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

Should be seeing about 750, I believe.

ouch.
thank you very much, gear needs rework then

Vanya gear is especially awesome for this. I use Vanya Hood/Clogs with Path A, both drop from Zitah T1s that are an easy solo. Those two pieces between them have 29 potency, 12 enmity down, 20 healing, and 6 conserve mp.

I'm not quite sure I understand the logic of putting regen on the magic cape and haste on the physical cape. Wouldn't it make more sense to do the opposite? The merit BPs rely on TP don't they?

This seems contradictory, if what you are fighting is one shotting your pet, they couldn't get many hits in even with 100% haste.

The idea of regen is to keep your pets out longer for survivability from incidental AEs so your pet can participate in bursting and skillchaining, which what I do now with my team since we don't have full parties even most of the time and we clear a lot of content with just 4-5 people. Especially helpful with max -DT augments paired with max regen augments on a few Telchine skirmish pieces. I fulltime +10 regen now, will get up to +17 once my augments are done, that's ~ 1% hp per tick.

On top of Regen, I have -15% DT on idle ; which is effectively halved due to the pet's 50% native PDT but very nice for magical AEs, which most monsters have.

Using this Set on my Geo Mule gives 801 Cure IV.

ItemSet 343015

Not the best set but it does the job. And SMN can use it all too.

The hands in this set don't have any augments on them but if you got 8 potency augment and a fylgja torque You could drop the staff.

This comment made me remember I wanted to test something. I wanted to see how Stout Servant interacted with pet PDT and avatars native PDT.

I plowed Cuijatender until he did ??? Needles to me wearing -10% in Pet damage taken- gear. I used Thurandaut ring, psycloth lappas and Isa Belt in this test. I took 32,500 damage and Ifrit took 13,710.

32,500*(1 - .5)*(1 - .10) = 13,487.5

Am I doing the math wrong? I even tried calculating the damage reduction a few different ways just to be sure but the closest I got was like 13,800 and something.

Just ate another ??? Needles in 0 Pet DT- gear and Ifrit took 15,234 and I took 32,500 again.

EDIT: I talked to Dasva in LS about this and he pointed out that pet DT values aren't exact percentages and things like Stout Servant II are actually closer to 6.25% DT instead of 7. Seems to be why my math is off, also wasn;t flooring things.

I cure myself for 874 HP and my cure power isn't quite capped, I cure other for less, but that's why cure received gear nice it multiplies with other sources. I also can get light weather or use soothing current or both and cure for over 1k. I was gonna take another look at curing sets for smn because there weren't as many options as I'd like for it, Vanya is about good as we can get sometimes but I don't accept we can't cap cure power along with everything else, my enmity really needs work in my curing set too. For whatever reason SE decided to not really give us access to most healing sets. I can share set after I take more of a look at it.

That wasn't what I was going to post about though I'm a day behind getting you guys more on avatar levels and made some exciting findings, this is for carbuncle and cait sith, as they matched on over 10 things I checked so gonna assume they are equal, and yes I went around gathering all the ilvl satchets ;-;

Level	Items	Acc	Attack	Evasion	Def
99	None	539	574	461	523
100	Mitts	555	590	477	539
101	Nirvana	567	592	484	547
102	Nirvana + Mitts	588	608	496	558
103	Nirvana + Mitts + Cape	607	624	508	571
106	Convocaller	669	672	546	608
107	Convocaller + Mitts	689	688	557	620
108	Convocaller + Mitts + Cape	710	704	570	633
109	Convocaller + Nirvana + Cape	731	720	582	644
110	Convocaller + Nirvana + Mitts + Cape	750	736	594	657
113	Dashavatara	814	785	632	694
114	Dashavatara + Cape	833	801	644	707
115	Eminent Satchet	854	816	656	718
116	Eminent Satchet + Mitts	875	832	669	731
117	Eminent Satchet + Nirvana	895	849	681	743
118	Eminent Satchet + Nirvana + Mitts	915	865	693	756
119	Seraphicaller	936	880	705	767
120	Seraphicaller + Mitts	972	909	726	789
121	Seraphicaller + Nirvana	1010	937	749	811
122	Seraphicaller + Nirvana + Mitts	1047	967	772	834
123	Seraphicaller + Nirvana + Mitts + Cape	1085	997	795	857

