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

Well the thing is I'm running out of 'things I need'. At this point I'm building a Relic and Empy staff just because. I have 30 sacks of each stone type in addition to all the ones I've stored and they aren't really worth selling on the AH for ~30k a stack when I have so much other more valuable things to sell like stacks of alex. Other than staff and hands is there any other slot worth using stones to make an item for?

I do have a few questions I've been gearing summoner for a while and cannot quite find decent answers for this. For flaming crush what path do you go for apogee MAB or PHYS since its hybrid? Im just looking for decent answers since i only have 1 full set of HQ apogee and 1 NQ so looking to know what path to go for HQ atm.

Both affect the damage, and ideally you want both, but in theory -at least to a certain point- attack should count more. Emphasis on should

Flaming Crush is based on two components. A physical part and a magical part. Att would benefit the phys one, mab the magical part. So far so good, right?
But it gets more complicated because the magical part damage is calculated based on how much damage the physical part does.
Which means the more damage the phys part does, the more damage the magical part will do.

This means that boosting your mab will affect just the magical part of Flaming Crush, whereas boosting your att will affect both the physical part (directly) and the magical part (indirectly).

Things get even more complicated though, because the point-to-point relevance is skewed towards mab.
1 point of attack means less for the phys part than 1 point of mab means for the magical part.
Someone theorized a very very approximated relationship (the purpose of which is just to serve as an example) of 2:1.

This is my current flaming crush set any thoughts all apogee peices are MAB route.

sets.midcast.Pet['Flaming Crush'] = {main="Gridarvor",sub="Elan Strap +1",ammo="Sancus Sachet +1",
head="Apogee Crown +1",neck="Caller's Pendant",ear1="Gelos Earring",ear2="Summoning Earring",
body="Con. Doublet +2",hands="Merlinic Dastanas",ring1="Varar Ring +1",ring2="Varar Ring +1",
back=gear.smn_phys_cape,waist="Incarnation Sash",legs="Apogee Slacks +1",feet="Apogee Pumps +1"}

It costs 1k silt to change the path of a fully augmented apogee piece (+1 or not). Since your gear set is not a fixed set (due to augments on Merlinic Dastanas and Grio), you may be better off just testing out the damage yourself using one set of augments, and then swapping the augments with Nolan using 1k silt to test another set. That way you'll know which augments works best for YOUR set of gear.

Hmm alright i appreciate it was just trying to figure out how to get the bang for my buck for volt strike and flaming crush

BP Damage & Pet:MAB tend to be the main two stats for Flaming Crush. However, as Sechs mentioned, you do need a certain level of phys acc/atk as well. Generally speaking though, gear should favor MAB over phys acc/atk. In fact, my Flaming Crush build closely resembles my Magic BP build with a few key differences: Nirvana, AF+3 body, physical Ambu cape, and path D Apogee Slacks.

I'd suggest setting up your set along similar lines, and it looks like you have. The only thing I see that's a poor choice is staff, Gridarvor isn't doing much for your Flaming since fTP doesn't transfer across multiple hits. You'll do better with your magic BP staff.

The Apogee head and feet I use for Flaming are both path A. That's what I'd recommend doing as well, path A head/body/feet, path D legs. For Volt Strike, you're better off making Helios pieces for head/feet, so until you can do that just use your path A HQ pieces. Honestly, 10 BP damage with zero attack will probably do more for your Volt than 7 BP damage with 30 attack, so I don't think those NQ pieces will do you much good but you could try them.

I'm new to smn, and i couldn't find info about what exactly does BP dmg:
1. is it like WSD who affect on certain BP only first hit and on some other all hit
2. just a raw % boost of dmg that aply at end ?

other question is when you got beast and drac roll + frailty i guess that you favor BPD and pet:DA over Pet: att by a lot, or pet not work the same as melee job ?

If I am not mistaken, it's more like #2. That being said, you don't wanna stack it at all cost while neglecting pet:MAB on magic pacts. 1 high multiplier is less overall dmg than 2 different but lower multipliers. (with current gear we can't stack 1 of them to the point that it outshines having a mix of both)


This is more BP specific, but in general, in those situation, you are likely to be using Volt Strike (or pred claws), and those BP caries ftp on all hits, that's why multi hitting this one is important and as such we favor pet:DA.

The ftp carrying BP are: Rush, Pred Claws, Volt Strike and Eclipse Bite.

thanks

Enticer's Pants or apogee +1 for physical if not over 2350 tp ?

Enticers is only used for merit BP, Apogee slacks+1 D for physical, 21BP 20str & +4 Dbl Atk vs 12BP and 650tp bonus.

anyone able to point me towards updated sets or someone who wants to share a lua just for gear? Just needing to get pointed in right direction for gear for physcial and magical bp's. I have read through entire section but I dont find anything up to date per say. A friend said theres merlinic in ther enow but none of the sets in the forums show any.

Edit: forgot to add im almost done with nirvana if that makes a difference in sets too.

