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

Jopa, they're just saying Merit BPs because they're the primary Magic BPs used but must be unlocked via Merits.

Yes, but aren't the other magical BPs less affected by TP? If so, I'm wondering if Enticer's will still beat Helios.

These were numbers with other bloodpacts on same mobs as before.

Fenrir Impact: Helios spats 11,615
Enticer pants 12,120

Diabolos Night Terror: Helios spats 8,826
Enticer pants 8,695

Carby Holy Mist: Helios Spats 8,600
Enticer pants 8,363

Ifrit Conflag Strike: Helios spats 9,648
Enticer pants 9,360

For some reason enticer pants wins on impact for fenrir. I tested multiple times could not get higher numbers with helios spats. So for merited avatar bloodpacts and impact can use enticer pants and for non merited can use helios spats instead. Looks like i'll have to make a seperate macro book now just for merited moves.

I presumed Enticer was better based on the posts but I guess I'm going to take some time to test it for myself.

EDIT: Enticer is working better for me on merit pacts, but worse for Holy Mist, so yeah.

I finished killing all tier 1's today and now have all the tier 2's unlocked in new escha zone. Going to try and get that new smn staff the Espiritus tomorrow. http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/126248-Escha-Ru-Aun-thread/page4

Shouldn't it be easy to tell which BPs would be better with Enticer's or not? Correct me if I'm wrong but if a BP isn't affected by TP, then it won't consume TP on usage.
Vice-versa, if a BP consumes TP on use it means it's affected by it, and consequentially by gear which give TP bonus.


Can someone post the Apogee paths found?
I know A, B and C should be the same for all pieces, D different for each piece.
I seem to recall path D for legs was quite powerful?

I read very quickly from my mobile, would be lovely to see more data collected here.
For the staff too, altough I don't really see it beating Perf Aug Keraunos, but at least with Enticer staff you don't have to play the RNG game.

Here is the post from Papesse about Espiritus.

Basically it would be
Pet: Mab+150, Macc+15, BPdmg+3
versus
Pet: Mab+125, Macc+20, BPdmg+10, Crit/DA+6.

Perf Aug Keraunos looks better for me.
Now if we're talking about how realistic it is to obtain perfect augments that's a different story, but in theory it should always come above imho.



Apogee paths btw:

A: MP+60, Pet Mab+30, BP DMG+7
B: MP+60, Pet Att+30, BP DMG+7
C: Pet Att+20, Pet Mab+20, BP DMG+7

D (legs): Pet STR+15, BP DMG+13, Pet DA+3


It's unsure if HQ gear has better augs (these have been tested on NQ). Regardless, they are much better than I was expecting.
BP DMG +20 on path D... wow. And path A would be Mab+30 BP DMG+13 on NQ, 14 on HQ. Despite losing Pet Crit, it should still be better than perf aug Helios?

Apogee set suddenly looks more interesting to me.
We have to see how will the availability issues be solved though. Some mats are gonna cockblock several cursed items.

Yes Papesse, but this doesn't take into account the Crit+6% and the Macc+5 that Keraunos has over Espiritus. They gotta count for something too.
It seems to me they're pretty close to each other when you factor these 2 aspects as well.
With the difference that to get Keraunos you have to go through a frustrating randomization process whereas for Espiritus you just need Eschalixirs.
And that's quite a big difference if you ask me.

Keraunos still the best for physical BPs tho (after Nirvana, of course). Altough an Espiritus path D should get a bit closer?
It would probably be easier/faster to get 2x Espiritus (3x if you want the SMN skill one too!) than hoping for perf augs Keraunos.


Any comment on Apogee sets guys? I'm really surprised, didn't expect those augments to be so good.
Not sure if they're gonna beat Helios but reading "BP damage +20" leaves quite a certain impression in you, isn't it? :D

I'm more interested in going for Apogee now than spending 20 million on random augments.

Even in worst case scenario Helios could be repurposed as TP gear for your avatar.
I still want to see the "D" path for the other 4 Apogee sets though.

B!Esperitus will always be best for Alexander and Impact.
So you'll at least want one for those. (And possibly wards too depending on what all you have.)