I will do other avatars later, but first some things not shown there that I discovered:
A +1 Avatar Level is treated the same no matter the gear used. Only Mitts stats equals only Cape stats, and Mitts + Cape stats is the same as just Nirvana. It also works with Satchets, Dashvara + cape + mitts or Dashvara + Nirvana gives the exact same stats as just an Eminent Satchet. Graphing it we also see some interesting results:


Observations:
1) the stats per level changes at level 101 with stats per level slightly going down for most but up for dex, this could be further checked doing checkparam on lower levels, and it if it follows other models for players stats, probably changes many times. Our avatars begin getting more acc and less attack per level, and less evasion and defense too. This rate is about:

20-21 Acc
15-17 Attack
11-13 Evasion
11-13 Defense

2) This holds constant up to level 120, where all stats take a sharp increase per level. While no stat will overtake another one, like acc did attack, they all increase the same % it seems. It has the effect of giving us about 55% (! woo :) more stats gained per level:

36-38 Acc
28-30 Attack
21-23 Evasion
21-23 Defense

I tried testing if the Seraphicaller itself had some magical thing about it, but I get the same results for stats on level 120 using Idaraaja Satchet + Nirvana or Idaraaja + Mitts + Cape. Meaning the magical thing happens with level 120 itself rather than tied to any particular gear. What this means for Nirvana holders is nice, it means Avatar + Level counts for a lot more if you have seraphicaller, and now with cape and for Carby and Cait having the mitts also, it can add up to some very big bonuses:

For Cait and Carby:
149 Accuracy
117 Attack
90 Evasion
90 Defense

For other avatars I will have to determine if this holds true.


The rest of this post is a thought experiment on how to determine for each stat the number of stat vs the number of attribute and the stats it gives per level and I don't blame you if you want to skim over this part as it doesn't offer any answers, just mostly questions.

The last part of the testing is still undone for these avatars though, and that is the question of "How much of this is pure stat boosts and how much of them come from attributes themselves?"

One person tried to find the answer for the 113 Satchet: https://www.bluegartr.com/threads/114636-Monster-Avatar-Pet-damage?p=5800458&viewfull=1#post5800458

First they tested MDT with nether blast, and matched it with the 7% from stout servant. Then they tested multiple levels of thunder until they could match the damage on an avatar and on the sch/blm.

I have mixed feelings on this test, it seems to make sense, but MDB is not directly tested here, and the math portion is pretty much bypassed. Also as we can see, diff stats have diff growth levels, so it can't tell us everything. We'd want to know 101 stats and maybe 113 and see if it hold true to the line graph for say DEX and STR. I also think 70 is quite a lot, but it would work out to +5 stats per level (113 - 99 = 14 then 70/14 = 5). So either INT didn't have its stats per level changed at 101 OR it's coincidence it's such a nice even number. If it follows the roughly 55% increase though, you'd get about 7.75 INT per level after 119.

All this is guessing though and I am thinking up good ways and seeing how others tested such attributes vs stats per level in the past and it's like to be painstaking for some of them, if anyone has ideas on that I'm all ears. One thing I was thinking for the stats here is, they aren't constant per level. 21-23 defense, and 2 points of VIT is 1 defense, so on levels where you get an odd numbered VIT it would change the total def you get by 1. That doesn't explain that the range is 3 though, so more has to be going on, such as base defense for your level, etc. If purely doing the VIT for defense though, on levels 101 to 113 you get an average of 12 defense. That would mean if just VIT was responsible for it then you'd get 24 VIT per level, which seems an absurd amount and is also an even number so doesn't explain the variance of 1 up or 1 down in the defense. If we did maintain 5 stats per level then, that would account for some variance in defense as it's an odd number, but that would mean only 2-3 defense came from VIT and the rest of the defense comes from the level itself (for 101 to 119) which would make defense per level 9-10, probably a base 2 number, floored sometimes.

