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

yes i got BP dmg on my Conveynce since i got crit hit rate on hands, legs head and feet +4 on helios and 2 on sstadd i thought that 3 % from Scintillating could be really good, more crit = more dmg after all no?

It's still a gamble, in my personal opinion one which can be compared to gambling on getting more damage by Empyrian armor set proc.

Personally I'm more for the consistency my Conveyance provides.

Well the thing is BPs have an extremely high native crit rate which I'm thinking is based on avatar's DEX. Back before ilvl ammo, it was more frequent to see non-crit hits in your BP, hence why it was popular to run both Razed Ruins & Gnarled Horn in Abyssea for the +60% total crit rate. (+30% from RR alone was not enough to cap it.)

However, Seraphicaller was kind of a game changer in that regard with all the DEX it added to the avatar. It seems to have made a massive difference on crit rate. Even as I start swapping out Pet:Crit Helios pieces for Apogee+1/Merlinic pieces, I don't find my crit rate going down any noticeable amount. Although both Merlinic pieces I'm using have Pet:DEX on them, so that could be helping keep my crit rate up.

I think you're on the right train of thought that crit rate is really the tie breaker for those two capes. The $64,000 question is: Will you actually benefit from more crit? Lately I'm having my doubts... which is why I'm reserving judgment on the cape.

Id say the new cape is best for flaming crush and second choice for all other pacts compared to a capped skill and bpd jse cape.

I lean towards conveyance cape more for the +skill acc since 5 bpd vs 16 mab is very close.

Saw this little tidbit in the December Version Update announcement:


http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/49406

Looks like nothing for SMN this update in the .dat mines. None of the gear equipable by SMN has Summoning Skill, Blood Pact, Pet or Avatar stats.

Looks like no REM upgrades in this update either :(

4 a tic refresh body (only 4 a tic piece in the game?). Apogee +1 crown juuust edges out perfect merlinic. Apogee hands +1 still probably useless. RIP double af/ac spam on greasy feta mobs. 420 jump erryday errywhere.

This update is largely moot except for the .01% who have apogee dalmy +1, like me.

What's the deal with "perfect" Merlinic Hood? I havent bothered looking into augmenting any Merlinic aside the gloves for pet because I didn't think the augments would come close to Helios (Sans Spats).

Hypothetical max augment of merlinic set. Supposedly the cap aug is 10 bpd, 15 int/str, 30 macc/acc, 30 mab/atk. Bpd is insanely rare an augment and i've yet to see above 8, let alone the supposed 10. I think perfect merlinic miiiiight be best in 4/5 slots all together with apogee legs, but thats depending on what the +60 stats would do.

I dont even want to consider the literal thousands of stones you would burn to get even a single piece near cap though.

Confirmed, got +10 on my hands right now.

That said, you'll be lucky to ever see a roll that competes with Apogee+1 let alone 4 of them.

I've spent easily 1500 stones, probably more, on 3 pieces.

Best augment on hands so far is BPD+10 Pet: Atk+6 MAcc+7 MAB+14. (Probably spent over 1000 stones, although I got this augment on like my 20th stone and haven't beaten it yet.)

Best augment on body so far is BPD+9 Pet: DEX+7 MAB+18. (Spent ~300-400)

And on the Grioavolr, I haven't gotten a single augment worth looking twice at. (Spent ~100-200)

Augmenting Merlinic is going to be a looooong road. Right now I'm leaning toward just working on my hand/body augments while I try to get Apogee+1 pants. (Already got the crown.) Whichever one of those goals I hit first will determine whether I try to do Apogee+1 or Merlinic on feet. I'm thinking it'll be Apogee+1 and I'll end up with Apogee head/legs/feet, and Merlinic body/hands.

Fern stones seem to offer more augments relating to Blood Pact DMG over the other two. So much so that I've seen BPD+10 several times, however the MAB augment with Fern tends to be weaker.

Nonetheless, for those that don't plan to acquire Apogee+1 sets and maybe lack perfect Helios, you can augment your Merlinic with BPD+10 and hope you see ACC/ATK on head, hands, and feet for your Volt Strike/Predator Claws etc macros - at the very least.

So far my Merlinic legs are only being used for avatar magic accuracy, since I use Apogee legs Path D (more BPD for volt strike), and my Helios has near perfect augments for Flaming Crush.

Apogee hands +1 have a use again at least. Path D aug is now higher macc than the hq unm tonberry mitts.

Getting into SMN a bit as of late, and I'm a little bit overwhelmed with the job. I understand favor and skill caps and all that jazz, but how does BP damage relate to raw stats for damage? I currently have 4 INT, 37 macc, 40 MAB on my Merlinic hands, but no BP damage, so I'm curious as to just how much BPD would outweigh those, and just in general for damage.

