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

The problem isn't just that SMNs tools are weaker, it's fine if a jack of all trades job doesn't outperform specialists in what they excel at. However, they need something relevant to add to a group. The few unique perks SMN have are too weak or irrelevant to current endgame to justify a party slot and the weak debuffs and buffs often don't play well with the stronger versions of other jobs.

WAR for instance with it's access to so many weapons and their respective weaponskills became rather versatile in comparison to THF who's only real strength outside of DDing became moot to most endgame. One could argue THF should outperform WAR for that reason but afaik it doesn't deal more damage in most situations.

Also have you heard of RDM? Let's not pretend SMN has a weak toolkit for balance reasons.

SMN really does need an update, and we need Phoenix. They were even teasing it at one point I'm almost sure, and like everything that died under the budget cut it just went away.

I think smn could use an update but obviously it will never happen at this point. Mostly I think SE just needs to take their foot off of smn. They don't even let them use what they have. What SE did to smn was one of the most lazy, offensive ways possible to "balance the game". They could at least exclude the blood pact damage wall from apogee and make the wall separate from another smn's blood pacts, but the code prolly can't tell the difference from one person to another so they just said screw it. Even if smn wasn't nerfed at all and could go unhindered, it still suffers from this : "The few unique perks SMN have are too weak or irrelevant to current endgame to justify a party slot and the weak debuffs and buffs often don't play well with the stronger versions of other jobs." But hasn't this always been the argument since it was released?
However, I don't play anymore but I assume most people use it for their odyssey runs where they are saving the big guns for the final stretch and dont want to use their bards and geo's, then it's buffs become a lot more viable.

Yup, this plus Mewing Lullaby keep SMN at least relevant some of the time, even though it's not the best most of the time.

This is part of the reason why I think Ody is well-designed content, the SJ restrictions and job restrictions for multi-KI setups really allow jobs to shine. This helps people familiarize themselves with the tools available and could create new fanatics for them, or at least awareness.

The thing I'd encourage you to keep in mind is that yes, while pretty much all of what you all are saying is true, Sortie and Odyssey are not the only content in the game (though I understand there are some veterans who may feel otherwise).

There's lots of other content, and I use SMN a lot for that other content, and very rarely is it for my 1-hour or Mewing Lullaby. More often it's just because it's convenient to do with less people (or no people), or has some tools that will help the event run more smoothly (like Shock Squall in Dyna[D]).

It's even somewhat common to see CP/ML parties shouting for a SMN as an alternative to a GEO, so apparently its buffs aren't that far behind. Hastega2, Crystal Blessing, Crimson Howl, and a double attack aura from Ifrit (up to 27% DA) all provide a solid baseline of offensive buffs.

The big difference is that in CP/ML, the SMN can actually keep buffs up because everyone is standing still. By that token, if you think about Sortie for example, it's not the lack of buffs or weakness of buffs preventing SMN from contributing, it's the run & gun nature that prevents SMN from keeping its buffs up. You run and run with no stopping where a SMN could apply a buff, arrive at boss, have time for maybe 2 wards thanks to Apogee, and everyone is off to the races. By the time you get a 3rd up, the boss will almost be dead. SMN is too slow for that content, otherwise it would have great tools to contribute. Think about all those offensive buffs, plus a little damage just like a GEO would do, it can do Fleet Wind between bosses (kinda like having Chocobo Jig available, nice for canceling out C/G curse even if you do have a COR for Bolters) as well as some defensive buffs like Wind's Blessing to make the healer's job easier, Fenrir buffs to provide dispel fodder for B/F in wind mode, Impact, Pacifying Ruby to keep hate off the heavy DD during bosses like F/G/H where them pulling hate can be disastrous, or extend SCH skillchains in the magic burst method, etc.

There's lots of things it could be doing, but it just doesn't have time. It's not just the BP recast either, but dismissing, summoning, and positioning avatars all takes precious time. Let's not even discuss their drunken pathing...