I'm not sure how long it will take me to figure out good ways to for sure say the stats and how much they increase, so I will probably provide data on the other avatar types first and go from there. My idea for INT was to eliminate all variables but dINT for base damage and try it with various spells to see if the math holds up. If I could match the 70 INT on the 113 satchet with the test above that'd be pretty game, set match for INT at least and I could use that test for other levels.

Hope this is helpful to you guys, I enjoyed doing it but it was a lot of work and it's not over yet, have fun on SMN out there ~

I had already calculated the celestial avatar's INT before and after the 12/10/2013 update, I'm certain that the values are still correct unless something has recently changed.


Someone on Allakhazam confirmed that the Jug Pets seems to get similar stats increases.
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=262&mid=1298635397162868956&h=50&p=10#483

Cool papesse thanks :) Out of personal interest though can I ask the method that you use? Thank you for the hard work. Edit: I'm looking through your link lots of great info there thanks :) Oh! Tachi is you, thank you for all your contributions to SMN by the way is great to see you post again!

SO basically the best augments are Pet acc and attack + Pet haste for Physical BP and for magic magic acc and magic dmg? or am i missing something?

Pet acc/atk for physical, pet macc/mdmg for magical, but you can only make one this month and I suggest you make it the physical one.

Thing is, nobody knows for certain they aren't going to change up the augments offered next month. It would suck if next month they offered pet:mab, and you already wasted this month's cape making a pet:mdmg cape.

As for pet:haste vs. pet:regen, it's a wash. There's no "right" choice just pick the one you think seems best for how you play.

Given how you can swap augs whenever, I don't see them adding new augs and not allowing old capes to be augmented with the new ones.
Of course they could remove capes entirely for something else, say waist, but I don't see that happening either, personally.

SE has already mentioned the rewards will change every month and that they already plan on making the Sulevian gear available next month. Considering the capes and the armor were the only gear reward, probably a safe bet capes are switching. The currencies available just seem like a means of enticing people to stick with the event after they finish getting gear. They probably plan on cycling rewards and bringing them back every few months to artificially extend the length of this event.

Where did you see this? The only official response I've seen about it seems to indicate the capes will be available every month.

Yeah, was a post on BG a few days ago, but today's post seems to clearly state you will be able to obtain 1 job mantle per month.

I feel like the capes will be back next month, and the only things that will change will be the armor in the total points section.

No they said rewards will change every month without giving us too much details.
They also said that after JP players asking about it, they are considering making Sulevia Armor available next month as well, which implies they were originally considering to remove it.

In the new post yesterday they also mention about the "one cape per month", which kinda also implies you'll be able to buy capes again, otherwise their "once per month" sentence makes no sense if they're available only now and then poof forever.


Imho they were planning to let the capes stay (which also justifies the artificial gating of one per month to slow down and make so players will still be interested in getting more capes next month instead of spamming Ambuscade so far that nobody will want to do Ambuscade next month) and to swap the armor every month.
After requests they are now considering to keep Sulevia Armor, but maybe they will swap it from the "overall reward" section to the "points you can spend" section.

We'll see what happens next but it's out of questions that capes are going to permanently disappear from Ambuscade.
At worst it will be a pop/depop every odd month.

I definitely think the capes will be available again, I'm just not so sure the augments available will be the same. Especially if they keep Sulevin another month, then what else can change besides cape augs?

Maybe by change they really meant adding to the existing reward list.

I just assumed capes would be a constant and they will switch out the other rewards and custom Salvage 3.0 gear.

Unless they have multiple JSE items (not just capes) ie: grips/rings/accessories.


I don't think they'd do that, if anything they'd add augments, something pet related to the 'dust' section. That list is awfully short and doesn't have any pet augments.

PET and PC player -DT stat seems like a good bet since no augments have that stat.

Right, there's rounding involved which makes -PDT gear worth less generally. Because the -PDT calc is calculated in a separate step after the base 50%.

I'm still debating if its worth full-timing Handlers +1 or switching to Rimeice Earring

I've just recently started smn and I had a few questions about gear progression.

