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

If you use the in-game macro equip system it's easy.
Put one cape in repository1 (say, MogwArdrobe1) and the other cape in another repository (say wardrobe2?).
Now it's vital you NEVER move these capes, and if you have to move them, make sure you put them back where they were before.

At this point you save an Equipset1 with the Cape in repository1, then Equipset2 with the cape in repository2.

If done this way the in-game system will recognize the two capes as different ones because coming from different repositories, so as long as you don't move them or modify your equipsets, it will work flawlessly :)

Right, so what I just said. :P

Sorry, I missed your post =/

They don't need to be in different containers for that to work. Equipset remembers augments too, even between two items in the same container. It won't show the augments in the equipset menu, but it will remember them.

I do not understand why the magic cape has regen, and the physical cape has haste. Physical attacks don't usually take TP yeah? So wouldn't the haste be better served on the magic cape, and the regen on the physical?

Haste in the Physical one because it can be good for idle. Granted there aren't many situations where avatar white damage can provide a meaningful contribution, but for those situations haste could be useful.

Vice-versa, it would be useless on a magic cape because you don't need to boost your magic damage and your magic accuracy while your avatar is punching your foe.


So this brings us to the next of your question, why regen? Well because of lack of better options? I judged Haste useless for a magic cape, so I went for a regen one to have an option that I can activate with a toggle.
Do I want my avatar to melee? ===> idle with the physical/haste cape
Do I want my avatar to just stand there? ===> idle with the regen cape


Honestly you can put whatever you want in the third slot and it's hardly going to be an important difference for SMN.
The way I see it the first 2 slots (and the new 4th one) are the really meaningful ones.

Are you sure about that?

The last time I didn't separate similar pieces of armor into different Wardrobes, I ended up loading my SMN BP Merlinic hands on my BLM (also Merlinic hands).

Well admittedly the last time I tried it was even longer ago than that, back with Helios gear, but I had 2-3 pieces of each Helios and two Conveyance Capes, all in Wardrobe1, and equipsets swapped them fine. So unless SE broke that feature between now and then, it should still work. Although if you move a piece from one container to another, you may need to re-do the equipset because it definitely is aware of which container it's in too.

Hey guys

Now they added new item to augment capes, I'm thinking about doing extra avatar acc for physical attack and magic damage for magic pacts, what you guys think?

800 per Dye is alot tho ><

I wish it was 200 like the Sap :( or maybe 300 but no more

I am re-gearing my SMN after a long long time (Verda and this Forum helped me through the way by telling me what armor to get and how to equip it) but here is what I did

Mantle #1:
Pet:
Acc.+20 r.ACC+20 ATK+20 r.ATK+20 Haste+10%

2nd mantle will be:

M.ACC+20 M.DMG+20 and not sure if it is even worth adding SAP here since be just for BP.

also a PDT set for pet mantle would definitely have "Regen" instead of Haste but same as 1st mantle with ACC r.ACC ATK r.ATK (or at least that is what I think be best)

Haste on the physical stat cape doubles as a tp gain piece.

Regen on the magic attack piece ao it doubles as av out and idle, there's no other useful pet stat for aitting your pet's fat *** there

Basically what Frod says was exactely my logic :D

Is there a Gearswap for the recommend loadouts that I have missed?

Anyone know if there's a fix for the popped nm (UC/Escha/ etc) glitch, that makes avatars act like normal mobs and go invisible?
I keep hoping to see it on the "Known Issues" or resolved, but maybe it's just my game?

few questions:

1. reddit threads ive made asking about summoner keep having this repeat "summoners are weak without either:"
-nirvana
-a 'lot of investment'

are there any veracity to these claims?

2. if the latter is true, what qualifies as a lot of investment?

3. is there a steep learning curve for new players?

Hey again Iuno, SMN and THF are my other most invested in jobs. Your question is hard question to answer because so much of it is based on opinions and whatever answer I give you, someone else will come in and have another take on it. I can correct some common misconceptions though:

1a) Nirvana is an amazing Mythic for SMN however, it is not necessary to have one to be a summoner. It is a large boost to physical blood pacts, and a great idle/perp staff. Magical you still use easier to obtain staves.

1b) SMN takes clearing a lot of missions and quests and fame in almost every region (got by completing quests though some aren't bad like item turn in quests) to get your summons.

That alone raises the bar a bit for entry but there is also the fact a lot of Summoner gear is for Summoner only, that means it's harder to get into and one you do a lot of your gear doesn't transfer to any other jobs you wish to play. Most your base mage sets would take a lot of gear with it though (like fastcast, healing, etc).

The last barrier to entry, which just this last update became much better is the fact your damage is limited by job ability timers (best you could get with gear was 30s now it is 22s). It also has to do with the way SMN scales. Pet Magic Attack Bonus and Blood Pact Damage stats are % multipliers, and on pacts like flaming crush they multiply together. You can get to the point where you one shot exp mobs in reisenjima with Flaming Crush relatively quickly on SMN especially since they don't even have 20k hp. But getting to the point you're doing 77k dmg without support on them, takes a lot lot more effort, and 20k to 77k is a huge range.

