SMN In Limbus

If anyone is looking to have fun with SMN in Limbus, I think I've settled on my favorite dream setup for speedy Limbus runs.

It's very similar to the popular DD DD BRD COR RDM GEO/WHM setup that's meta right now. You can of course just swap a SMN/WHM into the GEO/WHM's slot and it works well, if a bit clunky, but if you have enough people then even better is to add 2 more people in a second party:

Main party: DD DD BRD COR RDM SMN/WHM
Second party: Tank GEO

This is the best of both worlds, you gain SMN buffs while keeping Frailty and the tank's presence removes all the clunkiness caused by SMN's specific mechanics. Avatars won't be chasing mobs around, and the SMN won't be too busy blasting Curagas to do summonery things.

SMN plays main heal (mostly ailment removal and barspells) and support. Ecliptic Growl/Howl (use Apogee), Crystal Blessing, Shining Ruby, Dream Shroud, and if there's no WAR on the team then Crimson Howl too. Keep Ifrit out for his favor, and try to Flaming Crush stuff the COR/RDM are fighting so you can open Light for them. (I find the RDM often prefers to handle Haste themselves but you can work out with them whether or not to Hastega.)

Make sure you have a Sacrifice Torque to wake up when slept, so you can wake up the party.

I've had the good fortune of running this setup a few times now and it's really good.

Note: Ifrit needs lots of accuracy to do well in this setup, but damage isn't your priority anyway so consider it a secondary thing to throw out when you can. It's possible to hit 30-40k but I've had trouble doing it with real consistency. I'm still tweaking sets for it. It's been a while since I had to think about accuracy on SMN.

Need to normalize taking more than 6 people to Limbus.

So long as your DD"s arnt on kclub the Ifrit works fine. I'd recommend other favors depending on what DD's your rocking.

Other than that... yes SMN is solid in a buff role with 7th/8th part members in outside party supporting where possible. GEO outside party/healing + tagging frailty has been the go to and this is a nice adaptation. Outside of SMN you can do 3rd DD or 2nd COR, but having an excuse to use SMN is fun

Need to normalize auto invite 1-2 people. The 3 trusts limit and no valuable drops pretty much guarantee what ever you get should be equal or better than soloing.

Of course they couldn't be bothered to also drop requirement to desummon trusts and/or the resummoning cooldown for that zone, but I suppose that would be too convenient.

Rich people laughing in Hoxne.

And have to kill more mobs EVERY FLOOR to get the Temp Item? No thanks, who has the time for that?

By the way, completely unrelated, but there is just not enough Alliance content in this game. Too much is restricted to just six people, why can't we bring all of our friends to content, even if they aren't quite as geared???

I hope this post is ironic or a joke.

Not sure if this is sarcasm or not, but the ratio of kills required per person goes down with more people.

You'll also get less EP per kill, but thats an issue with the formulas used to calculate EP gain.

Yes, it is sarcasm. However, unless the PLD and GEO are actually meaningfully contributing to kills and not just standing there (Asura has broken me), the setup likely does require more kills per active DD.

Don't get me wrong though, I like this idea, and any that get more people grouped in an Alliance for Limbus. I'm sure it isn't an issue on smaller servers, but on Asura, especially Sunday, groups are often pulling over each other or competing for mobs. To me it would make a lot more sense to combine the groups for a climb instead of fighting against or on top of one another. A large-scale drop in/drop out group where people can get their clears in while playing with other people was probably Fujito's intention for the content, but the community refused.

In the case of Kraken Club or Hoxne Ampulla users who don't want or care about Ifrit's Favor, I recommend either Ramuh (crit rate) or Siren (subtle blow 2) instead.

I also like Dex's idea of bringing another COR instead (can anyone say MISERS), or even a 3rd DD. Folks will need to be more liberal with med usage though, unless the RDM uses a healer subjob at which point you're kind of losing a DD too.

I've done runs as RDM/SCH landing Regen3 on people (which lasts uhm 6+ mins or something?)
If people use DT sets there's not much healing and you can still do SOME dps every now and then, but clearly not as much as if you're focused on just that and refreshing buffs.

There's very minimal need for a healer role in general in Limbus farms. Grace effects bloats the hell out of your HP (4k+) and attributes. Most people are subbing /DNC for Spectral Jig, so the occasional Contradance+Curing Waltz III is an easy 1600+ HP heal. Normal mobs won't be able to chunk 4k+ health from one person unless the mobs aren't being slept or the dps is incredibly slow. Or unless they're not wearing any modern -DT gear (in which case they should be told to switch sets). Usually the BRD pulls and sleeps anyways, and you also get restored health on every single floor, diminishing a need for a healer even further. I don't know why people aren't actively including SMN in the comps, it's much simpler IMO. Curing Conduit + Raetic Rod +1 Curaga III is very fun, too, but it's mostly overkill. I see a GEO/whm toss out one Curaga3 every 5 floors or so. One heal from my wyvern here and there is usually enough of "healing" on any one person.

You can probably strip the healer assignment entirely if you do bring a tank in the off-party. In Pergatory's example above, if the PLD (or RUN even) is puller, there's virtually no healing at all for a mage on them (RUN will have self Regen, Parry+Turms Gloves/Battuta/Vivacious Pulse, PLD blocks everything), and any healing on others can be covered with Majesty Cures (which go cross-alliance) or getting healed on the next floor. I've even done PUGs without a real healer (BLU using White Wind or DNC instead), it works just the same. There's really a lot of room to expand beyond the 6-player limit, it really baffles me how few people are setting up groups this way when it really doesn't hurt much of anything.