Currently, my gear is pretty crappy, 3/5 Empyrean +2 (just farmed the carabosse gems to at least make it 109, all NQ relic gear, convoker's horn. I just got a Gridarvor, and a Balsam Staff. (I know it sucks).

My question is:

At this point in time do I try to do Alluvion Skirmish for Helios/Keruanos or do I try to jump straight to Apogee gear. I don't have an LS that does Escha content, but I have a decent whm that I can go on pickups with.

Definitely start with some core reforged pieces to 119. There's very few for SMN that aren't useful at least for job abilities. In my current sets I am only NOT using these:
Convokers Bracers +1, Convokers Pigaches +1, Convokers Spats +1
Glyphic Spats +1, Glyphic Doublet +1

And some of those are useful before you get apogee/merlinic so take a look at all of them, and some are even situationly useful always and I should use. The #1 thing I see make new summoners give up and choose a different job is they didn't see the results they wanted soon enough. I will tell you if you stick with it, you'll get there.

Beckoners to 109 you won't need vagary but to 119 it you will. It's pricey, but vagary is a lot easier than it used to be and you get some free mats on your first clear. The community has it pretty figured out so you should be able to find a LS that does it sometimes and get some clears.

After reforged straight into apogee would be very difficult without help, not impossible, but it wouldn't be a first win probably especially if you aren't used to dealing with damage shields. It is really up to you, if you feel you can win at least the t1 one sky fights you need, they're cheap to try and only lose a bit of pride and time if you lose. If it ends up being too hard and can't get help, I would suggest spamming yorcia alluvion skirmish for a while, get some mediocre augs on some helios to help you acquire the apogee/merlinic. Reading up on how to beat the NMs and recruiting a few friends never hurt either.

Has anyone calculated the point when the Atk augments on the new JSE cape will beat Scintillating Cape for BIS on FC?

Cape also has BP dmg +5 and +1 Avatar level, not sure how Scintillating Cape is still BIS for anything physical.

I don't think it is for Magical either, unless you are starved for MAB, which really shouldn't be an issue.

The only thing that may create damage the new JSE can't beat is the +3% crit damage, but generally I prefer consistent high damage than random spike damage.

Given our long BP timers and inability to spam moves, consistency is our best friend. Random spikes just means you might crit a useless EP mob and not crit when you need it.

The only thing Scintillating cape would be good for is if you have a helios +crit build for your physical damage. The issue with this is that it's increasingly falling behind other gear such as apogee +1 and merlinic.

For the two capes themselves, you're looking at 16 mab, 16 attack and 3 crit vs 5 BPD, 20 attack, and the 30 attack, 30 acc and +5 to all stats from +1 level.

To be honest, The new cape pushes much further.

So I coerced my LS to do some Yorcia Skirmish this weekend and I came out with a pair of helios spats and helios gloves. With a +1 orb on my first try I got Pet: DA +8 on the spats, and after some +2s and +1s with average results, I got a 29 atk/ratk aug with a NQ snoworb. Just that one piece of equipment has made a huge difference in BP damage for me. Before I was doing 6-10k damage with flaming crush, after, I averaged about 18k. Range from about 12k -20k. I had one weird spike where I did 35k, but I think that just might have been my first blood boon damage + spike because I still have Beckoner's Hat/Doublet on.

Speculation time!

Currently Apogee +1 (except for hands and theoretical 'perfect' merlinic) is considered best in slot depending on it's augment path. This still leaves some questions I've had and I'll list them out.

Path A. is the MAB path, no real questions here and no real competition. It's pretty set as best in slot for magic pacts, though Enticer's might be better for non TP capped pacts, Is it?

Path B. I believe this path is currently best in slot for Physical pacts, but it lacks the crit hit from a helios build, and i think path D pants would be better for physical as well.

Would 30 atk/7 bpd/4 crit Helios set potentially be better than even apogee +1? I would assume this set might make up alot of ground on lower level mobs such as tier 1/2 escha and older content, but how far behind is it without the crits?

What would be a good ratio to explain how much attack equals 1 BPD?

Path C Initially i dismissed this as a hybrid set, But it should be considered for Flaming crush.

Would Path C pieces be better than A or B for Flaming crush, and if so, by how much?