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

I did a detailed analysis of pet stats and +level that included those mitts a while back: http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/46440/the-6th-ministrys-secret-a-summoners-guide-v2/40/#3078794

The +1 Lvl will give you about 37 accuracy and 30 attack as well as boosts to magic acc and INT and defensive stats. Unfortunately, those boosts are going to lose to raw bp damage in the amounts you can get on the merlinic dastanas as it is a very strong stat, not even including the pet acc/attack or magicacc/mab, and for raw accuracy/magic accuracy you can gain the most from apogee+1 mitts. I do recommend keeping them for their other stats however, and they are great to have those avatar idle in, if you want to give up the 2 refresh for cait at least, since they add a lot of defensive stats as well and no one has ever tested but maybe just like the nirvana stats can "stick" after you quickly switch to a magic staff, maybe mitts are like that too. In short, it's cool but outside what I just said the +1 level isn't as great as people make it out to be especially since level corrections don't really function into damage anymore since adoulin :( The stat bonuses do definitely contribute though, to one reason why nirvana is such a great physical staff.

Does anyone have a link to a semi-updated Lua? I found one that may work but I don't know how to include using the Lamassu Mitts+1 while I have Cait out.

I'd just like to do a pulse check on the damage some of you guys are seeing, I wonder if maybe I'm doing something wrong/missing something.

I went through and added up the stats I have during magic BPs, and I came up with: BP Damage +87, PetMAB +251, PetMagicDmg +20.

On Iceday, with Shiva (Heavenly Strike 5/5), I was getting inconsistent numbers when I was trying to put together info for this post, but usually it would be the same BP damage over and over.

At 1000+ TP, Heavenly Strike was landing for 18k-21,657 (this upper number seemed to be the cap I was running into).

What damage are you guys seeing? I just felt like it should be higher. On magical BPs, I've seen way higher, and I'm not expecting 99999s, but I just think I'm missing something.

ItemSet 345773
Grioavolr: BP Damage +8, Pet: Magic Acc. +23, Magic Atk. Bns +23
Apogee Crown: MP +60, Pet: Magic Atk. Bns. +30, BP Damage +7
Apogee Dalmatic: MP +60, Pet: Magic Atk. Bns. +30, BP Damage +7
Merlinic Dastanas: BP Damage +8, Pet: DEX +3, Magic Atk. Bns. +26
Campestres's Cape: Fast Cast +10, Pet: Magic Acc. +20/Magic Dmg. +20, Magic Damage +5
Apogee Slacks: Pet: STR +15, Dbl. Atk. +3, BP Damage +13
Apogee Pumps: MP +60, Pet: Magic Atk. Bns. +30, BP Damage +7


I know my gear isn't perfect -- still working on that, but I'd like to hear what some more experience SMNs have to say.

I posted mine just now, updated. If you want to use the idle with cait's gloves you'll need to uncomment it.


Just remove -- in front of idleSet that is in the SMN-lib.lua file.


There's more than one BP set actually depending on if you're HQ abjuration or not and what type of pact it is, how many merits you put into your pacts, etc.

To answer you damage wise on blanched Mandragora, level 100, I do 20799 with thunderstorm and at 3k tp I do 24424. In escha sky with mostly capped vorseals and no fortitude blessing in affect vs level 82 zdei I do 23383 at zero tp and 26735 at 3k tp and in Reisenjima with fortitude blessing in effect verse level 124 Faaz I do 23973 Thunderstorm at 0 TP and 28109 at 3k tp. With idris geo malaise/lang on some mobs in escha zones on some mobs I can do over 55k without a magic burst. Wind on a whale mob for instance, I've seen over 60k and that's without astral.

This is my set, I do sacrifice damage for magic acc in some slots:

ItemSet 345774

For low TP merit pacts I use Enticer's pants instead.

