The 6th Ministry's Secret: A Summoner's Guide (v2)

In my findings, Nirvana (no AM3) and JSE+2 just provide not enough of a benefit at all for VS AFAC for HELMs. Here's a some AFAC dumps, I have more, but these are nicely split by #VS and damage average vs. end total damage - the % Damage numbers of course vary based on how many BPs got off.

Schah:
Nirvana, No JSE+2 - 26.1% Damage - 13 VS - Average 25591
No Nirvana, No JSE+2 - 25.8% Damage - 13 VS - Average 25306
No Nirvana, JSE+2 - 23.2% Damage - 12 VS - Average 24638
No Nirvana, No JSE+2 - 25.0% Damage - 13 VS - Average 24518

Vinipata:
No Nirvana, No JSE+2 - 22.5% Damage - 5 VS - Average 48550
No Nirvana, JSE+2 - 31.0% Damage - 7 VS - Average 47909
Nirvana, No JSE+2 - 21.5% Damage - 5 VS - Average 46477
No Nirvana, No JSE+2 - 25.0% Damage - 6 VS - Average 45037

That being said, there's a larger difference in FC as expected, as here's two Zerdes (I don't have the read out of per FC on this one):

Zerde 1:
Nirvana, No JSE+2 - 40.1% Damage
No Nirvana, JSE+2 - 36.8% Damage
No Nirvana, No JSE+2 - 23.0% Damage

In fact, with enough debuffs, it doesn't matter much, as if Nirvana hits 99k and a Grio hits 90k, the gap starts to close into being more about reaction time.

Zerde 2:
No Nirvana, No JSE+2 - 22.4% Damage
Nirvana, No JSE+2 - 20.5% Damage
No Nirvana, JSE+2 - 19.7% Damage
No Nirvana, No JSE+2 - 18.3% Damage
No Nirvana, No JSE+2, gear level not the same - 14.0% Damage
No Nirvana, No JSE+2, leech-level SMN - 5.0% Damage

We've got a pretty solid system and near exact gear across a number of characters (minus one with Nirvana, one with JSE+2). All the standard debuffs/buffs- Idris Frailty/Torpor, Dia II, Rostam rolls no forced job boost no forced XI rolls (later runs would add more to that list).

I go into more of a ramble and have our AFAC sets here: Easy Button or here's a dump from the link:

tl;dr - Nirvana/JSE+2 is nice but not needed for AFAC clears of HELMs. What does matter is clearly that initial bar for Att/Acc.

I was going to build out all sorts of tests for Nirvana+JSE+2+AM3... but it's just not needed. We've done all HELMs with 6 people (except Albumen... yet) or up to 9-12 people. We ask others to reach the gearsets we use, as it's not too hard a goal for people who may be turned off at Mythic work/JSE+2 prices vs. Omen Spam and maybe 20-30m and some Vorseal grinding.

Many REMA are not at all needed in this game to beat the content. You are speaking of old content now.

same applies for any of the weapons. You can beat most content in this game with non BiS weapons.


Nirvana(am3) + JSE2 are the best in slot for most bp's. Period.

Yes Kriz, that was my thought on it as well.
Granted that when you put AM3 up things are different of course, but with AM3 down the difference should be pretty small, if any difference at all.

I'm talking about VoltStrike AC zergs of course. For Flaming Crush it's a different story, and for FC you don't use Gridarvor anyway.


It's so silly that people kick you out of a pt because you have no Nirvana, then get a guy with R0 Nirvana and bad gear.


If you ask me the majority of the difference in an AC zerg is reaction time and who manages to start first. He will likely manage to put 1 more BP out and that will make his damage higher.
All of this has very little to do with the weapon used.

I absolutely agree.

Most people want to get their first Aeonic, and AFAC gives them that route, but they need a path that doesn't ask too much of a casual player. In fact, a lot of people just want a "good enough" SMN so they can get their very first Aeneas/Chango/GodHands/etc. and play the job they want.

It's that noobie-building niche that I've found myself helping for the last few years.

I tell people to learn on the T3 or Sovereign Behemoth. Once they get the hang of it, it's amazing what you can do. Having a number of trusted SMNs is great, especially on a tiny server like Valefor.

Not for nothing but this is all stuff people should already know, for quite some time now. People were capable of Gridarvor conduit burning from the beginning of the bandwagon.

It's good that you put numbers to it though, you should still put AM3 numbers so people can see the gap. Cause that's what it's all about.

I have no idea on the gap of AM3 but on stuff like Volt Strike it should be pretty considerable, at least judging from the SMN friends I parsed against.

