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

checked because i was bored:
There's no stat difference between seraphicaller, Sancus, and sancus +1 beyond the 15/20 acc and BPD.

That's what I figured, but those acc/m.acc and BP are really nice. too bad there's no extra attk!

Multihits do affect BPs, but they are just normal, unmodified hits iirc.

Okay, so haven't been on forums in a long time, I'[m having an issue when entering confrontations such as Unity NMs and Geas Fete, my avatar vanishes from my screen, making it hard to track damage in chat log and animations don't show up either, for both bloodpacts and skillchains. Anybody have any idea what might be causing this?

It could be related to the fact that disappearing status icons is apparently still a problem also. I thought SE addressed this in a previous update but evidently not.

Another less obvious consideration is you have filters preventing you from seeing those things.

I've tried toggling ignorepet and even ignoretrust, neither helps load my avatar during these battles. Even tried with visiblefavor which I still had active upon login.

Try loading vanilla without windower that will rule out a lot.

If that doesn't work, try altering your config especially for max people shown at once, as well as chatfilters. There is also a new command to toggle the visual effects of avatars on or off you can try that.

Activating Avatar's Favor is making them vanish. I'm trying to figure out what config settings I can toggle on and off.

Yeah, that shouldn't happen.

Mind sharing what that command is?! O.o Was not aware of this command.

Visible Favor is broken completely, just remove it.

/localsettings blureffect on/off

Debuff pacts:

Nirvana or Espiritus B?

Oh I've had that issue a lot with avatars being invisible, didn't know it was related to that add-on.

If you're asking for what is the best staff for debuff pacts, probably a well augmented griovalr will have the most magic accuracy of any staff.

If you mean a direct comparison of the two:
this http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/46440/the-6th-ministrys-secret-a-summoners-guide-v2/40/#3078794
Indicates you get at least with carbie/cait a 74 physical acc increase. If we assume you get that on magical too, which can be a strech but is the best we have as no direct testing has been done, then you'd be comparing espiritus 45 magic acc and 15 smn skill (which we know is most likely less than 1:1) so somewhere less than 60 magic accuracy.

Grioavolr can have 35 + 15 int + 40 magic acc which is 90.

So you'd have:
90 magic acc Grio
57-74 magic acc depending on which source you use for how much physical acc it gives for Nirvana and
52-60 magic acc on Espiritus B depending on how much magic acc you get from skill.

It does take a lot of stones to get an augment Grio that could beat either of the others. Depending on summoning skills ratio, and if nirvana gives 57 acc or 74.. espiritus or nirvana could be better. I'm gonna go with my testing though and say it's 74... but all this runs on the assumption you get the same magic acc as acc which who knows if that's true or not. The most accurate answer is we don't know, but it's probably:
Grio > Nirvana > Espirtus

Given that avatars are (most of them) BLM jobs, I'd actually expect more magic acc than acc but not sure by how much, the acc function seems to grow the fastest out of all of them which I don't believe is typical of mages.

Claustrum for physical, grio for magic.


I forget what if any debuffs are phys acc based.

oh wait, i'm wrong. Gridarvor is 95 acc.

Nirvana.
Hands down.
I don't recall any of the enfeebles having any variability based on skill (like how buffs have an increased duration).
So you're looking at a large Macc term vs a large Macc term PLUS a greater ΔSTAT (which means more Macc).

Though if there is a skill based enfeeble (I think Diabolos' absorb may be boosted by skill) then you can use Espiritus for those few.

Wouldn't magic accuracy be used for calculation of the additional effect landing? I believe that's how it works.

I wasn't really worried about Grio right now. Thank you everyone for your responses.

It's hard to evaluate that. +2 levels confer not only additional stats (which further convert into additional macc) but also help with the level correction formula which gives further chances to land debuffs.

While I have no math to support it, I think it's probably Grioavolr > Nirvana > Espiritus B.
I think all 3 are pretty close to each other though.
Grio has the highest potential if you get good augs but... you need to get good augs.
Until then Espiritus B is an excellent choice with its Pet Macc+45 plus SMNskill+15 (which further converts into pet macc).

Since you own a Nirvana I'm not really sure what to suggest, Nirvana might be better, but I'm confident Espiritus B is still pretty close beneath it.

Got my klouskap +1 for a steal. Now need perfect aug physical merlinic body and hands and i'm set.