As for BPs in general, what is the current hierarchy? I know flaming crush is absurd, but I also hear great things about Volt Strike and others. I suppose I'm asking about what sets I should really dedicate towards building after general BP delay and skill. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

As long as it's Pet: 4 INT, 37 macc, 40 MAB You're good. I'm not completely certain on BPD, the pros might be able to answer a bit better. I just try to aim for high BPD and high MAB because Flaming Crush is the only Physical BP that benefits from MAB. I have BPD & Pet: MAB on all my Helios Pieces. Helios Spats are a keepers over any other option, just like Merlinic Gloves should be too. For body, head, and boots. You could aim for BPD & Pet: MAB on Helios or Apogee. Also, you could substitute body for Convoker's or Becokner's, both which will have higher BPD than either Apogee or Helios, but neither will have PET: MAB. Beckoner's has the Summoning skill will aid with resists/misses. Go for Pet: MAB on any accessory you can slot as well, if you do not have any for a given slot, go for BPD, Summoning Skill, or Pet: Accuracy. More discussion about Flaming Crush here.

Volt Strike will not benefit from MAB, I think it may be reasonable to tim for BPD & Pet: Acc on Helios Gloves for all the physical bloodpacts. I personally did not make a separate Helios set for my physical BPs for the sake of inventory space, but the BPD carries over just fine. Not only that, but I don't use Gearswap, but if you have the means, you could make a second set with BPD & Pet: Acc for the sake of higher level mobs. Also, use Shiromochi for Acc++ or Akamochi for Acc+ Atk+ or Kusamochi for Atk++.

Aside from that, your Ammo plays the biggest role in your avatar's damage output, Seraphicaller will essentially remain in that slot 'til something else better comes along. As for weapon, you'll more than likely carry around multiple staves. Perpetuation reduction, Pet: MAB, Pet: Atk/Acc. Espiritus and Keraunos are the two best options, there's also Nibiru Staff, all those can be augmented with several options. Gridarvor comes with Perp- & Pet: Acc stats, however it is unaugmentable.

This isn't everything, but it's a good place to start. The main node hasn't been updated in quite a while now. Hope this helps. Surely others will pitch in with some tips and advice later on.

Assuming you have good gear in other slots to boost your Pet:MAB pretty high without the Merlinic Dastanas, it wouldn't take much BPDmg to outweigh those.

For an example, my current Merlinic Dastanas are BPD+10, Atk+6, MAcc+7, MAB+14.

I once rolled an augment similar to yours with 40 MAB and some other goodies but no BPD at all. So I busted out my notepad & calculator and mathed it out.

In every situation, the BPD+10 augment won by a very significant amount, and that's with only MAB+14 on them.

With real quick off-the-top-of-my-head math, I reckon the BPD could be as low as 5 or 6 and the MAB+14 pair would still beat the MAB+40 pair.

And even this is for purely magic BPs. When you start talking Flaming Crush, BPD is even more valuable relative to MAB.

Basically, you should be shooting for an augment with both BPD & MAB. A purely MAB augment is not that great, even if the value is high. Similarly, neither is a purely BPD roll except for physical BPs like Volt Strike.

Alright, very good to know, thank you. Now my question comes down to how important accuracy and macc are for BPs. I want to eventually be ready for 145+, so I worry that even if I manage 10 BPD in each slot, I'll whiff every hit anyways. Any suggestions?

Oh, I also managed to grab an apogee crown +1 last night on the cheap. I was looking at path C on all of Apogee, but are there better paths? Should I be making two pairs, one for magical and one for physical?

Honestly I haven't found accuracy to be a huge issue if you get it in the places that make sense. For example I use Incarnation Sash over Mujin Obi just because it's such a marginal loss. Shiromochi is a fantastic tool to have for those situations where you find your accuracy lacking (and against some of the high level content like Kirin, I'll use Rolanberry Daifuku).

I do have BP sets that favor skill/acc/macc over BPD/atk/mab, but to be honest the higher my job points went the less I used them. With capped job points and Shiromochi, my avatar's accuracy is in the 1300s without hardly trying, which tends to be high enough for most stuff even without Torpor. Add to that the fact that for BPs, skill adds even more accuracy that you won't see reflected in /checkparam.

As for 145+ content, these days you'll mostly be doing magic bursts on those. Magic accuracy on gear can help on those especially since GEOs seem to favor Focus over Languor, but it's not quite as crucial as having accurate physical BPs.

That said, I went path A on Apogee Crown +1. I already have a Helios Band with BPD+7 Acc+30 Crit+4, so I just continued using that in order to avoid losing the crit rate with Apogee+1. Meaning all I'm losing with Path A on the crown is 25 attack on Flaming Crush, but gaining 10 MAB on both Flaming Crush and my magic BPs. Good trade-off for me. If you aren't making a Helios/Merlinic with crit rate for physical pacts, I could see doing a different path for Apogee Crown +1.