In content where AM3 is down though I barely see any difference. Different people win the parse according to who is "lucky" to get one BP more than the others, most of the time.

Let me rephrase so I don't sound so mean. This was before coffee.

Nirvana and JSE will win. They are not at all needed. (as others have shown too)

I dont think there is any content in ffxi that has a DPS check requiring any REMA?

AM3 nirvana is only good for physical pacts. it's a huge jump from non AM to AM3, and since they ratfucked draumstafir on me, there's nothing close to nirvana+am3 in damage boost.
Use pergatory's calculator to see how much http://pastebin.com/u/Pergatory

I agree.

Question-

Does activation of a blood pact onto a passive monster cause the monster to attack the summoner (until the BP lands)?

Yes.

Is there a general recommended order for job points?

They are all really good and you want to max them all ASAP if you are planning to use SMN for damage / zergs anytime soon. Seriously, SMN has some of the best categories / gifts out of all the jobs. That being said, acc/macc/attack/mdmg/BPD are all solid places to start, but it all depends what you are planning to use your SMN for (and how you are using it to get CP, when I did CP on my SMN I did a mix of healing, buffing, and MBing). Mana cede / siphon AF/AC stuff can be saved til later, especially if you won't be zerging.

I feel pretty weak in CP parties. I've been buffing with hastega 2>crimson howl>crystal blessing>rolling thunder>ecliptic growl/howl>noctoshield. TBH I'm not sure half of those buffs are useful/needed. Kind of winging it. My BP:R does 3-5k with a mix of apogee +1 gear with Selindrile's SMN LUA. Hoping it gets better.

I've read the BG guide/the guides on the main page but if you have any advice or other resources you think new SMNs should read, I'd appreciate it!

for a CP party it depends on what's going on.

If you're doing all that for a MB set up... wasteful.
If you're doing that for a melee/SC set up... You're fine, though just the haste2+tp bonus+warcry is reliably worthwhile. I'd also suggest Inferno Howl over Rolling Thunder because it's larger in damage.
Though in a CP group, you might be better off just foregoing the excess buffs and just MBing off the SC. (so if your group is making darkness, buff with Shiva last and MB Heavenly Strike; if light, then finishing with either Garuda or Ifrit is relatively the same)

As for your set.... Eesh. Apogee is basically magic-BP-only nowadays. Get you some Merlinic hands ASAP (that's only 8 dragons for a server that isn't garbage).
You should also invest in Keranous at the very least, stones are cheap as hell to get perfect augs for it. Alternatively there's Was after 100JP... which is also pisspoor cheap/easy to do/get.
Since you prefaced that this is what you're doing in a CP group, I'm assuming you're >100. So go buy a Was and see your terribad damage become decent. (though if you have a Grio with BP+10 on it, can just use that. BPdmg>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>+atk even in minor amounts)

You'll also want the artifact body. I dunno how long you've been playing but if it's within 1 year, and you haven't been skimping on Deeds, you might be able to jump straight to a +2 version of it for free.
Same with the artifact shoes.
Other improvements to your set look like things you'd just need to do highend content with other people for; which is the goal, not the start.

I second this. Swap all your apogee minus the legs to pure mab path and get a different staff. Espiritus is also a nice one and only 200 di points. Almost none of the gear you are using helps your magical BP damage so it's zero surprise your damage is low. You should be able to mb for capped damage around the 500 jp mark iirc (it's been like 3 or 4 years and gear is way different now). You can use helios for physical pacts until you upgrade some AF / relic body. For cp I would really prioritize magic damage since that's gonna be your bread and butter for that content (aside from buffing / healing), you will rarely use physical BP for cp. Once you get more jp your damage will really crank up a lot because the gifts and categories are so strong.

Thank you for the advice! CP parties on Asura are generally a bunch of melees with zero coordination on SC so it's been hard to MB off of that. lol I'll work on the changes to my gear. My original goal with SMN was to burn down Odin II with AFAC but as you can imagine with my physical BP set, that didn't go well. I've been using CP parties to gauge whether to commit to Nirvana or not but I wanted to make sure to give the job a fair shake.

Unless you are gonna be using smn for a lot of solo or helms I wouldn't bother with a nirvana at this point. Smn is being nerfed in current / future content so it's future will mostly be around support and crowd control. If your cp parties are mostly melee burn I'd just focus on buffs and cures and not worry about damage.

What's the most common sub on SMN support job right now?

RDM or WHM

Just to elaborate a bit more:

RDM is the most popular, mostly for Refresh and Convert to keep your MP up. If you don't need RDM, then WHM offers some great utility like Reraise (without having to get Cait out), -na spells and Erase, etc.

