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

Nice guide! Tons of good information in there! (And I love the drawing of Fenrir in the Crystal War!)

A few minor omissions:

Skill build needs Aptus Earring with 2 skill augment

Physical BP build should replace Summoning Earring with Ruby Earring augmented with Pet:Attack+5, and possibly replace Astute Cape with Rugged Mantle augmented with Pet:Attack+2 (depends how much skill you have elsewhere, but in the ideal build I think it's worth giving up 5 skill for 2 attack because your accuracy should be capped)

Magical BP build should replace Summoning Earring with Diamond Earring augmented with Pet:MAB+2, and Tiresias' Cape with Altius Mantle augmented with Pet:MAB+2.

Magical Damage Atmas: I'd add Beyond to the list.

Physical Damage Atmas: You left out one of the best ones, Voracious Violet! STR has a huge impact on physical BPs. Razed Ruins + Voracious Violet + Gnarled Horn are the best 3 phys damage atmas. With those 3 atma, physical BPs should outclass magical BPs on nearly all enemies in Abyssea. Sanguine Scythe takes 4th, I think, or potentially Stout Arm.

Edit: Also for perp down in Nirvana/Magian, I'd suggest some changes. Here is the idle set I use:

Nashira Gages are unnecessary because perp down is capped, so I use gloves with avatar accuracy on them. Similarly with body, AF3+2 body offers 1 more perp down than I need for cap, so relic+2 body accomplishes the same perp goal while also adding 6% crit rate for the avatar's melee attacks. Obviously also swapped Cimmerian for Moepapa for the haste, since skill is no benefit while idling. Along similar lines, I replaced Astute & Summoning Earring with Rugged & Ruby as I suggested in the physical BP build above.

Overall this build offers 5mp/tick with an avatar out and no buffs, and compared to the build you suggested, adds an unknown amount of avatar accuracy, 6% crit rate, 5% haste, and 7 attack to your avatar.

A smn guide? I was expecting a sex scandal between the Star Sibyl, Shantotto, and Tosuka-Porika.

Does perpetuation- have a cap? I was told by another SMN that there will be a point where you want to equip Refresh gear over Perpetuation because it caps at a certain point. Aside from Adhara and Astute, I have the same Perp set, however, I use Augur's Brais.

Also, because I hate SpellCast for this job and can't ever figure out how to get anything to go right, I use Windower macros for it. I was wondering, if

/console exec "SMN/Timer.txt"
/pet "Holy Mist" <t>
/wait 1
/console exec "SMN/Magical.txt"
/wait 4
/console exec "SMN/Perp.txt"

would be efficient as far as the waits go. I wanted to give the macro ample time to do the correct swaps at the correct time, but also don't want it to lag and attack in my BP timer gear.

Perp -cap was 15seconds last time I heard, that might be different now though since it's been a while.

Edit /derp confusing BP and perp cost...

as far as I know perp - caps an -1mp/3sec, the last mp is taken off making it 0 by auto refresh.

Right, but what I was wondering was, when is -Perp gear too much? Does it reach a point where it does nothing? Or will it continue to reduce perpetuation beyond cap?

I assume that once you reach the point where your -Perp set equates out to the entire perpetuation cost, you'll need to gear for Refresh in some slots, but, you could still be -1~ over and still have it take off the extra MP and just be treated as a tick of Refresh or...

You need -14 perpetuation for a celestial avatar (and Diabolos) to let the first auto refresh trait cancel out the -1/tic cap making an avatar free, then auto refresh II will give 1mp/tic and any auto refresh gear that isn't helping bring perpetuation down to -14 will give refresh as well.

Edit II: /wait 1 works fine after executing the BP for swapping to magic gear. You could also bundle your BP executions into categorised .txt files as well, makes it easier on your macro book, like for my magic BP macro I have

/console exec bpdelay.txt
/console exec magicbp.txt/wait 1
/console exec magicgear.txt

It will activate the one that applies to the avatar and come up with errors for the rest, I do this with buff wards, heal wards and physical BPs too, much easier hitting 1 macro than making several for each avatar :3

Might want to add in a few of the pet:haste+ items for if/when MP isn't an issue.

Thanks, Kuni.

Hurray for experimentation as well. Was getting +1 MP/tic with a Celestial with Augur's and +2 with Nares.

As a note to people discussing "capping attack" on Avatars at 75 (or now), Avatars have a ratio cap of 4.2.

You're not capping attack on anything higher than EP.

Not even that, tbh.

I took a bunch of the suggestions and worked some in. I expanded the additional sets section as well as some of the most useful atmas. Thank you.