Hi guys. Does anyone know the level of Adoulin fame needed to finish the barrel of laughs questline for the gelos earring?

Thank you in advance.

Am I late, or did they recently change the way BP distance works? As in, if your avatar's not engaged and you try to use a short range BP, it simply doesn't let you, whereas before it would do the JA, generate enmity for the player, the avatar would do the ready animation, then you'd get the "too far away" message if the enemy didn't move close enough, and your avatar would lose TP if it was TP move.

I am noticing this as well.

Not sure, but you need to wait until the day changes between quests, that caught me too.

I'm wishing that in some future update, SMN gets new sets of BPs that may rival Ifrit's Hybrid Physical/Magical Flaming Crush

Also, I hope they add a new set of AoE BPs because realistically, nobody's going to use Astral Flow BPs anymore. Ramuh's Level 19 Thunderspark is underwhelming. (But not as bad as Cait Sith's Level ? Holy.)

Lately, I've been getting Capacity/Job Point parties with BSTs in some weird AoE type set up. For example, the Bat camp in Woh Gates, my favorite set up so far has been PLD, WHM, BSTs and ME! PLD just runs out to gather Bats and occasionally Umbrils. BSTs devistate them with Warlike Patrick or Bouncing Bertha. I'd personally like to be on par with the damage output the BSTs have with these critters.

But yeah, that's wishful thinking.

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that.

Impact, Conflag strike, Night Terror, Holy Mist, are affected by TP just dont get the extra tp boost like the merited bp's. So wanted to see how damage would be. If these werent affected by tp then Helios would destroy them but you can see in the test i did that enticer pants are not too far off in damage only like 300 damage or less. Right now i only have enticer pants set for my 2 merited bp's which are heavenly strike and meteor strike while my non merited bp's are using enticer pants. Except for impact from fenrir in which enticer pants won. And very easy to test any of these bp's just by using mana cede you will clearly see a damage increase from the tp gained by mana cede. If it was easy to tell which bp would win with enticer or not i would still test it because i try not to assume anything.

I don't know what you guys are talking about, Thunderspark is awesome! Shock Squall compliments it nicely, too, as it can last a good 15 seconds.

In Escha, my LS will often mix in some big pulls between NMs to keep peoples' silt up. I pop a Shock Squall as soon as they are pulled into position, then Thunderspark does over 5k damage plus paralyze. Our mages just stopped using Sleepga and went straight to AOE nukes (only one of which lands because Thunderspark takes them under 50%). Once the GEO used Malaise, Thunderspark was one-shotting Escha mobs.

The Cait Sith idea is one I hadn't considered, but me & randomness are arch enemies so I tend to avoid it.

And sorry Verda, don't think I can offer much advice on making Nirvana. I made mine after a couple months of insane gil-making, the likes of which I don't think is really possible anymore. These days I'm lucky to make a couple mil in a day.

If you're even remotely considering the path towards a career SMN, you can expect to spend way beyond 210M for proper armor builds.

I was able to verify just now that all you need for the entire questline is Adoulin Fame 1 (because that's what I have). I can't edit the wiki to reflect this though.
Thanks for the tip about waiting a game day. I could get my Gelos earring because of that.

I've spent way more than that on my Nirvana and armor, and depending on what content I'm doing, I still don't even feel like I'm as strong as I should be.

Those beastmasters... sigh, they just have so many nice things now. Nirvana is being beaten on AoE DPS by a lizard with minimal MATK and losing on bosses in Sinister Reign to a cat. None of that even counts the damage of the Beastmaster itself. Our support and the *sometimes really good* Flaming Crush are what have to make up for it, but it doesn't always.

I know your question was about Nirvana, but having a mythic is pointless if the rest of your essential sets are missing and/or not where they need to be augment-wise.

Granted, the new Apogee set may offer decent alternatives but I haven't done a close comparison yet to know for sure.

Enticer's Pants from Sinister Reign is best for legs now when TP isn't capped.

Oh man, I'm not liking this change at all. It's ruining the gameplay style that I'm used to. It's much easier to BP the mob in question from a distance and having avatar auto-engage. :/