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

I feel as if there are many valid options for the cape augs depending on what you wish to do, and that many of the augs are so potent you'd want multiple capes just to have access to such strong gear. I'm doing a bit of testing on avatar levels vs attributes and trying to nail it down but it may be a few days because I had to work late and I keep getting d/c from the game and logins take 15 mins, so no way I can get a cape tonight... or who knows if congestion issues continue.

Here is my initial work I can share tho:


The early levels are very strange to say the least, and acc overtakes attack after you put on an icaller and were merging before that... on top of that the slope of the line is totally different after you put on an icaller but at least then it's a straight line, it seems after icaller boosts are greater too, meaning +1 lvl would mean more not less for ilvl avatars. I'm not sure if this changed or prior tests were inaccurate.

One thing I look forward to testing is if the cape and mitts will work interchangeably for same values. I'll likely have to go to pvp and have someone keep changing INT gear on a player casting nukes to nail down avatar INT and could do VIT also for STR and see if they match up.

I also thought it very interesting the source of the name on the cape:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Campestres&redirect=yes

Happy Ambuscading!

Are the +iLvl gear all the sane? It was implied earlier in this thread the +avatar level gear have fixed discrete bumps to stats per level. It's only the iLvl sachets that see large chunks of stat's added ( much more than the level increases would allow)

If the precast trick works with this cape like it does for Nirvana, would Scintillating Cape still be rather good for Flaming Crush?

This cape has +5bp and can be augmented to have +20 m.acc/m.attk ; it's best in slot and arguably full time able except for bpmin build.

I'm not sure what stats are carried over from nirvana precast trick but I'm assuming it's the iLvl stats (int primarily for the magic dmg tests) that's creating the consistently modest damage boost from the trick. My keraunos has a +9 BP damage buff and I get same gap results as others testing with different staves so I'm almost certain the +40 BP from nirvana doesn't carry over.

So the +5 BP won't carry over here either. I think.

The +5bp dmg and higher MAB Aug from augments should be better I think.

What is the nirvana trick? Keeps the bp bonus damage yet has the espi stats too?

Since nirvana had no MAB+ for pets (huge oversight IMHO) the trick is the start with nirvana precast then swap into an MAB stick as the BP goes off. This is in relation mostly to magical bps as the +MAB from staves like keraunos or espiritus will out parse your +2 iLvl avatar with nirvana only.

starting with nirvana adds a consistent damage boost on magical bps on top of what you will get full timing a +pet MAB stave

My guess is the +10 int from the ilvl 121 is what is carried over because the damage boost is very modest. But consistent.

For physical bp and idling and other debuff bps that benefits from avatar iLvl you want to be on nirvana obviously.

I usually do precast with Nirvana and midcast Espiritus but notice no difference in damages with Shiva when I do a precast with Espiritus.. I dunno if I am doing something wrong. Maybe gearswap is swapping it too fast

It's m.dmg on the augments, not magic attack. Probably better functionally though since should be applied before MAB. Also, the reason Scintillating Cape tends to shine is because the crits on Crush are what push the damage through the roof.

You are right that the BP dmg +40% doesn't carry. The precast trick is just for the iLvl boost on magic pacts.

What sort of testing would need to be done to determine the base critical hit rate for Flaming Crush?

Your lag may be an issue. It was implied this trick is harder to pull off with lower latency.

I went with pure acc/attack augments and will intend to use campestres's cape for FC. I know crits can put out some beefy numbers but I think I just prefer consistently full physical hits

Ty for correcting me. Yes it is magic dmg.

As for testing for base critical for flaming crush
A lot of kills? ☺

My general rule of thumb is pet crits are nice to have bur I prefer the higher consistent damage.

Even if it us +m. Dmg instead of m.attk the +5 from the cape us still better as it applies to both your physical and magical portion of the flaming crush.

Haha. Posted at same time. We have the same mindset about consistent damage..