Augments:
hands: bp damage 9, pet str 9, pet magic acc 25, pet mab 25
cape: pet magicacc/magic dmg
apogee: all A
grio: BP dmg 8, pet int 14, pet magic acc 30, pet mab 10 (missing a lot of dmg potential here but very high magic acc)

I should put together a low magic acc set focused only on dmg, the reason I haven't got to it yet is this one shots pretty much anything too weak to care about magic acc and leaves grape daifuku as a food option on more content. Also resists really really make your dps garbage especially on SMN that relies on doing more damage once in 20 seconds than other jobs do over 20s, it affects you a lot to get even one resist.

My sets aren't perfect either, but hope it gives you a guide. Doing 99,999 is much easier vs some mobs than others. If you are the first to burst, have puppets roll and companions roll, blaze of glory from idris geo for malaise, and languor on it 99,999 should come with the set I posted above on most mobs. RUN doing gambit/rayke on mobs also helps, especially ones with mob family resistances etc, when astral conduiting Seiryu I have done back to back 99,999's in the same burst with actually a lesser set than this. The only one too hard to 99k with is impact, though I have done it, our merit pacts are our best damage source for bursting and we don't have a dark merit pact. Impact has it's own merits though, hahah, in the strong debuff as well as the fact it seems to have very high native magic acc. Without magic burst on most AA in sky I can do 38k Impacts, which you'd think they would resist dark but I guess not. It's better to use Thunderstorm on them though with magic bursts for 99k, and conflag for 99k on the AA Galka. Like with death setups, if others burst before you or don't space it out with you, it can actually lower overall party dps due to how magic bursts work when you burst a ton of spells within about ~1 second of each other. When I get some time I'll try to make some videos of Escha on SMN.

I was actually just testing this with a lsmate that's just working on smn, and he was looking to see dmg differences between us.
I tested on Thundersday, and I only have 1 merit in Heavenly Strike.

With 0 tp and Crystal Blessing, I hit 18988.

With 1000 pet tp and CB, I hit 21352.

With 3000 tp and CB, hit for 25553.

Of course these values are not truly 0, 1k and 2k. Due to using the Enticer's pants.

Quick edit: I was also testing on 100 mandy mobs in Ceizak

Thank you!

Er, yeah. I left that part out -- same here.

I don't have Enticer's pants, but they are on the list.

It doesn't sound like I'm too far off.

Going to upgrade to Varar Rings and +1 sachet and test again this afternoon, I hope.

ItemSet 342721
Augments
Grioavolr - BP dmg +8,Pet Int +6,Pet M.Acc +25, Pet MAB +25
Merlinic Hood - BP dmg +8,Pet Int +8,Pet M.acc+23,Pet MAB +30
Merlinic Jubbah - BP dmg +10,Pet MAB +24
Merlinic Dastanas - BP dmg +10,Pet STR +1,Pet M.Acc +30,Pet MAB +22
Campestres Cape - Pet M.acc/M.dmg +20
Helios Spats - BP dmg +7,Pet crit rate +4%,Pet MAB +28
Merlinic Crackows - BP dmg +8,Pet Int +3, Pet MAB +30

Heavenly Strike 1/5, Lightsday

0 TP
*Helios Spats equipped - 15,800
*Enticer's equipped - 16657

3000 TP
*Helios Spats equipped - 23,800
*Enticers equipped (cuz i forgot I had em on) - 22,401

Doesn't seem like I'm too far off, so that makes me feel better.

Now, to add to this -- what kind of magic bursts do you tend to see? And what situations are you able to hit the 99999 mark (or get close to it 80k+)?

I saw a post about hitting 99999 on AA Galka (think it was by Verda) and doing solid damage to Yakshi with Conflag Strike.

ItemSet 345776


Grioavolr: bpdmg +9 pet macc +9 mab +30
Apogee head, body and feet are path A
Merlinic dast.: bp dmg +10 Pet: MND +2 macc +16 mab +24
Camp. cape: pet M.acc/M.dmg +20
Edit* On 3k tp bps im using Apogee Slacks +1 path D

Yeah the 5/5 Heavenly Strike is benefitting you on those lower tp values over those of us that only put the 1 merit in HS.