Those things shouldn't stop you from playing SMN however, one thing about it is, it starts out decent damage with flaming crush and then scales amazingly well. You can also magic burst for good damage. With new 22s timers, you can keep up with BLM and SCH a lot easier in those situations as well.

2) doing every major mission line, collecting lots of SMN only gear, and getting the most of your subjobs perhaps. Even a summoner with just ifrit can do a lot though, I would make getting BP recast, favor sets, smn skill, and all your summons pretty high priority, even before much damage.

3) I don't think SMN has a huge learning curve, the job itself is straight forward, it does have a lot of depth though and you can take it really far, it seems there's always more you can learn/do. The basis is you summon magical pets, and use job ability timers on long cooldowns. The rest the time you use your subjobs well, or melee beside it and skillchain with it. SMN is very versatile, and I've jumped into many roles even in endgame parties: Physical damage dealer, Magic Burster, Support/backup healer, debuffer, and usually some combination of those. SMN isn't the best soloist but it's decent at it, and the Astral one hours are job identity good (And Alexander used to BE SMN's job role for a while >.>), but a job identity SMN players don't always want because resetting one hours all the time is a lot of pain, and with the latest update to timers, not nearly as needed to do, to maintain good damage.

If you have any questions the SMN community is in my (biased) opinion one of the better ones, I'm sure you'll find lots of enthusiatic helpers in it. SMN players are rare so we tend to stick together.

You can use mine, look at SMN-sets.lua, it's a bit out of date now though: http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/47688/summoner-gearswap-yep-another-one-p/2/

are there any particular reason to use one summon over the others while leveling?

I pretty much only used Carbuncle when I leveled SMN, then around 70 I started utilizing the harder hitting BPs to increase kill speed. With a BRD and RDM trust keeping Ballad and Refresh on you MP was never an issue. Only downside is I leveled faster than I gained skill, so I had to spam books to cap my skills.

As far as the investment needed, I know it took me about 15m to reforge my AF, Relic, and Empy armors, as well as throwing Duskorbs at my staff to get it where I wanted. I'm working on Apogee gear now to fill in the gaps, and most of the good pieces are between 1.5m and 2m on my server, plus the cost of Eschalixers.

IMO it comes down to preference. Ifrit does huge dmg because of his hybrid bps like Burning Strike and Flaming Crush. That high damage can quickly move you from one enemy to the next. Burning Strike is only 48 mp and can do anywhere up to 45k or more.
However, there are times when you may be able to handle multiple enemies at once, and Ramuh can perform pretty impressive aoe dmg with Thunderspark. Add that additional paralyze effect to a aoe stun ward pact and you have really good crowd control.
Outside of those two, there are a few high quality physical bps that do considerable dmg. Garuda has access to hastega 2 which makes her ridiculously fast at capped haste as well as provides the SMN with good dmg output.
In the end, it all comes down to what works best for you.

any of the AF1-3 priority pieces to reforge first?

First off here's the pages for the completed sets in order 1,2,3

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Convoker%27s_Attire_Set_%2B1
https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Glyphic_Attire_Set_%2B1
https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Beckoner%27s_Attire_Set_%2B1

Good to start with any of these:

Delay I -6: Convoker's Bracers +1
Delay I -6: Glyphic Spats +1
Delay II -2 Perp -5: Glyphic Doublet +1
Refresh 2, Favor 3, Summoning magic skill +13 : Beckoner's Horn +1
Siphon, Perp -6: Beckoner's Pigaches +1
Perp -6, SMN Skill 13: Beckoner's Doublet +1
BP damage +12: Convoker's Doublet +1

I'd work on delay and perp/refresh before anything else. Beckoner's Horn +1 is one of the most loaded items in the game for SMN tho so there's that.

Two BIG notes, first thing you should do is get the best satchet you can, Seraphicaller is best but there's a sparks one too. You should also not worry about getting Beckoner +1 yet :D

A friend made me a pair of Voodoo Slacks and I'm wondering if there's any reason to keep an NQ pair around. Would path D be ideal for Physical BPs or would Enticer's be better? On a related note, which BPs aren't (or are if that list is shorter) affected by Avatar TP? I noticed Flaming Crush doesn't consume Ifrit's TP.

Relic hands, and basically all of the empyrean pieces (mainly head/body/legs).

Most of the AF1-3 can be useful in some regard but the above are the really indispensable ones. All the relic pieces reduce the BP timer, which can be really helpful in building a BP timer set but you won't need all of them for that most likely. The relic horn will extend the duration of Astral Flow which is kind of nice once you get some Astral Flow job points. The artifact body & boots both have BP damage on them, making the boots in particular a good stepping stone piece until you get augmented Apogee/Helios/Merlinic feet.

