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

I don't think anyone can tell you a 'bare min' for oseem augments, it's just how much time/gil/stones you're willing to sink.

I have BP+10, M.acc+4, MAB+21

Feels weak, but I've thrown about 400 or 500 stones at it so far, and keep tossing more when I get them. It's the best I've seen.

The Gridarvor/Grioavolr/Espiritus trio looked to be the way a lot of the sets in OP/most recent posts were going, but I needed a place to even *start*. It's not that I don't want a Nirvana, but I'd prefer a Yagrush.

Noted on the speed difference, and much appreciated on the LS note. :) I think I keep popping on when other people are AFK, so I've just been trying to learn as much as possible about the last couple of years(!) and figure out what's feasibly soloable while I try and catch people online.

Got Baayami robe from gobbie box!

Congratulations, Deku!

When I first started back, I was killing Hpemdes in Escha - Ru'Aun with Amchuchu, Yoran-Oran and Koru-Moru. I was using a Gridarvor (which is excellent unless/until you get Nirvana) and Hagondes-level gear. It went faster for me than Gates worms, and you always have the chance for a Facility Ring from a gold chest. Plus, you'll be building silt and progress on vorseals while you're at it. Curio Moogles sell the -mochi foods if your avatar needs extra accuracy or attack.

Eventually, when I worked my way up, all of my Apogee stuff started on Path C. Once they're fully upgraded, it only costs 3k silt to change the augment path, so you're never locked in to what you originally choose. This works well for Flaming Crush also, since it benefits from Pet: Atk and Pet: MAB.

And, Espiritus is a perfectly fine staff for magical pacts before you get a Grio.

Awesome, Deku!

Good point on the silt. I've got none currently, and just flagged Escha Ru'Aun last night, so I'm glad to hear they're doable. I'll add it to the list.

So, I've worked pretty hard on smn lately. I soloed 100 JP for access to Sancus Sachet and the -5 BP Gift. My recast on Pacts is now down to 24 seconds. I have an abjuration for Apogee Dalmatica (my second) that I plan on getting a Path D augment which should put me over 515 skill on BP recast which should give me another second down to 23 seconds. I think I've got a decent start on being able to use SMN for content. Would anyone mind giving me some advice on next steps?

BP Precast:
ItemSet 352184
Espiritus: Path B
Apogee Dalm: Path D (when one becomes available on AH)
Conveyance: 'Summoning magic skill +4','Pet: Enmity+10','Blood Pact Dmg.+5','Blood Pact ab. del. II -2'

BP Physical
ItemSet 351653
Helios Band: 'Pet: Attack+30 Pet: Rng.Atk.+30','Pet: "Dbl. Atk."+4','Blood Pact Dmg.+6'
Apogee Dalm: Path C
Merlinic Dastanas: 'Blood Pact Dmg.+9','Pet: INT+9','Pet: "Mag.Atk.Bns."+10'
Helios Spats: 'Pet: Attack+29 Pet: Rng.Atk.+29','Pet: "Dbl. Atk."+8','Blood Pact Dmg.+7'
Apogee Pumps: Path C

BP Magical
ItemSet 351654
Grioavolr: 'Blood Pact Dmg.+8','Pet: STR+13','Pet: Mag. Acc.+25','Pet: "Mag.Atk.Bns."+21'
Helios Band: Same as Physical (need Apogee Abj)
Apogee Dalm: Same as Physical
Merlinic Dastanas: Same as Physical
Enticer's: Perfect Augment
Apogee Pumps: Same as Physical

So, I'm seeing conflicting info with regards to TP bonus on Enticer's gear and certain physical pacts. Does TP Bonus work on some physical pacts now? If so, is there a compiled list somewhere? The guide seems conflicted on which do and don't have TP bonus.

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Category:FTP_Replicating_WS

Ok, I see Rush, Predator Claws, Volt/Chaotic Strike, and Eclipse Bite in that list. Would it be better to use Enticer's Pants for those instead of the Helios Spats?

Hard to say if it would beat Helios Spats, I'd wager not. It definitely won't beat Apogee Slacks path D, which you should look into obtaining.

The TP bonus from Enticers is pretty counter-intuitive. It benefits all Rage BPs. However, there are other stats you're competing with like Pet:DA on pants.

Pet:DA helps massively on BPs where fTP carries across multiple hits, much more so than TP Bonus. This causes Enticers to fall behind on the BPs you mentioned like Volt Strike. So in practice it ends up being more beneficial on the BPs where fTP doesn't carry.

