroy gears. This went well until we discovered the last lamp was covered with gears. The WHM aggros a gear, so he sleeps it. I cure him out of yellow. I then summon Shiva to prepare to sleep the gears guarding the lamp. Of course, the slept gear targets me because I cure the WHM, so Shiva immediately wakes it up. I release it, and we sleep it again. I resummon Shiva and use retreat to prevent Shiva from homing in on the gear, but Shiva continues to pursue the gear. Eventually, the gears aggro us and we die. We wait, and reraise. Eventually, we make it to floor 100 with less than five minutes left. Half of the party is weakened. The WHM uses Benediction to recover everyone's HP. We engage the boss (Which was luckily, Khimaira). I use Diabolos to help the WHM and DRK recover MP due to their low MP from weakness wearing off. The WAR, once again, uses his Rune Chopper. We defeat Khimaira. Only the Scythe and a second weapon drop. After the run, everyone praised me for the work I did despite not really doing anything. I jokingly mentioned during the run that I could auto-follow the WHM with Diabolos's Favor active and they would never know I was gone.

After we disbanded, I began to think about how I could take this experience and improve upon it. Here are my reflections:

/SCH seems like a suitable sub in cases where the Refresh spell is not present and you are playing support. Sublimation and Aspir compliment Elemental Siphon. These three combined can keep your MP up thanks to Favor's -2 Perpetuation Cost effect. Also, Light/Dark Arts (And their respective addenda) make you useful in a pinch for healing/sleeping. Regen II makes Carbuncle's Favor obsolete unless you plan to combine the effect (Down time, perhaps?)
Use your best judgment for favors. If your healer isn't an idiot, he or she will not need Diabolos's Favor constantly. Try to use your other favors to assist the other party members.
Do not be afraid to use a blood pact, even if it means reseting to Favor's effect. While there is an attack penalty, your rage pacts can be helpful. Also, while the same applies to ward pacts, they can compliment your favors. Ecliptic Howl to Ramuh's Favor or Ifrit's Favor seemed like good ideas in theory.

Anyway. That's my experience on favors so far. Avatar's Favor is a great addition to our repertoire, but we're still no Bard or Corsair. However, this does not mean that we're useless. We just need to take what we have been given and apply our usual Summoner flair.

Edit: Spelling/Grammar.

Edited, Nov 10th 2009 3:04am by Tyjet

From my experience, the favor "resets" whenever a blood pact is used. The icon disappears, then reappears with the potency weakened as if the ability was just activated.

If anything, Avatar's regular melee attacks will be affected by the attack-down effect.

According to the person I quoted earlier, the pacts only reset on the summoner themselves. They do not seem to vanish from the party. It might just be a glitch.



Carby Mitts broke, most likely getting fixed today in the maint.



Where did you hear that from? From all the testing I've seen so far I've heard nothing of the sort.

Irony says that Diabolos is just one notch higher than Carby in the "DD" chain. Much better to go with Fenrir, even if his favor isn't as favorable.

So basically they've turned SMN into a sub-par WHM (or BRD with more MP) and refreshga? Why do I get the feeling we'll be asked to summon Diabolos, use Favor, never BP and sit back and cure...? :(

Example...

Me: Dynamis-Xarc, eh? What job you want for me?
Leader: SMN, you're going to be in the BLM PT
Me: Oh? Sweet! I get to nuke with the BLMs! ^^
Leader: No, we just need you to refreshga and cure them.
Me: That's it?
Leader: Yup.
Me: So... no BPing?
Leader: No, we want the full effect running full time.
Me: Oh... Ok...

Edited, Nov 10th 2009 2:48pm by MinscandBoo

Diabolos's Favor is easily my favorite form of Refresh. Tonight, in sky, we were camping Despot. After a while, I need to go AFK, so I just summon Diabolos, use Avatar's Favor, and jokingly tell my party, "I'm going afk for a few minutes. If you need refresh, there it is."

My ventrilo group jokingly said that I could log in on SMN when I am unable to make various events we plan (ZNMs, etc.) just so I could plant myself in the area with Diabolos's Favor ready as a MP battery.