The dmg increase isn't that significant with Espiritus in the testing I did with it. We're talking 2-300 dmg best case scenario. Could be why you don't notice it. Only reason I saw a bigger difference is my Grioalovr has Pet Int +7 in addition to its BP dmg and MAB.

Ah yea that would make sense then. If only cat3 for capes had pet crit hit rate 10% :p

Funny thing is, i'm adding my new cape to my gearswap as we speak and noticed im not even using scintillating cape for hybrid pacts lol. Was only using it for magic pacts since with my gear, it was adding more damage than BP dmg +5 from Conveyance.

Hmm. Wonder how that is even possible... Maybe the augment isnt registering?

No, its a just gear dependent thing. Wether or not Scintillating was better for magic pacts heavily dependent on your current BP dmg to mab ratio. If you get the M.acc/M.dmg augment on your Campestres's though, it wouldn't be something you'd even have to consider.

I probably have been doing it wrong for a long time. Inventory issues prior to wardobe2 i was using the 20attack/mab path since most the stuff i have been fighting with SMN lately is FC only. Anything else has been BLM :(

Nah, most SMN probably have completely different gear at this point in the game where random augments vary from one person to the next. It's alot harder to say what's best in those instances too, since the 'best' isn't realistic in some cases, like BP dmg +10, MAB +40ish augments on merlinic. It's for that very reason that what's bis might vary person to person now.

If you want stuff that applies to both portions of Flaming Crush, you should be after acc/atk.

Acc/Atk benefits both because increasing the damage of the physical aspect increases the base damage of the magical aspect.

I believe merit BPs have base damage in the 3000-3500 territory? So adding pet: magic damage +20 you're looking at an increase of about 0.6% and that's on the optimistic side. That augment is worthless unless you're worried about magic acc.

It's close enough that any time I change any of my magic BP gear, even just replacing an augment on Merlinic, I have to do the math again to know which cape to use. It's gone back and forth a few times now. It's a pain!

I can see the appeal of having an "always BiS" magic cape... That said, it's my opinion that the only people who should be picking the macc/mdmg augments on their first cape are people who *never* do anything except magic BPs with their SMN. The phys augments are that much better than the magic augments, that if you use phys even 10% of the time then it's worth picking the phys augs. That's just my opinion so far.

And honestly even without the macc/mdmg augment, this cape probably still beats both of the other ones. Scint might in some scenarios offer *slightly* higher damage, but the INT+5 from Campes will marginalize any difference between the BPD and MAB, and it will have a lot more magic acc in any event.

I'm still trying to decide on that third augment option using Dusts. Seems like that one will just boil down to a playstyle preference. Dust category just has far fewer options compared to the other 2 groups.

I am still torn between haste and regen. Most anything we fight usually '1-2' shots our avatars and we just re-summon, where as haste might get a couple more hits in for TP bonus on BP's. I dunno...

My feelings exactely, I'm gonna go with Haste for that reason.

Quick question: how much am i supposed to heal for as a smn, with cure iv and capped cure potency (plus some healing skill here and there)?

I think i am gonna just do haste. 10 regen wont do anything even with regular mobs hitting them after a BP..

Do attack and haste on your first cape. This opens it as both a tp piece and a bp rage phys.

Do matk and regen on the second cape next time it is available. This makes it for magic pacts and non tp av out idle.

I will do a 2nd SMN cape eventually but there is so many more that are needed to be done first :(

Bottlenecks like this are silly.

The good thing is we aren't forced to keep what we pick. We have the option to swap out the augments we don't like.

Resetting augs puts it back at level 1 and i believe we get a limited number or augmenting items for each category. If I'm correct then no you really don't have the option to min/max and swap around.

You are right it seems. When you prompt the NPC to switch to a different augment it shows you the new augment at the Lv.1 value. You don't get the items back either. Seems like a pointless feature to let us switch augments with the upgrade items being so limited. If you wanted multiple capes across many different jobs it could take you months to get enough saps, dusts and threads to even accomplish that goal.