Personally, I use Enticers on single-hit BPs like Spinning Dive and about half of my magic BPs. (The other half I use Apogee Slacks +1 but if you don't have a path A pair of those, just use Enticers for everything magic.)

what about switching the pants for apogee +1 path A and perfect helios boots, over apogee pumps +1? need to say that also using helios band with 2 shy of cap DA

Nonperfect helios will be beaten by apogee +1. Apogee +1 legs still need a second piece to be at peak, best choice is feet, my setup uses only helios band for some pacts, apogee for others. And apogee legs/feet for all. You don't want to swap pants to path a, as thats a huge loss.
Its a situation where if you want to beat apogee +1, you need to replace with perfect helios pieces, or else you'd lose damage, since according to perg's calculator, perfect helios is only just barely above anything else.

Yeah ignore my remark about path A Slacks+1. You shouldn't even consider path A slacks unless you already have a pair of +1 on path D for your physical BPs, and you're considering buying a second +1 pair.

Without having two pairs of Slacks+1, just use path D slacks on multi-hit physical BPs (Volt, Pred, etc) and Flaming Crush, and use Enticers on everything else.

so you need +1 apogee legs to beat enticers, or will NQ be enough? Little confused and NQ and HQ have been referenced.

I'm dubious about DA > BP in the theoretical helios setup. Yeah extra hits are nice and in controlled theoretical situations it will output the highest damage.

But a DPS is about what is practical. Holding for 1 minute to set-up a skillchain is often less dps than just going solo 3x for example unless the mob has a specific weakness to skillchains.

I'd recommend against leading people down the path of DA augs on pretty dated old content gear for that one time where Ramuh get's to do a large spike damage when the alternative is Ramuh doing slightly less damage than peak, but higher damage overall. Not to mention apogee +1 set bonuses benefit all pets and all pacts.

The gil spent, inventory space wasted etc etc isn't worth it.
Go with apogee +1 , or better wait, save the gil, wait a few months and see what the Relic/Empy upgrades bring.

For path D to use on physical, NQ is enough, HQ is better.

For path A to use on magical, NQ is pretty much a waste of time, and HQ is only worth it in some situations and even then only by a small amount.

So my advice is: First pair, buy NQ or HQ, make it path D. Don't bother with a second pair unless you got gil burning a hole in your pockets and want a marginal increase to magic pact damage in a handful of situations.


Helios gives the higher overall damage, not Apogee+1. Apogee+1 sacrifices long-term damage for short-term consistency.

That said, I agree there's a balance, and you make a great point about Apogee+1 benefiting all BP. You can buy Apogee+1 head/legs/feet, make the head/feet path A, and the legs D, and you'll be pretty close to ideal for all pacts without any Helios or multiples of Apogee pieces.

But as soon as you start crossing the threshold of wanting a separate head or feet piece for Volt Strike, that's when Helios makes a really strong case. This is because in practice, "that one time where Ramuh get's to do a large spike damage" is pretty often. Using 2 pieces of Helios, my chances of getting at least one double attack proc on a Volt literally double (from 24.31% to 49.59%). Every second Volt that I use has at least one double attack. My BP damage, by comparison, only goes down from +163 to +153. You could parse against me all day long and Apogee+1 will never win for more than 2 or 3 blood pacts before Helios pulls ahead.

Again, we're talking absolute top-end. For most SMN, I agree it's not practical. The difference between Helios & Apogee+1 is so small and situational that it's not worth thinking about. It just depends how far you wanna take it, and how much gil & inventory space you can spare.

I really feel like some people are underselling the impact of Double Attack, thus augmented Helios on Volt Strike and Predator Claws.

Right now, If I were to swap my Helios feet and head for Apogee +1s, I'd be adding 8 BP dmg. I have 95 BP now, so going up 8 (203/195) and I'd be looking at a 4.1% increase in damage. So let's just say 40k BPs would all become 41,640.

A Double attack going off is a 33% overall increase in damage. I have 15% DA in those slots (perfect augs would allow for 16), and it has 2 chances to go off on each BP...so ballpark math a 30% chance to activate from those 2 slots alone (the math is a bit complicated than that but it's close enough for discussion). So now 3 out of 10 pacts are 53.2k with the other 7 being 40k. I'd much rather have that than to have them all 41,640, and it really isn't close.