So my usual thinking is "Do I need /RDM? If not, I go /WHM."

For example in Escha, I have a lot of refresh vorseals, making RDM pretty unnecessary as my MP stays high. So in Escha I'll often use WHM sub. The main exception is AFAC content, I'll often want Convert for that so I'll go /RDM for those.

There are cases where I'd use something more exotic like /NIN, /SAM, or even /COR but they're few and far between.

This is pretty defeatist and a shitty way to go about things.
Summoner does fine damage on dyna D and other post omen content. Nirvana is also more than just a bloodpact DPS stick.

I end up locked into /rdm more for the cure 4's than anything else, with a good build can heal around 1k hp with 1 second casting and really help out with healing if needed.
I also get more use out of convert if I end up using extra mp on heals, since a well geared smn is gonna struggle to even need convert outside of astral conduit or really long fights.

As Pergatory said with the other subjobs, they are for very specific situations though, on rare occassions i'll /whm for erases or /sch for dispels when Fenrir's Lunar Roar has too long a cooldown.

Many times a fight has been saved by being able to spam 1k self heals on my smn till others can reraise/get hate etc, or even re smn an avatar and bloodpact, get hate, run away, cast cure 4, cast blink, repeat and can sort of do old school kiting (can also be the difference between geting a saviour shock squall or sleepga off).

Smn is by no means durable, but can survive long enough with /rdm to make a difference (even more so with nyame set now).

Just trying to give a bit of extra info for people for /rdm but so many ways to play smn, what I just mentioned is very gearset intensive and won't be for everyone, just adding my preference and hope the info helps someone.

My cure 4 never hit anywhere near 1k cures even with max potency and curing conduit they max out around 820. On a side note since ive never seen anyone ever report this, for what its worth light spirit targets sight and ignores people who are invisible and wont target them. It has eyes too but you can't see them gotta get it to follow you then its looking at your back. Sorry for the random info.

All good, i'm sure that info will be useful to someone whether it's random or not.

I just re-tested my cure 4 set, i've only been doin daily stuff during the free login with my player, so wanted to 100% confirm my cures.

But yeah, there it is, 1007 cure 4 with /rdm and no curing conduit.



This was lightsday so currently waiting to test again when it's over, also have a slight upgrade to do to my set.

My self cure set caps cure potency 1, cure potency received +22%, and has healing magic skill 279 even as /rdm.

So i'm guessing you might not have cure potency received in your set.

Ah its your cure potency recieved set then i just got max cure potency set for casting i see now.

Just finished my tests.

Darksday: [Self cure 4 set] 1015 hp, [Party cure 4 set] 852 hp

I'd forgotten about the domain invasion healing skill earring lol.

https://www.ffxiah.com/item-sets/379910

While we're throwing out random info, I'll add more to this as well since a lot of SMN these days aren't aware of how versatile the job can be.

If you're planning to have your avatar tank for whatever reason (like recovering from a near-wipe) and need to cure or even just stoneskin, try to run past 30' before casting. No enmity will be generated, making it much easier for a fresh avatar to get hate.

Kruel isn't kidding about SMN being able to hold off the tide for a good long while. You can kite around Omen bosses, T2/T3 Escha NMs, etc. as long as you manage your enmity. Also keep in mind physical pacts generate more enmity than magical pacts.

In my mind this is one of SMN's most under-rated strengths. It's like the energizer bunny, it just keeps going. Rest of the party dead? Doesn't matter. Weakened? Double weakened? Doesn't matter!

A quick Apogee into x2 Pacifying Ruby can be a real help in many situations too, depending on the NM can even use it during solo kiting, just hit the NM with a blood pact, run as far as you can get or until avatar is about to die, summon carby, x2 pacifying and a carby blood pact rage and voila, got your built up hate back under control (good for those situations where you can't get over 30 yalms to cast consistently).

I'll stop with all the random info now, just wanted to get that one in :P

Random thought for the day:

Carbuncle is a real champ in 3-NM Gaol runs. My group often has me on SMN for our 3rd NM, where our setup is usually just a random assortment of whatever we didn't use in our first 2 fights.

Fights go long, hate caps, and liberal usage of Pacifying Ruby can go a long way toward keeping hate off the DDs. Also, Soothing Ruby can be a godsend on stuff like Gigelorum. So much so that on Gigelorum, I mostly just alternate between Carby & Ramuh the whole fight.

Shout out to Siren's Bitter Elegy as well.

SMN is at its best when you're in a group that has gaping holes in it. It has a tool for every situation. It's like a putty you can smear over the party to smooth the gaps.