On Garuda where I have 5/5 (currently):

0 tp does 22559
1k tp 24275
3k tp 25553

cg on varar +1, didn't think anyone had two yet :O

Pretty much the only ones that I don't see 99999 mb on are the T4 Reisen. I typically only go smn on Zerde, Ony and Erinys, and on Zerde dmg cap is possible under bolster and roughly 80k or more w/o bolster. I don't have exact numbers from that fight as I haven't done it in a few weeks.

Thank you, I got the second very recently from a lsmate.

He currently has at least 1 more that I am aware of for sale. IF anyone has any interest.

I'd be inclined if I wasn't making anni and finishing HQ abjurations first ._. Made three of them, he must've stockpiled VW mats or be a roller (i.e. lots of gil) :O Anyway cg again!

@Kiger, I agree on Brynach about damage, though in my experience missing PUP roll and and idris geo will have a big effect on end results, with companions roll good but less important so your support will matter a ton too. Also I don't rely on it for 99k, but COR doing quickdraw with empy feet for 25% damage boost can help you get there with less gear. Just be sure to have them do it right before you BP and have no one else use anything of that element before your bp lands or it'll not do anything for you. Cor can also help you apogee double burst 6 bursts in a row in escha if you both have revitalizer as well as reset your bp timer. magic burst all of these: Apogee merit pact x2 -> revit -> apogee merit pact x2 -> random deal -> apogee merit pact x2 -> cor uses revit to random deal again -> apogee merit pact x2 -> wildcard -> apogee merit pact x2 -> random deal -> apogee merit pact x2. It's nice to do if conduit is on cooldown, or before you conduit in the case of kirin to get him through his first form extremely quickly. It can result in up to 1.2mil damage in about 60 seconds so use it.

Frod does!

Nice cg to frod as well :D

Due to school I have very limited play time, so farming multiple sets of gear and the gil to upgrade them is impossible right now. For a fairly casual SMN who wants to contribute, would a Apogee set of all path C except feet D for skill/acc be an effective hybrid set while I casual it up?

Tried my hand at Helios today and remembered why I hated the random augment system, and why I would prefer to use an Elixir gear if I can, since gil can be obtained quickly, but I would prefer to use it on other jobs as well.

Also, any order for which AF Relic and Empy armor to upgrade? Pieces outside of BP II- that I must have right away?

For the fairly cheap price of 3000 silt you can change your augment path at any time. I'd go with the magic path, unless you know you'll be using a lot of physical pacts. Unless you have a nirvana it's hard to make the most of physical pacts anyway so magical and flaming crush hybrid are your best bets so might as well maximize them.

From the last few posts I'm assuming that NQ Varar x2 is beating Varar + Speaker's on merit pacts. Is this also true for Flaming Crush? I know the extra accuracy won't hurt, it's just surprising.

Also, will Apogee Slacks +1 (A) beat Enticer's always for merit pacts, or only after a certain TP cutoff?

Also also, will Apogee Slacks +1 (A) or (D) be BiS for Flaming Crush?

Finally, Verda, did you ever finish your BP Dmg vs. Pet: MAB analyzer that you mentioned a while back?

Thanks,
-TA

p.s.: I underestimated the grind for my first mythic - spamming Einherjar/Nyzul when you only have about 2 hours a day to play is brutal. Any words of advice?

Not a lot of testing has been done, but honestly, I tend to prefer Varar+Thurandaut for physical BPs for the 20 attack over 3 BP damage. Most will probably disagree with that, but I feel our avatars are attack-starved enough to warrant this. But yes, Varar beats Speaker's pretty readily for magic BPs. Flaming Crush is up for debate, Varar should beat Speaker's, but I don't know how Thurandaut figures in. Historically, BP Dmg is pretty hard to beat for Flaming Crush, so Varar x2 probably wins.