I don't think the problem is getting people together or getting the buffs up, TBH. SMN buffs with proper gearsets last upwards of 10 minutes, you can just throw one on per boss and it will stay up for multiple bosses. Plus if you're sticking together throughout the run, which most groups are with a couple minor exceptions, you can just do the buffs every time you stop. No group is running for over 10 minutes at a time, and Apogee is also available.

The problem is the buffs aren't impactful enough. Wind's Blessing won't change the outcome of any fight. Ifrit's Warcry has a net negative effect if you have a WAR in party and a VERY negligible positive effect with no WAR (A Chaos roll with no DRK, no relic hat proc, no +rolls, and not a very good roll result. Or an Indi-Fury with 0 skill and +3 geomancy). Crystal's Blessing is probably the best buffs, but pales in comparison to GEO buffs. Removing enmity from one party member also has basically no effect on whether or not you win a fight or how fast you win a fight. Perhaps it could make the tank's job slightly easier in a kiting situation, but it's really minimal. Fleet wind is only applicable while haunted and DNC, which is very popular in the current meta, already has the same effect.

SMN's buffs just aren't good enough to justify a slot. They're weaker than RDM, weaker than BRD, weaker than COR, and weaker than GEO.

They can contribute SOMETHING, definitely, and a good SMN can contribute a lot of interesting things that will make your life mildly easier, but in any 6-man content, there's always going to be a better job to fit that slot.

Another reason SMN isn't brought to a lot of stuff then: the content is 6-man, not 18. In an 18 person alliance sure, a SMN could definitely have a place, because there's plenty of extra space for "wouldn't it be nice" jobs. In 6-man parties where you need to fit heals, tank, dd, and support...there's no space for a "nice little bonus" job.

I really enjoy SMN and have quite a good one, but I use it almost never because there's basically always another job I could be contributing in a more meaningful way on.

If smn could do all of it's buffs in one pact, it'd be an easier sell.

Waiting 10 minutes for phalanx then haste then blessing then warcry isn't compatible with "current year" but all in one go, could be convinced.

Obviously still the problem of brd/cor are dps and smn is just a paper weight, but nothing is going to change anyway, so

I'd argue that even if SMN could give 6 buffs at once, it still wouldn't get a slot. There's no way it's topping BRD, COR, or GEO for buffing, it can't out-DD a dedicated DD, it can't tank.

Best-case scenario if there's content where it can be the healer, it could take that spot, but that's...not a very common scenario...and even then you need to balance the aoe debuff removal, spammable cures, cureskin, etc. of WHM with the buffs you get from SMN which, once again, add very little to most battles.

It needs a rework but that's obviously not going to happen.

Damn, I feel like I'm playing a completely different game when I'm reading some comments about SMN.

I could see SMN replace RDM in a mage comp: RUN COR GEO BLM SCH SMN.

at the end of C/G can chocobo jig2 just like dnc...
aminon w/o rdm enfeebles and it'd take longer to get C/D shards w/o the rdm.

"Could" is the issue.

Can it be done, yeah, will it be slower, also yeah, therefore, It cannot be done.

Even hypothetically offmeta thoughts will get you exiled. The metaonry brain cancer is exhausting.

I did some testing with Opashoro to try to figure out how strong the AM3 is at stage 5.

Targets were Rampaging Beetles in Reisenjima. Used Night Terror on Watersday with 0 TP. Avatar has native 116 MAB (70 from trait/level, 10 from merits, 36 from gifts). The beetles vary from Lv122-124 so I made sure to capture 3 different values for each scenario.

Set #1: Pet:MAB +205 (total +321), BP Dmg +176
26202 / 26339 / 26459

Set #2: Pet:MAB +133 (total +249), BP Dmg +176
22503 / 22619 / 22721

Nothing should've changed in the sets besides Pet:MAB so I did some napkin math to determine that AM3 should be contributing roughly 88~89 MAB which is a lot!

FYI, the same test with my Grioavolr gave damage of 24047. So Opashoro with AM3 beats it by about 10% even for purely magical pacts. (Edit: If I use my magic pact calculator and plug in a staff with 50 BPD and 90 Pet:MAB to compare to Grioavolr, it should give about a 7.6% increase. So if I didn't completely botch my conclusions along the way, I'd expect the other 2.4% comes from the Lv+3 and the aftermath's Pet:Magic Damage.)