And then what? :P

I push into (personally) new territory with /sam and /sch setups, a gearswap built for me from the ground up, and wrap it up with afterglow claustrum, nirvana and hver. After all this... i might gear a second job :V

traitor

I went from +7 bp pet +25 MAB Grioavolr to +9 BP pet +23 m.acc +16 MAB

Having a small amount of remorse for losing the 9 MAB but I'll keep rolling

Finally afterglowed your Nirvana? It's about time. :S

I after glowed mine for the shiny and with the hope there is a next tier RME upgrade that buffs the pet component. But I probably should have invested on my idris first.

Not yet. Waiting on either finishing bonecraft or a hard mode bcnm event for farming. For the 100-150m, afterglow nirvana is the epitome of useless whiteborder fluff.

Also trying to get heli to afterglow claustrum, so might do that first, since none are listed on here.

Ope, voidwatch event again so soon? Guess i'm pushing for 300m+ there.

On the topic of Nirvana;

Is it actually worth the investment? People have told me that Espiritus can do just as well?

I figured the +2 avatar levels and the +40% BP:Rage would of made the nirvana a no brainer, am I wrong on this?

Also (I've only been back for a month, after gone for a few years), I thought afterglow was just that, a neat glow that did nothing, but apparently I'm wrong?

For physical pacts you'll find nothing better than nirvana, Espiritus is a good magical staff but well aug'd Grio can trump it. They introduced a new afterglow system that takes 10k beitetsu for mythics. For most mages this upgrade is very not worthwhile especially nirvana as it gives nothing over NQ for your avatar's stats or damage, only a marginal increase to melee accuracy for the master. So it is the last thing you could worry about upgrading most the time. It is pretty tho and melee acc isn't awful but the ones that really got huge upgrades for mythics and other ultimate weapons are DDs. For SCH at least it was a good enough boost that if you activate afterglow it can beat any other staff but not otherwise, not sure if BLM in the same boat, for SMN though we have to deal with the random augment system to get our best magical pact staff which is really a bummer.

Nirvana is hands down the best for melee BPs, and pretty well off for magical BPs because of the additional stats from lvl +2 and the 40 BP damage on the staff itself. That being said, non-mythic SMN has the capability of putting out damage much better than they ever have.


Did you mean AM? Tupsi with AM makes it pull ahead of Akademos slightly. BLM mythic is the highest attainable combination of MAB and Magic Acc in weapon slot, but as it has no INT so I'm not really sure how it would do on higher level stuff. If you're capping dINT though, it will beat everything else assuming you don't need burst in that slot either...

yes meant AM sorry, thanks for the info on BLM mythic!


This is also true, I think a lot of people didn't play SMN because they thought it required mythic to perform well, maybe once upon a time that was kinda true but (it would never have helped when SMN was mostly just abused for PD)... if it was it's definitely not the case now.

Nirvana's claim to fame is having strong physical options as a backline mage, which is a very nice addition to SMN's arsenal and being able to deal physical damage as a backline mage is sometimes SMN's niche, it's hard to argue with the great power of magic bursted blood pacts though or even how much damage they can do with good support and no burst. Without Nirvana you can still do good physical pacts too, just with Nirvana it is just so much sweeter.

It's also the best staff for flaming crush so there's that too, and if you're going to skillchain with your pet and the SMN meleeing, then Nirvana is also the best choice for a multitude of reasons (best physical pacts, aftermaths for acc, attack or oat which also apply to your avatar, good physical acc staff with perp on it, etc). On high end content SMN can't melee, but for a lot of things this is actually SMN's best dps option. BPs have a long cooldown even capped, and closing skillchains with them allows you to double their worth. In return you give up your safety by standing toe to toe with mobs (thankfully you get things like EA to aid survival). IMO nirvana is definitely worth it but you shouldn't be shy to try out and play SMN if you have no intention of making one, merit BPs bursted are an excellent source of damage and you can still get good Flaming Crushes and decent physical pacts. While SMN support options tend to be weaker than most jobs (our favor is basically one roll from a COR and has a lot of limitations on it and far less options), some are unique buffs (tp bonus, though less than what war can give), or strong aoe versions of existing buffs (hastega II), but many are borderline useless (13 damage reduction on Diabolos phalanx...).