Alright, so, if I want to focus on magical stuff, just keep with path A. Would you suggest an NQ crown to focus on physical, or are perfect Helios better than NQ apogee pieces? I'm incredibly hesitant to build yet another set of alluvion armor, particularly after BST and the 5 sets that came with that crap. How does Merlinic stack up to NQ Apogee and Helios?

Sorry for all of the questions, I just want to make sure I'm gearing properly.

perfect helios (7 BPD, 30 mab, 4 crit) is roughly even with NQ apogee, (+crit versus acc) only piece that you should replace is hands with merlinic due to the extra BPD it gets. if your helios is perfect or near perfect, i'd definately stay with it since the crit build is unique and pretty damn useful.

The only equipment that will beat Helios/NQ apogee for Phys is perfect Merlinic and HQ apogee. 'Perfect' physical merlinic would be interesting though, considering it'd give +STR to pet.

So, for physical, I'd be looking at path B Apogee crown/feet, path D legs, AF body, and some BPD/acc/atk Merlinic Hands?

Then magical, I'd assume path A Apogee crown/feet/body/legs, Merlinic hands?

I really would build perfect Helios, but I remember just how much I poured into that for 8 different full sets, now. How much of a difference is absolutely perfect Helios in comparison to NQ Apogee for physical and magical? Is that 4 crit make or break? I'll power through it, if so.

Again, thank you for taking the time to help with all of these questions.

Honestly I'm still on the fence as to whether the Apogee+1 really beats Helios for physical, at least for head/body slots and possibly event feet.

I'm seeing some weird results with the crit rate on BPs the more attention I pay to them.

Pred Claws, for example, crits nonstop. Basically every single one is a triple crit, it has very consistent damage. This is the reason I've been considering pet:crit less and less important lately.

Volt Strike, though, seems less consistent. Doing WoE the other day, I noticed the damage ranges to be 1-2k one time (so probably 1% or less), 10-12k a good 70-80% of the time, and 20-22k maybe 20-30% of the time.

Here's the problem: I've been trying to use these numbers to reverse engineer the crit rate mechanics of the BP, and I just can't make the numbers match. Even if I assume the first hit has a crit rate bonus, I can't get the double crit rate that high and the triple/single crit rates that low.

What this is making me think is it's possible Volt Strike's 3 hits are far from equal. It's possible one hit, even when it crits, only does 1-2k damage tops. This would mean we can pretty much treat it as a 2-hit BP, and the jump from 12k to 20k wasn't double crit to triple crit, but one strong crit to two strong crits.

So anyway, bottom line is I need to do more testing with varying levels of Pet:Crit gear to figure out what's going on with Volt Strike. However, I wouldn't say the book is closed on Apogee+1's superiority. It all depends on how important crit rate is.

The final tier of Avatar's Favor, BG Wiki says that it doesn't affect Crit Rate from Ramuh. Does it affect Double Attack rate from Ifrit? I'm looking at what slots I can keep pet stats in and what slots I'll need to switch to skill to hit that tier.

I think it's not so much that it doesn't affect Ramuh's Favor, but that people haven't done much testing and so the number hasn't been updated since folks hit the 575 tier. I seen Papesse post some info claiming Ramuh got no boost but he gave no indication to how it was tested so take it with a grain of salt.

As far as I'm concerned there's no reason to believe it doesn't affect all avatars aside from Diab who is a little weird because his numbers are so low that rounding becomes an issue.

That said, you'll want multiple idle sets. 99% of the time there's no reason at all to hit the 575 skill tier. In the cases where you do want the 575 skill tier (which is very rare), your avatar generally won't be meleeing anyway.

There is a final tier of favor that is not present on bg wiki, it's 575 skill, 119 horn, and 550 gift.
This does give 8 a tic refresh, and i assume the next tier on most(if not all) favor effects.

Is there any definite cap for our buff potency/duration? Almost hitting 600 now, just need more gifts.

Also, I've had increased duration on some buffs before, including a 14 minute Hastega 2 once. I'm assuming this is from the AF3 set bonus?

No buff afaik is increased potency due to +skill.
No known cap to duration that i've seen tested, outside of alexander, PD caps at 600 skill/ 1 minute.

Alright, just stack the crap out of skill, thanks.

i'd do full empy 119 and stacked skill elsewhere.

Looking at 588 skill + beckoner's modifier for wards.

For debuffs, i use 7/8 skill, +25-30 macc helios pieces in 4/5 slots, with lamassu mitts +1 and stacked pet macc or skill in other slots.

Thanks! I'll rework my favor sets to hit this.