No idea how to go about calculating the magic damage portion of the AM3... if anyone has ideas I might be willing to test it.

Assuming its 1;1 on master:pet AMs

Aftermath is enhanced in the fifth stage.
The increase in aftermath is as follows
At level 1, Magic Attack +15, Magic Damage +30, thereafter at TP100, Magic Attack +1, Magic Damage +2

At level 2, Magic Attack +25, Magic Damage +50, thereafter at TP 66-67, Magic Attack +1, Magic Damage +2

At level 3, Magic Attack +40, Magic Damage +80

Got a pair of Merlinic Dastanas for a returning friend.
Since it's literally been several years since I augmented mine, anybody remembers if any of the three Reisen Stone (Pellucid, Fern, Taupe) increases the frequency of the "Blood Pact Damage" stat?
BG is unclear on that and doesn't even state if Fern incrases the cap to 11 (normally it's 10, I think?)

I remember i never had a clear conclusion between pellucid or fern.

Because ideally you would want pet mab or acc together with pet bp, but then using fern makes random augs and low chance for the other slots.

I suppose just grab whatever stone you have, turn Oseem addon on and let it roll at night

Taupe forces attributes (STR, DEX, ect).
Pellucid forces accuracy and attack (ranged and magic as well).
Fern forces the last affix.

Taupe and Pellucid grant higher caps for their specific stats, but I don't think Fern does this for all stats.

I personally have never seen higher than BPD 10, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

If it can roll the 11, I'm not sure how exactly that compares to the increased attribute and atk from other options.

So I guess I should get random Pellucid and Fern stones for him eh, and hopefully he'll get a decent aug.
I think they key here is getting a high value of BPD and then whatever else he's able to get (pet Mab/Macc/Att/Acc) is just icing on the cake.

You want Fern to force the BPD augment slot and raise its cap. You need about 3 stacks normally to see a capped augment, or more if you also want the other slots to be relevant.

Should probably get extra gloves and roll both physical and magical together. That way you can keep potential good augs without having to overwrite.


Either way, be the guinea pig and tell us how many stones it takes you to get 11BPD. Good luck with Oseem!

Does bpd go to 10 or 11?

Apparently BG lists BPD having a cap of 11 with fern stones. I've never actually heard of anyone saying they had that though.

Despite what BG says about the max augment value, I think it is actually a lot lower than 3% for these augments with a big range.

If you have ever seen BPD+10 with pellucid or Taupe, that is confirmation that Fern goes to 11. It is a straight +1 to every augment 's cap afaik. I only have BPD+9 on mine so maybe it is 9 normal and 10 fern, though.

The caps on BG are probably too high. I don't think we'll ever see 11 BPD, but I nominate Sechs to spend all of his gil trying to get one. Don't let us down Sechs!

I'm not spending a penny, I augmented my Merlinic Dastanas aeons ago. It's just a returning friend for whom I just farmed a pair of those and that's it :-P

He already augmented em and for now settled for BPD7 anyway XD

I'm positive BPD+10 is the max with ferns, and 99% sure it's the max with other stones too. (It's been many years since I did these so that's the only reason I'm not willing to say I'm certain but I'm fairly sure I recall getting 10s with pellucids as well.)

It's easy to do 1000's of augments, just depends on who has the horseshoe up their *** that day between yourself and Oseem. I would have to agree that 11 is a myth outside of DM. I wound up with BPD10, pet mab30, pet macc 23. Didn't feel like it took terribly long either, pretty sure I had the horseshoe that day.

I've gotten BPD 10 + macc/mab + macc + mab on regular stones and that's the one I kept. I think that is 1 more term than you usually get but I'm not an expert on Oseem.

You can only get mab/macc + mab + macc with dark matter augments, which underscores how hard it is to accurately record limits for these augments.

That's weird because I got it with Fern stones before the DM campaign started. I thought it was strange, and decent, so I kept it and stopped for the day.

Mine are mab+22, macc+12 and they were definitely not a DM aug.