If you make your Apogee Slacks +1 anything other than path D, then yes, make your NQ ones path D and use that for physical pacts. However, I honestly feel like it's not worth making Apogee Slacks +1 anything other than path D unless it's your second pair. Path A on HQ only beats Enticer's in some situations, and path A on NQ basically never does except on a handful of BPs (Holy Mist, Night Terror, Thunderspark). In any event, the difference is never massive. Enticer's is a really strong piece.

My advice: Make your Apogee Slacks +1 into path D, use Enticers for all magic BPs, and HQ slacks for Flaming Crush and all physical BPs. Drop your NQ slacks in storage.

Uhm... the very definition of "useless", inorite? Not exxagerating at all :P
There are MUCH better opions for physical of course, but perf Enticer are not "***" nor "useless".
Even without hte TP bonus which of course doesn't apply to physical BPs, we're still talking about:
Double Attack+3%
Critical hit rate +5%
"Blood Pact" damage +12

It's nowhere close to being the best, but it's not shitty at all? For someone who already has Enticer and aren't interested in being career SMN or messing up with a plethora of luck-demanding and annoying augments, Enticer's Pants are a decent inventory saving, gil saving compromise.

Btw my turn asking questions now :P
I've got 2 capes only for SMN, the ones discussed a few pages ago. A "physical" one (pet acc/att) and a "magical" one (pet macc/mdmg).
Which one would be better to use for Flaming Crush?
The fact it's Mdmg and not Mab kinda confuses me D:

Perg makes good points but I use my NQ when they beat enticers and don't when they don't. For HQ and NQ testing you can see this post for merit pacts:
http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/46440/the-6th-ministrys-secret-a-summoners-guide-v2/46/#3121483
conflag strike:
http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/46440/the-6th-ministrys-secret-a-summoners-guide-v2/47/#3122076
t4, night terror, holy mist, impact:
http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/46440/the-6th-ministrys-secret-a-summoners-guide-v2/47/#3122408
Thunderspark:
http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/46440/the-6th-ministrys-secret-a-summoners-guide-v2/47/#3124043

Basically, Merit Pacts, Impact, Conflag and t4 nukes benefit a lot from TP and other magical pacts don't. Merit pacts have an "it depends" on how you personally choose to play and how much merits you sink into a category. Perg plays with low merits in many pacts and I tend to 5/5 two. There's all the info on it so can choose your own playstyle. It is a small diff either way most the time for vs the two, but I know every gear difference can add up so I stick to optimal as I can make it.

If you have them and not interested in making Apogee pants sure, but tbh I calc'd cost of getting an SR item of choice based on a worst case scenario reported here and time I could otherwise be farming, and it ended up being like 30 mil (someone spent 700k bayld, that's 140 runs, if you don't include 1.5k from wins. Assuming a semi decent group and down time, gather time, afks, d/c's and some runs that fail I put 10 mins a run, that makes 23 hours, if you make 1.5 mil an hour that's 35 mil not even counting what you could've just sold the bayld for if you convert it to h-p bayld, but also not counting any lucky mats you might sell and get). You could get lucky and get them first run and that's worst case but, still. Apogee pants are easier to get, and in many cases better, even if you consider that a statistical outlier and say half the runs, and 5 mins each it's cheaper/easier to get. Also personal opinion, but without a stunner or great setup all the charms, binds, and amnesia the fights offer is the most annoying fights in the game period at least as a DD, not hard, just annoying, slap random drops on top of that and I would rather farm about 20 apogee pants abjurations and gil to buy them than put up with that again and Vidmapire and Palila are much easier to solo and you get more out of it. Now you could argue you'll get other items you need, etc, but as SMN that is the only item of interest in the entire event and most the rest the gear is surpassed or useless for my other jobs :< So it will depend on that for others I am sure.

{I don't know how to answer that question}
We never pinned down an exact damage formula for FC. It will also depend on buffs and the mob since the attack/def ratio will come into play. My gut instinct is the base magic damage of FC is the physical damage it does, and so is quite high and you might get more from just 20 attack even though a lot of mobs have like 1200+ def these days so 20/1200 is only 1.6%, best way to know is just do a sample size of like 20-30 and take average damage, against a harder mob preferably one without any special damage weaknesses or resistances. I can tell you mdmg is great for low base damage pacts like thunderspark.

I think I've said pretty clearly if you already have them.
Suggesting someone to farm Enticer is pretty stupid.
But if you already have a pair of Perf Enticer that maybe you got when you were farming other stuff while SR was still in its prime (hell, I've seen FIVE PAIR of perf Enticer so far lol) they're far from useless like someone else was claiming.
They're not the best of course but useless? Hell no! :D

Enticer Pants are all I friggin' get from Arciela. My mule needs a Witching Robe, dammit.