Now this is only comparing these pieces specifically, but when you look at other pieces, I have a 42% Double Attack rate. 4 hit "spikey" BPs are more common than 3 hit ones, which happen about as often as massive 5 hitters. So often the conversation seems to get framed like:


This is not the choice being made in a build more DA focused. It's not going from 0% DA to 5%, so that once in 20 BPs you get a lucky spike damage. The gear is available to make those "spikey" hits more common than your 3 hitter to the point where I don't even consider them spikes.

For Mythic AM3 SMN this is a bit different, as the AM devalues the Double Attack and heightens then BP+. But for all of the Gridarvor and non AM Nirvana users, I feel like DA isn't getting valued properly in their builds.

Edit: I think I counted my current BP wrong, it's 101 not 95 so the actual impact of the Appogee+1s is a bit less than mentioned above.

I feel consistency is more important because unless you can control when the procs happen, it's meaningless if you do more overall damage against trash that would have died anyways to a non DA hit.

That's the same deal with +Crit on the SMN reisen cape being clung to for a while when the Ambush cape came out. The Pet lvl +1 was clearly superior overall. Not even counting the augmentable buffs.

I think if you have the time and gil to do it and or had the augments inplace already and is just rolling for DA sure, helios band in particular is the only piece I'd look at just because apogee crown +1 is relatively ho-hum, but when asked by new SMNs about helios I still think it's a waste of gil and time especially with the uncertainty of the +2/3 Empy and relic gear.

Didn't mean to step on anyone's toes here.

ty, was what I was looking for.

How can I switch between the following sets:

sets.midcast.Pet.PhysicalBloodPactRage
sets.midcast.Pet.PhysicalBloodPactRage.Acc


Example - When I want to switch between the following 2 sets I have the following command and add it to a toggle, Ex. hit F11 and it becomes Resistant, hit F11 again and it goes back to normal.

sets.midcast['Enfeebling Magic']
sets.midcast['Enfeebling Magic'].Resistant

state.CastingMode:options('Normal', 'Resistant')


Is there already a default created for this: such as
state.PetMode:options('Normal', 'Acc')

The above does not work though.

Any help/direction appreciated, have looked through several of the SMN lua's but its as if people aren't switching between sets in this manner.

Thanks

state.OffenseMode:options('None', 'Normal', 'Acc')

Oh it is just part of the offense mode? thought that only affected the engaged sets.

Anyone have a lua shell they could give me a link to? I was hoping to read it and learn when each set needs to be applied. I use GearSwap for all of my other jobs and use a mixture of toggled sets and event driven gear changes. I can't seem to come up with anything that makes sense for SMN. I feel like I should toggle perp down, would like to have an array of which set to equip depending on the BP used, would like to midcast JAs for Baayami BP cooldown, and auto favor set. I can't figure out how to put it together within the confines of the only way my brain understands code.

How is Volt Strike accuracy on T4 content?

If I am theoretically aiming to get Apogee+1 Legs, Feet, and Helios Band I will be losing quite a bit of accuracy that AF+3 feet or Apogee head could give, for example.

1. Is Shiro + COR rolls enough to consistently land all 3(or 4/5 from DA) hits on Volt on high end content?

2. If I have Apog Legs, Feet, Helios Band without a COR can I reliably land all hits on lower tier content with the best available gear in other slots (AF+3 body, varar, shul collar, ambus cape, etc.)?

I'm just trying to see if I should aim for accuracy in those slots first and test it out or go straight for the attack. Would hate to spend millions going for accuracy in those slots and waist the gil reverting to attack later.

Thanks.

you're going for my set right?
ItemSet 346306


anything higher level is assumed you'll have a cor and geo giving you buffs. SMN's acc largely depends on buffs, so being low on acc is a fault of party composition, not equipment.

Also, please note, Helios band requires perfect BP damage and Double attack augments to pull ahead of apogee +1 that tiny little bit, And only for the double attack pacts. So you may be better served just getting apogee crown +1.

Yeah, going for your set. I do a great deal of low-man (solo to 3-man) T1-T2 type stuff and maybe only do T4/Helm once a week...maybe. So the attack gear should be fine for that with food if I don't have a COR or GEO?

As any higher tier fights my groups will have fully functioning pet support.


Good to know before I invest.

you should do ~okay~ without buffers on t1/2s, but i'd definitely down shiromochi on the t2s. Having a pocket geo would still greatly increase killspeed on anything, even those t1s.

Enlighten me >.>... whats a good BP recast set, if 2100jp?

22 seconds
ItemSet 351510

21 seconds
ItemSet 352492