Here's my Lua if you want to peruse the sets: https://pastebin.com/Fa5PtueC

Look for the pet_midcast sets, they should have what you're looking for.

This a good non Nirv Astral Conduit set for Volt Strike? Was thinking Relic Body +3 but idk. Also need quest earring.

ItemSet 355598

Just to confirm I am not crazy:

Nirvana isn't actually a huge dmg gain over Gridarvor for Volt Strike, right?

About how much of a Volt Strike dmg boost does one even get upgrading to Nirvana?

Nirvana is an upgrade, and if you have correct buffs and the correct gear it is best in slot during AM and usually is slightly above gridarvor with out AM that said

Making sure your gear is correct first is the most important part.
Why people ever get nirv with out getting their gear right is beyond me, why worry about the 230M weapon.

And it is all relative 4~5% of the parse may not look like much, but its the difference between carrying someone or not being able to.

If you want to carry people through Reisenjima then you should look into a nirvana, if your looking to join a group on smn you wont need nirvana to clear it. But you will be the weak link if anyone needs to get carried through.

1 bpd is a .35% increase in damage.
1 double attack is .55%

Nirvana's aftermath also works on bloodpacts and is an additional 40% da, 20% ta. And gives atk/acc stats similar to oboro jse.
Short of the 119 sachets (arguably) nirvana is the biggest boost to volt/physical bp damage by 2-3x any other piece of gear.

Quick question. I Have nirvana but on showswaps it shows pet_midcast as my magic grio. Id nirvana used in midcast?

Yes, Nirvana is used in pet_midcast for physical BPs and Flaming Crush. If you're using a purely magic BP though, then it should be using the Grio.

20% is super rare now everybody.

Nirvana is better in more situations than you think, though the jse does well in high acc dependent fights, if you need to use jse over nirv your buffs are wrong, the reason many people state the acc is great is for returning players or content at or around 140.

And nirvana with AM3 will be better in single hit AND multi hit bp since the DA/TA can be added to any bp that has physical hits. In the case of Volt strike which has its fTP apply to all hits, makes the OAT/T have a chance to proc once on any of the three hits more favorable. At 40% DA thats statistically an extra hit guaranteed and a 60% chance you add 2 hits. Assuming your pet is not missing.

So no spinning dive is not a perfect example, it may seem like a larger % boost to the damage when it works, but you almost always get AM3 proc on Volt strike.

Also in buffed fights, there should be no problem with Flaming crush with nirv. You're going to loose more damage in a magical aug staff generally because FC is 2 physical hits 1 magical hit. It will not do so hot with meteor strike, that's a good example of when to use a pet mab staff.

Still no reason for someone not to build Nirv before I had it sure I could beat people in parse that had it, but afterwords I have not had people with out it out parsing me unless I was CC'd. If you have different results, someone in group is probably doing something wrong.

Time to decipher and disprove this word salad.

Straight Nirvana 40 BPD is a 14% increase off of base damage on physical pacts.
Gridarvor's 15% double attack comes in at an average of 8.25% damage increase over numerous pacts, due to the nature of double attacks hitting or not.

You will see slightly larger spikes from gridarvor due to DA procs, as well as consistent lower damage non da hits, but in a parse of numerous pacts over time, nirvana will be ahead and continue to climb.


See above. DA procs will spike individual pacts higher, but the overall average damage will be lower over numerous pacts.

Also, claiming gridarvor's 15% DA is more frequent than nirvana's 40% da/20% ta.

Spinning dive does not get the double attack bonus that volt strike does, so grid is useless.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/51624-Nov.-10-2016-%28JST%29-Version-Update


I read this as "i want to be the very best, but i'm too lazy to get the defining piece of gear for my job."

Wrong. Nirvana has an effect on both the physical and magical side of flaming crush, it will outparse grio by a wide margin.

While I think a lot of people (especially those shouting and demanding for a Nirvana) are overestimating the difference between Nirvana and other options, I think you're underestimating them.

Especially with AM3 up on stuff like Volt Strike the difference is quite big.

That's the fundamental argument that has and will always exist. You don't need any of that ***to win.

But you need it to win FASTER. and that's literally all they care about.

While there is nothing wrong with saying, thinking or playing under the notion that JSE staff is "good enough", there is always the option to acquire and utilize the "best". You aren't wrong; JSE is good enough. If you feel that is good for you and where you wanna be, then that's perfectly fine. Every nm or boss can be cleared with a team of well-geared smns with the JSE staff. But, time and time again, Nirvana has been shown (where it applies) to be the best option. At this point it is incontrovertible.
Boils down to prerogative. If you are comfortable with "good enough", then kudos to you. If it is the prerogative of others to require the better option (respectively), then that can't be denied them.
Summation: You do you

It would be a poorly prepared SMN indeed that couldnt run in for a simple ws and run out before death. It is quite common to prep AM3 for an AF/AC zerg.