There was some discussion on this a few pages back, actually. Apogee+1 wins above about 1200 TP for a 1/5 merit pact (which means all the time for a 5/5). NQ Apogee only wins above about 2400 TP for a 1/5 pact, or above 800 TP for a 5/5 pact. Below that, Enticer's wins. That testing was done before Sancus/Varar existed but I doubt it affects the results very much because both pieces have BP damage, and the real difference is MAB vs TP Bonus.

The +1 slacks continue to elude me (2/69 on Cursed Slacks -1) so I'm curious about this one too. I'm currently using Helios with BPD/MAB/Crit on them for Flaming Crush, I've tried NQ Apogee on path D to see if it beats them and it doesn't seem to but you know how unpredictable Flaming Crush can be.

Offer still stands to make you your legs - or at least try to. Just hit me up with the materials on Windsday when we're both free. If you're waiting for the Voodoo to show up on the AH then that's okay too.

Sweet I'll probably hit you up soon for that Avallon ^^

After seeing your success rate (or lack thereof) on Sancus+1, I feel like I'm in good company and my bad luck won't rub off on you because you already have plenty.

P.S. Any luck with that Sancus+1 yet, or did you stop crafting them once you bought one?

I bought a +1 ammo for now (for now meaning I intend on making myself a signed one at some point). But I do a lot of merc'ing on my SMN and wanted to have the HQ ammo sooner rather than later.

And on a side note, I landed my first Varar+1! 1 down, 1 to go. :)

Here you go I was gonna make it pretty etc but meh, we'll just say I really wanted to go for that 1991 web admin interface feel:


Anyone who finds anything wrong/has feedback let me know obviously it is only for helping you figure out the way to get the most from you magic pacts by balancing mab and bp damage and doesn't take into account TP or TP Bonus still it will very clearly show you why Speakers < Varar etc. Here is the download:
https://www.mediafire.com/?2h2foy8c6idcmiw

Edit: Might want to hold off a minute though already seeing some errors math wise, I haven't touched this for about a month :/
Edit 2: Ok Fixed, have at it
Edit 3: Fixed mab/bp ratio in report

Alright here's a little bit about how to use it:
You put in bp damage and mab in each slot. If you hit tab or click another box, it will calculate and save your loadout to a cookie which next time you load it up, if your cookie is still set on your browser (didn't clear cache etc), then it will load your prior setup. It's very functional and function > form imo unless form is part of the function which in UI it is, but I don't have time to really go all out on layout and css and this is still better than what I was doing (using notepad or more accurately vim, and a calculator). It is also good while doing reisenjima augs, you can input your stuff and know if it's better or not. The ratio, which I just fixed, will let you know about how much mab each point of bp damage is worth in your current set. It's also helpful for comparing varar to speakers for example or making any gear choices where those stats are involved. In the current setup in the screenshot for example, 3 bp damage would equal about 8.1 mab. Speakers is 6 mab, so 3 bp damage wins. Or even more simply, you can just put in the speakers ring, then the varars ring and see which has a bigger multiplier or demo magic damage.

That's awesome, thanks for the replys everybody.

Frod does now :V

Picked up my second one today.

All that's left is...
Klouskap sash +1.
perfect aug'd head, body hands..
Melee tp
melee ws....

CG again Frod!

Relevant news courtesy the bg dev tracker:

Summons in Mhaura (2016/8/31)
We have no plans on making this adjustment. As a rule, Avatars cannot be called in town. The exceptions to this rule, such as Al Zahbi and Past Cities, were because battles could occur in these areas.

Blood Pact (2016/8/31)

We will be making adjustments to area-of-effect Blood Pacts in the September update. We will be increasing the size of their effects, including the aforementioned Thunderspark!

According to someone watching freshly picked:
New Mount is fenrir.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6En14D1-Gsg

nvm i see it XD

No mention of the bug fix for BP damage being affected by equipment swamps though?

They did mention it.

Under "Resolved Issues":