Thanks for the guide! :3

Aside from some spelling goofs, you could swap this into your cure set:

http://www.ffxiah.com/item/10989/tempered-cape

Interested to know if Nabu's Tiara beats Summoners horn+2, and if nares cuffs is better than spurrina for mab attacks

Merits Category 1 is still not right; It is NOT general consensus that Magic Acc is the way to go.....

I was wondering that, too.......

I await the testings :)

Oh, it is you !!!!Aiiiight it´s very nice to see you hear, and wow we got the same question! lawlz^^

Why do you discourage discussions? These threads are helpful cause people can learn from them, give help instead of being a ***.

Who do you snap at ?? Tz Tz Tz

ninja edit? very proud of you lol

Yeah. Lol.

Also, Nabu's is 5MAB.

Awesome ty ^^

Thank you for the info on Nabu's Tiara. The new gear's unwritten stats were unknown when I wrote the guide. I reworded the merits section since I don't believe there is a consensus.

I admit I don't know 100% about summoner, but I think the guide will answer a lot of basic questions I often see. It should give people ideas about how approach and think about gear sets. Also, it gives a great place for discussion of these topics. Topics like the avatar attack testing that many people might not have seen before comes to light and the community gains more knowledge.

Should have Summoner's Doublet +2 in the -BP set. Outside of the refresh trait (which you can get from other gear like Heka's Kalasiris) the Yinyang robe is totally obsolete now. I would also add a mention in the -BP section about the various magian weapons.

Also, with upgraded Nirvana can't you get +6 refresh with pet out if you have the refresh trait on the Moonshade earring?


Fantastic guide.

Great guide, really helped me know what gear I should get. Pretty much a total newbie to SMN (And pet jobs period actually, heh), so I have a couple questions about the post-75 blood pacts which seem to have a pretty small amount of info/testing.

1. Is Heavenward Howl just random in which buff it gives you, or does it give you a Twilight Knife-like status where each hit is a random roll on what it'll drain?

2. Does Soothing Ruby remove -na status effects or Erase status effects?

3. Does Diamond Storm land reliably on harder monsters?

Thanks.

1) The buff people receive is either En-Drain or En-Aspir depending on the moon phase I believe. Not sure in what way but it's either one or the other; it will never alternate between both in one use. It is also very weak, even with high Summoning skill.

2) It does and I think it can remove up to five at once, but going off memory with that one so liable to be mistaken.

3) So long as it's not resistant to Ice, it's about the same as most other debuff blood pacts.

Regarding Nares Cuffs vs. Spurrina Gages, it's close and kind of depends on what gear you have.

Avatars have a native MAB of 40.
Add 10 for 5/5 Avatar MAB merits
Add 4 for Summoner's Horn +2
Add 2 for Caller's Sash
Add 2 for Eidolon's Pendant
Add 1 for Tiresias' Cape
Add 1 for Esper Stone
Add 5 from Soulscourge

That's a pretty basic MAB build, and gives the avatar 65 MAB. So if you add Nares Cuffs that bumps you from 65 to 73, or a 4.8% bonus. If you have 2 MAB Diamond Earring, 2 MAB Altius Mantle, Nabu's Tiara, and 13 MAB Magian staff, you're instead looking at a boost from 82 to 90, or 4.4%. If you have Nirvana with ideal build, you'll go from 109 to 117 or a 3.8% bonus.

On the other hand, the only BP+% damage an average SMN will have is the +2 doublet, putting them at +10%. So Spurrina would boost that to +15% or a 4.5% increase. If you also have Esper Earring, Ngen Seraweels, and Shedir Crackows, your boost from Spurrina would take you from +23% to +28%, or a 4.1% increase.

So in the ideal set minus Nirvana, I believe Nares will indeed win. However, if you have Nirvana, or if you have good gear but not many of the new BP damage items (Esper Earring, Ngen Seraweels, Shedir Crackows) then Spurrina can pull ahead. In any case, it'll be less than a 1% difference between the two.

P.S. I still don't see Ruby Earring in the physical BP build. :) Also, there's no explanation in the guide as to how to augment the Diamond Earring which is shown. (ACP7 mission in Qu'Bia Arena.)

I added comments about the ACP7 items and a link to the GE wiki for it. With such a small difference between Spurrina and Nares hands I'll leave Nares in the MAB set and leave the Spurrina in the physical. This way both appear in the guide at the very least.

If anyone sees any other problems or has any more ideas please let me know. Thanks for all the help so far.

punga's slops are a decent legs was reported to be 10-15% acc/att rise but that info seems to have been deleted now (not sure true value now or why info was deleted). not sure how they compare with ngen seraweels, haven't seen any testing or have the ngen to test against but punga's nice to use.

If moon phase is less than 50% it gives enaspir, if it's over 50% it gives endrain.